LEWIS 360°

Giving Thanks

Just about 5 hours until I sit down and (over)eat turkey, stuffing, twice-baked potatoes, cranberry sauce, cauliflower, pumpkin pie and whatever else is within an arm's reach. Must be Thanksgiving.

So in the spirit of giving thanks, thought I would share what I'm thankful for in my day-to-day job as a PR professional.

I'm thankful for clients who...

• treat the relationship as a partnership not a "vendorship"
• understand the value of keeping the PR team in constant contact with company stakeholders and customers
• review and approve material in a timely manner
• can comment on industry issues driving the media's agenda
• see the value of meet and greet media briefings, even if they don't result in immediate coverage
• appreciate when we "push back" and provide alternative solutions
• realize the 10.4.1 product upgrade (actually just a security patch) does not warrant a press release, let alone media outreach
• understand that securing business media coverage takes time and loads of effort
• are willing to call out the competition when necessary
• know that occasional praise and acknowledgment when the team goes above and beyond is an incredible motivator
• join weekly PR update calls on time
• value our recommendations, ideas and creativity
• pay their invoices on time

I'm thankful for journalists who...

• give us at least 30 seconds to share our story idea and why it's relevant
• don't double book and thus cancel an hour before the interview
• spell the CEO's name correctly
• see us as valuable resources and not gatekeepers
• still have jobs so they can cover my clients

What are you thankful for?

Trends at first PR Conference in Hungary

I have just been speaking at PR Nap, the First PR Conference in Budapest arranged by Kreativ, the #1 Hungarian PR publication.

Interesting how everyone says the same - it is all about web 2.0, speed and visual elements. It seems to me that the Hungarians are around six months behind the developments in Western Europe regarding Web 2.0 / social media. But the trend is clear.

Back in Germany there have been several recent stories about how Twitter and Blogs are key in PR and mass communication. It is amazing how fast this now happens.

Can Obama write it? Yes he can...

...or maybe he gets someone else to write it. I was reading the Sunday Times this weekend and spotted that Barack Obama is currently No.1 and No.2 in the Sunday Times non-fiction paperback bestseller list. What next... Gordon Brown topping the UK Top 40?

 

The end of TV as we know it

The way I watch TV is changing. And I don't mean I stand on my head whilst watching it or anything like that, but I just don't plan my life around TV any more. Instead I plan my TV around my life. I record all the shows I am interested in automatically using Sky+ (Tivo etc) and I can then choose when to watch stuff. I can settle down with my popcorn and watch the good shows 'on demand' anytime I want as they are right there on my hard drive, and also watch the lighter shows while I'm doing boring chores like the ironing. I'm not wasting my life on the sofa waiting for shows to start. I don't just have to watch what happens to be on whenever I have a spare 30mins.

Not only is hard drive viewing changing the way we watch TV but also more and more people are avoiding paying license fees by watching shows online 1 hour after they are aired. BBC iPlayer is an example of how you can watch your favourite shows online for free. Are people bothered about having to wait an hour? Not really. Not if they don't have to pay for it.

Are these new viewing habits going to change how TV channels schedule their shows? There will certainly still be a place, I feel, for live viewing such as sports events, news, and Saturday night phone-in contests. Will they start showing even more Strictly Come Dancing, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and X-Factor? God help us all.

All I know is that my life is a lot better now that it is not ruled by the TV scheduler. Do I miss having to rush home to catch the start of a show only to find that my watch was set 5mins slow? Do I miss having to watch the adverts and not being able to simply skip forward through them? Do I miss channel hopping in the wee hours of the morning and stumbling across a re-run of the A-Team? Nope.

Well... maybe the last one.

PR Prof puts boot in to the media

I attended an interesting talk this week by Trevor Morris, visiting professor of Public Relations at Westminster Uni.

Morris was there primarily to plug his new book but took the time to prod at some perennial hornets nests and old favourites in the ongoing love/hate debate around journalism and PR.

At the heart of the issue is a large dose of jealousy and a paucity of self-worth on the part of the journalists, according to Morris (with a little paraphrasing from yours truly).

“Journalists are jealous of PRs because they are better paid and there are more jobs,” explained Morris.

Added to this biblical disgruntlement is the fact journos, like it or not are heavily reliant upon the very PR people they resent, and that makes for some awkward posturing.

“Journalists really dislike this overreliance upon PR and don’t like to talk about it,” said Morris. And this suits PRs just fine of course, as their influence needs only be detected by their paymasters. So it’s a convenient conspiracy of silence all round.

Overall the picture Morris painted of the media was pretty downbeat. In a time of budget cuts and shrinking editorial teams there is naturally a need to fill pages with cut and paste content. A point made by a number of commentators this year (including Nick Davies, heavily referenced by Morris).

The best many journalists can hope for he explained is to use more PR, not less, in an effort to at least find balance. “Journalists need to stop whinging about PR people … they must be arbiters of PR. Good journalists don’t just take one piece of PR. They take multiple pieces to get a balanced view.”

And if they didn’t use all this PR flying about?

“If a lot of PR was closed down you’d get a lot less media, because where else would they get their content from?”  said Morris.

I found the “arbiters of PR” comment most interesting. A criticism often levelled at PR is that it’s partial and biased. But clients would be pretty aggrieved if it wasn’t.

It’s the journalist’s job to hear the case for the prosecution and the defence and deliver a verdict that is just. That presumes of course that journalists are seeking the truth at all.

Morris pointed out: “Journalists enter the world inspired to be truth seekers and soon discover commercial imperatives.”

In other words, there are more important things than the truth when it comes to selling newspapers. The bias of the PR professional should be clear to the journalist, as Morris's own bias was clear to the audience. But would journalists ever admit to their own bias and the deliberate half-truths they spin?

Crunch-washing back with a vengeance (translated for the time-poor)

Like me you’ve probably noticed it’s a really slow news week… or at least there is a proliferation of low hanging fruit to keep the media busy.

This of course is great news for students of “crunch-washing” which is back with a bang this week after a couple of weeks dominated by Lewis Hamilton, the US election and Rossgate.

The phenomenon of dressing up pitches in faux financial concern doesn’t lie dormant for long and has muscled its was back into the media. Starting off with an easy one:

Pantomime beats the credit crunch with record advance bookings
Translation: It’s pantomime time, so book your tickets early please!

Credit crunch cyclists: 3.3m workers get on their bikes to save on commuting costs
Translation: Please insure your bicycles with Sainsburys Home Insurance

Car parks fee freeze bid to beat credit crunch
Translation: Please don’t cycle to work, the council needs your parking fees

Private schools credit crunch fear
Translation: Warning all benefactors… the headteacher wants a new Mercedes, so expect the begging letters any day now.

…that’s all I can bear for now.

Public Affairs News Action Day

Ben Wilson, Head of Public Affairs at LEWIS PR has given a speech on digital lobbying at the second Public Affairs News Action Day, at the Commonwealth Club in Whitehall.

Attended by lobbying luminaries from across the communications spectrum, the event was an opportunity to share best practice, extol the virtues of Obama's Internet campaigning and catch up with old and new contacts (real life networking – showing that bloggers aren’t just restricted to their parent’s basements...).

For a second year there was a good turn out at the ‘You and YouTube: Lobbying in the Digital Age’ break out session, demonstrating a growing acceptance within the public affairs industry that digital campaigning tools such as blogs, Public.TV and YouTube can add an extra dimension to a lobbying strategy.

If you want advice on ‘digitising’ your comms strategy, drop Ben Wilson or Jon Silk a line.

You heard it here first

If you were among the 250 attendees at LEWIS PR’s ‘The Media Accused’ event back in April you will remember Nick Davies predicting that the murders at a Jersey children’s home, reported with shock and outrage by a media hungry for juicy stories, would turn out to be a total dead end. (You can watch videos of the event, here.)

Davies predicted there would have been no murders and story as reported would turn out to be a complete fabrication. It was a bold claim and one I’m sure many were waiting to pick him up on.

Still, according to the BBC this morning it appears he was right.

Reports of Starbucks’ death…

Interesting how many media outlets are reporting the 97 per cent fall in Starbucks profits with what seems to be an element of glee.

It’s a standard reaction to Big Corp hitting the rocks but I’m surprised how few outlets at least have acknowledged the $100m quarter-on-quarter increase in revenue made by the coffee chain, or the fact the loss relates almost entirely to a one-off restructuring cost.

Likewise, closing 20 US stores this year, having overstretched a little last year by opening a staggering 1,000 new stores in the US alone is far from terminal. With no hint of irony that could probably be called an 'adjustment' in financial PR terms. That new stores have only added on average $100,000 each in revenue over the past year is an interesting stat though, and does point to where the profits may have gone.

Of course the unadulterated version is still not great reading for the Seattle caffeine pusher but The FT has it all in a little more boring - but possibly more balanced - detail than its less business-focussed rivals.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Actually, what is it?!

A recent visitor to LEWIS Towers got more than they bargained for when they took a photo of London's skyline from a meeting room. Just an all-too-average overcast November afternoon, I hear you say. But take a closer look...
...hovering amidst those dark foreboding clouds is an object altogether more mysterious. Is it a bird? is it a plane? is it the Mother Ship waiting to beam the cast of Hollyoaks back home? I think we should be told!

Such sightings aren't rare, of course. There was 'Sid's' story in August of something above a Tesco in Croydon (not the most unusual thing seen in Croydon, I'm sure) and if you search on YouTube for 'UFO's over London' you get over 150 results (a lot over Westminster - no joke intended!)

Thanks to Keith Lucas for sending me the photo. Has anyone else got some strange sightings in the London sky to share?