PR needs the space to party

An interesting blog post at PRConversations on the importance of creating spaces for 21st century relationships and conversations reminded me of a story about the UK’s parents being the most protective in the world.

There is a common theme regarding the importance of finding spaces in which to develop and build connections with others.

In the case of cotton wool kids, the likes of Simon Woodroffe have claimed societal restrictions are impacting on the ability of children to become entrepreneurial.  Children not allowed to play freely and being monitored 24:7 by their parents they may be unable to form social relationships or be stunted in creativity.

This over-controlling syndrome is not exclusive to modern childhood however, as we see it in the workplace and wider society. 

George Monbiot reports how British libel laws are said to threaten the “free-flowing marketplace of ideas” - citing the example of how Craig Murray is being bullied by law firm Schillings, which uses legal manoeuvrings to “protect the reputations of high-profile individuals, corporates and brands”.,

In Wales, an Assembly Government civil servant was sacked for running a political blog and is taking his case to an Employment Tribunal.

If people are not allowed to debate and discuss, to challenge and question, to explore without fear of making a mistake, then what kind of society will we live in and what will be the ultimate role of PR?  Arguably in a controlled and closed society, the PR function is purely one of propaganda rather than facilitating conversations and maintaining relationships.

In the same way that children need safe spaces in which to explore and express themselves, one function of PR is perhaps to create the kind of spaces where organisations can be more playful and open in engaging with their publics.  Not simply using events to inform or persuade in line with the corporate objectives.

Last week I asked questions regarding the point of blogger outreach initiatives - those behind the particular activities claimed they were seeking to “build some relationships”.  I do think organisations, and busy PR people, need to think through the value and purpose of the relationships they seek to establish (and with whom) - but we don’t always know at the outset what the benefits may be for both or either party.

Next week we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of MIPAA with a Summer Soirée at the House of Lords. There’s no agenda and members are able to invite friends, family, colleagues and contacts to the event.

It will be a space where conversations take place and relationships are developed - whatever and whoever these may involve. 

A good day for PRs to bury bad news?

I gathered via Matt Wardman’s Blogpower email that the guys in parliament have been extra busy issuing ministerial written statements in the run up to their Summer holidays.  A written ministerial statement is used to provide or announce:

• Detailed information and statistics from the government.

• The publication of reports by government agencies.

• Findings of reviews and inquiries and the government’s response.

• Financial and statistical information.

• Procurement issues.

• Procedure and policy initiatives of government departments.

That doesn’t sound exactly like the kind of important statement to issue on your last day of term, unless you are hoping that the contents will avoid close media and/or public scrutiny.  Thirteen of these statements were released last Friday; today Hansard has a list of over 30:

• Regulatory Impact Assessment Command Paper
• National Statistics Annual Report 2007–08
• Tax and Benefit Reference Manual 2008–09
• EU Funds (Consolidated Statement)
• Free Cash Machines (Low-income Areas)
• Issuer Liability
• HM Revenue and Customs (Office Reorganisation)
• ECOFIN
• Equitable Life
• Planning Inspectorate Annual Report and Accounts 2007–08
• South East of England Regional Spatial Strategy
• North West England Regional Spatial Strategy
• Preventing Violent Extremism: Next Steps for Communities
• Regeneration Strategy for England
• Free Swimming
• Animal Products (Imports)
• Poultry Register
• Lisbon Treaty (Ratification)
• Official Receptions
• Pharmaceutical Services
• Justice and Home Affairs Informal Council
• HM Chief Inspector of Probation: Appointment Extension
• Legal Services Board
• National Offender Management Service
• Official Receptions
• “Greening Government ICT”
• Access to Statistics
• Regional Accountability
• Correction to Written Answers
• Highways Agency Annual Report and Accounts 2007–08
• Local Transport Bill
• Civil Aviation Authority
• Departmental Agencies
• Employment and Social Policy Informal Meeting
• Social Fund Commissioner

Whether the content of any of these statements - or the dozens more issued in recent days - is critical or not, I’m not qualified to say.  I only hope that others who don’t have the luxury of weeks away from their day jobs are able to devote the attention to reviewing them.

With so many statements issued on one day it is hard not to be cynical and imagine more than a few government PR advisors are hoping to bury bad news.

Joshua Bakacheza - more than a PR tool?

The story of how the photograph of Joshua Bakacheza’s beaten and burnt corpse was used by Gordon Brown at the recent G8 summit to influence fellow world leaders in relation to Zimbabwe has largely been reported by the mainstream media to reflect positively on the prime minister.

As Paul Canning reports, however, the source of the images was civil action group, Sokwanele, via its use of new media - a blog, Flickr images and Twitter (through which, the group connected with 10 Downing Street). 

I haven’t been able to find a photograph of 28 year old Joshua when he was alive.  His legacy is an image of his dead body, which was undoubtedly shocking when unexpectedly passed around by Brown.

Although Brown’s move will have brought the online work of Sokwanele to a larger audience, I feel uncomfortable by the impression that the Number 10 PR advisors have used the images to feed a story of Brown as a hero.

The fate of Joshua does bring Mugabe’s murderous regime into sharp focus with its human angle, but it seems somewhat distasteful for the story to focus on Brown in this way.

But then again, without this narrative element, Joshua would probably be just another statistic.  So in bringing the images to Brown’s attention, and reporting the story in this way, the PR people succeeded in cutting through the media and public apathy. 

Which leaves me wondering if in PR it is okay for the ends to justify the means?

Heinz move mobilises online parent power

Stuart Bruce has just moved from being a stakeholder of Heinz baby milk to being a public with his post: Farleys baby milk and why is Heinz telling lies and ripping off customers?

I am a non-public in terms of having no general interest in baby milk - but I am now aware of an issue that is mobilising parents online (see Mumsnet, Askbabytalk and Netsmum).  Indeed, Stuart has created a Facebook group (so far with 20 members) as well as blogging his annoyance.

It seems amazing that Heinz hasn’t considered the power of social networking and new media to spread the story about a 70% price increase as it replaces its Farleys brand with one called Nurture.  The only reason for the hike given by the company is to reflect reformulation of the ingredients and new packaging (despite criticisms of the new tins when launched last month in Australia). 

Clearly Heinz is familiar with online marketing as there’s been plenty of chatter about free samples of Nurture being available in Australia.  Now we’ll see if it can manage an emerging online issue that is mobilising mothers and fathers.

Nigel Dickie, Heinz UK & Ireland Director of Corporate Affairs (is he the same Dr Nigel Dickie reported as a nutritionist consultant to the company in 2001?) has responded to correct information regarding ingredients within Nurture infant mils in a letter to the Herald, but I haven’t seen any evidence of him engaging in the online chatroom discussions. 

Mind you, he’s probably still catching up from June’s “crisis” over the gay mayonnaise advert - which apparently led to his mobile number being removed from the company’s media contacts list online.

Dickie is also cited responding to a 2006 crisis over moving production of the HP brand to the Netherlands.  Clearly a well known brand will attract a lot of public and media attention, but the marketing team at Heinz seems quite good at stimulating adversarial publics - some even cynically see this approach as a publicity ploy.

One could wonder if a professional PR practitioner might not be better placed to advise the organisation on avoiding such crisis rather than a nutritionist.

Beyond crisis management, there’s also a major CSR consideration here as Stuart writes, in reaction to a previous claim by the Farleys’ brand:

You can’t claim to be “Committed to fair prices” and then hike the price by 70%. That means you are lying and that is something a brand should never, ever do.

A boycott has been called for - and the Baby Milk Action blog reflects on a betrayal of mothers.  This group is already active on the issue of Baby Milk, but can now co-orientate with parents who are angered by Heinz, creating a larger group of active publics.

Does the online chatter matter and will it lead to a change of direction by Heinz? There has been some take up in the national UK media and undoubtedly the specialist parent press will have picked up on the topic.  But most parental publics will be established by good old fashioned word of mouth. 

Heinz should take note of what is being said online, especially in the specialist chatrooms, because this is undoubtedly a snapshot of how the story is spreading between parents who are connected in the real world through a wide range of social and formal means.

If Heinz does back down, the campaign will become another (like HSBC and Cadbury’s Wispa) that are claimed as a success for social media.  In reality, it will be parent power offline that will prove to be the real driver of opinion and action.

Whether PR at Heinz can work more closely with the marketing guys to avoid such issues emerging in future is another matter - but maybe given all the online chat, the company views all publicity as good publicity.  That’s two fingers from the Heinz 57 at us all.

PR, risk management and saying sorry

An interesting post: Should Companies Apologize? from Boyd Neil at Hill & Knowlton Canada (via Judy Gombita) regarding how PR practitioners need to work with legal counsel in crisis situations reminds me of a recent discussion among automotive PR managers who are increasingly required to address liability and health & safety issues in respect of car loans and launch events with the media.

In the UK, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act came into force in April 2008, under which “companies, organisations and, for the first time, government bodies face a criminal offence and larger fines if they are found to have caused death due to their gross corporate health and safety failures”.

The HSE explains that:

Companies and organisations that take their obligations under health and safety law seriously are not likely to be in breach of the new provisions. Nonetheless, companies and organisations should keep their health and safety management systems under review, in particular, the way in which their activities are managed or organised by senior management:

If an incident occurs “Juries may also consider whether a company or organisation has taken account of any appropriate health and safety guidance and the extent to which the evidence shows that there were attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices within the organisation that were likely to have encouraged any such serious management failure or have produced tolerance of it.”

PR has traditionally involved a very flexible approach, but the new law highlights a need for issues surrounding corporate liability to be considered and procedures put in place.  That includes taking a more robust approach to risk management.

Some steps can be quite small - for example, I gather that many restaurants no longer top up wine glasses as this could be construed as contributing towards excessive alcohol consumption.  So maybe PR practitioners likewise needs to ensure they are not encouraging their guests to drink irresponsibly.

This may sound ridiculous - and when working with colleagues in H&S or the legal department, there can be differences of perspective (as Boyd highlights).  My contacts had experienced this when their companies decided to introduce liability forms which journalists are required to sign to acknowledge their own responsibilities as well as defining those of the organisation when borrowing press cars or attending media events.

When written by legal departments, such documents are invariably in a style of language that is intimidating and makes the reader feel unwilling to sign without legal advice.  However, the PR guys found that if they draft the documents and then work with their legal advisors, the end result gained more acceptance among the media.

The same applies when advising senior counsel on how to respond in crisis.  The legal team is unlikely to be able to craft statements that are publicly acceptable in the same way that expert PR communicators can (with professional legal oversight).

PR should also counsel against the non-apology (as seen frequently in US election campaigns) - which basically says we are sorry if you’ve been offended/affected… rather than actually apologising for the organisation’s actions.  I always feel this adds insult to injury as not only has someone been impacted, but they are made to feel guilty for recognising this.

However, as with the political apology, perhaps it is not surprising that there are many strategies conceived by which you can say sorry without perhaps really meaning it.  In my experience that’s a skill accomplished by many 4 year olds, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if either lawyers or PR practitioners counsel the ambiguous apology either.

PR lessons in email

If you are having a bad day, check out the stupidity of the PR person at Labatt’s in Canada who managed to email a journalist an attachment containing a background note on his request for an interview: Putting suds through the spin cycle  (Thanks to Judy Gombita for this one)

Career opportunities in motor industry PR

One of the best bits of my role as general secretary of the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association (MIPAA) is getting to hear about all the latest job vacancies - and helping find strong candidates for these through our JobSearch service.

I’ve just added two new jobs which reflect different opportunities in motor industry PR.  The first is a role with Millward Brown Precis as an Account Manager.  What’s interesting about this role is that it focuses on evaluating the reputation of a portfolio of prestigious automotive brands through traditional, print and online media.  So an understanding of public relations - as well as strong analytical, writing and client management skills - is key. 

The second position also calls for excellent writing skills and direct media liaison experience, but this time as a PR Executive with Impact Press & PR Limited.  Here nationwide travel throughout the UK is on offer in handling dealer press relations for the Chrylser, Jeep and Dodge sales network.  From my own experience in automotive PR, this is the sharp end, where you need to deliver benefits of media coverage at the retail end of the industry.

We also posted a job last week which reflects all the perceived glamour of motor industry PR - as PR Manager Aston Martin Racing with Prodrive based in Banbury.  Here the job description highlights a need for someone of graduate calibre, ideally with a second language as well as relevant PR or journalism experience, proven personnel management skills and experience is required of the motorsport sector, crisis management and working with senior management personnel and high profile individuals.

Three very different opportunities, but each presents a connection with a client’s business objectives.  These may be delivering media coverage to support direct vehicle sales, proving the effectiveness of PR activities, or ensuring stakeholders achieve their respective objectives for participating in sportscar racing. 

Clearly a career in PR - not just within the motor industry - offers a lot more than the popular portrayals of party-going PR totty or Machiavellian spin doctors. 

Defending blogs

I carry the Blogpower logo on this site because when I started blogging, I found it an interesting way to connect with a variety of fellow “small bloggers”.  This is highlighted by a Blogpower Roundup by Ian_QT which picks out a range posts from the network in the past week.

It takes a lot of time and effort to pull together such a roundup, but this is the spirit of blogging in respect of helping others manage their time online, giving greater opportunity for bloggers to gain new readers, and connecting different topics and thoughts on a topic.

Many of these blogs will have a particular viewpoint, and you may not agree with them all, especially those with a specific political perspective.  But, with blogs you have the opportunity to leave your own thoughts and engage with the author - or use your own blog to present a counter argument.

We do need to be careful to distinguish fact from opinion - but that isn’t an exclusive criticism of blogs as it applies to mainstream media too.  Indeed, we increasingly need to challenge anyone citing a fact as to whether it is objective or has been carefully selected to make a point.  The PR survey being responsible for too many statistics that are widely cited by have questionable methodology.

Not all blogs are well written, but that doesn’t mean the authors haven’t a valid point - or indeed, those that are well written may just be enjoyed for the way words are crafted.

Whether blogs are the future of public communication or not, they do enable us to reflect on various issues, challenge or confirm our own opinions, gain new insight, possibly learn something we didn’t previously, or think about someone else’s life and times. 

Of course, they can suck up a lot of time, be polemics and often inaccurate.  If you are the PR person for a brand being criticised, you can feel bloggers have an unfair advantage - but you do have the opportunity to know what is being said and engage with the discussion as appropriate.

What bloggers are saying is often a snapshot of discussion taking place in homes, pubs, workplaces and a myriad of other real life situations.  As such, they may be important or not, influential or not, accurate or not, indicative or not.  But as with the Blogpower roundup, they give us a window on what is being said and thought, by a particular person or group at any one time.

From a PR perspective, that sounds like a useful information-gathering tool to me, if nothing else.

Is choosing a public relations dissertation topic really that difficult?

Back in February, Simon Wakeman wrote a blog post entitled: Choosing a public relations dissertation topic.  Being an issue that interested me, I added some thoughts and signed up to receive updates on comments posted.  Over the past five months, there have been a steady stream of people adding to the post.  But, after the initial conversation, it is noticeable that the comments have amounted to no more than students stating that they have to do a dissertation and have no idea of topics so can someone help them.

One of the points of a personal assignment like this is that it develops self-directed (independent) learning and reflects a very important set of skills that are required in the work place.

The third element of the CIPR Advanced Certificate and Diploma qualifications involves selecting a topic that is of personal interest, and professional relevance, for a 2,500 word critique and a 6,000 word research project respectively.  A number of PR degree courses also involve selecting a dissertation topic, and post-graduate studies are often entirely based around a specific research area. 

Many students find this the most difficult part of their studies - even those who have succeeded in producing excellent work in responses to questions or topics set by examiners. 

It may be the fact that there is such freedom of choice, and candidates feel they have so many ideas and areas of interest that it is difficult to narrow these down.  Others claim to have no ideas at all and seem unable to even start the process of thinking of a suitable topic (despite the wealth of advice that is available). 

As a tutor, I find that getting students to complete an outline based on a series of reflective questions is a helpful starting point.  Students do need guidance to ensure that they produce a coherent piece of work, that adds something to existing knowledge.  This originality can be as simple as a different perspective, a contemporary update or application to a specific organisation or sector.

In public relations, there is a growing body of knowledge, but still plenty of gaps where really interesting critiques, projects and dissertations can be developed.

Although the tutor can offer guidance and inspiration on topic choices, candidates must realise that they cannot produce good work if they simply ask someone else to give them a topic.

What’s more, the “real world” increasingly wants people who can not only solve problems, but identify problems that need to be resolved.  Choosing a public relations topic demonstrates such skills - if you read widely and have engaged with your studies, you should have a list of different areas where additional reflection and research would be interesting and of value.

Your tutor can then help you refine these to fulfil the format and other requirements of the individual assignment, but students do need to have the skills to originate a topic themselves.

Once you have identified a few areas of interest, I suggest students ask themselves some questions:

• What is the aim of your project - what would you like it to achieve?
• What interests you about this topic?
• What is already known about this topic - and where are there areas of debate or controversy?
• What areas of theory that you have studied are relevant to this topic (and which authors are prevalent in the area)?
• What problems do you anticipate in undertaking a project on this topic?

We could apply the same questions to real life problems - knowing the aim, why it needs to be undertaken, what is already known, what tools can be applied and what issues could prevent a successful solution.

Rather than seeing the selection of a dissertation topic as a challenge, I believe this is an opportunity to apply the very skills that makes a successful public relations practitioner.

Penny for your PR

Chevrolet’s latest PR stunt, Penny pinchers (via Mischief PR) reminds me of Borkowski’s chocolate billboard work for Thornton’s from Easter 2007, but it does have an interesting creative element - and very nearly a direct connection to the car being promoted.

It involves a billboard displayed in the centre of London where the image of the car was overlaid with over 20,000 pennies which the public were encouraged to grab.  Not surprisingly, this drew a crowd in the style of the classic American PR stunts of the early 20th century.

The money message links to the current credit crunch agenda, but the penny connection doesn’t quite meet the aim of advertising “the 769,500-pence starting price of the new Chevrolet Aveo”.

This isn’t a very memorable price and I can’t see a strong association with the particular model in the stunt (yes, the image was there, but would even those grabbing some pennies remember what is was?)  Maybe if the deposit had been 20,000 pennies, there could have been a bit more of a connection in that this was all the money you needed to ‘ave an Aveo.

Autocar mistakenly added an extra zero into the number of pennies - headlining it the £2,000 publicity stunt (20,000 pennies is £200 by my maths though).  I couldn’t find any video of the public melee either on YouTube - and I really do feel that good publicity stunts today must consider the viral and online word of mouth opportunity.  An online photo diary could have been fun too rather than the press release images which look a little posed.

Mischief is definitely coming up with some cut through ideas - such as the “does my bum look big in this car” story from April. 

However, the problems in being creative in the car industry include ensuring a real connection with a particular model.  The story may be memorable, but could you recall the brand? 

A second issue is around credibility - and the idea that the car fitting room was seriously a trial for the concept to be rolled out more widely is simply not believable.  This was only every likely to be a one-off stunt.

The billboard initiative is a clear stunt.  Mind you, it is an idea Mischief have used before - last June it promoted the Captiva with a scratch car-d.

These stories certainly have the potential to gain media coverage - but whether that translates into greater awareness, enquiries or even purchases is debatable.  That may not be the direct aim, but having a PR stunt that is talked about is only one element of successful creativity. 

The same applies in advertising campaigns - if you can’t recall the product, let alone stimulate someone on the road to purchase, you’ll only reinforce that old adage that 50% of advertising works, we just don’t know which 50%.