72 Point Blog National News, PR and Market Research Specialists…

Why Newspaper Hacks Often Fail To Make Decent PRs

14th   Jul

The much documented decline of jobs on newspapers means many hacks are shifting their attention to PR.

PRWeek has covered a number of recent stories involving senior journalists hanging up their hard-news hats to join "the other side" - and a recent blog post by their editor makes the point that due to a sound understanding of comms channels - the right kind of journalist could represent a unique type of campaign adviser.

We employ a number of former-journos for varying roles, without whom we would certainly not achieve the level of news exposure we do.

But I have worked with many hacks in the past that have not been able to manage the shift - and indeed some whose PR careers have been short lived.

So why do many hacks fail to get on in the PR industry? Speaking from my own experience, there are a number of reasons:

1. They lack client-facing skills:

Having worked in a stressful newsroom environment with orders being barked at them or having barked orders at someone else, the hacks' experience of communication differs to that of a PR. Journalists can be impatient and at times downright rude. It is difficult for them to adjust the way in which they communicate and deal with PR-people, who they often regard with disdain.

2. They'll never care about a brand as much they care about a story:

A hacks' intrinsic priority is to create a gritty news piece. When working in PR, journalists need to be able to learn a deeply important skill - finding a middle-ground - a balance between retaining the brand message and creating something which is newsy and robust. A news journalist will always resent the watering down of a killer angle to keep the non risk-taking brand people content.

3. They miss the rush of a proper news story:

Every news hack I know claims the greatest aspect of the job is the feeling they have when working on a great exclusive or when a huge story breaks just before deadline. While achieving decent shows for a brand is a great feeling - even a page-lead for a client will never compare to the rush of a front-page revelation.

4. They miss not being in the news loop:

Newspaper hacks are at the forefront of the current news agenda. Most of them are in the job because they want to be the first to know about and report on current affairs or break a celebrity scandal. Journalists need to have the inside info and as a PR they have to move away from that close-knit environment and adapt their priorities.

5. They will feel they have "sold-out" or lost their integrity:

Although the appeal of a better salary is enough for most journos to be content with their change in career - many journalists will struggle with the feeling that they have sold out by turning from poacher to game-keeper. Moving to PR is still deemed by many in the news industry as giving up on one's journalistic integrity and old friends in the industry will continue to jokingly mock the decision.

So those are some of the attributes which can, in my opinion affect a successful shift away from news and into PR.

But with jobs in journalism fast depleting, there needs to be a shift in attitude if a career in PR is going to work out for a journalist.

The most successful "hack-turned-PR" types I know are the ones who have trained themselves to embrace a new mind-set. They accept the PR industry for what it is and ditch the old-school, pre-conceived notion that what we do is worthless.

Written by Harriet Crosse

Is It Time We PRs Grew A Pair?

20th   May

I've just been reading an interesting post entitled Why that rubbish press release isn't the PROs fault. I would argue that actually - it is.

We work mainly with PR agencies – and before I start my rant, there are a load of PRs out there who I really rate – we even did a name and fame blog about them once (need to update that soon).

But, I am more than familiar with the laborious “sign-off” process which can often look like this:

We draft a robust, newsy piece of copy in the style of their target publication - we send it to the PR to get sign-off from their client - the press release comes back littered with unnecessary branding, notes to editors, logos, embargos - even prices.

Saw my head off.

We then enter into a conversation about why the release has been changed to that extent. The answer is usually the same - "the client insisted we change it".

But hang on a second - aren't you, the PR, not supposed to be the expert? Should they not be listening to you about what is actually going to achieve coverage?

I've had PRs admit to me before that they know the release probably won't make but that they don't want to upset the client. MADNESS!

The problem is that as a PR, a lot of the time you'll be dealing with marketing folk - people who understand the brand but not the press.

And that is why they have hired you. They need to be educated - told how it works and have the process explained. Sometimes you need to be firm - show them what works and what doesn't.

Achieving coverage and keeping the brand people happy is an extremely delicate balancing act and, a lot of the time (from what I see), PRs are getting it wrong.

Written by Harriet

All Your Eggs in One Basket

6th   Apr

So, that was Easter. How was it for you? I mean, apart from the lamb and the chocolate and the family stuff? Did you put any Easter-related press releases out? Any DIY-related material by any chance? Maybe something about ‘Great Days Out'? Well, if you got your coverage, congrats. If not, read on!

A newspaper like The Sun, for instance, receives around 800 press releases a day, and that figure doubles around calendar events. With competition like that you've got to be shouting pretty loud to be heard.

I meet with many account executives every year and one of the most common questions I'm asked is around the subject of a ‘calendar event'. And whether it's Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, National Take Your Goldfish To Work Day or Christmas, the same advice counts. Here is mine.

Think of the journalist who is tasked with wading through the press releases (if, indeed, that task is still allocated - it isn't always). Think about how many releases he/she is going to see which have calendar-related themes. Consider how strong your angle is. Try to imagine that many other people will be pushing (possibly much stronger) PR stories. You should make sure that you have written yours as effectively as possible, weeding out branding from the intro (unless your client is, say, Tiger Woods).

Don't (to reiterate, briefly, an earlier post) whack it out a week prior to the event with a huge, self-important EMBARGO stamp all over it. Put it out the day before and let it speak for itself: if the story is strong enough, it will attract interest. Make a call to the newsdesk prior to distribution, précis the piece in 50 words or less and then press the button a few minutes later. Embellishing your release with acclamations about its importance will cut no ice.

Consider whether you may be throwing away a really good piece of research by shoehorning it into an Easter/Father's Day release. Sure, your client may be demanding coverage to tie in with a specific date, but you may be running the very real risk of losing coverage altogether by tweaking it out of shape to suit a calendar event. Sometimes a survey can achieve much wider pick-up if it is released on a random date, where it stands on its own merits and creates its own momentum rather than being tossed into the bingo caller's bag.

Think stats. For instance, if you have a DIY store on your books, rather than spending money on a big ‘think-piece' on, say, consumer behaviour at Christmas (incorporating expensive comments from a rentaquote psychologist), hone in on specific products. What is selling particularly well this year? What's its year-on-year percentage increase? Why is it so popular? If you can pull together some hard facts you have the basis for a bona fide news piece which (important, this) will reflect the spending habits of newspaper readers - something newspapers are always keen to talk about. Some of our greatest hits for retail clients have come from brainstorm with buyers/department heads who have reported significant increases in specific items. And from a client's point of view it's remarkably cost-effective. Remember - they may already have those stories, they just don't know they've got them.

Written by Jay Williams

Picture This…

18th   Mar

Ten Tips To Give Your PR Photo The Edge

The picture editors of national newspapers see hundreds of photographs every day and they’re the most exciting, dramatic photos of the moment – images of natural disasters, man-made calamities (an X-ray of a man’s skull with a javelin embedded, for example), CCTV-grabs of crimes in process, celebrity paparazzi shots, major breaking world news, sporting events – and this is what your picture is up against, day in, day out.

Some PR companies seek to compete with these images by cramming their snaps with too much ‘stuff’ – too much colour, too much action, too much visual information.

Others seek not to compete at all – showing scant regard for the wants and needs of picture editors; they simply ‘tick the box’ and whack off a load of spectacularly inappropriate pictures on the basis that they meet the requirements of the client.

Actually the best way of looking at it is to consider the national news media as your other client – and you have to keep them just as happy.

Here are 10 tips you may find useful.

1.    If your piece includes a case study, include pictures.  Make sure the expression is appropriate – for instance, if the person has been ripped off by a bank, they should look unhappy or angry.  They should not be smiling.  Similarly, if they’ve just won a house make sure they don’t look like they’ve just had bad news from home.  Some subjects have to be encouraged to smile.

Include a straightforward head shot, an ‘upright’ of the subject holding any relevant material (£1,000,000 gas bill/lottery ticket), and a ‘landscape’ shot.  This gives lay-out people a welcome choice when it comes to planning their page.

2.    Think about lighting.  If you’re using a basic digital camera to take the pictures, go outside and use natural light if possible. Harsh, direct flash generates hard shadow or ‘bleach out’ faces.  Indoor lights give a colour cast on your pictures.

3.    Understand your file size.  This is a tricky one – too large and they crash everyone’s mail boxes or are rejected by their server, too small and they are not large enough to print.  The ideal solution is to send small pictures as a ‘teaser’ and include a hyperlink to a location where the editor can download a hi res copy.

4.    Watch your background.  This may sound self-evident, but every day picture desks receive countless images which are unusable because of the background – too busy (too much going on, distracting from the subject, or a tree apparently growing out of their head) or irrelevant (if you take a picture of your bank rip-off victim outside a kebab shop, or at the baths, or at a drinks party, you put the journalist in the unwelcome position of having to explain why they are being pictured there, wasting valuable words).  The golden rule is Keep It Simple.

5.    Avoid obvious over-branding, like garish logo t-shirts.  Hopefully your accompanying story/press release will sufficiently tell the tale without the need for overt product placement.  Picture editors have an allergy to logo’d t-shirts.  There are obvious exceptions: if your story is about some amazing new anti-ageing cream which has been independently acclaimed in a Which? Report, you should contain pack shots, and/or a punter applying said miracle gunk.

6.    If your story is about, say, internet habits, don’t go to the bother and expense of shooting and sending a generic shot of someone sitting in an office at a computer – especially if it’s branded.  National newspapers have plenty of stock shots of people in front of computers.

7.    Don’t go ‘arty’.  Avoid using wacky filters.  It’s one thing to use them on a picture of dawn rising over Stonehenge, quite another to apply a fisheye lens to the launch of the latest internet service provider.  Again: Keep It Simple.

8.    Think about who you are sending it to.  Some picture will be fine for both tabloids and broadsheets, others will require different sittings, different poses, different ‘moods’ for the different papers.

9.    If your story has gone down well with the newsdesks, or with your news contacts, it’s a good idea to put in a quick courtesy call to the picture desks to let them know that news are interested in it (don’t oversell it – précis the tale in a couple of sentences) and that you have pictures if they need them.

10.    Read the papers!  It sounds dreadfully clichéd but the best way of understanding what exactly a newspaper wants is to look through them every day – which PR stories have landed well? Which ones have used photos? How have the photos been cropped?  Are different shots used in different publications?  Every day offers a free masterclass in what is required.

Written by Jay Williams