Brand dropping in the neighbourhood

There is a great article in New Statesman magazine about big businesses paying willing recruits to praise products on the blogosphere. Ok, this doesn't exactly put the 'new' in 'news', but it is definitely a provocative read. Especially this paragraph:

Companies such as Procter & Gamble have started recruiting "brand ambassadors" - key social figures in a neighbourhood or community who will get paid to drop brand references into conversations

Can you imagine the impact if all the major companies begin adopting such marketing activities. we will all become very suspicious of every brand mention in any conversation. At any rate, these aren't sales pros they are hiring, it will be heavy-handed name dropping i'm sure. I can imagine a conversation going like this:

"It looks like the situation in the Middle East has finally calmed down."

Key Social Figure - "Yeah Nike Trainers are great"

"I'm not sure if the peace will last mind, it depends if the UN peacekeeping force is willing to fire upon both Hezbullah and Israeli troops to maintain the peace"

Key Social Figure - "Nike trainers make me run faster"

"Whatever happens I doubt anyone is going to try and forceably disarm Hezbullah, instead peace will largely depend upon how much anyone is willing to negotiate with them. That, for Israel might show a sign of weakness and acceptance of a terrorist organisation, don't you think?

Key Social Figure - "Nike trainers would make YOU run faster too"

"Maybe then the solution would be in the UN's ability to strike a deal between Palestine and Israel which would remove the motive for any action from Syria, Iran or Hezbullah"

Key Social Figure - "Have you checked out wwww.nike.com?"

It's the equivalent of Nike going round to schools and giving the most popular kid in the playground their most expensive trainers, the rest will follow suit.

How I got time off work

This is the first time I have ever worked in an office. My previous money spinning endeavours saw me working in a newsagents, freelance writing, organising gaming events and generally working from home. Working from home, you see, is much less troublesome than going into work. It is an idea I aim to pitch to my boss in the near future. Long story short, I have never had to ask for 'time off work' before.

In fact, I haven't had any time off since I began working for apt in February. So with the University of Gloucestershire's fresher's (freshers' ?) week beginning in a fortnight, I thought this might be a great opportunity. This is how every employee should ask their boss for time off:

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Millington
Sent: 31 August 2006 10:25
To: [BOSS]
Subject: My long-awaited, much-anticipated, time off

Hello Dear Boss,

Please may I have the 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd September off? I'll come in on the 20th so Me and Andy can have a catch up after his holiday.

Feel free to say no, but I'll probably go into a strop and stamp my feet and stuff.

Warmest Regards,

Richard Millington

The response?

From: [BOSS]
Sent: 31 August 2006 11:09
To: Richard Millington
Subject: RE: My long-awaited, much-anticipated, time off


Oh OK then if you put it like that

From your wonderful boss!!!!

Have to say, I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Ch, ch, ch, changes!

Ok this blog is going to change. Perhaps not in terms of looks, though if I were to start the blog again I would use Wordpress rather than blogger, but rather in terms of content. When I launched this blog three months ago I was aware that blogging was big, but for me it was a case of tentatively dipping my toe into a huge lake and seeing where the current took me. Thankfully over that time a huge number of fantastic bloggers have helped me learn what does and doesn't work with blogs.

My philosophy towards learning can very much be summarised in the first episode of Scrubs (possibly best series ever). It's a moment when John Dorian has a huge needle which he needs to use to extract some fluid from an elderly patient. Worried, he confronts his friend Turk who grabs the needle with the message "learn by doing". With that Turk plunges the needle into the patient. Whilst PRs should most definately not go around plunging needles into eachother, to advise on any topic they should have practical experience of doing that.

This is why I am spending roughly 1/3rd of my time at the moment writing social media proposals for both new and old clients, whilst advising apt marketing & pr how and where we can get involved.

Things are changing. I usually arrive around an hour early to work each morning just to spend time going through a huge assortment of blogs. Which reminds me, Ed, when I switched from Google reader to Bloglines I was lazy and just copied all your feeds across. It's a very comprehensive list of who's who in Marketing, PR and even tech journalists.

So, from now on, regular DAILY content (always a bad promise to make).

Check out these great links:

The Financial Times discusses new advertising tactics.
A fantastic, if disturbing, story of a WoW gamers who caused a bomb scare on a plane.
And, finally, the recently employed Alex discusses if PR firms should be editting Wiki

A moo point

Referring to the lady interviewed on BBC One this morning.

I know the great people at Insider PR covered this recently. If you are going to appear on national TV, and try to describe a redundant area of government discussion, please know the difference between a mute point and a moot point.

Otherwise you end up sounding rather silly in front of millions of people.

Whenever I hear people make this mistake I think back to an episode of Friends.

Joey "It's a moo point"
Ross "A moo point Joey?"
Joey "yeh, it's like a cow's opinion, it doesn't matter"

Touché

How not to use Response Source

This just came through on via Response Source:

PUBLICATION: Guardian, Q, Mojo, FourFourTwo, Bizarre, Front

JOURNALIST: [NAME] (freelancer)
DEADLINE: 24-August-2006 at 12:00

This enquiry is relevant to the following categories:
Professional: Travel, Media & marketing
Consumer: Women's interest, Leisure & hobbies, Men's interest,
Entertainment & arts, Sport

QUERY:
Any press releases welcome as I write on a range of subjects

HOW TO REPLY:
by Email: mailto:[E-MAIL ADDRESS](preferred)
Phone: not provided for use
Fax : not provided for use

This poor guy has just declared open-season on his inbox. At least make an effort to specify what topics you do cover. I could send him press releases on anything ranging from the construction industry, grease traps, education, specialist tyres, hotels, football and specialist 'fibre-thatch' roofing.

Pity him.

Update: I e-mailed the journalist in question to ask if he had just declared 'open-season' on his inbox. He replied:

"I think I have. I may have to alter that one. Jesus, it's like The Alamo."

Bed time reading

As part of my job, I have just had to read the following passage:

"Microorganisms produce many different classes of lypolytic enzymes including true lipases and esterases (carboxylesterases). Lipases display the most activity towards water-insoluble long-chain triglycerides while esterases degrade smaller molecules that are at least partially soluble in water."

If anyone else wants to read a white paper on: Fats, Oils, And Grease (FOG) Microbiology; Metabolic Pathways Of FOG Removal Potential, click here.

It's 7:45am on a Thursday morning, I should get hazard pay.

Pictures and Superman

It is not always easy to write a blog post during the week. This is largely because a major function of my job is to sit at my desk doing all the little essential things that get hits. For example, I spend at least a couple of hours a week playing about with images. This involves getting hold of images, resizing images and sending them out to journalists. Quick lesson for all PR practitioners here, if you are sending a story out to journalists, have your pictures ready BEFORE they ask for them.

Speaking of pictures, last Monday my beloved boss (no, really!) sent round a link to this Superman game. It’s an addictive fiend that has swallowed up plenty of lunch hours and invaluable post 5.30pm time.

If you beat my top score of 148 you win my respect, and a year’s supply of free PR work from us*

Oh, and it is a nice little way of promoting the movie too.

Enjoy.

* = may not be true.

Pitches that worked

Ever the worldwide saviour of humanity, I have decided to start a weekly ‘pitches that worked’ post on this blog. Yes I know, we have the Bad Pitch Blog, and it’s great, but there’s too much bad and too little good. So I know I would like to see pitches that worked from fellow account executives, but I’m more than happy to begin.

Obviously phone pitches cannot be included, but e-mailed ones certainly can. Let me know your thoughts, and if I should continue this.

Pitches that worked: Tax Freedom Day

Dear [contact]

Saturday 3rd June is Tax Freedom Day. This day celebrates the point at which the average UK taxpayer has theoretically earned enough money to pay off their annual tax burden.

Would you be interested in speaking to [NAME] of Cheltenham’s [CLIENT] on the matter? [NAME] can address issues such as:

§ Why this day has fallen 3 days later than in 2005
§ Why we should always keep be wary on the date of Tax Freedom Day
§ The fact that this day seems quite late because it includes all forms of taxes (e.g. inheritance tax, VAT, business tax, capital gains tax etc)
§ Why in USA they celebrate this day almost 6 weeks ago

[NAME] could also offer some free tax advice in celebration of this day. Examples include how to make use of tax credits (a contemporary issue as the government has announced it has overspent by £2bn) and how to ensure you don’t pay more tax than you need to.

This is obviously a welcome day on the calendar, as we are no longer working for the taxman. However this year ‘s tax freedom day is the latest we have had in this country since 1988. Increased government spending in the past few years coupled with stealth tax has meant that Tax Freedom Day, calculated by the Adam Smith Institute, has fallen later and later over the past few years.

- website link 1 -
- website link 2 -

To arrange an interview please either reply to this e-mail or give me a call, contact details below.

Thanks for your time,

Kind Regards,

Richard Millington
[CONTACT DETAILS]

This pitch secured our client, a company of chartered accountants, an interview on local radio. I think it worked because it had a 4-day lead-time and it was an interesting story, which no other companies had thought to use. A clever trick here to use “we are no longer working for the tax man."

We all the hate the tax man.

What I do...

One of the biggest disappointments about PR blogs is that there is not enough specific information on what young Account Executives actually do, or the challenges they face. It’s all generalised. There is plenty of general career advice, topical issues, how to pitch, what to say/not say, but very little case study examples. So below is a specific example of my work.

I pitched an idea to local radio about the shortage of scaffolders in this country. To put it simply, with the Olympics, Heathrow Terminal 5 and numerous regeneration projects taking place throughout the UK, scaffolders are in high demand and short supply. Those in the industry are enjoying escalating salaries, travel opportunities and the same comforts of those in the plumbing industry five years ago. My pitch was to debate whether scaffolding was becoming the ‘new plumbing’. I offered an interview to local radio with my client (a scaffolding training company) on the issue.

The radio station called at 10am, whilst I was in a meeting, to ask if they could interview my client by 3:30pm that day for their 5:30pm ‘drive time’ slot. This was an ideal slot for us as it would be when people are driving home, weary from a tough day’s work and might be considering a career changes (mature career changers are the prime target audience). I let them know I would contact our client and get back to them within twenty minutes.

I quickly phoned my client to find out when he could do the interview, only to discover he was in a meeting in Birmingham and no-one knew when the meeting would finish. I phoned his mobile and left a message explaining the opportunity and its urgency, “call me back as soon as possible!” (Never use acronyms when talking).

I then called the radio station back to let them know of the situation and to find out when their deadline was. I also briefly discussed the state of the scaffolding industry with them and provided them with some of the background to the issue. E.g. Plumbers that got swept up in the media craze a few years ago are now graduating but struggling to find apprenticeships. Also tougher health and safety legislation means that many scaffolders need to retrain to keep their certification. Our client provided this training.

Thirty minutes later I had still not heard back from my client, so I called the company again to see if they had any new information. The lady who worked with my client had also left a message with him and there was little else we could do until he came out the meeting.

At about 2pm, after a call from the radio station, I received a call from my client who had just come out of his meeting. We discussed the specifics of the interview, he agreed that it would be great but he was driving from Birmingham to Gloucestershire at the time. He asked I pass the radio station his mobile number.

Finally at about 3.30pm, my client was interviewed by phone pulled up at the side of the M5. The recorded interview went out on the drive time segment.

Everyone was happy.

Be careful what you search for.

Credit to The Triforce on this one.

I doubt many AOL users were too impressed when the company made all it's search data available online. I imagine most AOL users thinking "dammit! Now someone might find out I searched for Britney Spears pictures!" Relax. At least you weren't caught searching for 'person engulfed in flames movie clip'.

AOL recently published their search results data online. It didn't last long, AOL users complained of invasion of privacy and it was taken down.

There are two lessons to be learnt here. The first, be careful what you search for. The second, whatever is published on the internet, is there for life. But what if you take the website down? Welcome to Archive.org and several other websites. In the brief hours that AOL's database was online, someone managed to copy the entire thing to a seperate website

There are now whole communities of people dedicated to searching this database for insights of minds of AOL users. These entries tell stories. Like being in the mind of John Malkovich.

Take this one.
and this one.
Heartbreak.
This could go on forever.

They should give this link to people on creative writing courses and tell them to construct stories around these search results. There is enough juice here to keep them going for years.

Now it's your turn.

The Western Daily Press

Readers in the South West may like to pick up a copy of today's Western Daily Press. Included in the business section is a 900 word article I have written discussing how businesses in this region can benefit from embracing social media. Due to copyright issues I wont be able to scan it in, but if anyone would like to e-mail me I will happily sent out the original text.

If the piece gets uploaded onto the Western Daily Press website I will update this post with a link. I am quite pleased with the piece and a readership of 47,000 (ABC) isn't bad.

Yes I know Alex, your Guardian feature had a readership of almost 400,000. Give me time.

Pregnancy, STD and immortal gods

Before I begin (is this the most pointless phrase in existence?), I would like to stress the importance of your company name. Two quick examples.

1) There is a magazine called “I’m Pregnant”. If you call that magazine they answer the phone “Hello, I’m pregnant”.

2) There is a company (not our client) called Scaffolding Training Direct. Their website is stdgroup.co.uk. Slightly misleading.

Now, what to do when a national newspaper calls you.

I used to get far more nervous speaking to national newspapers than regional or local newspapers. Why? Well it’s the equivalent of approaching the most attractive girl on a night out. There’s a good chance she gets plenty of better offers, why pick you? If you make a fool of yourself you will have blown the opportunity for ever.

It is this exact reason why you should be more relaxed when speaking to a national newspaper. They do get inundated with calls, far more than regional newspapers. If you screw it up, the odds are they won’t remember you anyway. On the other hand, if you operate primarily at a regional level and you make some inexcusable error, they will remember you and the client you represent.

So here is my advice for handling with those nationals:

1. Treat them like immortal gods. If national newspapers do have the political influence which they frequently claim, then there is a good chance they have the contacts to have you assassinated. So tread with caution. Whatever they say reply with “yes certainly” before continuing “I was thinking just before you called actually that (repeat what they just said back to them)”.
   
   
2. Offer to do lunch. No not those relationship-building, work-dodging, PR lunches with which my new PR director & manager are so fond of. I mean offer to go round their house and make them lunch. Then leave.
   
   
3. Don’t say anything stupid. If this needs elaboration, best reconsider your choice of career.
   
   
4. Disarm their anti-pr shield. Getting national newspaper coverage for one of your clients is great. Hurrah! However wouldn’t getting national newspaper coverage for two or three of your clients be better? Once you have suitably disarmed the reporters anti-pr shield feel free to ask “so what other areas do you cover?” Then use this is a good time to pitch what another of your clients do. Or even say ‘we actually have another interesting client which xyz.. do you cover that? No? Who does? At least then you can write to this newspaper contact with “your fellow colleague x said this was more in your area”
   
   
5. If it goes horribly wrong, claim it was a sales call. You wouldn’t want your colleagues to know you just blew a chance of national coverage for one of your clients, so claim it was a sales call and you were just trying to get them off the line. Support this view with a lengthy rant about how you would get much more done if you didn’t have to deal with sales calls. Then get back to your follow ups.

I did read some great advice on a blog a while back, only I can’t remember whose blog it was, so I apologise. The advice was: “Don’t be Tony Blair on the phone”. This means do not hide your personality when on the phone to a journalist. Do not try to be perfectly polite yet imperfectly humorous. Make jokes, relax, chit-chat if you like. This will make you far more memorable, and likeable, than a call-centre robot. Unless you have a rubbish personality. Sorry.

Tinted PR spectacles

One of the impacts of working in PR is that I see all news through the tinted spectacles of my profession. Every news story I find myself analysing, “who is benefiting from this?” Sometimes the hand of PR is obvious. A positive news story about a regeneration project or the launch of a new iPod. Sometimes I may be finding PR where there isn’t any.

Take the recent foiled terror attacks on London. I can’t help but see PR in it. If ever the Home Secretary needed to put one in the ‘win’ column this is the time. So why not milk it? If the attack was going to be as severe as has been suggested, then the longer John Reid appears on TV telling people to remain calm (what sort of panic is he expecting?) not only does it distract from the foreign criminals the home office released earlier this year, but also positions himself in a leadership role. When Tony Blair does step down, John Reid is one of the few who could stop Gordon Brown’s ascent. Will he become known as the leadership figure who led the country through this crisis?

Another recent example was the case of Mohammed Abdul Kahar. Mohammed who was shot in a police raid in his home at Forest Gate, East London, on the 2nd June. The raid happened after police received faulty intelligence that there was a chemical bomb in his house. The same day that the ICC report was released controversially vindicating the police on the shooting, Mohammed Abdul Kahar was arrested for child pornography susposedly found on his PC. This appears remarkably to be what Max Clifford refers to as "moving the story on". Who benefits from this? The police obviously.

Allegations themselves are damaging. Providing that the attention is focused on the report or on the child pornography charges, no-one is focusing that once again, 11 month after the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, the police have once again made an abominable error. What would they have done had Mohammed died?

Or am i just cynical and paranoid?

It’s been a typical week here at apt marketing & pr. Our MD returned from a two week holiday in Spain and stared white-faced at her inbox. Our accountant got trapped in the toilets of one of our clients and had to have the door kicked down. We all went out for a big meal at a big church costing big bucks (almost 2 week’s food budget by Account Executive standards). And I wrote a 700 word editorial on grease for Catering in Scotland magazine. Move over Will Self.

So a good week then. Back to sporadic blogging over the coming week.

The taxi's here!

Growing up, we used to go on holiday every summer. I guess we were lucky in that respect. Our holiday destinations varied greatly. From California and Florida to Skegness, Blackpool and um, Minehead. (My parents grew up with fond memories of Butlins). The problem was that my brother suffered from asthma attacks (he doesn’t anymore). If he got too excited, as he might do knowing there was a holiday coming up, he might suffer from an attack. So my parents kept the date of our holiday (always the Saturday closest to August 14th) secret from us in the hope of preventing this. Apparently the sudden shock of realising we were about to go on holiday was favourable compared with the gradual build up of knowing.

Pitch days then.

Mornings of ‘pitch days’ (days when we pitch for new business) evoke vivid memories of going on holiday with my parents many years ago. My parents would frantically dash about to ensure our belongings, packed meticulously into two suitcases, would not jump out and scatter themselves across the house in an unkempt mess. Meanwhile, I would cower in a corner somewhere shouting “The taxi’s here!” at every passing car.

So my fellow Account Executives/co-ordinators. You have a very simple job on pitch days.

1. Stay out of the way. You think I’m joking? Seriously, stay out of the way. If a member of the pitch team is about to enter the same doorway you’re about to enter, take the hit, and dive out the window. If the printer jams and you can’t fix it? Don’t ask for help, dive out the window. If you need to use the toilet, dive out the window. Phone rings? Answer it before it has a chance to ring twice…then dive out the window.
   
   
2. Frown a lot. Nothing has changed from the playground days to the office environment. Everyone wants to fit in. So Account Executives can do this on pitch days by frowning a lot. It is a tough life isn’t it? The odd sigh of exasperation would not go amiss neither. Be careful not to overplay your hand mind, you don’t want to seem like that eager kid who bought the latest Nike Trainers but still wore a poncho to school.
   
   
3. Resist the urge to shout “The Taxi’s here!” I haven’t tried this one, but I can’t imagine it will go down to well. People may look at you with both confusion and suspicion. If you are unable to resist this urge, dive out the window first, then shout it.
   
   
4. Ancillary support. Everyone seen The Matrix Revolutions? Good. On pitch days your role is to be that kid with the wheelbarrow of ammo during the machine attack on Zion. You dash out amongst the terror of warfare and supply the offensive with whatever they need. They out of coffee? Give them yours. They need a red pen? Good job you left an ample supply of them in their draw the night before. Car breaks down on the way to the pitch? Time to get the wheelbarrow out.
   
   
5. Learn body language. When they come back it will be down to you to judge if it went well or not. Poker players will have an advantage here. When they sit back down at their desk, is their chin up or down? Are they blinking quickly or slowly? Do they have clench fists? Never, never ask: “how did it go”…unless you are a member of the local Russian Roulette club.

Carnage, total carnage

PR stunts are frequently a morally dubious breed.

On an entirely unrelated topic who heard in this morning’s news about Elvis' teddy bear (and many others) torn up by a ‘security dog’. Some companies may have preferred to have kept this news under wraps until they could put some sort of positive spin on it. Not Wookey Hole, the news leaked through to all major news outlets with devastating speed.

"About 100 bears were caught up in this frenzied attack, some were merely little chews, whereas some of them had some quite devastating injuries.

Heads pulled off, arms, legs here and there, it was a total carnage really. I've never seen such a mess, there was stuffing, fluff and bear bits everywhere."

Wookey Hole is a very unfortunate tourist attraction. Last June a Dalek on display at the tourist site was stolen and held to ransom by thieves demanding "Further instruction from the doctor". Shocking huh? In a prolonged spell of public concern Gerry Cottle made an appeal for more information. Then in the early hours of Tuesday (dedicated staff they have at Wookey Hole), they received a call telling them where the Dalek was.

The thieves said it had become "too hot to handle" and had been placed on Glastonbury Tor. Fortunately for the thieves there is no mention of the police investigation. I guess after this security blunder Wookey Hole brought in a dog to beef up security.

Skipping over the rabbit wedding, yes rabbit wedding, and it seems Wookey Hole have had a fair bit of bad luck with security as of late. I wish them well.

What I didn't anticipate

My desk is a swirling vortex of communication…or so I would love to believe. It is actually a mess. A collage of paper, magazines, to-do lists and long-forgotten notepads scattered in what can only be a new evolution of post-modern art. My ‘in’ tray long disappeared from view and the overflow collects in neat and not-so neat piles across my desk.

I’m half way through my year’s placement here at apt marketing & pr. It’s been good so far. I’ve done most of what I wanted to. I grumbled about Mondays, I received plenty of jokey e-mails and learnt (with some prompting) how to make coffee. Yet despite these endless burdens, I still find the time to generate media coverage for clients.

So it is time for a list or two:

To begin with, The “what I didn’t anticipate” list.

1. Hard work really is hard work. I know, I’m as surprised as you are. Going from the carefree, time-wealthy, student lifestyle to a regimented 9 – 5.30pm lifestyle is tough. Socialising gets crammed into weekends between shopping and washing, weeknights are now about getting sleep than girls and the government deemed me worthy of monetary contributions to their next blunder.
   
   
2. My brain is quite large. Yes really. When I die and scientists dissect my brain, using the latest computer to brain-neuron methods, they will be puzzled by just how I managed to cram in so much information about grease.
   
   
3. Having lunch whilst housemates have breakfast. I tend to take lunch at about 12.30pm, the same time as my housemates have breakfast.
   
   
4. People skills. This job has changed me. Rather than slinking into work with a mumbled ‘hi’ and hoping no-one dares to glance at me twice, I have found myself forced to interact with those around me. I daresay that I have tolerated some of this lot beyond the required 9 – 5:30pm hours, but then alcohol will do that to you.
   
   
5. Enjoying my work. No I’m not just saying that because my apt colleagues read this blog. Work can actually be fun, stimulating and engaging. On many occasions we have sweets and chocolates in the office, sometimes cake. Clients meetings, thinking up new media ideas and getting some great coverage isn’t too bad neither.