Talking Point

Enlist customers as your PR managers

PR rule number 1

 

if you can get someone else, preferably one of your customers, to tell your story, sign them up today 

 

Stories which are customer led, whether it's a speech, an advertisement, a case study or a blog, ooze credibility.

 

If you are launching a product, think about launching a customer experience instead.

 

Lighthouse Communications runs numerous programs for its clients that enlist their customers as credible advocates

 

Check out our latest efforts with Telstra Corporation, which featured in The Australian newspaper recently.

Nick D'Arcy ACA interview

Nick D'Arcy clearly has never studied Aristotle, judging by his performance on the A Current Affair program last night

if he did, we would have probably seen a totally different interview. The arrogant smirk, the constant twitching and the "can we take a break" request when he was asked a difficult question would not have been my lasting images of his exchange with host Tracey Grimshaw.

Aristotle taught us that "delivery" was about aligning your body and voice with your key messages.

For a guy who is supposedly trying to rebuild a shattered reputation, a quick lesson in Aristotle's five communications principles is highly recommended.

IVF cutbacks require aggressive PR response

Jill Singer's narrow-minded view on IVF prompted me to post a comment on her Herald Sun blog over the Easter weekend.

You can check out her post here which comes on the back of an escalating debate about the merits of spending large sums of taxpayers' money on subsidising IVF treatment for couples.

I've got a vested interest in this debate both on a personal and professional level.

On the personal, my almost two-year-old son was conceived thanks to the miracles of Australia's world leading IVF program. On the professional, I am keenly interested in the public affairs implications of this debate.

With the Federal budget in meltdown, the pre-budget media leaks emanating from Canberra suggest the IVF program could be means-tested or the number of treatment "cycles" subsidised by the Government capped. The outcome would ultimately result in less children born in Australia every year.

The IVF lobby has successfully fought of such proposals before but this time it could be different. The central argument put forward by anti-subsidy proponents such as Singer is an economic one. Put simply, the scheme is too generous, risky and ill-affordable in tough economic times.

I'm a supporter of the subsidy for obvious reasons. But the program is facing its most serious threat in its history. The public affairs campaign therefore needs to be moved up a notch and quickly.

Backed with real life case studies and meaningful research, a starting point for a pro-IVF campaign might include some of the following points:

For every IVF child born in Australia every year, the economic contribution they will make to Australia in future years would be quite substantial. I wonder how many of our future politicians, judges, community leaders and even journalists will have originated through an IVF program?

The community and health costs associated with effectively denying many couples the chance to have children would be enormous. Marriage breakdown, depression and their associated side-effects immediately come to mind. Bringing these long term consequences of fiddling with a hugely successful program to life is crucial.

There are many thousands of IVF-friendly voters in marginal seats. Building a coalition of pro-active supporters through traditional means (media, letter writing etc) as well as new social media tools (facebook, Twitter, Blogging etc) will help place pressure on poll=reactive pollies.

These are just some thought starters worthy of further consideration.

Teenage binge drinking and the old and new media

Getting the message out to a teenage audience via the media about binge drinking research projects is unintentionally somewhat harder than it looks.

It seemed a relatively straightforward PR exercise - hot button story, volunteers needed, a controlled research project of considerable community importance.

The Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute's Prof. Lindy Rae is about to begin a substantial research project into the effects of binge drinking on the brains of 16 and 17 year olds. It's never been done before. But considerable medical evidence abounds that because the human brain does not mature until your early 20's, binge drinking (more than 5 drinks in a single sitting) is almost certainly causing damage to the immature brain.

Prof. Rae needs 80 binge drinkers and the same number of "alcohol virgins" for a Q and A and non-invasive MRI brain scan.

To give the project some initial momentum and getting teenagers volunteering we went to the mainstream media.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph ran a brief, and listed the contact number. Unfortunately, the sub-editor put "Drinkers Wanted" as the heading to the story.

No teenager volunteers. But a lot of middle aged men rang from around NSW volunteering to come in and "have a drink on our behalf".

Hmmm. The Sun Herald were going to do a feature. It turned in to a single column story and got a positive response. Unfortunately, the sub seemed to have deleted the contact number from the copy. But a  number called POWMRI anyway and have registered.

Radio had a mixed view - most of the producers felt they'd done the "teenage binge drinking" story to death, but come and talk to us after the results are out. 2DayFM thought about it and did a short news interview, NovaFM didn't react. And of course we will go back to them with the results. 2UE's John Stanley and 2GB's Chris Smith felt an interview with Prof. Rae was worth doing.

While the AM stations may not talk to a large number of teenagers, they should reach the ears of concerned parents and grand parents.

Street papers Drum Media and 3DWorld both are running with it this week and next, hard copy and online. And the two major suburban  groups, Cumberland Newspapers and Fairfax Family have agreed to run a story throughout their groups.

Those positive responses were great and important for Prof. Rae and POWMRI.

But two things became evident trying to elicit support 1) that community projects no longer get automatic media support and b) that old media is not the way to go with something like this...social media are the new connective channels.

The number, by the way, if you or a friend or member of your family would be prepared to volunteer (16-17 year old boys and girls) is 9385 0217. POWMRI is at Randwick.

Social media doesn't have to be deceitful

Caught up with the ABC hit show, the Gruen Transfer, last week and found the discussion mostly thoughtful and entertaining.  Also got a great belly laugh out of the Pitch, where two agencies produced an ad to help Shane Warne become the greatest cricketing hero in Australia by removing The Don from that mantel.

But when it came to discussion about the recent infamous viral campaign - come mainstream media campaign - for the launch of a new menswear range, I was in shock by some of the comments from the panel ... particularly comments from one Russell Howcroft from George Patterson Y&R.

Firstly one must question comments such as "worked well online because people are used to being tricked and don't mind", "it was clearly an ad and everyone knew it, therefore it was fair to go with" and "at first it was fine" and "online people know the game, its a new language so they play it" or words to that effect given shorthand was never my favourite subject.

Are they for real? Do these people really advise clients on social media?

I am not a social media expert by any stretch, but I do not buy the proposition that the online community accept and agree with deceitful behavior.

Then it got worse, when they moved on to the $8 million plus of free media generated by the campaign and the lies perpetuated by the advertiser, the advertising agency and the publicist employed to push the story out.

To me, Russel Howcroft did not appear to have a problem with it ... and I was not surprised when later he said that he in the main believed "Any Publicity is Good Publicity" (although thankfully some sense crept in when he did say that "perhaps" not in this case)

That takes the cake!

PR should be about helping businesses reach business objectives and to create, build and protect reputation - not about generating cheap headlines through lies and deception.

Past reflections and future directions for Australian media

The Australian newspaper's Media section turns 10 this week. Its must read Monday supplement, Media published a retrospective of the big media events and trends of the last decade and gazed into the crystal ball to examine what the media landscape might look like in another 10 years. Here are just some of the interesting takeouts.

Newspapers are far from dead but face challenges

According to Roy Morgan research, while magazine and newspaper penetration is moderating, penetration is still high with four in five Australians consuming both media each week.

Lachlan Murdoch opined that Australia's newspapers owners were well positioned because, he says, we producethe best newspapers in the world. Future challenges for newspaper proprietors, according to Murdoch, included finding a workable online newspaper model without compromising quality journalism and convincing punters to pay for content. Newspapers that ultimately survive will be those with the best journalism, which should be paid for. 

Public broadcasting hits new heights

SBS has doubled its television views from 3.5 per cent to almost 7 per cent in the last 10 years. The ABC is also claiming it has strengthened its position with its greatest success coming from its aggressive move into the online space. Just this week, the ABC launched ABC Mobile, which brings specially developed news, sport, entertainment content to mobile phone screens. Good content attracts eyeballs Cross multiple platforms with one episode of the ABC's Chaser program attracting three million TV viewers on a single night, hundreds of thousands more when it was re-screened on ABC 2, a million vodcast downloads and a best seller DVD.

Magazine attrition rates are high

Of the nine magazines launched a decade ago, only one, ACP's Money Magazine, remains.Casualties have included The Eye (A real shame, Australian Table, Elle Cuisine, Dingo and the Footy Show Magazine

Global news brands to dominate

According to Professor Jeffery Cole, from the University of Southern California's Centre for the Digital Future, the media landscape would be dominated by a handful of global news brands, much of whose content will be consumed on a screen - TV, PC, Mobile. he also predicted new subscription models would emerge, giving people access to up-to-the-minute libraries of music, news and film for between $10 and $20 a month.

Rugby League's PR mess

The sexual assault charges laid against Manly star Brett Stewart last night are just the tip the of the iceberg for Rugby League's public relations problems.

In recent times (by my count) no fewer than 12 players - one shy of filling an entire football team -have brought shame upon themselves and the game. Accusations have included players been shot at, glassing their female partner, making lewd late night phone calls, engaging in sex acts in public toilets, threatening a girlfriend with a kitchen knife and doing the runner on a cab driver. 

As late as yesterday, a court banned one player from entering his home town of Goulburn due to fears he will misbehave. There's no more damaging and damning indictment you could get.

Despite the Rugby League's best efforts to introduce players education programs regarding alcohol and violence against women, it doesn't appear to be working. in PR terms in the current environment, it's just spin and window dressing.

It's now time the clubs took a firm and collectivestand and weed out those elements who are destroying their club brands not to mention the future of rugby league in our community.

If allegations of poor behaviour are made and there's reasonable evidence to suggest they are true, immediate player suspensions should kick in. That means immediate, no questions asked action taken by the club. Don't wait for three days and allow barrage of critical headlines to further erode images and reputations.

If they are proven, players not only are banned from the club but the entire game, end of story.

Anyone else in the community who brings their employer into disrepute can expect to be fired without exception. The same should now apply to the highly paid rugby league players.

Changing the culture through a zero tolerance approach to misbehaviour is the only way to solve rugby league's endemic PR problems.

Our first ever Interactive Media Release

Today, we had the pleasure of launching Telstra Corporation's first ever interactive media release.

What's an interactive media release? Well, it replaces the banal, cookie cutter media release of yesteryear, using social media tools such as Flick, YouTube, RSS and social bookmarking to provide journalists with multi-media content to promote a story.

In today's world of Internet-based communications, the interactive media release reflects journalists increasing use of new media technologies.

These types of media releases are only very new in Australia and were first developed in the US around two years ago when Influential blogger and commentator, Tom Forenski, of Silicon Valley Watcher claimed the traditional, text only media release was dead 

Click here to read Tom's article Die press release! Die! Die! Die!

Let customers lead your communications programs

I’m often asked: “what makes a great story”?

Celebrities, statistics and compelling photos are just some of the ingredients PR practitioners often use to tart up their client’s stories.

I’ve worked with and for large corporations for a long time and most have some great stories to tell.

But try telling them to a spin-fatigued journalists and more than often you won’t get the attention you think you deserve..

Yes, media attitudes towards big business sometimes make me downright angry.

But I’ve accepted that is the reality of the media environment I operate in and believe a “customer led” communications approach is essential to changing cynical media attitudes.

It sounds obvious but all too often I’m shocked at the unwillingness of some corporates to take a back seat and push their customers forward to advocate on their behalf.

By all means, pump up those statistics, capture a great photo or release a white paper but use your customers to humanize your messages, always.

Customers – those who buy, use and benefit from your products and services - will always be your strongest ambassadors.

Neal fails media management test

Belinda Neal’s media management techniques can only be described as amateurish. The federal MP for Robertson, who became famous for abusing and threatening Iguanas Waterfront Restaurant staff, has rounded on her many critics and the media for daring to critique her anger management problems. Her latest outing is for ABC TV’s Australian Story where she declares she is “no snow white but I do have feelings”. The best thing Neal could do is to shut up. Her unpopularity inside and outside ALP circles presents an open invitation to her many critics to recount their Belinda Neal horror stories every time she opens her mouth on the subject.