Stirling PR Students

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

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.

Monday, November 23, 2009

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

Don´t make him look "gay, gay"

Entertainment public relations seem to be a never ending field of question dodgi

ng 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

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.

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.

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.

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".