LEWIS 360°

Nudged in The Sun's direction

Alex Clough — 2009-11-10T13:14:35+00:00

So according to the BBC’s interview with The Sun this morning, the recording of Gordon Brown’s attempted apology to Jacqui Janes definitely wasn’t anything to do with them.

For those that don’t know, Gordon Brown is in scalding hot water over a personal handwritten letter of condolence that he sent Mrs Janes, the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan. It was hardly legible and, crucially, misspelt the family surname. Oops.

As I discussed in a post last week, the Sun switched its allegiance to the Tories during this year’s party conference season. From what I can tell, Mrs Janes came to them with the story – a perfect opportunity for it to launch an attack.

Gordon is actually receiving a lot of support from the general public, who are taking into consideration The Sun’s agenda, his poor eyesight and the clear sincerity of the words contained in the letter.

Despite this, it is a bigger story today than it was yesterday because of this recorded conversation. Now I’m not suggesting that The Sun is solely using Mrs Janes as a pawn in its political game, but I do think that the tabloid will have made it clear that she has an open platform through their paper. Given the damage this is doing to both Labour and the Prime Minister personally, it is impossible to ignore how snugly this fits with the tabloid’s shift in allegiance.

The Sun said this morning that a friend of Mrs Janes recorded the phone conversation on a PDA when the Prime Minister called, and that they played no part in it. But The Sun will have known that the most logical step for Gordon after being attacked for the handwritten letter would be to speak with Mrs Janes personally. I don’t want to presume, but if it came up in conversation that Gordon might call, maybe a quick check to make sure that recording capabilities were at hand would have been suggested.

I think the tabloid is being honest that no money has changed hands and that a friend recorded it, but I think having the foresight to do so was something that may just possibly have been influenced by an outside party.

Can social media ethics mix with business ethics?

Eb Adeyeri — 2009-11-10T10:41:37+00:00

Whatever your opinion of Twitter, one thing you can't argue about is the ability it has to divide opinion and stoke debate.

Over the weekend, Techcrunch contributor Paul Carr wrote a blog post on the tragic events at Fort Hood. The post sparks a mixture of praise and rebuttals across the blogosphere like here and here

While I personally disagree with Carr's reading of social media on society, I have to commend him for raising the debate and making people take a close look on a deeper level about how we interact with social technologies. And with social media making further in roads into the corporate communications world, it does make you wonder how businesses will address what can be a thorny issue.

On Thursday, we will be hosting Shel Israel, author of the book Twitterville in the latest of our LEWIS Social Media Summits looking at what the future holds for the communications for goverments and corporations. I'm particularly keen on hear his thoughts on the what the impact Twitter has on societies and what lessons policy makers and business leaders can learn from events like those at Fort Hood or the Neda Agha Soltan video. The event is sold out but you can follow the discussion through the #LEWISSMS tag on twitter and also via the Follow live tab from the Summit's micro site

Farewell Millbank Media Centre, you served us well

Ilona Hitel — 2009-11-09T13:24:53+00:00

Today we agreed the sale of the LEWIS Media Centre (LMC) to Altitude, the events group within Millbank Tower. LEWIS took the centre on at no cost five years ago, when it served as home to the Labour Party, and was stage to the successful 1997 election campaign.

After a programme of investment, the Centre was transformed into a business event venue and auditorium, and became a significant revenue stream, with clients such as the British Olympics Association, Reuters and Sky News.

High profile events include the political David v David debate for Conservative leadership, and more recently, Bono’s ONE Organisation launched its annual DATA Report at the LMC. Attendees included Bill Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bob Geldof.

So now it’s great to see the increased profile of the centre recognised through a significant cash lump sum as a result of its sale. Strategically, this is an important move for us. The proceeds will be re-invested in the expansion of the business – in further acquisitions, to expedite agency growth, as well as staff promotions and appointments to strengthen account servicing.

It’s also a fond farewell, as the place has been home to a number of LEWIS (very late night/early morning) parties, as I’m sure many of you will remember (or not, as the case may be).

Moving forwards, we will still have the venue at our disposal for a series of events until the end of the year. In terms of sourcing facilities in the future, we have already started to use a number of well-known external venues for our social media events #LEWISSMS.

Social Networking World Forum, Santa Clara

Morgan McLintic — 2009-11-07T21:47:37+00:00

I'm on a panel at the Social Networking World Forum on Tuesday - 'Monitoring and measuring people talking about your company'. Along with some other excellent speakers:

Richard Jalichandra, CEO, Technorati
Jack Teuber, Director, US Online Marketing, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Donna Goff, Advertising Manager, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino
Tim Moore, founder, SayItSocial.com (moderator)

This is a great topic and we only have 30 minutes so we'll try to make it as jammed packed with info as possible.

Later in the day, Lucy Allen and I are running a workshop between 1.00pm-2.00pm. If you're at the event, please do swing by:

Red alert: how to navigate a crisis in today’s social media landscape

How do you monitor for crises before they get out of control?
Should you respond? If so, how?
What can you do in advance to prepare?

If you don't yet have your ticket you can get a 20% discount by using the promotion code 'LEWISPR09'. Hope to see you there.

Twitter: The end of history?

Dan Street — 2009-11-07T08:44:51+00:00

PR Week posted an interesting article this week, a debate on when we’d see the next Twitter. And it got me all philosophical.

It reminded me of Francis Fukyama, a political economist who proclaimed that capitalism was ‘the end of history’. Fukyama claimed that a free market economy was the optimum, the end result of organic economic evolution.

The Internet (and specifically social media) is, in many ways, a prime example of a free market economy. But after reading the thoughts of an eclectic gaggle of PR’s most infamous Twitterati on the future of social media, I began to wonder… is Twitter itself the end of history?

Twitter is a slim, stripped-down application. It offers more interactivity and diversity than LinkedIn, without becoming bloated by a host of needless applications, à la fat-Facebook.

When you think about it, what else would you really want Twitter to do, or to be? More additions and it becomes a sprawling, diffused, and distracted entity. Any slimmer, and its cross-platform communicative penetration is lost.

PR’s pundits would have us believe that Google Wave, MySpace or even Farmville are the next big things. But they’re not: because they’re spiralling applications that have become distracted by gimmicks. Twitter was built on a simple concept, let the talking do the talking.

We’re witnessing the future right now, in the present. So when it comes to finding the next Twitter, it’s time to go back to the future.

FTC TARGETS BLOGGERS. WHAT ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE?

Jon Miller — 2009-11-06T22:03:01+00:00

Kudos to the FTC for updating the guidelines for endorsements and testimonials in advertising. I'm especially happy that the "results not typical" disclaimer no longer provides safe harbor to weight loss companies that promise you can lose 250 pounds in 12 minutes without exercise (results not typical). To support these fantastic claims, advertisers must now provide statistical data and, you know, actual facts.

The FTC also addressed bloggers that review and/or endorse consumer products. The FTC's goal is a good one: force bloggers that are paid for product endorsements by companies with a stream of free products or cold hard cash to disclose that relationship. I personally believe that form of disclosure should be manifested as a can't-miss graphic that says "PAID ADVERTORIAL" in big neon letters across the center of the text, with the possible addition of "FAIL." Paid "reviews" fly in the face of everything for which both social media and journalism stand. Thankfully, many companies realize that transparency and trust are paramount as they use social media, and such blatant shilling is becoming a thing of the past (hopefully).

But what about legitimate review sites? Should these new guidelines apply to major media outlets as well as solo bloggers typing from the light of a lava lamp in the basement? I think so. The lines of journalism are already fuzzy enough. Regardless of scale, reviewers for blogs and larger sites perform the same function for the reader. Asking, say, CNET or IGN to disclose that they received a free product for review only reinforces what most people already know anyway. Full disclosure, in addition to clear, concise review policies, should lead the way for any outlet reviewing a product.

Videogame blog Kotaku has an excellent review system in place. Mike Fahey reviewed the new BioWare role-playing game Dragon Age: Origins this week. At the bottom of this review, he added this paragraph that goes above and beyond the FTC recommended guidelines:

Dragon Age: Origins was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on November 3. Retails for $59.99 USD ($49.99 PC). A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Reviewed the PlayStation 3 version. Played through the main game on standard difficulty, choosing the City Elf origin and rogue as my character class. Completed main quest, multiple side quests, and The Stone Prisoner downloadable content, which should definitely not be missed.

And if that isn't enough, there is also a handy link straight to Kotaku's review FAQ.

In order for any product review to be successful, readers must trust the reviewer. The FTC took a necessary step forward in protecting consumers from unsavory bloggers. But to be clear, these guidelines should apply to any outlet that reviews products, from single bloggers to large media outlets. Besides, 10 years from now, will there really be much of a difference?

How does social media affect crisis management?

Morgan McLintic — 2009-11-06T18:40:40+00:00

Social media is making crisis management more important in public relations. It's changing the number of crises, their speed, rate of proliferation and the response mechanism. Let's look at the impact social media is having on crisis comms, and what that means to us as communicators:

Frequency - there are more crises overall. Not the physical type (accident, mishap) but the informational type (misinformation spreading). Given the increase in the amount of information flowing, there are more errors, misunderstandings and simply countervailing opinions in circulation which need to be corrected, countered or somehow contained.

Speed - crises break much faster in line with the speed of the news cycle. This places more emphasis on monitoring.

Reach - the proliferation of a crisis is broader, reaching a bigger audience. This means issues are no longer local, but global. Crisis comms needs to be a global portfolio.

Permanence - Google never forgets, so once the crisis has blown over, it stays in the collective memory for a long time. Even though it happened in 2004, a search on 'Kryptonite Bike Lock' on Google still has the second entry as the biro story. That was five years ago - ouch.

Measurability - we've always known that a crisis hurts the brand, but not by how much. Now we can get a glimpse since we can track the traffic from online sources to the main site, we can track the proliferation of the story, easily see the number of recurrences of a damaging phrase/statistic.

Addressability - if appropriate, we can fight back. There is a right to reply on almost all social media outlets, so there is a chance to comment directly and indirectly. No longer just a letter to the editor or a belated correction, but a comment directly tied to the relevant article.

Length - they may be permanent, but they are normally short. Phew. The speed and frequency dynamics mean that crises normally burn quickly then blow over as the next one breaks and attention moves on. This doesn't mean that the issues don't need to be addressed but you won't be under the spotlight for long.

Given these dynamics, in a follow up post we'll look at how social media impacts our response to crises.

This won't stop 'til they've had enough

Alex Clough — 2009-11-06T10:35:04+00:00

All a-board! In a morbid reversal of the money-grabbing aftermath of Princess Di, the gravy train of the deceased ultra-famous has left America and is rolling full-speed into British living rooms.

Flicking through TV channels last night, I saw an advert for a programme that left me speechless. If you’ve never been ashamed of commercially driven broadcasting, you will be now.

Tonight, ladies and gents, at 10pm on Sky 1 HD, Derek Acorah from Most Haunted! will be conducting a live séance with Michael Jackson...

...I KNOW. I can’t quite believe it either.

According to the blog of illusionist Derren Brown, this travesty is the brainchild of Sky 1 HD commissioning editor Clare Hollywood. She is also producing the show – probably because she can’t find a producer with a sufficient lack of taste and decency to put their name to it.

I have complete confidence that Derek Acorah will claim to connect with Michael Jackson’s spirit, otherwise they wont have a programme and will disprove their own supposition. But how can people that believe shows like this not see that this ignores the format that makes them believable in the first place?

Normally, a group of impressionable, emotional and grief-stricken people collect in a TV studio, where a very rich person claims to speak with their departed relatives using thought transference and processes of elimination. This is tosh in my opinion, but does require a degree of skill to appear real enough for the people in the studio.

The séance with Michael Jackson, however, has no random element to it and requires absolutely no skill. We already know who Derek is trying to connect with, so all Derek has to do is say “I’ve connected with him” and that’s it, job done, money in the bank.

While I am very intrigued as to who will be there, how he is going to make it look genuine and who will be advertising in the commercial breaks, I hope nobody watches this. Particularly if they have to buy the Sky HD package especially.

Clare Hollywood doesn’t believe it’s real. She does believe in audience numbers and advertising revenue though.

Unfortunately, the possibility of Derek Acorah breaking into the moonwalk while embodying the King of Pop's spirit may just be too good to miss...

Interview with Paul Charles, newly appointed COO

LEWIS Team — 2009-11-05T18:21:12+00:00

Paul Charles met with the UK team today, at Millbank Tower. Here you can see some of his views on the role, the opportunities for the agency globally, and the industry as a whole.

Poor, jealous, heartbroken Gordon

Alex Clough — 2009-11-04T14:18:21+00:00

The Sun’s support for the Tories to win the next general election was widely covered by the UK media during this year’s conference season. This week, in an interview with GQ Magazine, Gordon Brown is revealing that he is rather upset by this.

Poor Gordon, I know how he feels.

I remember being a teenager and breaking up with my first girlfriend. Not only did I have to deal with the heartbreak, but it didn’t take her long to start going out with another chap with whom I didn’t get along overly well.

Gordon’s protest that the Sun has “made a terrible mistake” smacks of the jilted ex-boyfriend struggling to come to terms with seeing his loved one with another guy. He’s even started to get a bit petty about it. By claiming that the Sun is trying to “become a political party”, he is demonstrating the selective memory that plagues the heartbroken.

In March 1997, we saw the famous “The Sun backs Blair” headline. So by his own logic, the Sun has been a political party long before this shift in support. But with the wounds so fresh, it’s no surprise that he doesn’t want to remember the relationship’s first public display of affection.

Labour shouldn’t get too downhearted by this though. The Sun is the girl at school that goes from boy to boy, breaking everyone’s heart when they start to look like a bit of a desperate sap. Gordon would do well to remember the self-congratulatory “It’s the Sun what won it” headline after Conservative success in 1992.

But like every man, he never wants to completely burn his bridges. Gordon’s made sure that Rupert Murdoch knows that he still loves him, just in case the media mogul comes running back with his arms wide open.

The worrying thing for Gordon, however, is that the Sun tends to back the winner.