LEWIS 360°

Ha-ha! The Simpsons pokes fun at print media

A measured and insightful analysis from The Simpsons' Nelson:

 

No offence, but the media offends

Negotiating the concept of offence is like walking a greasy tightrope for the media. What offends one person can delight another, which is why the national newspapers – in theory, at least – are written for different readerships.

Earlier this week, the Daily Mail (so often ridiculed for its frenzy-whipping) published an attack against media scaremongering. As well as being astonishingly ironic, it suggested that as well as being scared of everything we ought also to be scared of being scared.

The same paper has made an art form of being offended. Who else could have engineered Sachsgate? Or published film reviews where the reviewer is too pre-emptively offended to go watch the film?

Aside from selling more newspapers, offence on a large scale often leads to action. After Sachsgate, Jonathan Ross was suspended and Russell Brand resigned from the BBC. During the Celebrity Big Brother race row, Carphone Warehouse pulled its sponsorship of the show. But the effects of offence can also cause offence, and sometimes this comes full circle.

Yesterday, the Mail reported on how the UK police can wear Union Flag badges after they were originally deemed offensive. Again, the commenters fail to consider the subjectivity of offence:

So there we have it. This week, we're told to be afraid of being afraid. And now, it's time to be offended by others’ offence.

Does size matter (think tradeshows)

It’s no secret that large tradeshow attendance is shrinking. CES, the largest international consumer electronics show confirmed roughly a 20% drop in attendance during its 2009 show. PR professionals and marketing teams used to frequent shows, supporting clients and searching for new business leads. While these events can be great for generating some leads, networking with client contacts and of course the legendary parties, it is difficult to justify sending a full PR team to large shows anymore. What to do???

As many clients take a more focused approach to event attendance, including participation in vertical shows, PR agencies should do the same. Smaller, niche events within a target market can be gold mines for both business and media relationships. Just this week, we are helping support the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford and Twiistup 6 in Los Angeles. These shows provide the opportunity to interact with like-minded companies and build relationships with reporters, bloggers and other influencers. And it doesn’t take a small army to participate.

With this in mind, maybe smaller is better…

Twitter 2.0 Stands For Global Trend Search

I just read that Twitter launched its new website. I probably would never have known because as a Twitter subscriber you never get to see their website again.

The new look shows clearly what Twitter is today - a trend-o-meter. They weigh what their users are writing about and therefore know what people are really thinking about this very moment. Globally. In real-time. Nice, is it?

The three trend lines show what is hot now - today - and this week. It could not be clearer.

I like this. Everyone in the media, news, PR and marketing industry will be able to use this. As always with Twitter it is very simple, even simplistic you could say. Obviously I would love to be able to know more. Like what are people tweeting about locally? In German? In French? In Munich? In Rome?

Well, when Twitter launched no-one thought they would ever get to this stage of fame - so I am sure they are on the right way.

5 top tips for terrifying media

Media scaremongering has now reached self-parodic proportions. With increasingly banal subject matter (cows in today’s Sun and MORE wheelie bins in the Mail), a rhetoric of paranoia has emerged.

Aspiring doom journos take note. Here are five ways to scare your readers witless:

1. Use hyperbole to the max. Pick ‘regime’ over ‘plan’, and ‘panic’ over ‘worry’.
2. Capitalise at random. ‘The Authorities’ and ‘The Powers That Be’ tend to work well.
3. Quote specious statistics. Figures are always factual, regardless of their provenance.
4. Use misleading headlines. These will drive traffic if nothing else.
5. And finally… Create a nifty little graphic to sum it all up:

Aussie marketers getting switched on to social media

Wednesday marked the first Digital Dinner event for LEWIS Sydney, and confirmed our suspicion that there is a huge amount of interest in digital and social media here.  So much so, we’re already planning our next event!

With some of Australia’s leading marketers around the table, along with opinion leaders and commentators such as freelance journo, Brad Howarth, author and speaker, Ross Dawson, and the Editor of marketing mag B&T Tim Addington, there was much spirited discussion about the rise of digital media and how companies need to start experimenting with and exploiting social media channels to communicate with their audiences.

Some of the key take outs included:

•    Aussie marketers understand they can no longer overlook social media.  Their customers are there, so they need to be as well
•    Not only does social media represent a huge opportunity for brands, it is also a massive threat, if ignored or addressed incorrectly
•    Although marketers understand the need to interact with their customers via social media, many have trouble deciding where to start, and which channels to use
•    Given the relative ‘newness’ of social media, there are few examples of best practice that companies can follow
•    With so many claiming to be social media ‘experts’, sound advice is hard to come by!

Lets face it, social media is very new, so anyone who lays claim to being the font of all knowledge on the subject should be viewed with suspicion.  We recognise that it will have (and is having) a huge impact on the way companies communicate with their audiences and as such we’re investing heavily in tools, resources and expertise to enable us to journey into social media with our clients.  One such resource is our handy guide to using social media, which you can view here.  Hard copies are available on request.

If you’re interested in coming along to our next event, drop us a line.

Nothing to fear but the Daily Mail

Media outlets aren’t always noted for their self awareness. But this article in today’s Daily Mail has really and truly surpassed itself.

“Do you ever feel as if The Authorities [Nice Use Of Capital Letters] are doing their damnedest to scare us all to death?” opens the article, provocatively.

The Mail itself is routinely lampooned for its scaremongering tactics. With all this immigration and disease and wheelie bins and Christmas robins and everything, no one and nothing can ever be safe.

(And don’t forget: most things both cause and prevent cancer – so make sure you always avoid and indulge in them.)

Unfortunately, most of the commenters have missed the sublime irony of the piece. If we have nothing to fear but fear itself, then the Mail gives this a subtle twist. We have everything to fear including fear itself – and being fearful is the scariest prospect of them all.

Cosmo: your feature’s on back to front

Call me old fashioned, but is it too much to expect a story to exist before a journalist covers it?

(From a Response Source query sent this morning.)

Big Brother’s death is media reality

In today's Guardian, Mark Lawson sounds the death knell for Big Brother. He argues the genre died with Jade Goody – and that this year’s disappointing ratings could kill the show for good.

There are a number of reasons for the genre’s implosion (read: it’s really, really boring). What’s interesting, however, is the media’s role in Big Brother’s demise. As Lawson points out, the show’s erstwhile promoters (the redtops and the likes of Heat) have barely touched this year’s in-house shenanigans.

Adding fuel to this argument is former Heat editor Mark Frith. In a recent interview, he even cited Big Brother’s decline as a reason for his departure:

“I certainly felt I left at the right point… I feel that we were never going to sell any more copies than we were at that point. I’d gone off Big Brother, I was Big Brother’s number one fan and even I’d stopped watching it and that’s a huge part of our year.”

Assuming their prediction is correct, what will this mean for celebrity media – and the mainstream media by association? At a time when journalists are stretched and celebrities are so strictly PR-controlled, what will take its place?

If other reality formats (X Factor, etc.) go a similar way, the media will be bereft of ready-made and easy-to-report celebrity. There are only so many staged ‘paparazzi’ shots and ‘source-close-to-the-star’ fabrication that readers can take.

So unless Britney goes bonkers every year, it’ll be interesting to see what fills the void.

Case study wanted: Are you EXACTLY like Simon Cowell?

We’re told not to believe everything we read. But the sheer breadth of journalistic artifice can scarcely be understood outside of the industry. Aimed at PRs, journalist request services such as Response Source Enquirer betray the level of invention across our mainstream media and expose the degree to which 'news' is merely a figment of media opportunism.

Any high-profile news will inevitably be followed by dozens of requests for ‘real-life case studies’. A great example was sent out today:

Some requests, like the one above, are astonishingly specific. And payment is often involved. £200, you say? Then sure – I’m friends with exactly 17 of my exes. £500?! OK, I also wear unnaturally high-waisted trousers! (Why not?)

What we’re left with is a disproportionate number of PR people profiled in the papers, perhaps for obvious reasons (£500 you say?). So if it seems too good to be true, it's safe to assume that sometimes – just sometimes – some of this stuff is false.