I was watching the Channel 4 News yesterday when a piece came on that shows that some big businesses really think that coersion and not dialogue is the best way to get results - a gross underestimation of PR.

I am not sure if I should be amazed after the McLibel trial, but the same mistakes are being repeated.

The story is as follows:

Around many pits there are man made gravel pits. Eyesores at first, some fill with water and gradually many animals and birds make them home. One such gravel pit is Radley Lakes in Oxfordshire; gravel pit is now a misleading term as it looks like a natural beauty spot and is enjoyed by the local community.

NPower has decided to dump 500,000 tonnes of waste fuel ash (PFA), which will fill in the lake and destroy the habitat. NPower claims that prior to it being a gravel pit it was meadows and they are simply restoring the natural balance. Very few locals agree with this view.

At this point you might expect a company that claims to enhance bio diversity, as Indy Media disbelievingly reported, would talk to locals, open a dialogue and if possible find a compromise. In fact the reverse has happened, NPower has decided to use draconian laws banning media coverage! They have claimed that their staff, busy destroying the lake, have been intimidated by local protesters, which include the vicar, a photographer and a retired scientist.

Channel 4 presented the witness statements on their report, all of whom are NPower security staff, which were used in court. NPower claimed harassment of staff but it did not seem to add up and was over stated.

Now it is an offence to photograph the site and the media has been effectively muzzled. Taking a photo of the destruction of the lake will be meet with lawyers giving out court injunctions and masked security men adding a little physical presence. They claim harassment of staff.

Yes, it might be a saving to dump here but they have not factored the PR negative publicity. The more they obstruct the media the more the campaign will flourish, it might become a viral PR campaign. One case study I like to recount made Ben and Jerry’s and seriously damaged rival Haagen Daaz was a viral PR campaign coined “What’s the dough boy afraid of?”

The cause has been featured by the Guardian amongst others - if NPower handled it well it would be a local issue and nothing more. It looks like the impasse will damage NPower and will probably be picked up by the nationals, if it hasn’t already.

What made me smile is the role of online PR: I searched “Npower PR disaster” on Google and on the page NPower pay per click came up. They certainly have a super digital marketing agency.

Anyway….

Nick Jaspan, the man behind Newsco and the NW Enquirer, is launching a portal for North West media professionals in April.

The new site called How-Do will cater to the 130,000 creative media and marketing professionals in the region, which generate £12 billion a year.

Besides the daily news articles, readers will be able to leave comments and the portal will act as a “gateway” to 200 industry blogs.

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
Oscar Wilde

Radio Five Live broadcast an interesting feature on blogging. The essential questions were whether you could make money from it and how advertisers could exploit the medium, especially if the numbers visiting a blog are relatively small compared to broadcast media.

Two interviewees and bloggers answered the questions and I think got it right:

Craig McGinty makes his living through his blog: This French Life. He expounded the view that being established as a leader in a field can mean as much as making money. What price reputation as my previous entry on return on investment on PR talks about?

Mick Fealty a political blogger from Northern Ireland put over the good point that blogs can reach the audience many advertising campaigns cannot reach.

If a blog can interact with a small audience but an audience inaccessible to other marketing then it is a far more powerful proposition than spending big money with a “mud against the wall” campaign.

To listen to the feature please click here.

All PR professionals must grapple with the perennial problem that affects our industry: Return On Investment (ROI).

We are in the marketing fraternity but we are not as lucky as direct marketers or digital media professionals; in both cases exact figures on ROI can be made or at least to a greater degree. Moreover, not only can unique visitors, return visits and leads be made for online marketing, the agency can also include the added bonus of talking about adding value through reinforcing the brand. Direct marketers can also show the figures that make managing directors eyes water.

Can PR agencies do the same for offline PR?

Yes, we can show the amount of coverage in terms of the cost it would take if the space was achieved by advertising. We can, if the client has been tracking, ascertain the number of leads.

Yet, PR is notorious for being hard to fully assess. Two of PR’s biggest attributes that far outstrip direct marketing and many other forms of marketing are profile (recognition) and brand value (perceived worth of a service). But how do you measure that? You know it is happening, one of my clients has sent me an e-mail today to tell me he had congratulatory calls from associates that had seen his latest account win in a business magazine. Yet, I cannot put a figure on it.

It terms of cost against results PR has a lot to offer although we cannot accurately determine how much. It is a powerful marketing channel and can make and break companies: Ben and Jerry’s was made through great PR alone and Ratners broken through poor communications.

So where do we go from here on this question?

Well, I think figures are only a part of any business story. We are a figures obsessed society: health managers, crime and education being broken down to figures as the key basis for determining success. The statistics might be saying improvement but who thinks any of these areas is on the up despite what the figures purportedly state?

I think we have to see PR as a way that can have returns in a number of ways, such as improved profile, a way to reinforce key messages and perceived value of a service as well as the hard facts about leads and sales.

I was talking to journalist and master blogger Craig McGinty about this very point. He said look at it from the perspective of how much you save for the client. How much time and cost would be needed to gain the coverage and the benefits through other channels? It is a good point.

As PR increasingly uses online methods the issues will continue rather than diminish. Blogs offer the returns of many offline techniques. They can be equally hard to assess, as discussed on this blog on the 29th January. What price reputation, community and exchange of ideas?

The question and possible answers continue to be a source of discussion.

I was talking to Nathan Smith of Manchester based Smith and Smith PR. He observed that you see few PR agency staff over 30. The exception is, in the main, director level staff but this does not explain the discrepancy.

So where do they all go? Is there a Logan’s Run type scenario going on that means people over age 30 are terminated as PR professionals, a flashing palm being an obvious clue?

The serious reasons could be staff taking time out to have families, change of careers and, most probably, moving to in-house teams - a move that is less stressful and often pays more.

For an industry that is so popular - the CIPR states that PR is in the top three career choices for graduates - it is not hard to replace staff in terms of numbers.

It is a shame if vital experience is lost for clients and the standing of the profession because a ready supply of replacements is at hand. Indeed it could be detrimental to the standard of service offered.

If Nathan’s throwaway observation is evidence of an underlying problem it really needs to be addressed.

Jimmy Johnstone passed away on the 13th March 2006.

He was a football genius , who was part of the Celtic side that beat Inter Milan to become the first British club to win the European Cup.

What is amazing is that all of Celtics players were born in Glasgow or its environs. Essentially, a Glasgow boys eleven won the European Cup.

What has this to do with PR? Very little. I just wanted to pay tribute to a footballer the equal of George Best and a man who was humble, modest and with a great sense of humour. He will also be remembered for the way he fought Motor Neurone disease, with fortitude and with a desire to raise funds for research although he knew it would be too late to help him.

The Jimmy Johnstone fund can be found by clicking here.

The Good: Levi Roots

Levi took his 15 minutes of fame on Dragon’s Den and made it work for him to such effect that he has won a contract with Sainsbury’s. The MOBO nominated Reggae singer made his entry on the programme singing Proper Tings “The Reggae Reggae Song.”

The perplexed entrepreneurs were soon won over and seeing the PR and marketing possibilities of Levi and his Reggae Reggae jerk barbecue sauce, they took a 40% share for £50,000.

Levi’s sauce is now stocked in 600 of their stores. And if you want the song, you can now download it.

The Bad: Newt Gingrich

The right-wing Rebublican behind the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton for alleged perjury has now confessed he was having an affair at the time with an intern.

Is he ashamed? Sure.

Is he sincere? Of course his pre-emptive heart felt contrition comes before a possible bid for The White House.

The Ugly: Liz Hurley

The wedding’s celebrations in Bombay and Jodhpur have been a PR disaster. If the first PR debacle of trying to shift local people off their beach in Bombay was not enough, there was apparently a ban on mobiles in the palace in case any unwanted magazines unofficially snapped the great event. But the ban extended to the owner’s, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, private wing. Can no one be trusted? And then the security guards decided to attack the press.

Did her PR people learn nothing from the Catherine Zeta Jones episode?

I was discussing with Simon Wharton that he wanted a release for his satirical video “Number One on the Google.” I had my doubts. However, he explained that he wanted to use it as a tool to build and generate links and interest. Well strangely enough I came across a really interesting article from Lee Odden about making your online press releases work for you as a marketing channel.

Lee explains: “Press releases were originally designed as a communication tool between company PR staff or public relations firms and the media. But now that online news sites such as Yahoo News and Google News contain such an abundance of press release content and RSS makes it easy to syndicate news, press releases can be effectively used as a direct to consumer communication tool.”

Lee offers 10 tips that can help utilise the online press release - a bit of an eye opener and something to read and re-read until it is second nature.

Thanks to Jim Symcox of Acorn Service who has had a good spot with PC World’s 50 most important people connected with the Internet (as reported on Yahoo).

The usual suspects are there: Steve Jobs, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Consortium and Jerry Yang, David Filo and Terry Semel of Yahoo. Bill Gates is not.

Pleasing to see Craig Newmark founder of Craigslist and Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia in there although no big surpise.

There is the odd, no corporate and surprising entry: Tila Tequila, a MySpace celebrity who has had her profile viewed more than 1.5 million times. She has enjoyed some celebrity away from the online world generated by her My Space activities. A career originating from being a MySpace celebrity!

A really brilliant entry is Mohammed and Omar Fadhil who blog from Baghdad at Iraq the model. This gives a real on the ground insight into the political situation in Iraq. Very well written for a non English native speaker, it is also well read if the large number of comments is anything to go by. Highly influential!

The last two entries show the power of social media. Influence is now being shared rather than being owned by a few media moguls. There is an alternative although traditional media and social media will exist side by side. After all did the catalogue displace the high street as predicted in the 20s? Did the PC displace paper? No.

It has shifted the balance of power though.

Long live the social media revolution!

PushON the online search marketing specialist agency is using video as a tool for viral marketing campaigns.

The agency has termed the campaign an “experiment” as it learns the value and best practice for utilising video to drive traffic to their site. They are hoping the lessons learned will help them to give their clients a more effective service.

The video has already generated leads and is starting to be picked up outside PushON’s circle of associates.

To follow the campaign go to the PushON blog.

To see the video click here.