Quote of the day

Just spotted this in a previous post from TWL, clear, concise to the point, at a time when there’s lot’s of faffing about trying to “understand” this whole social media, web 2.0 and all that (anyone know what web 1.0 was, has it been replace? Is it still there?).

Worth bearing in mind next time a client/prospect asks you how you intend to deal with “them pesky blogs”

Consistent messaging across a range of media is a challenge because of the subtle differences in the way audiences engage with each medium. It’s the type of thing that really allows the PR industry to lead the way with insightful consulting, as getting it right relies on a degree of human judgement and experience. It’s certainly a lot more complicated than, say, a straight forward thing such as consistent pricing.

What’s the world coming to…?

Apologies for the prolonged absence… found myself press ganged by a group of Tibetan freedom fighters in Finsbury Park – not sure which bit was worse, being taken halfway round the world to indulge in hand to hand combat with Nepalese guerillas in an epic struggle to regain the sixteen square feet of the Himalayan foothills that is known as pni folong (roughly translates as “boggy patch”) or finding myself back in the Manor House neck of the woods for the first time in many a long year – some things just never change.

Anyway, among the seemingly endless lists of hapless flacks being soundly and justifiably beaten up by hacks who don’t have the time to respond to these releases (but manage to find the time to blog about how they don’t have the time to respond to releases) there have been a couple of interesting posts concerning the incredible liberties that some hacks take with this new-fangled internet technology and how mindlessly easy it has become to ask everyone for a favour, but few on the quality of the tech press. Now I’ve been vociferous on the whole issue of whether individuals should be exposed, so I’m not about to step over my own lines, but I hope the article on Coputers gets a proper kicking by the subs involved, otherwise I’ll have to buy dozens of copies and distribute them with a little note that says….

QUERY: Computers, Broadcast and Television equipment, Coputer hardware, Coputers Software, mobile phones, media players, PDA’s, motorbikes, technology,lifestyle, coputers business, marketing…

And if I’m not mistook, TWL is currently running not one but TWO competitions/awards affairs at the same time! And sponsored by Edelman no less…

Catching up

Much like Sally over at Getting ink, The Spud has just completed a relocation to a “more desirable” field, so I’m a little behind the goings-on. I did, however, catch up with Sally’s interesting set of suggestions on how to get a hack to make/take a phone call.

The post seems to have been inspired by a flack having gone over a hack’s head to complain at the singular lack of cooperation shown by the unnamed hack in the phone interview stakes. I agree completely that going over anyone’s head to complain to their boss is unforgivable, although if, as I suspect the flack involved had exhausted all other possibilities, what option would he have been left with? Said flack is, presumably trying to provide a valuable contributor to said hack’s article (otherwise hack would have made it clear that it wasn’t his bag) so why the lack of cooperation from hack?

If Sally’s thoughts on the nature of grudges and, more specifically journalistic ones is anything to go by then the answer is somewhere not far removed from childishness. Are there hacks in the UK who believe that certain flacks have personal vendettas against them? Do hacks really believe that the endless stream of irrelevant releases are sent solely to them? I didn’t think so, so why the over zealous reaction?

“The unfortunate thing about being so darned helpful is that you’ve instantly and permanently killed your working relationship with the hack. He’s going to remember your name long after he’s forgotten the name of your client, your agency, or the chap at the council. Next time he has two equally good pitches? He’s gonna take the one that’s not from you. Every time.
It’s a harsh truth that hacks bear grudges.”

Shame, all that. One day we’ll perhaps wake up and notice that we’re all in this to get stuff published, one way or another. I just hope I don’t ever get the wrong side of one of Sally’s grudges.

Another League

Charles Arthur came up with a good idea the other day – although one that I’m sure was suggested in jest – a league table for PR’s and journalists. Works like this:

“If you’re not in the top league, you can’t pitch to national papers. You have to work your way up through the trades and so on. Like football – third division clubs don’t get to take on Chelsea or Man U or whatever. Fascinating idea. How do we implement it? Equally, of course, journos on trade papers and so on couldn’t ring up Max Clifford – but then, do they anyway?”

Now, I don’t know if anyone ever phones Max Clifford, and if they do I have no idea why, but what I do know is a good idea when I see one, and this is it. it would be great!

Imagine the scene – Charles being high profile ‘n’ all, would be talking to the top five all day – and I’d be talking to the International Journal of Cardboard Packaging Manufacturers – on a monthly basis.

What this particular idea highlights once again is the notion of status. That the size and “power” that a high profile agency has is reflective of the quality of the products that they’ll flog. It’s simply not true, at least not any more.

Let’s imagine an overseas client bringing a new product (or more likely a new version of an existing product) to the UK market, he will be face with an army of tech PR agencies vying for the right to promote its wares. The choice for the client is between the influence that agency x carries, and the retainer that agency y is asking for. If we add the league table to this equation then the lightweights are blown out of the water and the middleweights are once again scrapping on activity for the pieces.

I’m a long-standing reader of Technology Guardian, and I hope that one day I’ll work for an agency big enough and prestigious enough that I’ll be allowed to call Charles and pitch a client to him that he’s not already aware of – although I’m worried that because I work for the big agency, he’ll already know about my client, whereas while I was at the little agency I wasn’t allowed to call Charles and pitch a client that he hadn’t heard of.

Am I the only one not looking forward to a time when Charles’ writing becomes samey and dull, because he’s too far up the food chain to get news from the plankton of the PR world…?

Back in the Day

The Friendly Ghost links to a very interesting post by Kami Huyse on Communication Overtones about the differences between PR practice now and back in the day. For those who haven’t lived PR in the pre-email era it’s quite an eye opener and there are some very valid points therein.

Attacked! (again)

There seems to have been a fair bit of keyboard bashing lately concerning the annoying habits that some of the more inept among the PR fraternity insist on preserving, and the scatter gun press release looks like it comes out on top.

The Spud isn’t about to defend it, it is poor, lazy practice and it ends up tarring all of us with the same broad brush, but there seems to be a rather disconcerting trend toward “outing” the culprits involved, which has reached a line over which, I hope for all our sakes, it doesn’t cross.

Charles Arthur kicked off the current round of PR bashing last week with the wonderfully titled Die, PR, die, a post full of (perfectly valid) complaints, but – more importantly for such a high profile hack, the names of the villains involved.

If that, combined with the ongoing efforts of the Bad Pitch Blog et al, wasn’t uncomfortable enough, today the Spud stumbled across “Idiot PRs” a page of Systeme D’s site dedicated to reproducing example’s of releases that he’s received which aren’t relevant to his publication, which , just in case anyone’s really interested, is the positively addictive Waterways World.

There’s a whole separate post about Systeme D’s arrogance, self righteousness and self importance (not that he’s alone – he’s by no means the most insufferable) but that can wait. I’m sure he’s really a lovely fellow.
For now the Spud’s only concern with Systeme D’s approach is the inclusion of email addresses. I ask you, is that necessary? Before you tut and roll your eyes – no, the Spud’s not on his list (at least not yet) but the Spud is left wondering if the stakes aren’t likely to be raised in the inevitable next round of assassinations by the inclusion of home phone numbers, addresses maybe even photos?

And there’s the line – I would hate to see it crossed, but I fear it has already.

The Spud’s question is whether attacking, exposing and ridiculing those at the bottom of this food chain is anything like a constructive manner in which to approach an already difficult situation? Is Systeme D satisfied with the idea that there’s an AE in one of the many piss poor agencies getting ripped to bits by a director not only because they fucked up, but because SD and others choose to make that public – not the agency, the individual within the agency who’s probably either out of a job now or making the tea. Has that improved things? Do you get fewer irrelevant emails now?

Those who send badly aimed releases don’t do it for fun – no honest they don’t – they aren’t just trying to annoy you for a laugh. They’re doing it because they can’t afford to miss you. Because the primary force driving their agency and their directors isn’t the vision of a better tomorrow for all concerned, a world of softly lit sun dappled media relations where everyone is bestest mates, Instead it’s the fear of not being able to justify the fee, not delivering what you’ve already vastly over promised and not keeping the client. It stinks from the top down, not from the bottom up.

The PR industry in the UK – and the vast body of “middleweight” tech PR agencies in particular – find themselves working for increasingly demanding clients, competing with each other on excessive activity instead of attainable quality, over servicing to a degree that simply cannot be sustained and most importantly and as a side effect struggling to find good people (see TWL’s excellent post on the subject). All of this produces a poor quality, poorly focused output. It is under-prepared, under-researched, and aimed at everything and anything that moves. None of this is an excuse, just an effort at outlining the circumstances under which some of your favourite “PR idiots” are working. Nor is it a call for sympathy either, as I said the problem lies inside of the PR industry and the Spud does not and will not defend or condone it.

Above and beyond all of that is the fact that those rare, freshly qualified, capable people that we so desperately need to draw into UK PR will be doing a bit of research while wondering if getting into PR is as sinister as they’ve been told, and will soon (and increasingly) find that the average AE’s idea of a good day at the office is not getting a hatful of shit hot clippings, securing an interview with #1 target publication or front paging The Times, but having avoided ending up on someone’s “hit list”. Not a good result by anyone’s standards.

These specifically targeted blasts are not going to help us entice good candidates into the game, people who could help to raise standards all round. It’s going to drive them away.

It’s easy to snipe, dig and laugh – but once we’ve frightened them all off, Richard, you won’t even have an irrelevant press release to complain about.

Anonymity Or Not?

Is the Spud hiding behind a pseudonym through fear? Insecurity? Do I have some libellous information to post? One thing the Spud is doing right now is trying to work out which part of the following is the most preposterous:

Anonymous said…

Hang on a minute, isn’t the Spud blogging anonymously?? So what’s Ian Green getting so defensive about?As Ian himself puts it: “If you want to engage in the conversation – please reveal yourself.”

Why should posters not remain anonymous while the very bloggers they comment on are doing the same?

Spud (more or less) said:

I don’t feel like I’m anonymous, at least not to the same degree. Spudgun is a young blog right now, but the spud’s personality will become more apparent with each post and you’ll have an idea of what the spud is all about. And now you know where to find me

Anon, on the other hand, is and remains completely and utterly anon.

So I’m going to leave it to you guys to decide whether you feel that the Spud’s real life identity is of the national interest and should be disclosed under FoI legislation…

Should all commenters be forced at least to make up a name? After all, if the spark of imagination is bright enough for them to have something to say, surely there’s enough there to think up a name? I’ve got into plenty of discussions in the comments on other peoples sites, that die a death because there’s five or six anons posting, and no one has any idea who’s saying what, and to whom.

Would any contribution I might make be more valid if my identity was public knowledge? Is the same true for, say TWL. A blog with a history, a personality, but an anonymous blog none the less – not hidden, but anonymous. Or The Friendly Ghost? Or maybe even the myriad blogs that exist outside of our little world. I could go on…

A Daily Liff

CORRIEARKLET (n.)

The moment at which two people approaching from opposite ends of a long passageway, recognice each other and immediately pretend they haven’t. This is to avoid the ghastly embarrassment of having to continue recognising each other the whole length of the corridor.

The Counter

Getting Ink has started a simple, yet potentially very effective category. “Things You Might Like To Know” aims to knock together some of those simple, yet valuable bits of information that can so easily end up making life easier for everyone concerned.

As per some of the comments on TWL’s post on job satisfaction (which, not to put too fine a point on it, is a very insightful look at what may well be the future of the industry) one of the biggest handicaps to a new recruit into the PR world – or at least to, let’s say a middleweight tech PR agency – is that there is little or no formal training, no time for acclimatisation, and the already significant differences between the freshly qualified PR’s expectations and the cold, hard treadmill of reality are magnified to chasm-like gaps.

There are lots of basic differences between the flack and the hack, but more importantly there are lots more basic similarities. The same applies across the board. I got into PR in the UK fairly late, and have practised a heap of other disciplines before I did, the one thing I’ve always tried to do is to redress is the imbalance that occurs when the participants in any professional situation consider themselves “buyer” and “seller”. Let’s call it the “counter”.

In all professional situations, as soon as the counter is introduced, relations between the protagonists on either side deteriorate rapidly. The idea being that the buyer is all powerful and always right, and the seller is morally, never mind contractually, obliged to supply the buyer with his every wish. In the case of flack/hack relations the situation is fairly obvious.

Unfortunately, there are and always will be, certain hacks who enjoy the position – “very busy and important” people who expect to be looked after to the point of wet nursing under all circumstances. There are also inept, clumsy and downright idiot PR practitioners, and always will be, but these people make up a very visible minority. The rest of the industry (flack and hack) is made up with people who make every effort to deal with each other on a “level playing field” – each appreciating the other’s position to the best of their ability, and here’s where Sally’s “MLTK” (Sally’s a keen acronymer/acronymiser (if there is such a thing) in her spare time) can be a really useful tool.

If we can get rid of the misunderstandings, misconceptions and frequent downright lies about how both parties operate we’ll have gone a long way to levelling this playing field, getting shot of the “counter” dealing with each other on a more human basis and finally getting on with the jobs we’re all being woefully underpaid to do.

In the Same League…?

Watch out! The Friendly Ghost has been compiling stats again! This time a ‘league table’ if you like of the top 70 or so PR bloggers.

It’s an interesting table for lots of reasons, not least the frequent discrepancies between Alexa/Technorati/Bloglines et al, but mostly for the fact that it includes the spud. Yup, the spud is there. True, you have to scroll a long way down to find us, but there we are – right at the bottom with nul points. Not that we mind – this blog had been live for a whole two days at the time of TFG’s post – so despite the lack of points we’re rather flattered to be included in such esteemed company.

Hopefully the next revision of TFG’s figures will see a change at the bottom, in the meantime, must try harder…