Embracing the Future

Had a photo shoot today with our digital marketing partners Adoofa (www.adoofa.com). The clear and sunny morning, with the futuristic Lowry Centre on Salford Quays as a backdrop, were ideal for pictures celebrating our partnership with established specialists in SEO and online marketing, and Smith & Smith's move into digital PR.

The Internet has opened up so many new ways of communicating, and of reaching previously 'difficult' market segments, from websites through to blogs, guerrilla marketing, podcasts and vidcasts.

Methods of communication seem to move so fast these days, and it's sometimes a challenge for PR companies, as well as their clients, to keep abreast of them.

I found a lovely quote from British historian Arnold Toynbee, who wrote in Civilization On Trial: "Civilization is a movement, not a condition ... a voyage, not a harbour."

I think there's something quite comforting in Toynbee's words. After all, we can't define any generation by anything static; it's all constantly in flux. Embracing that idea, along with each era's new technologies and new challenges, will make us all a lot happier.

Cool-Headed Brit CEOs (... and PRs) Lead the Way in Crisis Management

A new survey suggests that British CEOs are much better at crisis management than their overseas counterparts.

British businesses are apparently more likely to issue formal public apologies and less likely to try keeping the CEO out of the spotlight at all costs, according to the poll which questioned 950 business leaders in 11 countries.

This is good news - but we still have a long way to go. Too often at Smith & Smith we are approached by organizations urgently needing crisis management, who have left it very late in the day to bring in PR professionals and who bafflingly had no ongoing crisis management strategy in place. I believe all businesses should have a basic strategy in place for dealing calmly, quickly and effectively with worst-case scenarioes.

When the proverbial manure hits the fan, the situations can be frightening - for CEOs, staff and consumers. Prevention really is better than cure - and crisis management is something that should be taken seriously way before any crises occur.

Survey by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research, October 2006.

Kazakh Gleanings to Make Benefit Glorious Profession of PR

Good news that officials in Kazakhstan have confirmed that they will be hiring a PR agency to deal with the country's image in the wake of Sacha Baron Cohen's film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which is on general release in the UK from today.

I doubt Smith & Smith PR will be pitching for it, but I'm glad the Kazakh government are at least taking matters into their own hands and getting the professionals in ...

www.prweek.com (reporter: Robyn Lewis)
www.kazakhstanembassy.org.uk

DC

Yikes! So David Cameron has been named / crowned 'Communicator of the Year' at the PR Week Awards, with special praise for Cameron's use of new media techniques to engage younger people.

But Cameron seems wary of the 'style over substance' tag, telling our industry magazine that he's not sure how to handle the accolade: "If I'm too enthusiastic, I'll be accused of over-emphasizing communications ..."

As we all know, DC is former PRO of Carlton Communications, and has been careful to surround himself with a trusted team of experienced communications professionals including Steve Hilton.

'Webcameron' hit the headlines and made DC look like a man with a hotline to the future, and his use of blogging could help portray him as someone who is for transparent politics as opposed to 'spin'.

Banging the Drum for Creative Industries in the Provinces

New name and new frequency for the trade magazine formerly known as Adline - now The Drum (www.thedrum.co.uk). The magazine of all things to do with the creative industries outside of the M25 has now gone from monthly to fortnightly - a sure indication of the robust state of affairs in the provinces of PR, advertising, design and related industries.

"There's never been a better time to be outside London," says Mairi Clark, editor. Quite!

On a niggling point, she says that the new fortnightly magazine is so called because "we want to look at all the different ways clients are using communications ... and the drum was the earliest form of communication." Now I'm no Richard Leakey, but I know that's not quite true - although I admit that a fortnightly trade paper called The Grunt might have been less than ideal.

In any case, The Drum - happy frequency-upgrade!

North and South

While I've told people till I'm blue in the face that the North enjoys a vibrant PR industry, the fact is that I still need to travel down to London regularly for client meetings or events. I've no problem with that - even us northerners acknowledge that London is the capital city! - but something needs to be done about the dreadful transport situation.

The trains are much nicer than they used to be, esp. since the introduction of the Quiet Zones on Virgin, but trying to get back from London to Manchester after evening events is not for the faint-hearted. The 22:00-ish train gets in after 1am (taking a full hour longer than daytime trains), the train's shop is usually half-empty - I "affectionately" call it The Dehydration Express - and leaving events at 9pm to dash across to Euston just isn't the done thing.

Yes there are planes, but we have a firm environmental policy at Smith & Smith PR; plane-hopping between British cities just isn't right for us.

Frequent, rapid evening trains would really help bridge the North-South divide - get onto it, Mr Branson!

Taking the Measure of Bad PR

A lot of our PR clients come to us after having been 'casualties' of larger agencies. The most common complaints we hear from them re: PR services they've had in the past are:

(i) the head honcho / senior managers came to pitch for the account, but our day-to-day account handlers were all very junior;

(ii) clients felt they were "paying every month while the clock ticked and there was no real coverage";

(iii) the first thing the PR companies do is instigate a total branding overhaul, when the clients were happy with the branding they had;

(iv) the clients felt there was no measurability to the PR campaigns.

All these points are awful to listen to, because all of them are so avoidable - but the last point about measurability is the one that really gets my goat. Professional PR campaigns are very measurable, through EAVs (Equivalent Advertising Value) and a host of other tools.

Measuring the effectiveness of a campaign, and on an ongoing basis, is vital. If an agency tells you otherwise, steer clear!