Advertising Isn't Dead
In marketing and PR circles you are constantly hearing prophesies of the demise of one or the other. Advertising is dead! PR is finished! It’s a little like Monty Python’s renowned parrot scene:
“I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.”
“Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's, uh...What's wrong with it?”
“I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!”
“No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.”
“Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.”
“No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
The debate over whether advertising is dead and PR is set to take over is one I recently presented to delegates at the PR360 summit. Although I disagree that advertising is done – predictions are that ad spend in the UK will reach £20 billion this year – I do believe that it has had to adapt to digital, whereas PR has found it to be more of a natural fit.
Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, said at the IoD’s Annual Convention back in 2012 that in today’s crazy world strategy is dead, the big idea is dead and management is also dead. But that doesn’t mean marketing is dead. It just means marketing as we know it is dead.
Traditionally the ad world was obsessed with paid and owned, maximising media opportunities and activity on brand-owned channels. It gave co-creation and influencer outreach short shrift - or anything outside of the sanctity of the brand – and has thus fallen out of touch with the conversational, interactive nature of digital media that has been significantly influenced by social.
But that doesn’t mean marketing is dead. It just means marketing as we know it is dead.
That means explicit sales messages seldom work, there's no one-size-fits-all solution and provenance and the brand's values have become massively important, making PR a natural fit. Through its reliance on media relations and making connections with journalists, PR has organically recruited skills that met the need of outreach to bloggers, vloggers and influencers, and it owns this area as a result. But ad land is playing catch-up and is catching up fast.
So here’s the big idea.
It would be remiss of PR firms to rest on our laurels and not to learn from the evolution advertising is currently undergoing. We have to take note of what is happening across the pond and learn, else risk seeing the tables turn. PR is winning the race, but advertising is playing catch up. In a digital world, we have to be constantly adapting in order to survive.
If Facebook hosts news, I'm hiring...
Humans are inherently lazy - and product managers are aware of this.
The swiping motion with which we command our phone screens reduces us to the basest of motor skills we learn virtually at birth, while voice commands have superseded even the remote control as our preferred way to interact with entertainment systems in the home.
I mean, why would I read a whole IKEA instruction manual when I can just watch a video instead? (Just kidding - I don't shop at IKEA).
Facebook, never one to miss a trick where the user experience is concerned, is in talks with media groups about hosting news content within the social network, enabling users to consume entire stories without tapping out to external hosts.
While such an alliance presents obvious gains for Facebook and publishers alike, most of which concern economics and reach, it also throws up plenty of positives for content suppliers and the humble reader too.
As a supplier of branded news, I can see demand for our content growing in-line with audience expectations on the channel and the increased needs of the news outlets we provide to – so more video, more visuals, more copy and more stories in general to meet increased publisher outputs. Happy times.
Additionally, and I may be getting a little ahead of myself here, if Facebook were to pull a Vice and launch a standalone Facebook News sub-brand, then it gives me yet another outlet to sell stories in to and potentially partner with - plus they really don’t come bigger in terms of audience size and segmentation.
Back to the user experience and it’s still good news.
Facebook hosting will make shaping content for social consumption mandatory for publishers, ensuring all outputs are visual, digestible, shareable and mobile – marry this to the convenience of consuming content from multiple outlets in a single space (while also doing all of your social housekeeping) and we could easily save 10-15 minutes a day on our reading time.
Finally, and this is of benefit to reader, platform and content supplier alike, Facebook hosting will lead to deeper engagement and all-round satisfaction – longer reads, greater dwell times, more sharing, increased content performance, happier authors and happier clients.
And for those who fear Facebook dominance, there will always be an alternative – there always is.
Just think of this Facebook/publisher partnership as being one of several labour-saving devices delivered over the years, enabling us to open our ever-expanding daily procrastination window to more cat gifs such as this one and Tinder freaks (I don’t use Tinder).
Sledgens and Legends: The 2015 Cricket World Cup in Tweets
At the risk of sounding like a bitter Englishman, the 2015 Cricket World Cup has been a bit of a laborious affair. Ever since that fateful day in Adelaide when England failed to overcome Bangladesh (BANGLADESH!) to reach the knock-out stages I have been huffing and puffing about the long-winded nature (irony of ironies for a cricket fan) of a tournament that has served only to draw attention to the gulf in class that divides India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand from the rest of the world.
But despite there being a distinct lack of momentous games, there has been no shortage of momentous moments. New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori defied the laws of physics with a spectacular one-handed catch at the boundary this weekend, Windies all-rounder Chris Gayle mirrored Sachin Tendulkar with a double century, Pakistan's Wahab Riaz bowled a mesmerising innings against the Aussies and Martin Guptill’s 237 runs from 163 balls are just a few of many moments that match the gravitas of a World Cup.
And this year Twitter has been there to capture all the action after signing an agreement with the ICC to launch a host of innovative and interactive features. The move, which sets a precedent for future tournaments, positioned the social media platform as a central hub for match commentary, expert analysis and fan insight, transcending geographical and time limits to make the cup a truly ‘world’ affair with fans at the heart of the action.
In true cricketing fashion the Twittersphere responded with admiration and tactical intimidation in equal measure. Old rivalries re-born, fierce competition re-lived and passions personified as the highs and lows of The Imperial Game were played out across Australasia, all of which made great fodder for social media channels.
Here’s a review of how the Sledgend and the Ledgend lit up this year’s tournament on social media.
The Sledge
Australia (gotta love ‘em) initiated the sledging (a form of verbal intimidating) with a campaign by an online bookmaker advertising two cricket balls with the slogan: “Missing, Pair of Balls – if found please return to the English cricket team.” The ad ran before the home nation’s game against England in Melbourne and immediately became a social media success with the hashtag #MissingBalls trending in a matter of hours.
Our Digital Hub team picked up the social media movement and were quick to publicise. The first sledge of the tournament was soon up on the Telegraph, the Mirror and various other online titles who published the story as a good-natured exchange of banter.
But it doesn’t always work out so well. A club cricket final in New Zealand has recently made national headlines after it was abandoned due to one team refusing to play on, citing "bullying" from their opponents as the reason for pulling stumps. As the national team prepare for a feisty encounter with South Africa tomorrow could we see a repeat of the feisty 2011 World Cup quarter-final, or will the intimidating exchanges be left for the Twitterati to administer?
The Ledge
One thing we are sure to see as the semi-finals commence is a good dose of admiration for World Cup legends. The one day format differs from test cricket in that it propels individual performances into the limelight more than the team as a whole, a trait which is conducive to the 140 character limit on Twitter.
This year’s semi-finalists demonstrate this well. Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc is at the centre of social media hype in the run-up to their clash with India who have every chance of upsetting the host nation in their own backyard if the likes of MS Dhoni, Mohammad Shami and Ajinkya Rahane can repeat their heroic performances. And if New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill can #Guptill South Africa tomorrow he will become a social media saint overnight.
With three of the best games of the tournament yet to come, prepare to see a frenzy of social media activity kick off as the sledgend meets the legend.
The 2015 Media Consumption Report: Prepare for MPC
If the minefield that is contemporary media has taught us anything it is that a ‘multi’ approach is the next big evolution for the PR industry with arguably more sticking power than any media shift in the past.
Not only do media consumption habits transcend channels (print, broadcast, online), they also transcend platform (smartphone, tablet, desktop) and the way in which we interact with media has changed irreversibly as a result.
To understand how the digital landscape has impacted media consumption 72Point has commissioned a survey of 7,500 people in the UK exploring what types of content the modern media consumer is likely to read, watch, share and like on which platform(s). The report, due for release in March, looks in detail at how to prepare for the challenges and opportunities presented by multi-platform content (MPC).
Media Platforms and Channels
Generation ‘Multi’ is about capturing large audiences with campaigns that transcend platform and channel, but this offers opportunities and challenges in equal measure. We look at what channels and platforms people are consuming media on and how this impacts the way in which they consume media.
Mainstream media confronts digital
The migration of mainstream media from print and broadcast formats to online platforms has revolutionised the media landscape, but pertinently, it has reformed the way in which mainstream publishers convey news. We look at how.
The rise of Specialist Publications
In the digital age everybody carries a digital news stand in their pocket. Their interests dictate what they read from a seemingly endless bank of media titles which eschew ‘mainstream’ objectives of catering to a wide audience in favour of specialisation. We look at what sort of specialist publications are popular.
Social Media: Traffic and Consumption
Not only has social media altered the way in which media conveys news, it has also altered the way in which people find news, creating a more consumer-led news industry that harks back to the rise of specialist publications discussed in the previous chapter. Some of our results have been published in an article on PRWeek.
In the report, we also discuss the rise of ‘lists, gifs, pictures and posts’ in media and how mainstream media has adopted a social media-led approach and new sites have been born from it.
Organic and Sponsored Posts
Finally we discuss our attitudes towards sponsored posts vs organic posts.
The full report will be published and available to download from this site.
More Fool You: The Art of Creating Shareable Content
One of my favourite scenes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is when the duke and dauphin put on a makeshift and utterly farcical show called “The Royal Nonesuch” to make a quick buck. The audience on the first night, completely infuriated by what they had paid to see, decided that in order to avoid becoming the laughing-stock of the town they should tell all of their friends and neighbours how great the show was, so the play attracted sell-out audiences night after night until, on the final night, Huck noticed the crowd weren’t newcomers but people who had been there earlier and who had their pockets full of rotten eggs and vegetables. He informed the other guys and they skipped town with a small fortune in door money.
The scam worked because they evoked an emotional response that people shared. The anger of being lured in to a rip-off play by posters that read “ladies and children not admitted” was too much for the audience to supress and they felt compelled to action a response which capitulated on the final night when revenge was nigh. It paints an early and quite entertaining example of how to prompt a shareable action. It may have been a nasty trick, but it’s no more culpable than the first chain emails that promised eternal wealth if you forwarded it to five of your friends (I’m still waiting to cash in on that).
The art of creating shareable content is an age-old concept being carried out on new age platforms. Jonah Peretti, a founder of BuzzFeed, says shareable content is a delicate balance between something that is too shocking or controversial to be shared and something that is so ordinary it gets overlooked or ignored. Finding that happy medium between the two and ensuring it is relatable, engaging, funny or nostalgic is what propelled sites such as Buzzfeed to success, but increasingly digital users are looking to be engaged in order to share.
The digital world has made the art of shareable content both more arduous and more achievable
The digital world has made the art of shareable content both more arduous and more achievable. We’re more connected through social channels but have a shorter attention span and have evolved in the way we consume media. The solution, we have found, is multimedia. The 72Point Media Consumption report found that people are overwhelmingly more likely to share multimedia content on social media such as videos, animations and interactive games.
We recently recreated “The Royal Nonesuch” in an interactive game developed for Interparcel. The game, hosted here, was a ‘super-sharable’ bit of multimedia designed to test your patience, running on the back of a successful MPC (Multi-Platform Content) campaign that can be viewed here. Like the unsuspecting victims of the duke and dauphin’s show, if you’re fooled by the game it makes you more likely to share it in order to dupe your friends into doing the same thing. 21st century trickery at its best; Mark Twain eat your heart out!
To grab the minds of people today, you need content that is quick, visual and, most importantly, memorable enough so that they share it. - Hugh McIntyre
Social Outreach: What Is It and Why You Should Be Doing It
Anyone with an account on a social network has been there. A casual surf through your feed, checking in with friends, dishing out Favourites and Likes as needed. As you scroll you notice posts from accounts that you aren’t familiar with. A number of these go by, but every once in a while one hits its mark, grabs your attention, and demands a click to check out the story.
These are targeted adverts, created to spark traffic from a specific audience to a specific piece of content. We call it Social Outreach.
Now more than ever specialisation is key. New content arrives online in an endless torrent. It’s a wonderful outpouring but it poses a problem when trying to draw an audience for a specific piece of content. How do you get seen in this hectic and shifting landscape? Social Outreach can help by placing an ad for your content in the feeds of social media users, targeting only those who are interested in the topic of your content.
Now more than ever specialisation is key.
For example, say you are working for a company that builds bicycles and you’re looking to promote a new range of mountain bikes. Try targeting social media users who express an interest in cycling and fitness, or have been known to mention topics relating to outdoor pursuits in their updates. You could even get right down into mentions of ‘helmets’, ‘punctures’, ‘downhill’, ‘ATB’, ‘derailleur’, ‘schrader’ – terms that only dedicated cyclists are going to be mentioning. The more specific you can be the less time and money will be wasted placing your content in front of people unlikely to click.
Social outreach requires a nuanced approach to reap the biggest rewards. The most important variables to consider when crafting a successful campaign are all creative ones. First and foremost is the quality of the content you are promoting. Content that taps into the interest of the audience and provides a mix of storytelling, topical subject matter and engaging visuals is more likely to be read, shared and spread organically to a wider audience. This organic momentum, when the story takes on a life of its own, is the ideal outcome for your social campaign.
This organic momentum, when the story takes on a life of its own, is the ideal outcome for your social campaign.
Next to consider are the posts themselves. Both Facebook and Twitter advertising allow you to create variations of your post. This is an opportunity to be adventurous. Try a range of images and text configurations to see which resonates best with your audience. You might create two serious, corporate posts with professional images and direct wording, but mix it up on the next two will some pop culture references and a well-known meme. Inside tip: images of cats and Bill Murray never fail. Create the post that you would want to click on.
The three pillars of Social Outreach, then: killer content, engaging social media posts and a specialised audience. When these three elements align Social Outreach can be one of the most exciting and effective ways to get your content out there.
Posts and Pictures, Lists and Gifs
How Social Media has Shaped Digital News
The rise and increasing influence of social media has created a tricky quandary for digital publications; how do you cater for people who are visually wired, with patience at a premium and an aversion to information overload?
When the first wave of media publications started to establish an online presence there were clear warning signs that a simple ‘copy and paste’ strategy wouldn’t work. Media consumers weren’t migrating online because they found the Telegraph’s broadsheet pages too tough to handle, nor were the inky fingers or recycling headaches motives behind a ‘digital shift’. Online consumers of media had a thirst for a new type of publication, and thus a period of adjustment began.
Social media has shaped the way we interact with the online world. It gives us a role to play which is why we talk of a digital ‘world’ in which people are participants rather than just observers, cogs in the system and so forth. In that way it is by their rules that we comply; 140 character limit on Twitter, the list-like nature of a Facebook timeline and the multimedia-led structures of Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat. Observe the elements of social media and you will begin to understand the underlying composition of digital media.
The use of visualized information has increased by 400 per cent in online literature since 1990, by 9,900 per cent on the internet since 2007 and by 142 per cent in newspapers. In short that’s because we suffer from information overload in the digital age and thus crave information that can digested quickly, like social media, and media outlets have both been born from this trend and responded to it.
BuzzFeed, for example, dubs itself as a “social news and entertainment company” that “provides shareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video across the social web” to a global audience of more than 200 million people.The site has become a world-wide phenomenon as a media outlet based on social media concepts and isn’t alone in capitalising on social-led media. And mainstream titles have started to catch up.
Lists, pictures, infographics, videos and Gifs have become a pre-requisite of most posts on sites such as the Mail Online, which is now the world’s biggest newspaper website.
One of our recent surveys commissioned on behalf of Interparcel found Brits are becoming increasingly impatient in general, with the average respondent waiting only ten seconds for a web page or link to load and only 16 seconds for a video to buffer. But as interesting as the results were, the real clever bit is what we did with them when it came to selling the story into the media. Not only did we provide solid news copy that was picked up by The Mail, The Telegraph and Metro but we added infographics, video and list material into the mix that meant it was picked up by countless online sites including The Star, MTV, BT.com, AOL and, of course, Mail Online.
The concluding remark is that if social media is shaping digital news then it must in turn shape how we do PR. At 72Point we have a growing digital team that is keeping ahead of the curve in that regard with exciting new infrastructure and a wealth of expertise, creating social campaigns for a social generation.
The Information Superhighway to Heaven
Breathe a sigh of relief, the information superhighway to heaven is open. Or at least, it was ten years ago when FuneralWishes.co.uk approached SWNS with their new ‘digital funeral service’.
Thanks to Roger– a pioneering visionary in the funeral world – bereaved individuals were offered a streamlined approach to all their funeral needs thanks to the interweb and its revolutionary ability to link things up. People with people, firms with firms, vicars with florists, coffins with the deceased, Funeral Wishes became one of many ventures founded on the notion of being able to do things from the comfort of your front room, a sort of computerised Yellow Pages if you will, and found its way to South West News Service as a result.
The story definitely had legs. In an age where people were still becoming accustomed to the ramifications of a global network of computers that can connect the world’s individuals, firms and organisations – AKA the Information Superhighway – an online funeral service demonstrated the potential of being able to do everything online. Today a simple Google search returns more than 66 million results for funeral services, but back then Roger had a real proposition. Put down the phone, don’t bother arranging meetings, just log on to his site and “plan a funeral before your own death or after the death of a relative”. How wonderfully morbid!
Today a simple Google search returns more than 66 million results for funeral services, but back then Roger had a real proposition.
Trailing through the archives at SWNS can often reveal corkers like that, written by SWNS Owner & News Editor Andrew Young at the start of the millennium. Back then the firm was a small news and pictures agency in Bristol and terms such as social media, interactive infographics and viral content would have been as alien to the journalist’s ear as an alcohol-free lunch invitation. But today when we compile digital press releases these are the things that are at the forefront of our minds.
If the same story came across our desks today we would immediately consider how we can engage all the media channels and shape the content to suit the medium. Perhaps a Top 10 tips for planning a funeral or an interactive infographic calculating your own death date and options for planning your own funeral. A video showcasing the site’s functionality with commentary from Roger himself shouts viral; ”I have died about a hundred times checking that the site is all working okay” is just one of his quips in the original feature.
The parallels between our approach then and now highlight how far the company has come. From a news and pictures agency in Bristol SWNS has become a family of firms spanning across the country and internationally that specialise in delivering multi-platform content to suit all audiences. The ‘information superhighway’ has been shown to complement traditional media which means that for companies such as us knowing how to deliver on all fronts is the key to offering our clients the best the market has to offer in public relations. Or in the parlance of Roger, a PR service made in heaven
Radio Days that Deserve Capital Letters
I read with interest the article in The Guardian this month about Radio days often being perceived as a waste of time and money amongst PR people.
I just wanted to throw in my two pennies worth.
I agree if you are just re-hashing a press release, based on what the client wants the listener to hear with no regard to the specific demographic or location that the radio station is serving, then yes it's probably a big waste of your clients budget and time.
If you are trying to offer PR for a company who have stores all over the UK and the biggest station that you are running on is BFBS serving the armed forces in various locations around the world, then this probably isn't going to work well for you.
The key to effective Radio PR is to target the stations with relevant content; you have to think about the audience. Radio is such a fragmented market place with very defined target audiences. We have to think about what the audiences want to hear not what we want them to hear. The copy we send out to the Radio stations can't just be a replica of the press release; it has to be re written and targeted for a Radio audience.
You can't expect to get on air across the BBC promoting a specific campaign or trying to receive endless brand mentions, that would be against everything the BBC stands for, and quite rightly so as a publicly funded corporation. If you can go to a station with content that's targeted to their audience and locality then there is every chance they will find a use for the story.
Also think about the guests that you hear on the radio stations that you are targeting, if you're running a story about how much TV the average family watches over Christmas, look for a third party spokesperson that relates to the content, someone who has a family would be a good place to start and also someone that relates to the Radio stations audience you are targeting.
A Radio station aren't going to accept a story where the copy is about a specific product where a survey carried out by that product revealed that the same product is key to everyday life… and the spokesperson well this just happens to be the Marketing Manager for the company that makes that product.
The article says that people who run Radio PR companies will no doubt disagree with the comments made, actually I agreed with most of the points the writer raised, having worked as a presenter for most of my working life, I know how annoying it is to be a presenter on a 15-24 Hit Music Station - Capital FM in London and being sent a story that is clearly aimed at the 40+ market.
In summary listen to the Radio stations that you want to be on, what are they talking about and what type of guests do they have on. This way you can be useful to Radio stations by going to them with ready made content that they can just insert into their running order.
Chris' blog was original posted on his own blog which you can read here....
PR Seminar: Dealing With the Press and Coping With Christmas
I’d like to extend a big thank you to everyone who took the time out of their busy morning to join us for our first ever northern 72Point seminar on Thursday.
It was nice to renew a few old acquaintances, catch up with our best clients from that part of the world, and also network with a whole host of people who we haven’t previously met.
The high-point for me was the bacon rolls, while the low-point was the moment I unwittingly ‘brought the house down’ during Sam’s talk in the form of causing the collapse of one of our banners.
I have obviously apologised to Sam!
I hope everyone who was there took something from it. We will find out soon I guess, once we receive your feedback via our online poll.
I did explain during my talk that I would happily pass on the hints and tips which I discussed at length, so here is a transcript of the interesting bits:
If you do have huge pressure to sell in stories in the run up to Christmas, call news desks early.
When I worked on desks we would start at 6.15am
But bear in mind conference is at 10.30am or 11am, and in an ideal world the news list will be complete by 10am or 10.15.
That means the busiest and most fraught time of the morning is between about 8.30 and 9.45am.
And guess what happens at that time in the morning. That’s when PR people call up.
People always say to me that journalists need PRs.
That’s not necessarily true.
Specialist reporters do. News desks don’t.
There is always more than enough happening around the world to fill 39 news pages, especially considering their over reliance on citizen journalism, social networking sites and Sky News, for their content.
So if you don’t want to be shouted at, ring up between 7am and 8am.
Whether you ring up or not, you must get your story over in the A.M.
After this most stories which arrive on news desks will either be spiked – which is effectively the waste-paper basket – or they will be cut very short to fit into a specific space on a page.
That’s because later on in the day, is not the quality of the story which is the defining factor. Space on the page is.
If you have to create a festive tale, be different. Forget ‘Dads get socks for Christmas’, for example. It’s dull and is probably the most common Xmas PR tale.
Try and think outside the box and try and ensure your story isn’t just a stat. There IS a difference.
Six out of ten dads will be asleep on the sofa by 2pm isn’t a story.
‘Six out of ten dads will be asleep on the sofa by 2pm – after consuming six pints of lager, three glasses of champagne and a creme-de-menthe’ – is a story, because it has the crucial five Ws and the H elements.
This sort of story then becomes about Christmas, booze and dads, not just Christmas. And we all like a drink at Christmas so it flicks a little switch of resonance.
This sort of intro also gives you somewhere to go with the subsequent paragraphs.
When did dad start drinking? What was on telly when he started? How long before that did he get up?
Did he sleep through the Queen’s speech?
How much does he drink over the entirety of the festive period etc etc?
AND this sort of story does not have to be told in a negative way. It’s all about the tone.
Another thing to bear in mind is that the MailOnline DO run Xmas stories, quite a few in fact.
So if you have one which you think will sit nicely on what is now the world’s biggest free news site, write it in the style they prefer.
Include up to six bullet-pointed sentences at the top of your copy.
This way you have a chance of them copying and pasting the copy – which they seem to be a huge fan of at the moment – without changing much of it.
Getting your story on a news wire is also important.
Up until around five years ago I would have said that if you were placing your story on a news wire you wouldn’t really have needed to call up and actively sell it in as well.
But these days there are so few people working on newspapers that it’s likely your story may be missed or overlooked, so I would say call up anyway.
It can do no harm, and might make the difference between success and failure.
When you call avoid introducing yourself. It won’t make a difference. They are busy people and they are under immense pressure. They don’t want to make friends.
So when they pick up the phone and bark at you, bark back. Just say ”I’ve got a story for you”. This will stop them in their tracks and they will take the time to listen to you.
Then read the intro of your story. Don’t use the words press release or survey and certainly don’t mention a brand.
Once you have read them the intro, if they haven’t turned the story down or hung up, read them the second paragraph.
If they then give you their personal email address, you are in. There is now a chance they will use your story.
If they say: ‘Send it to news@the-sun.co.uk’, that’s the bin, or it certainly was when I worked on the paper.
And remember if you get a bauble in the Daily Star give yourselves a massive pat on the back, because this time of the year any news coverage is GREAT news coverage.
Have a wonderful Christmas.
Thanks for listening.