Last week chums Craig Pearce and Guy Downes and potential chum Noel Pennington released a report entitled, ‘Public Relations 2011: Issues Insight Ideas’. This 30+ page PR resource features contributions and commentary from a variety of communications, digital and marketing industry luminaries and me.
You can click on the cover page to get stuck in.
Tags: 2011, csr, digital, Influence, PR, reputation, Search, socialmedia, trends, trust
It’s been a busy few months – not only did I become a dad but I also launched a new PR agency in Sydney under the brand Encoder Public Relations. The feedback so far has been really positive.
Our approach is to provide clients with a distinctive range of PR services. These services are designed to help clients navigate the changing media landscape, understand their audience and communicate in a way that is relevant and effective in the digital age. We’re focused on delivering audience insights and executing through visual and rich media communication. We sit under the WPP Australia banner and are based in North Sydney.
A lot of people – marketing media included – have intepreted the new offering as a digital agency, this isn’t quite right. We’re digitally-led but we’re very much focused on integrated strategy and execution across traditional media and events. When we talk about media in Encoder PR terms, we’re talking about the broadest possible definition – traditional, digital, social etc. We belive that clients need to challenge their assumptions about their audiences and media consumption, it’s all very well to talk about engagement and social media but we need to drill a bit deeper than this.
We have set up a group blog on the website, which will provide us with an opportunity to share news, insights and clients updates/case studies.
I am really keen to meet with any interested parties in Australia with a view to form partnerships (we’re referring to ‘collaborators‘) and as a chance for me to explain what Encoder PR is all about and gather feedback.
I will still blog here. I’ve added the Encoder PR web link to the blog roll.
Tags: digital, PR, Public Relations, Social media
Kraft today announced that Australians have voted for a name to replace the seriously unpopular and high criticised iSnack 2.0.
Kraft gave customers the opportunity to vote for one of six names in response to the negative publicity. We’re told that around 10,000 customers voted for Cheesybite, equivalent to 36% of the total vote making it the most popular name - just pipping ‘none of the above’.
What seemed like a good idea to involve its customers in the process of naming a new product has turned into a significant issue for the marketing team and senior management.
On the upside, the fiasco has garnered fantastic exposure for the product and extended the lifespan of the campaign (though not by design). It seems fairly obvious that the Cheesybite name would have generated far less collumn inches had the iSnack 2.0 debacle been avoided all together.
On the downside, Kraft has lost credibility with the media, the blogging community and other influencers. But does that matter? The grocery decision maker would probably have discussed the iSnack 2.0 name as a result of the media coverage. I doubt that the name change will have a negative influence on buying decisions, quite the opposite in terms of awareness.
The product has apparently sold in high volume as a result of the ‘name me’ campaign. The net result of this is probably increased exposure for the product and some valuable lessons learnt by Kraft.
On the downside, Australian brands will approach any kind of crowdsourcing program with a high degree of caution as a result of these events. Many will be less likely to involve their customers in product development and branding decisions, which is a shame as it is a proven method of building loyalty and generating word of mouth.
The marketing industry is naturally conflicted when it comes to promoting its own successes. The digital revolution (if you like) means that many different types of agencies are competing for the same dollars, which makes them very proactive when it comes to finger pointing when things go wrong and less likely to celebrate success when things go well, unless its their own.
Tags: branding, cheesybite, crowds, digital, Kraft, PR, vegemite
I suppose I should intersperse all of these recent Twitter updates (a new plug-in) with some intelligent commentary about something or other or perhaps just a simple old update about this and that.
We went live with a new website for Burson-Marsteller Australia. You can find it at www.bm.com/australia.
Its about time that we had a local web presence given the fact that we are advising many clients on digital PR and social media strategy. The site is a starting point, which we will add to and develop over time. The site is based on Microsoft Sharepoint, which I found to be an ‘OK but slightly frustrating’ content management tool.
We are currently working on a really exciting research project for Australia and working with clients on a number of digital projects and some cool new business projects. More on this later.
I am also judging a competition for the International Advertising Association and have a medium sized cardboard box of entries from teams of University students to read through over the weekend.
As a daily habit, I have started reading www.techmeme.com in the morning. I am finding that its a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening in digital and tech generally.
Tags: australia, digital, IAA, PR, sharepoint, Technology, Web
I wrote the following article for Digital Media Magazine. It ran in the newsletter yesterday (April 16th) which you can download here.
Links have been added for the benefit of this posting.
CEO as Chief Communicator
Current economic challenges have lead to intense scrutiny of executive decision making, corporate culture, compensation, risk management and due diligence in business.
This close examination by Government and the media of corporate largesse has highlighted a vast chasm between senior executives and the general workforce leading to unprecedented levels of mistrust towards the business sector. It has highlighted the urgent need for cultural change within the corporate sector in the developed world.
A January 2009 survey by a rival PR firm – Edelman – found that 38 percent of American respondents between the ages of 35 and 64 said they trust business. This is the lowest rating in the survey’s 10-year history. The corporate sector must act quickly and decisively to address deteriorating levels of trust between itself and the pool from which it must draw its customers and employees.
The question is: whose responsibility is it?
The buck must surely stop with the CEO. Research conducted by Burson-Marsteller in 2005 found that perceptions of the CEO represent 65 percent of a corporate reputation.
The role of the company CEO is to set the company vision, values and direction. They then must develop the plan of actions. The critical step lies in the effective communication of the strategy, and the consistent demonstration and reinforcement of the stated values.
The rise of digital media has had a major impact on corporate communications since 2005. It has provided the opportunity for corporations to establish an ‘authentic voice’. This singular, human voice enables corporations to engage in meaningful two way conversation with individuals in the media, customer base, bloggersphere and so on.
Interestingly, that authentic voice is rarely if ever the voice of the CEO. A 2008 research project by Burson-Marsteller found that just 18% of CEOs have used social media to communicate with stakeholder groups.
There are exceptions, most notably in the technology sector, but typically the engineer, product strategist, technician or designer is perceived as the authentic voice.
CEOs are overlooked for a wide variety of reasons; they don’t have time; they are not close enough to the detail; they are generalists; they don’t see the value in mass-communication; they are constrained by corporate disclosure guidelines.
This must change.
Businesses find themselves less trusted than ever before. This fact is a critical business issue and will be a major inhibitor for many companies in the years to come, more pressing in some industries than others. One time, one directional communications will not re-build trust. Businesses need to engage in a continuous dialogue.
The good news is that CEOs today have a wide variety of communications tools at their disposal and these tools will be second nature to the next generation of CEOs. These individuals assisted by corporate communications experts will recognise the need to communicate their vision and values for the company as well as encouraging and facilitating transparency across all operations.
There will continue to be a place for the ‘at the coal face’ bloggers within organisations – those individuals that discuss their daily challenges, share insights and generate ideas with likeminded people. In doing so, they generate goodwill, enhance reputations and engage various audience groups.
The organisations that recognise the need to re-instate and re-equip the CEO as the Chief Communicator will be the first to begin the process of re-building trust. Those businesses that deploy a strategy and the tools that enable continuous CEO communications will invigorate their reputation and establish refreshed relationships based on trust.
Tags: Blogging, CEO, change, corporate, digital, Media, relationships, trust
Pew Research Centre
The Pew Research Center has published its 2008 News Media Consumption Survey, which – unsurprisingly – found a continued migration of readers / consumers from print media to online media. It also found a decline in newspaper readership – print and online. 43% of those surveyed in 2006 said they read a newspaper ‘yesterday’ – compared to 38% in the 2008 survey. The number of people that read just a print version of the newspaper fell to 25% from 34%.
Newspaper readership declined overall, 14% of Americans said they read an online newspaper ‘yesterday’ compared to 9% in 2006.
One third of newspaper readers consumed their content via the Web in 2008 compared to a quarter in 2006. Generational segmentation shows that younger readers are more likely to source their news content online, as you might expect, but the decline in print readership is consistent across the board. Baby Boomers are less inclined to read print media down from 42% to 34% in the two years between 2006 and 2008.
Radio as a source of news content has experienced decline in the broadcast media category, while TV news has held its own since 2006, except in the Gen Y demographic. This table shows the most frequented Online news sites – the presence of new media brands in the top half of thise table is interesting. Many print media publications have successfully transferred their business to the Web but remain hamstrung by the inefficient and broken business models associated with their print editions. These challenges are compounded by the sharp decline in advertising revenue, which is accelerating the transformation of the news media.
Pew Research Center 200
I’ve heard it be said that it would be more economical for the publisher of the New York Times to provide every subscriber with an Amazon Kindle than it is for them to produce and distribute a hard copy version of its product. San Francisco could soon become the the first major city in America to not have a daily metro newspaper.
It seems almost certain that daily newspaper will cease to exist in the new future – its a case of when.
The scary aspect to this is the fact that readers will have the power to choose the stories they want to read. We are reliant on the reader to turn to serious online media outlets to ensure that we – as a community – remain informed about what’s going on in the world. Will individuals organise themselves effectively to hold our institutions, Governments and leaders to account?
Tags: circulation, digital, news, newspapers, online, PEW, readership
Utilitarianism: More votes to clever people
In 1861, the philisopher John Stuart Mill wrote: the exercise of any political function, either as an elector or representative, is power over others.
We live in tumultuous times. The United State Presidential Election is scheduled to take place on November 4 this year.
The question remains relevant today: Do voters have a moral duty to be informed about politics?
The majority of Americans rely on the television for their political information, not realising that most news networks are highly partisan, owned by corporations and biased.
John Stuart Mill argued that the impact of political ignorance should be offset by giving extra votes to the most highly educated portions of the population.
Who is responsible for generating an informed population? Is it the moral responsibility of the individual? Perhaps – It’s rarely (if ever) in the interests of the political elite or governing party to educate the electorate about its shortcomings and failings.
Edmund Burke coined the term, the Fourth Estate. He is quoted in Thomas Carlyle’s book:
“Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all”.
Journalism is seen as having a critical role to play as an institution that holds the other institutions to account. Sadly, our society has lost faith in the media.
2b or not 2b informed
A Pew Research Centre Study found that 66 per cent of people consider the press “one sided” while only 9 percent of journalists are concerned with the media’s credibility.
Technology is challenging and transforming the Fourth Estate.
The Internet is perceived to have democratised information. It has placed the means of production in the hands of the consumer, hence User Generated Content. It has enabled the audience to engage in conversation, to provide feedback and to challenge one sided arguments and vested interests.
The Internet presents fantastic possibilities and potential as means of sharing information and mobilising communities around a cause or issue but I don’t think its safe to assume that this potential will necesarily be realised to the benefit of all.
I think we can draw parallels between free markets and de-regulation and the impact of the Internet on media and information. Recent events clearly demonstrate – if proof were needed – that a laissez-faire attitude does not always lead to a positive or sustainable outcome. Fundamentally, free markets (of information or finance) may be self correcting but often that process is too painful to bare.
We cannot claim that traditional print media has been effective in establishing an informed population (whatever one of those is) but my fear is that new media, digital media will have a downward effect on the degree to which the community as a whole is achieving an acceptable level of informed-ness.
Contained conversation
Sure, it will expose active and aware audiences to a much wider and active array of content and opinion but that’s an echo chamber. A situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an “enclosed” space. This was one of the primary objections to the role of the media in the lead up to the Iraq War.
History tells us that the general public has no inclination and accepts no moral obligation to be informed about events in the world and in the world of digital media where the reader is the editor this concerns me.
For the majority of the population, the Internet means memes, it means funny videos, it means games, it means shopping, it means entertaining news and opinion. It has little or no relationship with political consciousness.
The following table captures the characteristics of traditional print media as I see them and compares them with that of digital and new media.
My fear is that if we move to a world where the characteristics of the media and the way that we engage with media reside in the right hand collumn we will utlimely become less informed and not more.
I don’t know what the solution is to this problem given the fact that media is moving irretrievably along a digital path but I think it’s worthy of discussion.
Tags: Biden, Burke, Bush, digital, election, Iraq, journalism, McCain, Media, Mill, Obama, palin, PEW, Presidential, social
Lee Hopkins has written a couple of posts in the last few days about the PR industry in Australia and its adoption / advocacy of the blogosphere as a critical communications tool.
He says that the PR industry is:
Lee has a point that the Aussie PR industry is, in general, behind the rest of the world when it comes to engaging with customers, prospects and communities via blogging channels and representing clients in the blogosphere. There re some exceptions with the larger agencies leading the way with strengths in consultancy, products and services. I would put Burson-Marsteller (my employer, my team), Text 100, H&K and Edelman in this bucket.
As an agency, Burson – like many of the other global firms – has made big strides globally to develop its service offering, educate clients, up-skill staff and bring in people to strengthen our proposition.
It’s more a challenge for the small local, independent and boutique firms to add social media as a core competency and I have heard Principals of well known boutique firms state that they have no interest in making this leap. I think that’s dangerous because in time digital PR will become a core competency for every PR consultant, it will be part and parcel of strategy and tactical execution – not a fancy smancy add-on, not a cool factor and not a nice to do, as it can be perceived today.
The PR industry clearly has a responsibility to educate clients and earn trust, it will, after all, create new revenue opportunities for agencies. We (Burson) are very focused on this part of the process and have landed some great projects as a result.
There is a long way to go until Australia catches up with the rest of the world – particularly corporate Australia – and we need more people on-side to shorten the journey.
I am returning to blogging after a lapse caused mainly be a lack of time, which is another big barrier for agencies that need to develop new service offerings.
Note: Like one other big agency in Sydney, we’ll be rolling out a new website in the very new future.
Tags: australia, Blogging, burson-marsteller, digital, PR, Social media
I signed up for Twitter today and added the app to my blog, which you can see in the top left hand corner. I then added the Twitter application to Facebook and Plaxo and registered my phone for SMS updates. I sent a few ‘tweets’ (a slightly cringe worthy term) out and added some contacts that I know, and know of, as people that I will follow. The ‘know ofs’ included Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel. I downloaded twhril – a Twitter desktop client. I added my LinkedIn profile to my Twitter account and synced Facebook and LinkedIn with Plaxo. I sent my first mobile tweet from Mansions Hotel in Kings Cross while I ate my tea. It was the poker night. I had mushroom sauce. I tried to add a Google Map to this post – doesn’t seem to be working. I learnt about tinyURL.
I watched a bit of TV and saw Richard Branson talking about the environment. He said that all Virgin Atlantic profits for the next ten years would be invested in research into clean fuels. I did a Google search but couldn’t find anything on this – did he just announce it? Surely not. Not on Australian TV!
Let save this and see if the Google Map worked…
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Tags: digital, facebook, mushrooms, plaxo, Social media, steak, tweets, twitter
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