Paris opts for "pit bull PR"

So Paris Hilton’s family feel her recent jail time was the result of public relations mismanagement and have hired a “pit bull PR” to do whatever it takes to get the media back on side.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the family took some responsibility for the way their daughter behaves? 

Isn’t it time that she grew up and stopped blaming others, such as the media? 

Of course, aggressive PR types can bully the media by using money and other dubious tactics, but ultimately it will only be appropriate behaviour that restores a damaged public reputation.

Blogpower award ceremony in SecondLife

Okay - I am not a big fan of SecondLife, but I’m pleased to highlight the Blogpower Awards ceremony taking place there on Sunday July 1, 1400 UK time.

The Last Ditch has very simple instructions on how to participate.  I have only been to SL once, last October, but it might be interesting to revisit given a purpose to do so.

The best way to learn about new media is to participate - so if I am free, I’ll seek to give it a go.   Perhaps I’ll see you there?

How old is your road map?

Phil Hale at Trafficmaster is a fellow director of MIPAA, as well as a former colleague of mine.  He also kindly arranged to fit Tulip (my trusty SmartNav) to my Merc.  But that disclosure shouldn’t prevent me saying how good Phil is at identifying interesting, creative and relevant media stories.

 The latest is a survey based story claiming five million drivers are using outdated maps - many actually being from last century.  Bizarrely the survey alleges 138,000 drivers are using maps from before 1950 - pre-dating Britain’s first motorways, so I assume they don’t travel far from home [I feel that is a rather questionable extrapolation though].

What I like about this story is it has individual relevance (how old is the roadmap in your car?), the potential for discussion and includes some useful information regarding road projects completed in the last decade (which helps give some local relevance too).

There is the plug for Trafficmaster with 21 per cent of motorists favouring sat nav systems instead of road maps (along with a subtle dig at competitors whose maps are not updated regularly).  However, this doesn’t take away from the value of the story and the fact that there is a natural linkage to Trafficmaster as the experts behind the survey.

£1.4 million car sold in record auction

Despite a rather static market for new car sales this year, some people clearly have money for motors as auction house, Bonhams reports a record £6.1 million sale at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Top of the lots was a 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 Spider achieving £1.4 million - one of 14 cars breaking the £100k mark.

Also appealing to the collectors were a 1904 Panhard-Levassor 35hp two-seater, chain driven model (£452,500) and a 1926 6.24 litre Mercedes-Benz Model K Torpedo Transformable (£441,500).

Bonhams say the Alfa Romeo was perhaps “the finest of pre-war Italian road-cum-racing cars”, thought to have been driven in the 1933 Mille Miglia round-Italy race by ‘Baconin’ Borzacchini.  It passed through several hands, including periods in Eritrea, East Africa and Bethesda, Maryland.  Surviving in derelict condition, without an engine, it was sold in 1975 to British marque enthusiast David Black who assembled an engine from spare parts and a correct specification base engine.  Following Mr Black’s death in 1990, his family preserved the car before putting it up for auction this past weekend.

Green banana - now the phone…

I’ve just noticed the launch of the LG Green Banana Phone in Korea?   Apparently the name reflects both the colour and the fact that it curves around your face when open.  It also has a lavender smelling keyboard (don’t ask me why). 

It isn’t clear yet whether the green banana phone will follow the global roll out and success of the LG chocolate phones. 

Given the colour and name, it would make a nice match to my Sony Vaio laptop which also reflects my green banana branding.

 I also have a pair of high heel shoes and a handbag to match this shade of green - sad but true.

Can the PR power be tracked as well as counted?

Full marks to The Friendly Ghost for persevering with the PowerPR Index.  I remain skeptical of the value of such lists - but feel FG is exploring some interesting ideas around evaluating blogs. 

If nothing else, the struggle for a suitable methodology highlights the challenge to assess and compare different blogs, even within a relatively small field such as public relations.

Also to be applauded is the transparency of the approach taken in constructing this list and the reflection on problems with the index.

Regardless of the actual listings, it is an interesting table (not just because this blog now figures at #48).  It would certainly provide anyone interested in PR with some good sources to sample. 

I think it would be even more interesting to be able to track the conversations and topics that migrate around PR blogs.  Better yet would be to draw some of the themes and thoughts together. 

The Strumpette and ToughSledding recent parkour (or free running) discussion jumped around a number of places recently attracting some new commentators along the way, but tending to have to recap rather than building to any crescendo.

There are waves, whirlpools and eddies - even the odd maelstrom and the occasional tidal bore - in the nature of PR topics.  Discussions also meander and spurt outside PR into technical, marketing, media and other blogs.

I’d like to see some output from such discussions so that they can grow and even resolve rather than just reappearing repetitively.  Is this possible?  Does anyone have the time to create a place where threads of discussions can be linked so that conversations can progress rather than keep recurring?

Top Gear crash investigation - implications for PR

The Health and Safety Executive has published a report into the Top Gear crash involving presenter, Richard Hammond last September.  It contains criticisms over risk assessment and training provision in relation to both the BBC and Primetime Landspeed Engineering, which owned the car and provided Hammond’s training.

The full investigation report makes a valuable read in respect of the process the production team followed in setting up the feature.  The investigation’s focus on planning, preparation and training should remind public relations practitioners of the need for detailed risk assessment, and particular, the time required to do this adequately. 

Very often requests from the media to put together an activity are at short notice.  PR practitioners are usually adept at being responsive and adaptive - but this should never be at the expense of adequate planning for all eventualities.  In addition, monitoring risks during events is essential. 

There are also lessons here regarding assessing the competency of journalists.  Richard Hammond, like most motoring journalists, is very experienced, but the report notes that his skills were not directly assessed and specific training needs were not identified.   Perhaps motoring journalist groups should take note here and consider evaluating their members’ skills and organising appropriate training programme.

Fortunately, excellent crisis management arrangements were in place with regard to emergency assistance at the venue.  This proved crucial and showed the particular strengths of the emergency services in handling such a crisis situation.

Event management is a key area of PR practice and a focus on planning theories is increasingly common.  As part of this knowledge, it is vital to understand risk assessment procedures, and in particular, the need to work with experts and keep exemplary documentary records before, during and after any activities.

There are legal and insurance implications that also need to be considered.  This might seem restrictive, and fortunately, incidents like this are very rare.  But given the high stakes to individuals and corporate reputations, professional public relations practitioners and responsible journalists, need to ensure that any risks being taken are reasonable and all necessary precautions have been taken.

I think this is an area where MIPAA needs to offer specific training for our members - so it is now a high priority to include in the workshop programme for the coming months.

In recent years there has been a lot of discussion between motoring journalist groups and PR practitioners in automotive companies regarding insurance and liability.  This report emphasises the importance of ensuring such matters are recognised as essential and part of the professional nature of modern public relations. 

Growing up free to be more than a sheep

I’ve just discovered this photograph of me on a CD-Rom which my dad gave me recently. 

I don’t remember the occasion but it epitomises my memories of a childhood where I had freedom to be myself.

Clearly my brother and I weren’t “cotton wool kids” (as highlighted by a recent Chidren’s Society report).  I doubt my parents undertook any risk assessment beyond common sense of this situation - does that mean they were neglectful or allowing us to learn to survive in the world?

This is a vital skill - one which those seeking to return captive bred pandas to the wild recognise.  There are dangers facing all of us, but constraints are rarely the answer to equipping people to realising their potential.  Like Xiang Xiang we probably face greater problems as adults if we haven’t learned to engage with the world.

I think this is equally important for organisations - it strikes me that there are an increasing number of barriers put up to restrict employees connecting with the outside world.  I’ve even heard of public relations functions that are unable to monitor the Internet - how can they realise the potential for their companies when they can’t even look through the window?

Seth Godin wrote earlier this year about sheep walking: “the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line.”

He complained that modern education is designed to produce sheep thanks to a focus on compliance and teaching to the test.  Similarly, organisations “hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance”.  They keep them in check with policies and procedures, fear and legal threats, micro-management and increasingly using technology to track their every move.

The alternative might seem rather chaotic and risky, but the argument is that “When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff.”

Reflections on public relations

There are some great reflections on public relations online at present and I thought it might be useful to connect them here.

A rather long, threaded discussion at MyRagan carries on the debate between the Strumpette and ToughSledding that had a brief stop here recently (Does PR have a Future?).  It combines ethics, the role of PR and social media in a fast paced debate.

At PR Conversations another fascinating discussion considers the ultimate purpose of PR.  As well as relationship management, it looks at a support versus strategic role with a call for synthesis rather than integration between PR and marketing functions.

GoodGreenPR offers another direction in looking at social marketing which is distinguished from PR as it is not about organisational reputation (or relationships) but involves using concepts and techniques to ‘achieve specific social goals for a social good.’ 

Although this separates PR from persuasion, social marketing acknowledges the fact that the techniques and tools traditionally employed by PR can be put to different uses.  But aren’t claims that one application is more ethical or virtuous than another disingenuous?  Who determines what social good involves?  Isn’t that at the heart of the Strumpette’s criticism about PR’s partisan role in building relationships?  Is ToughSledding happy to dismiss social marketing as the work of PR’s “evil twin”?

David Phillips offers a similar challenge for PR practitioners in optimising relationships.  He advocates a rethink of the management skills required by those in PR to “execute complex communication systems which includes a high level of uncertainty and change.”

This acknowledges PR’s role in internet mediated communications, in terms of the public’s “capability to participate in the relationship dynamic”.   He is calling for understanding of uncertainty management and risk management.

There are lots of dimensions and directions to consider here - which only goes to show what a great learning resource is provided online totally free of charge.  Not long ago, those interested in the profession and study public relations could only have read such opinions in fairly dry academic journals or by signing up for courses or conferences at great expense.

Today, this high level debate is available to all - and even better, students, academics and practitioners can add in their own reflections.  This makes the profession come to life and enables everyone to contribute towards discussions.

That has to be to the benefit of the profession, regardless of what criticisms and challenges are being aired.

[Thanks as ever to Judy Gombita for pointing out some of these sources to me]

Can adverts be brilliant if insensitive?

There’s an interesting item at Autoblog which relates to an advertising campaign for Land Rover.   Autoblog believes the strategy to present the vehicle as a hero by filming in actual disaster areas comes over as exploitative, despite the agency saying vehicles had been offered to emergency personnel or donations made to relief organisations.

From a PR perspective, what is interesting is how Autoblog writes:

To be fair, this article was written with the marketing industry in mind as an audience, not us. The agency, which is just doing its job, comes off as insensitive and exploitative to our ears, but a professional in the biz might think this idea is genius. And while it’s a good thing that Land Rover may donate money or the use of its vehicles to aid disaster relief efforts as a result of this marketing campaign, that bad taste in our mouth comes from the fact that it likely wouldn’t do those things if a camera weren’t there to capture it.

The internet enables anyone to read anything (pretty much), so you cannot boast to one audience about something that can be taken negatively by another.

Autoblog’s quote also highlights a belief that “successful” adverts are judged by industry insiders for their “creativity” rather than their impact on sales, or more importantly, organisational reputation. 

Here, it seems the advertising agency did see how how others might interpret their work, but thought that “add-on” social responsibility was the answer.