Lack of Female Role Models for Girls in the Media
It’s painful just how hugely teenage girls obsess over beautiful celebs, isn’t it?
Even more painful is remembering being exactly the same way.
As an awkward pre-teen, the waist of my trousers still that bit too high, I directed all my adolescent envy towards two TV babes: Holly Valance (Neighbours fan – weren’t we all) and Frankie, of the highly-regarded eight-piece ensemble, the S Club Juniors. Pause for emphasis.
They were older than me; I guess around 14 - slim, clear-skinned and so unbearably good-looking.
Call me a shallow kid but if someone had said to me, ‘What do you want in life?’ I’d have thought, ‘Flick Scully’s complexion’ without pausing. I didn’t know what else to put my energy towards. School?
Perhaps it was a blessing then, that my only exposure to these girls was through music videos, CBBC and my monthly Sugar mag, so I was only mildly hateful of myself. Imagining what my life would have been like if I were 11 years old today….to endure the social media noise that teenagers have now… well that’s too stressful to think about.
It’s likely I’d be drip-fed a continuous stream of Holly and Frankie through their Twitter feeds; lapping it up as they churned out duck-faced selfies, holiday pics strewn with product placement, bikini mirror shots - at a Kardashian regularity. In a misplaced brainwave I’d probably have uploaded a ‘vlog’ of myself re-enacting a Fast Show sketch with a toy panda or something, which, years later, I would almost kill myself trying to remove. I might have even… enjoyed Zoella. It’s frightening, what might have been.
Imagining what my life would have been like if I were 11 years old today….to endure the social media noise that teenagers have now… well that’s too stressful to think about.
But the next generation – the millennials (apparently I might be a millennial, a fact I’d rather hide away from)- live each day in this media frenzy, which is barely being contained. We’re only beginning to see the dark side developing from this parallel world - the Instagram culture, the trolling, cyber bullying, revenge porn – and what an obsession with narcissistic, selfie-addicted reality stars might do to a teenager’s sense of self.
The problem lies in the fact that the really cool women – the explorers, zoologists, scientists, entrepreneurs, are NOWHERE to be seen. And the Kardashians, the Jenners, the cast of Towie - who are solely famous for publicity and looks, are EVERYWHERE. They aren’t particularly admirable, aren’t representing a viable career move and are spreading their own message of ‘you don’t look good enough’ to their young fans like a disease.
It’s mostly ‘the Kylie Jenner effect’ (the influx of girls getting lip fillers due to her sudden enormous pout) that made me write this post, as it got me thinking about idols. Aside from their own family members, not to be downplayed, and a stock list of historical figures like Marie Curie that are churned out in school, there are just reams and reams of glitzy celebs. Throw in a Karen Brady, a Michelle Obama and a Mary Portas and that’s it, really.
A space-travelling woman going to Mars may be mentioned in the news one day, or an athlete on another day, or a CEO on another And then she fades into obscurity as a ‘What has she done to her face?!’ story dominates the air time for weeks.
Put simply, there is no PR for the real idols girls need. No scientists, world explorers, chemists, psychologists. No web designers, charity workers, astronauts or business owners. And if we, as adults, don’t know anything about the women making real changes in the world but constantly seeing Kim Kardashian’s blonde mop gets a news headline, no wonder girls are chasing their goals right into the cosmetic surgeon’s office instead.
There is no PR for the real idols girls need
I want to hear about women that are worth looking up to and emulating, who have made something of themselves based on more than their cheekbones. Who have seen a problem and looked to solve it, through hard graft and innovation.
And we should research them, and talk about them, and share them, and give them the PR they deserve – but also (cue the Miss. World bit) because it’s what young girls deserve. The scope of what women are achieving isn’t bleak; they’re just humble enough not to be yelling about it. It’s up to everyone else to yell about them instead. It’s up to us change the situation.
International Women's Day is the 8th March. Don't forget to join the conversation using #IWD2015
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
72Point Fun and Games
We’re all familiar with the festive well wishes that are sent by suppliers and clients at this time of year. Be they traditional cards, gifts, ecards or ‘hilarious’ animated santas and elves with personalised faces.
This year 72Point decided to do things slightly differently! Thanks to the fabulous work of our in house design studio, Drench, we shared a Christmas game for everyone to play for the chance of winning more sweets than you could ever dream of eating.
The format was a take on the retro Timberman game in which you have to help the lumberjack chop down the tree. With a little bit of design magic the lumberjack became Santa and the tree became dusted with snow!
The game was a huge success with some of our clients taking to it like ducks to water, and battling amongst themselves to get to the top of the leaderboard. In the office we peaked at 495, thinking it was impossible to get scores any higher……how wrong we were! Scores of 600 started to filter through. Then 700, then 8. The final winning score was 957! Outstanding work from Amanda Flanaghan from MEC Global. In fact we must give a special mention to MEC Global who refused to be beaten and reached a staggering company score of 50,078!
Thank you to all the lovely people who sent us a frankly ridiculous abundance of love and photos (which you can see on our Pinterest board, obviously)! It was and always will be our pleasure to show our gratitude (and keep sugar levels dangerously high, of course)…..So from all at 72Point and OnePoll, have a very merry Christmas and very happy New Year.
(Sadly there are no more prizes to award, but you can still play the game at (Christmascuts.com)
Christmas Ads are Coming to Town
It’s the end of November which obviously means it’s been Christmas ad season for months now. That means that every 10 to 15 minutes we’ve had flaming Christmas puddings, girls and boys dressed to the nines and unrealistically wrapped presents thrust upon our eyes.
Every year the nation’s (and the world’s) biggest brands spend thousands if not millions on their Yuletide ads; all trying to be the one that either makes you smile, makes you cry or makes your mouth water with delicious looking food. Every year they succeed and this year is no different.
In fact this year the ads seem bigger and better than ever. I find it hard to go on Facebook or Twitter without someone talking about or making me watch the latest Christmas advert. Pleasingly, this year, there seems to be a nice balance of ads which make you jolly and ads which make you borderline depressed.
Aldi for example, have pushed the boat out this year recruiting king of the Hootenanny, Jools Holland to tinkle the old ivories whilst being blasted with a dozen trumpets….none of which is a euphemism by the way. Then there’s the Debenhams ad showing what to many is the true joy of Christmas, happy smiling kids, running around and laughing. To me the idea of kids running around laughing is enough to make me never leave the house again but even I must admit that the Debenhams ad warms the cockles of my prematurely bitter old heart.
Marks and Spencer have gone down the jolly route with a magical themed ad which sees a couple of fairies making Christmas as special as it can be, whether it’s playing in the snow or having your washing magically upgraded (and consequently left outside on the line, in the cold, wet snow to spoil).
Boots on the other hand have taken a swerve from their normally jolly party mood type ad to focus more on a homage to the nursing industry. Their ad has gone down more the ‘I’m gonna make you cry until you buy one of our products’ route of advertising which seems to be increasingly popular at Christmas.
Obviously the John Lewis ad is a prime example. The John Lewis Christmas ad has become more than just an advert, it’s become an event. For many people it is one of the first genuine signs that Christmas is upon us whereas previously that accolade used to belong to Coca Cola with their iconic ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. John Lewis have made themselves the go to ad with the right balance of class, cuteness and emotion.
The John Lewis Christmas ad has become more than just an advert, it’s become an event.
This years offering is no different. Monty the Penguin has already become a household name and supplies of his plush counterpart are flying off the shelves. However the crown of most touching advert has been well and truly swiped from underneath John Lewis’ nose and plonked on the head of one Mr J Sainsbury.
The supermarket’s festive offering ties in with the 100 year anniversary of the start of the First World War, featuring the message that Christmas is a time for sharing, no matter what the situation. Although beautifully shot and profoundly heart-warming, the ad has unsurprisingly received its fair share of criticism with some remarking that it is cynical and disrespectful.
Christmas advertising, mainly due to an increasing dominance of commercialism has become a key part of Christmas, like it or not. During Christmases of old, people used to gather round a board game, or sit together to watch the Sound of Music for the millionth time. Now the family get together to see what festive spectacle John Lewis have put together. That is incredibly important in marketing terms. That means there is more pressure on marketers and advertisers to do something bigger than the ‘Buy this! Shop here!’ style adverts of old.
This explains why we see so many heartfelt, narrative adverts on our screens. For the big name brands and companies Christmas isn’t just about selling a single product, it’s about selling your whole company, getting people to choose you over your competitors. Therefore Christmas advertising has become more about portraying a message or a personality; about portraying the values of which your company stands for and with which Joe Public can identify. The Sainsbury’s advert is a great example of this.
Yes it might be a little bad taste given that they overall aim is to boost profits for Sainsbury’s but the advert is also in partnership with the Royal British Legion. What better way to use the power of Christmas advertising than to promote the work of such a noble charity. The ad shows that Sainsbury’s value the fallen (not that everyone else doesn’t) and that the notion of sharing at Christmas is key to the company’s image. Likewise the John Lewis advert reaffirms the messages of love and companionship; Boots celebrate the work of the nurses who work all hours; the Marks and Spencer’s ad even suggests that we turn our TV’s off and go and play outside like people did ‘when they were ‘ nipper’.
Nobody is suggesting that these are documentaries. Everyone knows they’re adverts and they’re doing it for profit. Yes the cynics will say that it’s a negative reflection of 21st century society where we focus on materialism and commercialism. But quite frankly so what? Do we all have to be quite so grumpy about it? I think it’s nice to see brands win us round with positive messages. It’s nice to grow attached to a certain advert, look at the fondness we all have for the late Linda Bellingham and her OXO adverts.
For the big name brands and companies Christmas isn’t just about selling a single product, it’s about selling your whole company
So when planning this year’s December marketing schedule we all need to remember this. People like things they can take into their hearts and minds, whether it’s funny or heart-warming. We need to think about our audience and not just about our profits. Your audience are people. People with shared experiences. This style of advertising is all about giving people just that and it’s these experiences that connect people with each other and in the world of marketing, connect people with brands.
To see what all the fuss is about some of the best (and worst) examples of Christmas marketing are on our Christmas Pinterest board .
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.