Archive for January, 2009
Media in the 21st century
Posted by John Weet in Social media on January 28, 2009
Attended an interesting presentation last night by Tom Watson of Bournemouth Univerities business school. The presentation was about research that they have been conducting with Ketchum on media in the 21st century. You can see the Ketchum press release on the study here.
What we saw was only a very truncated sneak preview of research that is to be published next week. We were only presented with the bare figures and very little analysis but what I did see was very interesting.
What we were shown was the differences in media consumption between the USA and the UK and the relative credibility that people applied to that media. The UK Questionnaire can be seen here.
I’m going to try to get hold of the full results as I feel this may change the way that I view certain media. Some interesting figures were the fact that only 14% of people would look to trade mags for their news but 65% would find that news to be credible.
I know that the survey results are looking at news in general so I don’t yet know how much to read into this, that’s why I need to see the results.
What else was very interesting was the generally low use of digital media. The stats on personal blogs for instance make me wonder whether I am wasting my time even typing this post…. But then I do it for the love of it and not because I genuinely feel somebody is going to look at it to get the news.
The importance of internal comms in an external campaign
Posted by John Weet in Public Relations on January 12, 2009
I give blood regularly and was recently sent a letter telling me that as I had donated three times in the past year I was to be given a slate coaster the next time that I went. All I had to do was present the letter and the coaster was mine. Giving blood can be a chore and it is a little bit uncomfortable at times so it felt nice that my efforts were appreciated. It gave me a nice warm feeling inside.
I gave blood last week and presented my letter. The response I got was totally unexpected, and I quote,
“Don’t know what you want one of those for, I wouldn’t give them house room, I’d rather see the money spent where it should be spent and not on that sort of stuff.”
This person has missed the point, the coaster wasn’t for her, it was for me. It was a thanks and I was pleased with it.
This was a nice little PR campaign by the National Blood Service, spoiled at the point of delivery. Either they didn’t communicate the purpose of the campaign correctly to the people at the customer interface or they didn’t gauge how well that message had been received by that person. Whichever it was it took the edge off it for me.
This type of experience clearly demonstrates the importance of ensuring people all the way through the organisation are on message, particularly those at the sharp end.
B2B or B2C, is there really a difference?
Posted by John Weet in Public Relations on January 9, 2009
I get approached a lot by recruitment consultants trying to put me forward for various positions. I do not understand why they often ask questions that they can easily answer themselves by looking at my CV, which they invariably have in front of them. One of the questions that gets asked most is “do you have any B2C experience?” Again, a question that can easily be answered by looking at my CV. But does it really matter anyway?
The art of PR is understanding your audiences; understanding the message you need to get across to that audience, in order to have the effect that you desire; and then identifying the media that you need to use in order to get that message across. The technique is the same whether you are communicating direct to the consumer or to a business. Am I being naive by suggesting that there is no difference?
I did wonder if it is because the recruiters expect you to have an intimate knowledge of the consumer media or of the trade media but not both. Maybe they don’t realise that it doesn’t work like that (unless you are really specialising in a particular niche). I work in the B2B technology sector but when taking on a new client we still have to research their market and identify the media that we should be using.
It is an easy job nowadays to identify media. There are numerous on-line and printed resources to help us do that, and above all the client will invariably know which media he would use. Gone are the days that this information just existed in peoples heads.
I would therefore suggest that whether you have experience of B2B or B2C is irrelevant and recruiters, employers and clients should not get hung up about it. What is important is how skilled you are in understanding the messages, and how you get that across. For that you need to look deeper than the words written on the CV and ask relevant questions, not those that can easily be answered by reading the paper in front of you.