Making a good case study

Do they teach case study writing on PR degrees? Can anyone answer that? Richard? Ed? Alex? Owen?

I spent a considerable amount of time writing a case study at the behest of a client last week. I think it is the first time I have written a case study to promote a product rather than a service and it has led me to consider how best to pitch it to the press. There does not seem to be much literature on the subject of PR case studies, not online at least. Matthew Stibble has made a few good case study posts but from a journalist perspective.

In my mind the purpose of a case study should be to put a human face on a product or service. Not the human face of the company CEO or head of sales, but the human face of someone who has benefited from that service. So the main pitfall to avoid is making the case study sounding like an advert. I would hate to pitch this and receive countless e-mails with colour separation or advertorial charges.

So the brief was that an affluent country pub ‘up north’ had just installed one of our clients’ most upmarket outdoor furniture offerings…and it looks great. It actually does look great, sadly the hospitality/pub/catering press do not tend to write about things that look great so there needs to be plenty more background to this story. Why did he install it? Well when he took over the pub he was caught up in a fierce battle for the upmarket clientele within a small village. This is the friction that begins the story.

I tend to think a case study should be longer than a press release, if we try to keep a press release to 250 words, a case study should be no more than 250. It should also have quotes (proper quotes, not frankenquotes or manufactured quotes) and read with a beginning, middle and an end. The product should feature in the case study, but not be the feature of the case study. The case study should also be adaptable, each publication we pitch it to can tailor it to what they need.

I think, generally, I’m looking for what other people have learnt about case studies, either from experience or education. What’s the best way to pitch it? Any ideas, thoughts, suggestions are welcome.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I feel disjointed. The way a nocturnal university friend of mine must feel. He wakes up at 8pm, has breakfast, and heads down to the SU bar (or in the worst case scenario, has breakfast at the SU bar). Everyone is getting excited about summer and I’m already turning my attention to Christmas. Here’s why:

Unless I am very much mistaken, Christmas is on December 25th.

A huge number of Christmas/winter editions of magazines are released at the beginning November.

Many of these magazines have copy deadlines mid-September. So to gain anything resembling decent coverage it is important to begin working on these well before this.

This means, that as of the middle of July, I am working on Christmas features, events and related PR.

Note: For quarterly magazines – add an additional month or two.
Note 2: For Women’s interest magazines add about 3 months.
Note 3: For fashion magazines add about 3 years.

Though I have to say that I’m really looking forward to Christmas this year, then I can start working on summer again.

Joe the ice-cream man

One would be forgiven for thinking that last week, when the weather peaked at 36’C, the media might be a bit more welcoming of news releases and feature ideas that did not require them to do much work. Hell no. Hot weather is a catalyst of media activity. Desperate not to give their weather departments their only opportunity of the year to shine, journalists dash to crowded parts of the country where sick employees sunbathe their illnesses away.

One local news channel dug deeper than most to bring me this piece of hard-hitting journalism.

“I’m at the seaside with Joe (surname). Joe has brought his ice-cream truck to the car park behind us. So, Joe, business must be going well?”
Joe – “yes, it’s going really well, in this hot weather more people are buying ice-creams”

Yes. So they decided against covering the American Museum in Britain’s 4th July celebrations, and the wider significance of these celebrations given the political bonds between these two nations and the dilemmas that continue to strain this relationship.

If anyone knows who does the PR for Joe the Ice-Cream man, please pass on the details, I would love to speak to them.

Jedi masters of sales calls

Sales calls worry me. Answering the 4-way phone system we have here at apt is much like playing Russian roulette with your invaluable time. Roughly one in ten calls are sales calls.

Some sales calls are easy to weed out, “please can I speak to whoever handles your …” These calls are put through to our dial tone department. The worst offenders of wasting our time are those that call to ask if we are “looking for any marketing or pr assistance?” I certainly hope not. Though outsourcing our marketing & pr services would certainly lighten the work load a tad.

The main reason why sales callers worry me is I fear they might perform some form of Jedi mind trick. I worry about how my housemates will react when I ask for their contribution towards our new Franking Machine. Which, strangely, seem to represent about a quarter of the sales calls we receive. Other popular calls include to ‘ask about our electricity/phone suppliers’ or who is going to fill the vacancy that we didn’t realise we had.

So what can be done about sales callers? After all they are only doing their job. It’s not like I haven’t phoned plenty of journalists in the past to ask about features they’re covering, or would like to cover. Or try and persuade them why one of my clients is worth writing about. So are sales calls the karma for every journalist on a deadline I’ve bothered in the past?

Still those that handle advertising at apt have it much, much worse. Advertise once with a publication, and you’re a marked man (or woman) for life.

The more desperate of sales calls tend to rely upon the politeness of those they phone. The politeness, that is, not to hang up the phone once they realise the call has no value to them. They then try and manipulate this politeness into not giving the subject the opportunity to ‘politely hang up’. Maybe they have a rebuttal book. Maybe they just have the experience to get what they want.

So how should Account Executives handle sales calls? With constant suspicion, or ask why if their company is so great you have never heard of them? Perhaps it’s because they don’t have a PR agency? “How can I contact your boss about this?”

Coffee Politics

I’m fortunate that I work in an office where everyone demands to make coffee for everyone else on a disturbingly frequent basis. However, judging from tales of friends on placements, many of you are being forced with red-hot pokers down the caffeine mines to keep senior staff members in high blood pressure. This advice should help.

1. Timing is everything. We all need coffee to survive, sure. However you can both make a coffee for yourself without having to make one for everyone else simply by arriving ten minutes early for work. Hereby you are able to make a coffee for yourself and then keep out of sync with your colleagues. When you finish you’re coffee, they should still be drinking theirs and would, presumably, not like another one. Take lunch either thirty minutes earlier or later than everyone else too.
   
   
2. Never learn how the coffee machine works. During my brief tour of the apt offices on my first day I was informed of the whereabouts-coffee machine (and accompanied coffee making paraphernalia) but not of how it works. So if you are not informed of how to operate the coffee machine, consider this a ‘get out of jail free’ card and they did not actually want you to make coffee.
   
   
3. If you are always being told to make coffee, take your time about it. There is no rush, if they wanted coffee that badly they would have made it themselves right? Alternatively keep asking for specifics “how many sugars?” “what type of mug?” “Organic milk?” they will soon crack and decide to make their own in future.
   
   
4. Make coffee for everyone once, badly. If you find yourself unable to avoid making coffee, then make everyone a coffee once, but make it badly. Use the cheapest option instant coffee in the office and ensure it’s weak. Do they like sugar? Use salt.
   
   
5. Hide the coffee. Self explanatory, be sneaky and go hide the pesky coffee.

Disclaimer: Proceeding with this advice many result in sudden loss of popularity, job and income.

The journalism equivalent of a press release

Journalists frequently accuse PR professionals of being lazy and spamming their inboxes with irrelevant press releases of no value to them whatsoever. Sometimes they are right. A lot of people working in PR do make their target lists too big and their messages to broad.

However there is absolutely no excuse for some of the recent Response Source Queries I have received from journalists over the past few days;

QUERY:
I have lost the contact details of a PR I have been speaking to about [cereal company]. Would she please contact me.

QUERY:
could the PR for [company] get in touch please?

Is there really no other way to get hold of this information than to spam it to the thousands upon thousands of PR pros signed up to the software?

Response Source Enquirer is basically a tool used by journalists to send out requests for information to the PR industry. Both the publications and the PR pros pay to be subscribed at varying levels of interest to this service. Sometimes there are great leads for news stories which are great for your clients, sometimes there are requests for…

QUERY:
Looking for a plastic Surgeon who will comment on celebrity photos (celebs with breast implants)

QUERY:
Urgently need women who haven't had sex for some time (ie more than a year, three, five, 10 or more years ... or anywhere in between I guess) for health piece. Please get in touch asap with CH or any suggestions.

QUERY:
I'm looking to interview a woman who has coped with excess facial hair - using any method. Please get in touch if you represent a laser or electrolysis clinic, or if you do PR for [company] a cream, and think you may be able to find me a case study.

The requests I see on Response Source Enquirer has really opened my eyes to how many publications work. Women’s interest magazines especially. They tend to think of the most bizarre story: “lets write a feature about dealing with excess facial hair!” then put out a request to the PR industries for case studies. I’m not quite sure how willing PR agencies manage to gain positive exposure for their client through it.

The most useful benefit from my point of view is that it gives me access to a lot of freelance writers. From Response Source I can see what many journalists have been covering about recently and pitching ideas directly to them. I have found that pitching freelancers, rather than editors, can achieve much more success than pitching directly to the editors.

London Bombings, 1 year and 6 days later...

I missed the one-year anniversary for posting this, but I meant to blog it. It’s the thought that counts right? This is not PR related, but a purposeful read nonetheless.

This was posted by a friend of a friend who was on one of the underground trains last year.

"A funny thing happened to me on the way to work this morning. My tube blew up…"

Also take the time to read One year on.

On a side note, The Triforce is a very good read.

Abusing PR to travel around the world free of charge

My first experience with PR came at sixteen years of age when I discovered how to travel around the world free of charge.

eSports is the term which applies to a growing army of computer game enthusiasts who compete at major gaming tournaments around the globe.

Five years ago it really began taking off with the tournaments gaining multi-million dollar investments from major companies such as Intel, Samsung, AMD, Nvidia etc, they would sponsor these events in the hope of raising sales within the ‘dedicated gaming’ segment of the hardware market. Around this time I had recently written my first piece for a computer gaming magazine and was a regular contributor to most of the major websites.

Whilst speaking to a journalist friend of mine, he told me that a PR company of a game developer had paid for him to fly to LA to test out their latest game. It took me a week to realise how I could apply that to my situation. So I began finding out the names of the internal or external PR people of the major companies that were sponsoring these events, and (trying to sound as deep-voiced as possible on the phone) offered to waste my invaluable time covering their geeky nerd events for the biggest gaming magazines in the uk, if they wouldn’t mind covering my expenses *cough*.

Once they agreed I’d phone various gaming magazines and offer to cover these events for them for a much reduced freelance fee. There I had it, I was travelling around the world, free accommodation, hotels, food etc and being paid to do it.

Seoul, Singapore, Xian (China), Daejon, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Toulouse, Poitiers, Dallas (* 3), Las Vegas (tournament was cancelled at last minute, spent 10 days expenses paid in Vegas), Edinburgh and many more, I had won the job lottery.

So that’s how I discovered PR, I would love to hear how everybody else first got involved with the industry, or heard about it.

Is PR fake? Or is Chris mistaken?

Chris Clark's post caught my eye yesterday. Chris Clark is struggling with the "fakeness" he perceives reverberate through this industry. Here's a snippet:

I’m sure this is one of my major flaws, especially as a PR person, but I just can’t seem to pretend or act, or as I like to put it, be fake. It’s not that I don’t want to do it (which I don’t anyway) but I can’t seem to be dishonest about something. It’s just part of me that needs to speak out.

The post has received 24 comments to date, many of which prove interesting reading, however it’s David Jones’ response that nails most of my thoughts on the matter.

Tact is important in business. You have to be able to respectfully disagree with colleagues and clients and find a way that works for you to get across alternate points of view. I’ve always been honest…probably to a fault…and not always tactful, but I’ve been getting better. You have to pick your spots and be respectful of your relationships with colleagues, clients, managers and reports.
If you stood up and said “You’re full of BS,” every time you disagreed with someone, you’d have a really tough time in life. Displaying social grace does not mean you’re a fake–never being honest with yourself or others does.

Like David says, if a client has an idea, which you believe is stupid, would you say it was stupid? Or would you begin with “I understand your idea, but from our experience [which is what they are paying for!] it would be better to focus on… or better to try and ….”

Always topical around the apt office is the subject of ‘emotional intelligence’. What is it? I’m not going to hunt around the web for a definition (I’m sure there are a few out there), my understanding of emotional intelligence is the ability to understand your emotions, the emotions of others around you and how these emotions could affect the outcome of any given situation.

Imagine if you have a big row with your spouse before coming into work. You feel really annoyed. Within minutes of getting into work you receive a call from a publication which says that a huge editorial copy you agreed with them, and are already half way through drafting, won't be used after all. This is the big test, if you let your anger spill out now you will permanently damage your relationship with that publication. However if you put your anger aside for a minute and try to understand as to why it wont be used (perhaps a huge news story has just come up that they need to cover) and if you can help with any other features they're working on, you may infact improve your relationship.

My boss (who reads this blog) believes that emotional intelligence cannot be taught, but with the proper environment can be encouraged and nurtured. I tend to agree, and not because I’m “sucking up”, but because I believe the most important aspect I’m learning about this job is how to interact with people to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. This is possibly the most useful skill I could ever learn (aside from making coffee), and a skill that will be useful for any job.

Though I have to confess to laughing at many of my boss’ terrible jokes!

Ha!

Who should be the next England manager?

You know (which you obviously don’t because I haven’t told you yet), I’ve been thinking a lot about the world cup. I liked Sven, I thought on the whole he was an apt manager who didn’t deserve all the stick he was receiving. He was in a position of money and prominence, and used that position to sleep with some extremely attractive women. How many guys would have said “sorry luv, got to check the latest medical report on Rooney’s metatarsal”

However, Sven joins the ranks of England managers who we hate. Sven, Keegan, Hoddle (sob), Turner etc…It’s safe to say, that the England fans will never be happy until we (‘they’) pick the team. So why don’t we? (Have to say at this point, watching Scholari’s performance at the world cup, I think we dodged a bullet there. So kudos to the British media for hounding him out of the job before he had the opportunity to accept it).

Thankfully, I have a solution that combines the popularity of Britain’s two favourite pastimes, watching football and big brother. Lets not bother hiring a manager for the 2008 European Championships, instead lets stick the 40 – 50 potential squad choices in the Big Brother house for a few months then vote them off? Wouldn’t it be fantastic? Hell, give them a lot of booze, throw in a few women (perhaps the female world cup squad?), then sit back with a few Carlsbergs and enjoy the show. “Who goes to the world cup? You decide!”

Alternatively just let The Sun pick the team, they never make mistakes.

Pitch Perfect

Today marks my biggest accomplishment in PR to date, and one I will always be proud of. Today I have had a pitch of mine picked up by GMTV, it's an unbelievable high. More details to follow. Hopefully I will be able to blog more specifics about the pitch later, but I better check first.

My appreciation to all the bloggers both journalists and PR whose advice I have so usefully utilised.