Welcome to the PRmoment blog!
We are the ”eyes and ears ” side of PRmoment.com, a great new website for the PR industry.
We’ll mostly talk about PR stuff but occasionally we might digress…
PR agencies in rush to increase financial services offering
Posted on September 2nd, 2010 by Ben SmithMost senior agency people I’ve spoken to recently seem to tell me about their desire to move into, or increase their offering, in financial services PR.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised, as yields in this sector are traditionally higher than the likes of consumer or tech PR (although lower than financial PR or healthcare.) As the UK –hopefully- continues to grow out of recession, some of the large PR brands are looking to increase their market share within this area.
Tough gig though I thought. Competition is fierce in this area. The likes of Lansons continue to do excellent work and the larger players all have established financial services teams.
And where would you start? We’ve been talking about the lack of trust in financial services for (arguably) 30 years. People are angrier with the financial services sector now than ever before. It’s quite a PR challenge.
Hotwire’s Brendon Craigie reckons that “When it comes to public trust in the banking sector there seems to be a general lack of engagement with the public. It is as if elements of the financial services sector occupy a parallel universe where they are aware of the challenges and problems they face from a reputation perspective, but their way of addressing issues is through lobbyists and the corridors of power. Ultimately I think there needs to be recognition from people working in financial services that there is a public debate going on out there and they have two choices; participate and try and address concerns and misconceptions, or keep their heads down knowing that the issues are not going to go away.”
Lets face it. When you pay bonuses of £millions, the money that is spent on communications is pretty much small change. But what seems to be happening is that financial services companies are not only prioritising the Financial Mail and the FT, but also recognising the need for engagement and communication with the public, presumably with the aim of gradually building trust in the sector.
Personally, I’d suggest paying themselves a bit less might also be a good start, but what do I know…
What do PR recruiters want to see in PR candidates?
Posted on June 29th, 2010 by Ben SmithIt remains a tough job market. Yes there are positions available but recruiters continue to tell PRmoment.com that the quality of candidates isn’t of a sufficiently high quality.
I find this difficult to believe (maybe they are just looking for candidates in the wrong place, hasn’t PRmoment.com just launched its own jobs board?)
Plug aside, I speak to a fair few agency MD’s and HR managers (who increasingly seem to be named Talent Managers!) so I thought it might be useful to summarise what they are looking for from a candidate in an interview situation:
1. Show you care
This means be passionate in how you come across. Don’t just say you’re passionate in an Andy Murray monotone!
Other ways to show you care are to bring along a copy of your CV, arrive on time, dress smartly and demonstrate you understand what their business is about. (No one is expecting you to recall verbatim their web site, but drop in a few factoids and the MD’s name.)
2. Tell them what you would do for them
It’s a bit of a cliché but it’s vital to understand your personal brand. Essentially, in an interview recruiters are trying to work out that if they pay you £40K, what return on investment will they get.
Therefore, you must demonstrate what it is that you will bring to the organisation. It’s imperative that you show an understanding of what you will be doing all day and demonstrate that you will be good at it.
How do you do that? Basically, by living your CV. Know it backwards. Be able to evaluate your successes and demonstrate how your skills will be useful to the organisation. Talk the interviewer through what you have done, why you were good at it and what you bought to the table.
3. Be articulate
It’s been talked about a lot but how you present yourself matters. Make sure you look people in the eye, stand up when your interviewers enter the room, a dry, firm handshake. It’s all important stuff.
4. Communication skills
If you can’t impress a future employer in an interview, how on earth are you going to communicate with clients and/or journalists? So yes, it goes without saying really, you must be able to string a sentence together.
The Future for Media Evaluation
Posted on June 21st, 2010 by Ben SmithI was lucky enough to be asked to attend AMECs recent conference in Barcelona. Very nice it was too. As ever with these events, some of the more interesting revelations were discovered away from the conference hall in the informal networking (drinking) sessions after the conference. I’m no media evaluation expert, but here are a few thoughts on the future of the sector…
1. Media evaluation needs to rebrand
Media evaluation. It hardly sounds thrilling does it? Imagine calling a Director of Comms, or a CEO and saying “ we are a media evaluation company, we need talk.” I don’t reckon you’d get through the PA.
Now try this: “Hi CEO, I’m from a Reputational Risk Consultancy and I have identified some serious touch points which I believe could wipe millions off your balance sheet.”
Believe me, they would take your call. Well you’d have a better chance anyway.
What’s my point? Media evaluation is underselling itself. It’s not (just) about media evaluation any more, it’s about stakeholder analysis and linking this to stakeholder actions. It obviously includes print, online, broadcast and social media.
The phrase ‘media evaluation’ has olde-worlde connotations and suggests you’re only looking at the coverage, not the actions. This need not be the case.
2. How reputation risk helps the banks
I sat next to a bearded, charming Icelandic fellow at the dinner called Samuel. He was a finance guy at heart; his boss had just bought a media evaluation company and had instructed him to attend the conference to find out what it was all about.
He wasn’t a shy chap and proclaimed: “They’ve got it all wrong” my ears obviously pricked up, “it’s all about risk.”
“Well yes”, I said and talked a bit about my thoughts above. “No”, said Samuel: “You’ve got it wrong too!”
His point was that the big money to be made in media evaluation is in helping banks establish risk. Media evaluation companies can help the banks to gather information about what consumers are saying about their business customers in the media, be that print, online or social.
This enables the bank to more easily manage the financial risk of its business clients. So if a business brings out a poor product, no longer can it tell the bank it’s a great product, because the bank can see through its media analysis that it’s getting ripped to pieces on Twitter.
Good idea I thought.
3. This insurance of reputation
I can also confirm that at least one UK-based media evaluation firm has been approached by insurers to see if it is possible to put a value (and therefore a price) on the impact of a media crisis on a company’s share price.
This cost is likely to differ for different sectors and obviously by company size. But by working with media evaluation companies the insurer plans to produce a formula that produces a risk score, and therefore enables the insurer to put a price on insuring the company’s reputation. Interesting stuff. PRmoment.com is told that these discussions are at an early stage.
The AMEC Principles of PR Evaluation
Posted on June 21st, 2010 by Ben SmithYou may have seen a load of #amec10 tweets last week? If you missed it, nearly 200 senior PR professionals from across the globe met up to agree some principles to start the PR sector on a road to ensure that it measures itself in using some agreed and universal methodologies. This all took place at the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) Barcelona summit.
Some background
These principles themselves are described, even by AMEC Executive Director General Barry Leggetter, as “baby steps” but needless to say they are an important move in a unified direction.
Some of the principles outlined below might seem pretty obvious, indeed you might argue that a “we all believe in world peace” principle would be more controversial!
That said, this should be seen in some context. AMEC has a worldwide brief and the UK seems to have a bit of a lead in terms of media evaluation. So, while some of the UK and US practitioners at the summit were in favour of a more aggressive “let’s start the process of producing a final solution” attitude, this conference was all about agreeing in principle to move forward.
The real challenge for AMEC will be to ensure that it produces a roadmap to find agreement on a workable and universal method to measure PR over the future months and years.
PRmoment.com’s view on this is that, yes, this is an important first step. But if PR doesn’t get a wriggle on, PR and trade bodies like AMEC may find themselves overtaken by the current speed of change sweeping through PR and social media. The importance of this is emphasised by the economic climate, (the marketing disciplines must be able to demonstrate their ROI) and the trend of other marketing disciplines encroaching on PR’s space. (ie, if PR doesn’t sort out this issue, someone else will.)
The seven principles are outlined below (for me, point six is the most interesting):
1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programmes.
2. Media measurement requires quantity and quality – cuttings in themselves are not enough.
3. Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs) do not measure the value of PR and do not inform future activity.
4. Social media can and should be measured.
5. Measuring outcomes is preferred to measuring media results.
6. Business results can and should be measured where possible.
7. Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.
Time for PR to deliver – together
Posted on June 15th, 2010 by Ben SmithPR has always struggled to justify significant budgets relative to other elements of the marcomms mix. Why? Basically because when the advertising, DM and digital guy sit round the table for the monthly catch-up with the FD, the other areas can all come up with a cost per accusition number. It may be pie in the sky, no more than an estimate, but they come up with a figure.
When the PR guy is asked, historically they come up with some internal,arguably loosely relevant metric, and if things were really bad they might have even come up with AVEs. What PR has always lacked is a universally accepted metric, on which we can all draw a line in the sand and measure how good we are.
Happily, due partly to the bonus ball that social media has thrown PR, and partly because some important PR people have realised that we need to finally nail this issue, there is a little known, but important conference taking place in Barcelona this week. Organised by The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) this conference has some pretty lofty objectives. The plan is for a worldwide collection of industry leaders to unveil a set of principles that will set the criteria upon which PR evaluation must be based.
Not a final solution, but an important first step for PR to justify its contribution.
“Until now, public relations has been undervalued due to its inability to measure itself”, says Ketchum Pleon Partner David Rockland. “The goal of this summit is to establish consistency in order to increase credibility”.
There are clearly a couple of hurdles to overcome. For example, the profile of this summit amongst PRs in the UK is not what it should be, and I have to say that most PROs are still either bored or non plussed by this debate.
The organisers seem to recognise this though and Barry Leggetter, executive director of AMEC, says, “we believe organising this debate shows leadership and new thinking. We hope the global PR community will now get behind this issue and contribute to the development of the new industry standards”.
So, there is an education program required on various levels. But Ketchum Pleon’s Rockland adds that “We need to leave Barcelona with a set of standards for which every organisation –whether government, non-profit or private enterprise – should expect to be accountable and show proof that their programmes are working”.
So, there does seem to be a movement at senior levels, both in house and in consultancies, that PR must finally nail this issue. Partly because we need to ensure we are not gobbled up by other areas of the marcoms mix, and partly because we’re all bored of the debate and recognise the need to move things on.
Mandelson the Magician
Posted on May 18th, 2010 by Ben SmithSo, the Tories won. Just. It seems to me that the communications battle between the Tories and Labour splits into 2 halves. Pre Mandelson’s return as the Labour Party’s communications strategist, and post.
Mandelson’s strategy was not new, it was simply a variation on a series of tactics he’s followed for his whole communications career. But the tactics were effective and he’s uniquely brilliant at them:
- Retain control
- Attack the Conservatives
- Anyone who shows a lack of loyalty is made to be silent
- Trusted lieutenants only get the plum media spots (Any one see Alan Johnson during the election? Even David Milliband was pretty quiet.)
- Keep Brown out of the spotlight. Limit his appearances as much as is possible; he’s awful in front of the camera.
- Despite Brown’s enviable track record of insulting people and apparent press release addiction, label him as the antithesis of Blair. He’s a nice guy who doesn’t do spin. (It doesn’t quite add up but it’s all they had!)
Mandy’s Turnaround
Pre Mandy’s return, I recall the ever growing power of Andy Coulsen, Gordon on YouTube, Cabinet resignations and Frank Field as a constant thorn in Brown’s side. Charles Clarke and Alan Johnson were very active.
All these factors were controlled, either by avoidance or dictat.
What was success?
Quite what Mandy’s objectives were (privately or not) is debatable. But the Tories swing of only 6 points compares pretty favourably with an Ipsos Mori poll in June 2009 that gave the Conservatives a lead of 17%.
Bearing the dire economic state of the country and Brown’s unique genius of turning an otherwise decent press opp in to a disaster (YouTube if you want to, Biggot-gate, I saved the world etc) you’d have to say that Mandy has earned his crust this time around. The image of him smiling in defeat, very much looking like the cat that got the cream, suggests that he couldn’t quite believe what he had achieved during this dramatic election campaign.
He has saved the Labour Party from electoral oblivion, which might have taken 3 elections to recover from, to having a decent chance of power next time around. (Obviously depending on Dave’s performance.)
As a communicator he was forced to play vice captain to Alistair Campbell during the Blair years, well not this time. The country was in no doubt who was in charge, even Campbell knew it.
As an added bit of luck (even Mandy couldn’t have planned this bit) he’s taken care of the Lib Dems, who from Labours strategic perspective were becoming an increasingly difficult problem.
Labour loyalist or not, to take a party from a 17% deficit to a 6% deficit in under 12 months , with a lame duck of a Prime Minister and during the bleakest economic times since the war – you can only admire Sir Peter Mandelson’s efforts.
My only sadness is the question of what Sir Peter should do next. But it’s obvious. Chairman of the FA. Now Gordon’s left the stage they are the country’s biggest communications challenge.
Job prospects for the losing MPs
Posted on May 4th, 2010 by Ben SmithWe’re almost there. The election is only 2 days away, with any luck some of our more prominent politicians will soon be looking for alternative emloyment. I was giving some thought to writing about this issue, when our good friends at Frank PR gave me a call and reckoned their client MyWorkSearch.co.uk had done some thinking on this very issue.
This obviously pleased me greatly, as instead ofhaving to put some thought into this issue, I could just copy and paste! So thanks to MyWorkSearch.co.uk, I’m about to have a beer with the spare time you have given me! My personal favourite is the thought of Lempik Opik as an erotic fiction writer!
| CONSTITUENCY | SKILLS,EXPERIENCE, PERSONALITY | IDEAL JOB |
| Gordon Brown, Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath | Likes meeting members of the public, not afraid to express his views, champion of minorities (especially Eastern Europeans) | Community Diversity Officer |
| David Cameron, Witney | Member of the ‘Bullingdon’ club, likes making cuts, enjoys running outdoors, wants to ‘beef up’ national security | Organic butcher |
| Nick Clegg, Sheffield Hallam | ‘Man of the people’, likes putting a spanner in the works | Plumber |
| Jacqui Smith, Redditch | Original ‘Blair Babe’, knowledge of education, detention and sex laws, husband enjoys adult films | Anne Summers Party Organiser |
| Vince Cable, Twickenham | Experienced orator, good with numbers, used to playing second fiddle | Second-hand car salesman |
| George Osborne, Tatton | Used to making predictions on the economy, intricate knowledge of mortgages having been investigated over his repayments by the PSC | Estate Agent |
| John Prescott, Hull East (Standing down in 2010) | Likes fast cars, knowledge of self-defence, experience of being a deputy | Police Chief |
| David Miliband, South Shields | Expert in foreign etiquette, known for charm, used to waiting (in line to become next Labour leader) | Concierge |
| William Hague, Richmond (Yorks) | Known for comic wit during PMQs, experience of TV presenting, preceded David Cameron, boasts 14 pint minimum | Warm-up comedian |
| Ed Balls, Morley and Outwood | Reputed for being aggressive & ambitious with a treasury background. Once called the ‘most powerful unelected person in Britain’ as a civil servant | Bailiff |
| Lembit Opik, Montgomeryshire | Rated most liberal MP in parliament, known for liking twosomes | Erotic fiction writer |
| Nick Griffin, Barking | Cambridge graduate with good writing skills, likes uniforms, used to daily abuse from the public | Traffic Warden |
PRmoment.com’s relaunch
Posted on April 6th, 2010 by Ben SmithThe more observant amongst you will have noticed some changes to the site in the last week. And I thought it would be a good idea to talk a little about the rationale behind these changes.
First of all we hope you like it. We hope we have refined our editorial offering, so that we are still giving our readers a true insight into the world of PR and Communications. But we hope the new editorial will offer a practical look into some real life campaigns, while also giving you a light hearted insight into life as a PRO.
If you like what we’re doing, then please do get in touch, likewise if you don’t, we’ve been going less than a year so we accept that we are unlikely to be perfect.
In terms of the strategic plan, Stage 1 was very much about surviving the recession, giving ourselves a foothold in the market and to be honest learning what worked and what didn’t work.
That is now complete and we hope the subscriber base of over 9000 UK subscribers will give us sufficient volume to be able to launch an interactive site, that is able to have a deeper relationship with our readers and gives us a platform to launch a PR jobs board and a limited number of high quality, good value conferences.
