A Focus on PR in Scotland

As is the case for all sectors of the UK media industry, London is the centre of all activity and it appears that the PR industry is no exception to this. UK PR agency lists such as the top 150 list complied annually by PRWeek are always dominated by the London based firms. As someone who is equally interested in building a career in communications as much as avoiding ever having to relocate to London, I am therefore intrigued to gain a better insight into the state of the PR industry in Scotland.

As discussed in this video interview with the head of Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in Scotland, there is a large PR and communication sector within Scotland, with the CIPR having 750 individual members alone. The CIPR Scottish Awards held at the end of last month also demonstrate the great communication work going on within this country that is worth more analysis and recognition. A couple of agency names appear to be emerging as key players within the Scottish PR sector as demonstrated by the rundown of awards at the ceremony.

Stripe Communications, named ‘outstanding agency of the year’, was set up in Edinburgh in 2006 building up an expertise in Corporate Reputation Management, Internal Comms and Promotional and Brand PR for clients in a range of sectors- from retailers such as Grolsch to work with the Scottish government. The campaign they developed for Scottish charity Shelter, Hometime Scotland was described as ‘a gift for a campaigning journalist on a tabloid paper’ by Daily Record reporter Annie Brown, being credited for its innovative strategies of engaging with a younger audience through the media and developing strong social networks.

Weber Shandwick, ‘The UK’s leading multi-specialist PR agency’ also has a strong Scottish presence having been established for 25 years with offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. With their tagline ‘Advocacy Starts Here’ they have worked to develop strategic public policy advice and government monitoring systems for clients since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

Despite the challenges of a changing media and economic climate mentioned in this clip, the Scottish PR industry therefore appears to be in a healthy state with the rise and continued success of companies such as Stripe Communications and Weber Shandwick indicates. An interesting point of note, however, is that there were no entries in the Public Affairs category at the awards ceremony suggesting a possible area for growth in this area of Scottish PR.

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Slam Dunk "10 days after" campaign

It isn't a new campaign, it was on December 2004. And i read it in 2008. Right at the moment i read it, the feeling just come back. The day that I run to home after school every day for watch Slam Dunk on time; The day we play basketball after school, name ourselves as Slam Dunk character; The day we practice our basket skill at home. Seemed I am back to 12 again. I put the web link everywhere that I knew, and phone my friend:" hey! let's play basketball! right now, in school, as we were."

If you want to know why so many Chinese guy play basketball, please read it.

here are some useful links: Wikipadia some video free comic (best suggestion)

OK, in memory of my love, slam dunk. here are the 10 days after campaign, 6 video. really heart warmed, and really successful, a very very well done PR campaign. could put into EXCELLENCE..........

This 6 video will tell what is the aim, what is the objective, what is the tactics, how does it star, how does it media covered, how does blog works within, how does the message passed, how many people came and what did they do, everything is in. It will take a while to watch, but it's worth.

here they are

Finally, is my favorite picture.

Saying:" Because I am a basketballman "

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All that glisters is not gold

Was it the lure of gold for a country that has never produced an individual track world champion before, or total ignorance of issue management that clouded Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) judgement?

ASA’s handling of the gender verification tests of the South African runner Caster Semenya, who won gold in the women's 800m at the World Athletics Championships in August, ended in suspensions and recriminations.

The Board of ASA and its president, Leonard Chuene, were suspended by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee in the wake of the Semenya scandal that also damaged relations between ASA and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF).



The issue escalated into a crisis.




Instead of acknowledging the concerns about Semenya’s gender and identifying issues that may develop, ASA decided to ignore them.

Rather than being in charge and setting priorities for how to address the issue, they found themselves back tracking, trying to cover up and eventually being exposed.

Had they analysed the consequences and its possible repercussions proactively, all involved (the athlete, the organisation and the country) would not have found themselves embroiled in a crisis.

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When the photo becomes the story

The controversy over the French soccer team’s goal against Ireland was discussed by heads of state at a summit in Brussels. FIFA (soccer’s governing body) commented on the integrity of the game.



Newspapers across the world, social network sites and broadcast channels reported repeatedly on the incident showing a sequence of visual images of Henry – all of them telling a story.




The Internet image that mocks Henry’s deed.



Without any words or explanation the image on the right identifies the country (flag of France), the issue being sports related (the cockrell is the French sports symbol) and the hand (the incident).

Do PR practitioners give enough thought to how photographs, images or signs can detract or add value to their stories? Do they overlook the immense impact of visual images - a medium that transcends culture and language and can evoke instant recognition and emotion?

The power of visual images to highlight news stories should be proof that it is not only words and meaning that will make or break reputations.

As Al and Laura Ries said in their book, The Fall of Advertising and the rise of PR, “You can argue with words, but you cannot argue with a picture”.

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CSR – Global Resposibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not new, it is basically the role that the company plays serving many stakeholders and particularly support the world and the society; it risks the same practical and linguistic fate as other trends in business and popular culture; it affects the reputation of a corporation.

UK Cosmetics Brand The Body Shop is a typical corporate has a great focus on CSR building. It launched a bunch of campaigns to show its care about the whole society and the world environment.

The Body Shop instituted pioneering social audits in the mid-1990s, and now regularly promotes its values such as Community Trade, reflecting its avowed practice of trading with communities in need and giving them a fair price for natural ingredients or handcrafts they purchase from these often marginalized countries.
It also launched campaigns such as “Against Animal Testing” and ”Help Stopping The Domestic Violence”.

Also, we can easily see a lot of campaign related to CSR in other UK corporate such as Morisson and HSBC.

In other part of the world, Nikon, Air France, IBM, etc. also pay more attention on CSR as they can realize it affects the reputation and image.

CSR tends to be a trend as a global responsibility.

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Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Publicly both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have been slated in the media for using PR tricks to try and score public favour. Although I agree that both parties in this recent story have been advised wrongly, I also expect that if either Party Leader hadn't been involved in a photo-shoot he would have been ripped to shreads. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.


Both MPs were forced to apologise over these particular PR 'stunts' although this article does suggest that this incident 'highlights the way that the desperate battle for popularity between Mr brown and Mr Cameron in the run-up to the next election can backfire.'


Political 'spin' gives PR practitioners a bad name, always scoring more media coverage when PR activities go wrong rather than when things run smoothly. Can we really ever expect the PR profession's own reputation to improve when political spin doctors seem to hit the headlines almost as often as the Party they work for?


The phrase 'all publicity, is good publicity' has become a line that gets banded around frequently, especially when a PR opportunity has turned sour, when there are no positives to be found or when 'straws, clutching, at' ring true.


Both leaders, in my opinion, never want to lose face and by the media catching out Brown and Cameron 'at it' shows they are waiting to pounce on any potential scandal to fill space and sell papers. But really, is there a scandal here? An admin error yes, a misjudgement maybe but a deal-breaker... I don't think so.

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PR for the PR industry

A Google search for the words ‘public relations’ will produce 99.100.000 links to choose from. Add the word ‘bad’ in front and 27.400.000 links will appear.

These links offer everything from examples of good and bad PR moves to instructions on how to write a press release or plan an event. I admit I did not open all 99 million links but I can’t help but wonder what it is about PR that causes such massive interest.

The PR industry is not really meant to be at the forefront and PR practitioners are supposed to stand in the back and make sure everything looks good. That is why I find it hard to believe these PR stories and websites are created by the interested public.

What I think is going on here is that PR professionals can’t get enough of sharing their ‘wisdom’. When they are done writing another press release and making sure the client is scandal free they sit down in front of their computer and tell the world how interesting and exciting the PR industry is.

They are essentially promoting the field using all their writing and technological skills. It is actually sort of brilliant because what kind of professionals would they be if they couldn’t even gather interest in their own company and field?

It seems to have worked really well cause the phrase ‘bad PR’ has become something of a standard saying whenever a public persona or company behaves badly. The phrase in no longer confined to the PR office but can be heard by the water cooler in any given firm or even college.

PR comics are also increasingly popular and you know you’ve picked the right line of work if there are comics mocking you on the internet.

I would say that the massive amount of positive articles written about PR by PR people is probably ‘good PR’.

Íris Alma Vilbergsdóttir

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Don´t make him look "gay, gay"

Entertainment public relations seem to be a never ending field of question dodging and fakery. One can only imagine the time and effort that goes into hiding a Mariah Carey pregnancy or rebuilding Russell Crowe’s image after one of his violent outbursts.

I should therefore not have been that shocked when I read a letter from Out’s Editor-In-Chief Aaron Hicklin where he spills the beans about a recent encounter with Adam Lambert’s publicist.

The background to the story is that when American Idol sensation Adam Lambert, who is openly gay, showed up for an interview with the famous gay magazine his publicist had a moment alone with the reporter where he proceeds to tell her not to make the interview to “gay” or “gay, gay”.

The editor in chief sent an open letter to Lambert which was published on a gossip blog site run by openly gay Perez Hilton. Hicklin´s letter was followed by one from the reporter, Shana Naomi Krochmal, where she explains the situation.

Now of course we have something of a PR shit storm that the aforementioned publicist will have to deal with. A tiny little comment was sent out by Lambert who doesn’t think any of this is a big deal but instead of a nice cover shoot and interview the focus in now completely on exactly how gay Lambert really is. This means pictures of him kissing his ex-boyfriend will resurface as well as other pictures of him in full “gay gay” swing.

Nice job Mr. Publicist, you’ve made the profession proud.

By the way, how gay do you think Lambert´s sexually charged AMA performance was, just “gay” or “gay, gay”?

Íris Alma Vilbergsdóttir

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Listed companies in Nasdaq are bored

“Listed companies in Nasdaq（National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations） are bored” was said by Jiang Nanchun who is the CEO of Focus Media, the most famous leading digital media group in China, and also the first Chinese media stake share that was involved in Nasdaq. He has invented the “moving staircase advertising”, when people are waiting for moving staircase, there is a screen of AD helps them to spend waiting time.

What kind of Industry of Focus Media is?
Jiang Nanchun said:” digital media industry or services. Neither of it, we are just the boring industry, which help people to dismiss their vacuity”

Jiang Nanchun talked with humorous, however it is easy to understand that he thinking and create new idea at any time.


In summary, he said: “all the strategy comes from the observation of details, it is the suspecting spirit.” I think it is right, most of people when we are waiting for a moving staircase, we just want the moving staircase come soon, did not find the value of vacuity in specific space. In another words, mass media wins by the content not by the means, no matter what kind of media tool we use; to disseminate information is the basic measurement.

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Hollywood P.R.

Their credo is “no matter how embarrassing”. The credo of Paulie Paulstein and Rick Roberts, the two co-founders of Hollywood P.R. They are famous for their great PR campaigns for Hugh Grant, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and others.

Courtney Love about them: “they are better than heroine”.
These two PR agents can work and do great job in PR. If you are interested in celebrities’ PR campaigns you can just go on their website and get more information there. I just want to say that I was really amused by the way they work, you can call it bad PR or black PR but there are some successful campaigns.

Below you can find some examples from Hollywood P.R. I want you to read them and share with your impression. Hope you will find it interesting.

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We should use Twitter in our PR campaigns!

Scottish Tweet!

We all know that Twitter is a tool that is becoming more and more important on the Internet, but is it actually interesting for PR?  As a consequence of the debates that we often have in class,  I have carried out some research on this topic. I must say,  Derek, we have the way to use this tool as part of the tactics of the New Media strategy!

Twitter is not just another networking site, it is also the most popular. Considered as the “SMS of Internet” (probably it would have more sense to start calling it an “information network” or even better, a “human network”, as pointed out by one of the co- founders, Evan Williams in a really interesting article), it lets us interact with the followers  (users) by means of connections and links.

Twitter is not just another tool for the service of PR; it shares the philosophy that supports our field from a societal point of view! The companies must start to understand this new perspective. It’s not just to share information, persuasion or power… The people want to share experiences, develop relationships; they debate not just about a product, but they think about its actual usefulness. As a result of a brilliant article by Thomas Baekdal, we can start to understand that we are not just living a communication revolution (and its models): it is a revolution that affects all the consumption system, and as a consequence, it also affects all its participants, including, of course, organizations.

What is the role of PR here, then? We must apply more than ever the core philosophy of our profession!  In my opinion, the future panorama that is waiting for us is especially encouraging, a challenge for all of us: professionals, researchers and students. As a consequence we shouldn’t hesitate to participate in this new network; we must learn and understand these new tools as Twitter opens doors abroad for this new reality.

Twitter hasn’t spent a lot of time since it has understood the scope of its service, neither the important role that the organisations have in it. The companies are not just products or brands, as Baekdal says in his article, but they are part of the social framework, they are experiences: they are probably part of our careers, unforgettable moments, desires or even hates and disenchantments. Simply, they are part of all of us, no matter how much we try to avoid this fact. What is more, a few weeks ago, Twitter changed the question to which you have to respond with just 140 characters, “What are you doing?” to “ What’s happening?”. From my point of view, much more relevant to what people can obtain from this service.

I want to include hereafter a list of the most useful tools that have been developed for PR use in Twitter:

1. Tweetlevel, the most useful tool that I came across, created by Edelman. This precious treasure let measure the influence, popularity, engagement and trusts between the Twitter users.

2. Trending Topics, developed in April by Twitter. Really interesting, because it allows you not only be a follower, but also you can participate in a real-time search.

3. MuckRack, is the first service for PR in Twitter. It is made for journalists, in which they must pay 1 dollar for each character, and they can include what they call “News releases in one line”. Furthermore, it is really interesting the fact that they can include links.

4. Bit.ly, Ow.ly and pr140.com, as services to shorten the links so makes it possible to include them as tweet (usually links have more than 140 characters).

We don’t have excuses any more. Twitter offers a world of possibilities for PR.  

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Creativity & PR...??

 

Creativity is a concept which is considered as fundamental in strategic communication, but is this taken into account within the research and practice of PR? In general, PR is considered to be a fundamental tool within the communication management in the organization. The question I ask is; is PR necessarily creative?

It’s not easy for me to define the concept “creativity” (original, novel, different, uncommon…?) Isn’t it an ability that all human beings have? We are all probably creative in some aspect of our life, simply because of the fact of thinking: experimenting with new ingredients for a dish, decorating our bedroom in an unique way, trying to surprise our partner… all our knowledge mixed with a little of inventiveness, as we all know, could conclude in astonishing results (as long as it satisfies what we actually desire). Authors such as Guilford tries to define the concept in the best way they can.

Connecting advertising with creativity is logical: the client raises a problem to an advertising agency and the agency, with its department and creative professionals, give him a solution that must be creative because of two principal reasons:

- An audience that is overwhelm because of the quantity of information

- Media full of competitors that try to communicate its products and services

What happens with PR? Aren’t we having the same problems when we plan the communication campaigns? Of course! The connection between creativity and the PR professional isn’t obvious at first. This is because before being trained in psychology, social or human sciences, he or she is considered as a strategist and expert in theories, structures or business models.

From my point of view, creativity has to be considered a fundamental factor in the planning of tactics. News releases and hosting events, such as dinners, are no longer relevant due to saturation and competition being so intense. However, several successful examples of the use of creativity in PR can be found. For instance: the winner of the new category of “Best PR Campaign” in the Cannes Lions 2009 competition: Tourism Queensland, “The Best job in the World". 

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More communication, less social contact?

Social networking gets more and more developed and runs more and more via internet; people are connected by facebook, bebo or myspace and they have hundreds of friends with which they have contact on a more or less regularly basis. But what does this contact look like? Long letters which have been written emotionally? Surely not! Because nobody takes the time for long letters! It is the online world, where long letters or messages won’t be written nor read. This means that only short messages or only status reports are posted, just indicating that the persons is busy and alive! Nothing of interest and mostly very superficial, everyone is bothered on its own.

But do we run the risk of forgetting to have real social contact to other persons or losing the ability to hold a real friendship, to build it up and let it stay alive for a longer time over years? What makes a relationship to a friendship to another person? Maybe the chemicals, but more the trustworthiness of the other person who opens himself for a bit, gives insights on his emotions and feelings and who expects a prompt and adequate reaction. But this won’t be done and can’t be expected if you are online, due to several reasons which can lead to social isolation:


On the one side, because nobody would post his personal problems (or he shouldn’t do so) and on the other side because nobody would take the time to communicate that intensively that the problem would be solved, especially because it would take a longer time. Thus, the “problem person” has to solve his problems alone. And it is a well known fact that it is unhealthy to solve problems alone! Besides that, it is important to get someone else view. The BBC published an article on this development, saying that it is unhealthy to have too much contact only by the internet.


In my opinion the networkers will forget the feeling how it is to have a real dialog in which every part has to be concentrated on the other person and showing honestly respond if an emotional problem has to be solved. I can imagine that even social behaviour will be forgotten as in the cyber world you can decide when you will answer if at all. You don’ have to answer as no one expects it. But where are those who really need you, your advice and your point of view? Who will realise it, if something really happens? There is no necessity to go out of the door, it is possible to buy everything online, even food and home office is quite usual. But is that social life? Is that the human development?

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The new face of Rileys

Ronnie O’Sullivan, the world No. 1 snooker player is now the new face of Rileys,  the UK's largest pool and snooker operator. It runs 128 clubs all over the country. He was also announced as “Rileys first ever UK ambassador”. Together with Rileys the “Rocket” will look for young talented players and give them his support. Commenting on the big news, Rileys Chief Executive Maurice Kelly said, "Rileys are delighted to sign as their ambassador, Ronnie O’Sullivan, the biggest snooker name in the world. Together, Rileys and Ronnie are going to put the wow factor back into the game".

And Ronnie in his turn said: "Everybody knows how much I love the game of snooker and how much I want our game to become more popular in the UK and throughout the world. When I met the new owners of Rileys I realised they shared my passion for the game. The next few years are going to be exciting for snooker and I am delighted to be closely involved with Rileys. There's going to be a revolution!"

I think it is very beneficial for Rileys as Ronnie is one of the best snooker players and it is a great PR achievement to get him as a representative, ambassador. It is very important to get the right person to represent your company, in this case I think it is the best thing what Rileys could do. Ronnie is one of the most favorite players, people know him, people love him and they will go toRileys clubs.

At the same time it is very beneficial for Ronnie as well, for his own reputation to be called the first UK ambassador for Rileys as his name will be highlighted at Rileys clubs, online, and via a major radio campaign with talkSPORT. 

So, it is a mutual beneficial campaign for both sides.

I think even if your company is successful you need to excel and strive to maintain excellent relationships with your publics. In my opinion, it is an excellent PR action.

READ MORE - The new face of Rileys

crisis public relations

Crisis public relations is a part of public relations, it became more and more important because of the fierce rivalry amongst every walk of life. The key point of crisis public relations is to combine prevention with control rather than solve problem after happens. There are a number of examples of crisis public relations.

Haier is famous of it’s after sale service, it focused on offering best-of-breed service solutions to its customers. Once there is an emergence issue, Haier will try their best to solve it immediately. It may cost, but it reduces the negative effect of its public reputation. Here is the example of “Haier”

On 22th may 2006, a customer bought a fridge from Haier, because kinds of quality problem, Haier changed exchanged another fridge after three days. This customer felt angry, and then wrote his un-satisfaction in blog. As soon as Haier heared the case, they sent two employees had a face-to-face communication about why supplied the bridge after three days. In addition, Haier sent two watermelons as gift. Finally, the customer came out with another blog said,” I was really moved by Haier, it made me feel that I was fully respected”.

From this case, we can see Hair has a quickly respond about its publics, and familiar with manipulation of relationship. They have done very good at crisis public relations.

Another example of crisis public relations is Sanlu Company. When I mentioned Sanlu, I think most people still remember effect of the posionous milk powder, which added melamine in order to increase weight and protein content. Obviously, this was a disaster of dairy Industry. Twenty-two corporate were involved in melamine positioning, they were all have a glory history, and however, they suffered from melamine at last. During the Sanlu incident was explored overwhelming, Baidu also plunged into a crisis of confidence. People suspect that Baidu have deleted and reduced negative information about melamine positioning of Sanlu.(here is the image that the prem minister look after the victim)

We have learnt a lot, some company tries their best to improve service quality in order to build their goodwill and maintain reputation, which is the aim of public relations. However, some company tries to do everything include telling lies, hidden truth, whatever happened, they makes full uses of public relations to achieve own profit, but the result probably not like what they want. They make the issues even worse.

This case indicates that crisis public relations became to an extremely important issue.

From my own opinion, there are several points we should obey:

*Avoiding a Public Relations Disaster Before It Happens

*Keep good relationship with publics, makes the customer first

*Improve product quality, public relations cannot do everything for organization

*Improve transparency, hidden truth will makes things worse(see the example of Taco Bell, which would be more persuasive)

*Form a emergence expert group who responsible for public and media

There should be more suggestion of crisis public relations, so how do you think?

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Will PR help Coca-Cola enterprise out of it's trouble.

It seems Coca-Cola enterprise had a hard time in 2008. According to Coca-Cola company annual report page 76, there profit decrease by 6538 million in 2008. The reason can be conclude in 3 ways. World's finance crisis, competitors, and Coca-Cola's reputation. But his biggest competitor, Pepsi, feels good in 2008.

However, in 2008, Pepsi win the battle, and Coca-Cola get into troubles. Now, Coca-Cola enterprise is looking helps from PR.

Personally, I would like to conclude Coca-Cola's problem as a reputation problem. Pepsi target on young people. Young, flashing, cool are the reputation of Pepsi. The good thing of this reputation, is no matter what had happened or what will happen, young people still spend their money on what they love.

I'm really sorry that I have no idea about what is the Coca-Cola reputation. The advertisement of Coca-Cola appears in everywhere. Sports; fashion; games, etc. Coca-Cola Enterprise says it is Coca-Cola culture.

Facing to this finance crisis, Coca-cola enterprise looks to Bell Pottinger for Corporate Responsibility drive, and hope it will help. By the way, search coca-cola campaign in youtube, the last time they put a PR campaign was one years ago.

And now, Bell Pottinger, led by Alex Woolfall, head of issues management, will look to strengthen then firm's message in key business media in UK,France and Belgium. Hopefully, we will see lots of PR campaign of CCE, and the picture from PR week looks very nice. it's a good start.

READ MORE - Will PR help Coca-Cola enterprise out of it's trouble.