PR issues

College Scholarship in One Tweet

2012-01-19T03:42:00.000-08:00

Can a single tweet make you money or get you into a good university?

Some may think it's highly unlikely, but the campaign I'm going to describe in this post can prove that nothing is impossible in the era of social media.

The PR campaign was aimed at high school seniors planning to attend a public in-state college or university. KFC, company famous with its 'chicken splendour' and other pleasant food (which I've never tried myself surprisingly), decided to offer one of its 75 Colonel's scholarships in an original way.

Famous multinational brand knew that in order to create buzz around their 20000 US dollars scholarship, they needed to differentiate themselves among another 2,5 million private and public scholarships offered by different organisations and institutions. That's why they decided to pair with Weber-Shandwick PR agency and came up with one brilliant idea.

Instead of employing the traditional old boring scholarship essay, KFC planned to give the money toward one high schooler's college tuition for the best tweet it receives.

The lucky winner was Amanda Russell who tweeted “Hey Colonel! Your scholarship’s the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash!” . She was chosen according to the '40% on creativity, 30% need and 30% drive' criteria and rewarded wih the $20,000 college scholarship

The news about the award was announced on USA-today website and generated more than 1,300 media placements creating 60 million+ media impressions. Also the campaign managed to trigger nine million social media impressions as a result of the striking amount of Tweets during the short entry period.

Obermutten's Social Media Phenomenon

2011-11-18T04:39:00.001-08:00

Some of us, PR industry people, might wonder, how it is possible to make a village with 80 residents and zero tourists an attractive place for the media and in particular the new media?

The creators of the Facebook page www.facebook.com/obermutten definitely know the answer to this question.

In the recent past, the small Swiss village of Obermutten has been just a picturesque quite spot on the map with 80 residents known to virtually no one except its inhabitants.

The miracle happened when a small team of very enthusiastic and creative people decided to change the situation and make their quiet village a world-famous tourist attraction point, mediawise at least.

Jung von Matt/Limmat for the Graubunden department of tourism have came up with an idea of a facebook group devoted to their habitat in the Canton of Graubunden in Switzerland.

The mayor of village has made a public promise on a newly opened facebook page that if any visitor clicks 'like', they would get an opportunity to post their profile picture on the Commune's official notice board. The idea was so liked by people worldwide that not only the board was covered with fans' pictures, but in order to deal with an influx of 'likes' coming from the worldwide community, the local authorities decided to hang fans' pictures up on barn walls.

As a result, the online Facebook fanbase has risen to striking 9000 people, and media reports about the village have spread in more than 20 countries, including South Korea. Additionally, Obermutten's tourist website managed to receive a 250% increase of traffic, according to Facebook.

Such a social media phenomenon can give many PR and advertising agencies a hint that in order to create a successful campaign, it's not necessary to have huge budgets or use super-complicated marketing or PR techniques in order to attract publicity and attention, all that is neccessary (at least in this case) is a little bit of imagination, wit, Internet access and an inspired team who are able to spark the public interest.

Talking bins for raising public awareness

2011-09-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

As most of us know, keeping the city clean and neat is not an easy task for battalions a thousand strong street cleaners and ordinary citizens. Sometimes we just 'forget' to bin a carton box left after eating our lunch or just can't be bothered to carry the litter to the nearest dumpster. Whatever the reason for littering is, it doesn't improve the look of any city.

That's why in anticipation of the upcoming Olympics, the organisation called Keep Britain Tidy in partnership with Liverpool City Central BID and the arts organisation Sing London. have decided to launch a new PR campaign aimed at raising public awareness in London and Liverpool. The UK capital will get 25 talking and singing rubbish bins installed all across centre. They will all look like their ordinary counterparts with the only difference in store - they'll be able to talk and sing back. The trial is due to start this October.

Keep Britain Tidy website has posted an official announcement of the campaign start. It says that '"I'm singing in the bin" and "Rubbish keeps falling on my head" are just some of the vocal messages that have been contributed by actors Amanda Holden and Michael Palin, rugby player Kenny Logan and ENO soprano Janis Kelly'. They also add that additional messages will be adapted to suit each location so Liverpool will have a 'Beatles Bin' while Covent Garden's bin will have an operatic theme.

The bins will stay in London and Liverpool l for two months, after that they will be touring the UK, returning for the Olympic Games in 2012.

Sing London's director, Colette Hiller, says: "Its ambition is to actually make people care about the place where they live and we want to do that by using fun as a way to bring the best out in people."
If the campaign proves to be successful, the bins can become a permanent fixture for the UK streets. This idea has been previously used byt Sweden and Finland, and it proved to be quite successful.

In the end, isn't it a smart way to convince us to be responsible for the cleanliness of the environment and add some entertainment into our daily routine? I personally think it's a very good way to promote the idea of social responsibility and communicate a very useful idea to the public.

Dream job from Bacardi

2011-09-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

After quite a long break from my PR blog research, I decided to return with a new load of the most interesting news in the world of PR and everything that can be considered relevant to this sphere.
The first interesting post I came across was a job opening posted on one Russian recruitment site which I decided to translate into English.

see the original post here (for those who understand Russian):

My translation of the original posting:

Martini is announcing casting for the best job in any man's life!

Job responsibilities:
- Kisses with top-models
- Participation in TV commercial for Martini

Requirements:

Sex: Male
Citizenship: Russia
Age: 25-40
Charm
Charisma
Experience in the kissing industry
Love to top-models
Foreign passport valid for at least half a year

We offer:
To kiss 10 top-models in a TV commercial which will be done in Rome
Timescale: 1 full working day
Complimentary corporate lessons on how to kiss
Official salary: 150 000 euro

Period of work:
17th October - 1st November 2011

I personally think it's a great example of a viral Internet advertising, moreover, even if the commercial is created, it will be forbidden on most of official Russian channels due to the law banning alcohol advertising on TV.
It also reminds me of the similar vacancies advertised not a long time ago by Tourist organisation Tourism Queensland of the Australian state of Queensland. A post of the inspector of the island Hamilton attracted 34 thousand applications. The most attractive thing about this jobs was the salary in hundred thousand dollars for half a year, and all the inspector was supposed to do was to photograph sights of island and feed turtles.

Apparently, country tourism, image and awareness level have gained a lot from this brilliant viral campaign.

Any takers for the role?

NGO campaign for raising the awareness about AIDS

2010-04-01T07:49:00.000-07:00

As a continuation of my previous post I would like to introduce you a video created by Edelman Sports and Entertainment Marketing who cooperated with social organisation Camfed in order to produce a documentary called 'Where the Water Meets the Sky'. The aim of this film was to raise the awareness about the issue of AIDS in Africa (in Zambia in particular) and tell an exciting story of 24 Zambian women with HIV who were given cameras and taught how to produce films as one of the means to tell about their life experience.

The film premiered on December 1, 2009 on the Sundance Channel.

Here's the video of a co-creator David Freeman of the documentary and the PR story behind it:

Why do NGOs need PR?

2010-04-01T07:20:00.001-07:00

In this post I would like to focus on the issues of PR in NGO sector. And first of all I think I need to explain what the NGO term states for. Basically NGO is an abbreviation for non-governmental organizations and defined as private, non-profitable and non-partisan establishments that usually perform humanitarian functions. Being a part of a nation’s infrastructure and assisting in implementing its functions, NGOs contribute to very diverse sectors such as education, agriculture, health, economy and general development.

NGOs often seek to cultivate public awareness, support and involvement in their activities. As a result, NGO public relations tend to engage heavily in relationship-building activities. With the help of various activities like community outreach programs, participation in public events or hosting special public functions, NGOs try to enhance their social capital and distribute the knowledge about their activities among the society. All these activities, in my opinion, belong to PR sphere to a great extent, though people working in NGOs tend to avoid this term in their everyday lives. Maybe due to the reputation of PR as not a very transparent and clear profession or bearing in mind some other factors, I’m not sure which ones, but basically, there are two different spheres of NGO involving public relations activities. One is related to campaigning, and another is tied with social marketing. First one is aimed at achieving particular goals at a global level like changing the attitude or behavior within a specific organization or government. The main target of social marketing to the contrary is to produce behavior change at an individual level.

NGOs are sometimes not taken very seriously and can't totally avoid the reputation of being Utopian, antagonistic to governments and potentially obstructions (Dichter, 1999). However, the important social role of NGOs is in monitoring and forcing local and world leaders to take care of others and championing worthy causes such as democracy, cultural appreciation, universal education and the preservation of ecology.

Gemmill, Barbara and Bamidele-Izu in The Role of NGOs and Civil Society in Global Environmental Governance (2002) suggested that NGOs should play an important role in one of the following activities:

· Information collection and dissemination

· Policy development consultation

· Policy implementation

· Assessment and monitoring

· Advocacy for environmental justice

NGOs are also helping reshape global politics by playing two distinct roles. One is to put pressure on decision-makers through campaigns. This role provides voice to different groups but does not place any responsibility on these organizations to engage with formal processes of change. Any group of individual is entitled to a voice. This is a legitimate part of democratic pluralism. As long as this voice does not infringe on the rights and liberties of others, it does not require channeling or control.

But the second role of NGOs is distinctly different—involving them directly in global negotiations. Furthering this role requires formal arrangements that involve responsibilities for both international NGOs and intergovernmental agencies. This suggests a need to give some formal structure to their role in decision-making.

NGOs participating in global forums are trying to address this issue in three ways. The first has been to aggregate the views and demands of various NGOs and present a coherent case for negotiations. For example, umbrella groups such as the Women’s Environment and Development Organization have often tried to play a constructive role in aggregating demands and negotiating proposals. Similarly, the Conference of NGOs is trying to provide a platform for joint discussion of issues and procedures, such as accreditation to intergovernmental organizations.

NGOs can take action in a number of ways to promote environmental protection. They can work on the political level to influence legislation which regulates the way businesses and governments interact with the environment. Alternatively, some NGOs choose to work directly with individual citizens, knowing that changing habits and mindsets will not only have a profound direct effect on the planet but will also have long-term political ramifications. Finally, many groups turn to education as an advocacy method. A well-informed group of advocates and citizens can challenge climate change critics and bring us closer to a collective understanding of our responsibility to the environment.

Literature used:

· Dichter, T.W., 1999. “NGOs in microfinance: Past, present and future.” In Microfinance in Africa, Breth, S. A. (Ed.) Mexico City Sasakawa Africa Association, pp: 12-37.

· Gemmill, Barbara / Bamidele-Izu, Abimbola (2002) in The Role of NGOs and Civil Society in Global Environmental Governance

Planning and implementing a political campaign: video tutorial

2010-03-31T07:03:00.000-07:00

Searching through the Internet on how to plan a political campaign and implement it, I've come across a useful series of video created by Jim Goettler who has extensive experience with organizations requiring a wide variety of management and interpersonal skills including special event coordination, volunteer management, fiscal oversight, government relations and media public relations.

How to Plan a Political Campaign

If you're interested, you can watch all videos here

Has the era of political spin come to an end?

2010-03-31T06:53:00.001-07:00

People employed in political communications or political PR have often been accused of spin, the term that signifies a biased portrayal in someone’s favour of a specific event. Spin often contains disingenuous, manipulative and mendacious tactics, and politicians are the most frequent people accused of using spin in their activities.

And as almost every politician has PR behind them, these accusations are often automatically transferred to PR people. And there have definitely been grounds for that.

One of the most cited spin-doctors in the UK is Alastair Campbell, who was in charge of PR for Tony Blair from 1994 to 2003 and played a very controversial role as press relation officer in big politics. Alastair Campbell was said to have sexed up a crucial dossier ahead of the war in Iraq. And there was a report on Sky News revealing the details of this inquiry and claiming that the 'Spin doctor was caught in his own web'.

Some of the most recent examples of political spin can be a story of Ministers accused of political spin in January, 2009. There was an article by the Telegraph.co.uk telling the story of the leading statistical who blamed the Government for using statistical data selectively and putting out press releases meanwhile to divert public debate on to favorable basis.

But as time passes by and great changes take place, professional political PR is becoming regarded as the third force in news making. It would be hard to say that political PR has freed itself from spin completely, but it seems to me that it’s becoming a little bit more transaparent and therefore more credible in the public eyes with an introduction of Social Media.

The era of the command-and-control model has almost come to an end, and many communication officers working for governments of different countries realized that new tools are necessary for communication with the public. I've recently came across an article by the Sydney Morning Herald called 'The government will talk back to the public', and have found some interesting facts worthy to mention.

This article is generally about a new australian government initiative aimed at encouraging bureaucrats to use tools such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook so that they can be more in touch with the people they're employed to serve. The new initiative is called Gov2.0 and run by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The executive manager of this new-established agency states, 'if you don't fill that gap in conversational media, then others will'. In his opinion, it's not a negative trend. Burton insists , 'you can't go out there with PR spin. Your response can be quick, informal, but most of all it has to be authentic'. A more general objective of this political initiative is to get people to engage with the authority more. The question here is whether a government is ready to risk its political capital and expose itself to the public to a much greater extent than ever?

I think the UK forthcoming General elections that must take place very soon, could be one of the most interesting events to observe in terms of the shift to more transparent political PR, as 2010 will see an array of interactive Web 2.0 features employed by various parties. Moreover, the campaign will be using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and filesharing sites, particularly YouTube to engage public and be more interactive. So let's see how is will go.

3 'I's' of Contemporary Art Viral Video Campaign

2010-03-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

This presentation is created for 2 viral videos in support of a hypothetical PR campaign for Contemporary Art promotion.

Take a look at it:

3 "I's" of Contemporary Art Campaign

View more presentations from tatsiana.

Can PR ever be Ethical?

2010-03-30T08:10:00.001-07:00

In one of our debates on the issues of PR we were engaged into conversation about ethical PR. The question raised in the debate was whether the only way to practice ethical PR is to work in the NGO or voluntary sector, all the rest is corporate propaganda or spin, or other sectors of PR also can be ethical.

In the light of this debate I've tried to search through the Internet and have found a fine article worth attention. Peter O’Malley, an Ottawa-based communications consultant who has been a member of CPRS for 15 years, wrote it. The name of this article is ‘In Praise of Secrecy: The Ethical Foundations of Public Relations’

He argues that in some specific instances the only way to lead PR business and pursue client's interests is to be completely open, transparent and disclosed in communication to the public. Though in many other instances the client's interest lies in specific facts that can't be revealed, and therefore the scope of ethical behavior shrinks. This ambiguity lying behind PR practice is rather controversial, I'd said. When we look at some codes of conducts in PR as PRSA Code of Conduct, for instance, we read that adherence to the honesty and truth are the core responsibility of every PR practitioner. But in practice when a PR practitioner is faced with unethical behavior of their boss at their organization, practically is means that this person should either quit their job and not fulfill any tasks related to untruthful bad dishonest behavior, or follow the rule of 'whistle-blowing' and secretly inform the media about an irresponsible activity. The latter, in fact, may lead to firing in the long term (or even in short one).

Another aspect related to honesty, transparency and disclosure of information is integrity. In PRSA code of conducts we see that the values provided in the member code of ethics can help to set the industry standard and are vital to the integrity of the profession in general which, in my opinion, doesn't fully comply with the reality. As there are many people in the PR industry who bear in mind no idea what the ethics in PR is, the gap between all members of PR community persists.

On the other hand, as Anne Gregory in her article 'Where the Truth Lies in Entertainment PR' assumes that in order to contribute to organizational objectives, PR is in the process of building bad maintaining trust mutually beneficial for all stakeholders involved into organizational work. Consequently, trust implies reliability, integrity and good faith. And if you want to be trusted you need to be served by trustworthy practitioners knowing what the ethics in PR is, regardless of the sector of PR you're working for.

And finally, there is another issue to mention in relation to the article written by Peter O'Malley. As the author puts it, 'Thus understood, the very existence of public relations is rooted in our societal commitment to freedom of the press, and to the freedom given to citizens to look after their interests in dealing with media. If you don't have a free press and free citizens, you don't need PR people. This is why totalitarian regimes deploy propagandists, who disseminate information through controlled media, but have no domestic need for PR practitioners who are skilled at influencing reporting outcomes, but who do not control it'. Indeed the societal commitment we have and the freedom we're given in the profession can sometimes give us a lot of power, though it's valid only in countries where such kind of freedom exists. Therefore, the question of ethics in PR is mostly dependent on the practical issues, as government, laws and so on and so forth.

And as Peter O'Malley well noticed 'From these propositions it follows that the "public good" served by public relations lies in our ability to promote the lawfully-pursued, self-defined interests of those we serve. This means that the central ethical decision to be made by a public relations professional is not tactical, it is whether or not to undertake a particular assignment, and to cash a particular cheque'.

Social media transparency. Asus case study

2010-03-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I was looking at social media in terms of controlling over the message and the audience. Now I'll try concentrate my attention on some other issues that bring controversy in the use of social media in business.
I'll talk about transparency of social media and its impact on company's reputation.
The case study I would like to give as a good example of how not to behave online is the Asus blogger contest that was launched last year. In fact, the manufacturer decided to save some money on getting certain products' reviews from bloggers. The readers of these blogs were able to give a vote for their favorite blogger and at the final stage of the competition the winner would be able to keep the Asus review kit.
In terms of PR it was a good way to get a buzz around the issue and at the same time to get almost free coverage and advertising for the company. But things turned wrong when the organizers of the contest decided to change the rules of the contest when the readers picked up the winner that didn't appeal to Asus. It appeared that the winner's review was too honest and the contest organizers announced that announced that the readers' vote was all very democratic and fair, but that, instead, the six bloggers had to vote for each other and that would decide the competition. This rapid change in the rules led to a different blogger winning three out of six blogger votes. At the end of the competition readers, as well as bloggers got the feeling that they were cynically used as a cheap way of generating buzz around the campaign. This resulted in an outrage against computer maker, and generated bad publicity in the media.
The lesson that Asus learnt from this case was that social media is all about transparency. Changing 'the rules of the game' in the middle, when something goes wrong and not according to a plan, isn't the best way to run business and communicate with the online community.

Controversial world of Social Media

2010-03-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

For the last few years we've all seen a rapid growth of Social media. This trend has been popular not only among ordinary Internet users who enter social networking sites to communicate with their friends, but also within big brands and organizations. Since this trend has come into power, millions of companies worldwide decided to start using social channels as part of their marketing and PR strategies. While some companies succeeded greatly in it and increased client engagement, many failed when they made an attempt to use social media.

Why? There are several reasons. The controversy of social media lies behind ambiguous features it provides: transparency, public exposure, conversations go in two-way direction, they're real-time, live and are hard to control.

Recently I've found some interesting cases of how social media can work against business and put companies under threat.

1. Lack of control

An example of how single twitter post can harm company's reputation
This february brought bad luck to Vodafone UK, as someone tried to use the official Twitter Vodafone account to insult Vodafone customers. For those who are interested in what the message was about, here is a link to a tweet screenshot.

Basically, Vodafone's reaction to this deed was to delete the tweet and try to apologise to people for this mistake with a series of almost identical messages. Also the spokesperson working in this company reassured the press that there wasn't a hack, and the employee who was responsible for this was suspended.

The number of people who have seen this tweet in Vodafone twitter news stream could be not as huge as it appeared to be, as it has just about 10.000 followers. But I'm pretty sure the number of re-tweets this message has received was enormous. Moreover, the speed of twitter streams is very fast, and the message was spread all around in seconds. Of course, it went not only to twitter users, but also to blogs and online news sites rapidly.
The problem Vodafone faced wasn't that people were actually offended. The core issue was that this company (as well as many other) was not in complete control of their communications.

On the contrary, trying to take too much control of communications can also be harmful. There’s another good example taken from real business life.

2. Too much control

Nestle faced another kind of controversy because of putting too much effort in controlling conversations on Facebook. After Greenpeace has accused Nestle of using palm oil that destroys ecosystems in developing countries, the world's leading Nutrition, Health and Wellness company started responding to criticism on Facebook group page with bitter and sarcastic comments. Moreover, those who posted something in relation to this situation saw their posts being deleted by Nestle. And if people asked questions about the situation and required explanations on why Nestle continues to use palm oil, they received harsh and cold responses like 'Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it's our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus'.

What Nestle actually did was an attempt to bury their heads in the sand and apply aggressive behavior style online, regardless of the consequences. Moreover, trying to control the conversation in such a bad manner was quite immature and had only an adverse effect on company's reputation. I guess such kind of behavior online hasn't attracted more loyal customers to the brand.

Equality of opportunity: women taking senior positions in PR

2010-03-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

As promised in a previous post, I will talk about women who have taken the top-level positions in PR worldwide.

The first person I want to introduce is Margery Kraus, chief executive officer of APCO Worldwide. This company is headquartered in Washington, D.C and the area of its specialization is public affairs, communication and business consulting.

The company was founded in 1984 and has grown from a small business with only one Washington office to a huge multinational consulting establishment with branches in Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middles East and Africa. The APCO is one of the largest in the world privately owned communication and public affairs firms run by the woman.

Marijean Lauzier Chief Executive at Digital Influence Group has provided strategic marketing and public relations counsel to the world's leading technology, health and science companies in a career spanning two decades.

A successful entrepreneur and chief executive, Marijean has founded, sold, integrated and built over $750 million in communications/public relations agency revenues since 1990. Her client experiences include work with organizations such as Microsoft, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Ernst & Young, IBM and Cook Inc.Prior to founding Racepoint Group, one of today's fastest growing public relations agencies, Marijean was President and COO of Weber Shandwick, the world's largest global public relations firm with more than 3000 employees in 60 offices in 35 countries around the globe.

Under Melissa Waggener Zorkin’s direction, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide has grown from a two-person agency in 1983 to a company that has more than 700 employees globally today.

Broadly recognized for innovating now-standard approaches to the field of public relations, Melissa has focused her energy and vision to propel a wide range of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide clients to the forefront of every technology wave over the past two decades. A hands-on leader, Melissa has, along with the agency leadership team, continued to expand the agency with new practice areas serving global healthcare, consumer PR and marketing, corporate communications, and public affairs clients, as well as guiding global growth in the Asia Pacific (APAC) and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions.

Christine M. Barney, APR is chief executive officer and managing partner of rbb Public Relations.

This women decided to leave her first place of work when she realized that she lacked development opportunities there.

But one day Christine discovered that she had ambitions and entrepreneurial desires. Her way to the top began at Brice Rubin Associates, small tourist agency, (Rubin, Barney & Birger a little bit later) when she noticed that the clients of this firm needed global communications counsel. She acted fast when this trend was set and sold the firm to the largest agency in the world in 1997. After the trend for small boutique firms returned, Christine Barney and partners decided to return independency. This model proved to be successful, and now RBB Public Relations is among one of the most influential PR corporations in the world. It has been validated by numerous awards and successful clients' stories.

I've also found an article about these PR women by the FirmVoice. You can find it here: Powerful Women in PR — 11 Role Models Share 33 Secrets of Success

They interviewed almost a dozen powerful women in PR, including the ones I've mentioned above. They give answers as well as some career tips to other women wanting to rise to the top in PR industry.

The women I was talking about in this post are the best in the industry, but more importantly, they have become good examples on how to create huge communication empires from tiny entrepreneurship.

To sum up this post as well as the previous one, I'd only like to say that for those women who have a lack of confidence and are afraid to move to the top because of life circumstances, bad luck, unpredictable weather and so on and so forth, there always will be extraordinary role models like Christine M. Barney who is convinced that 'PR will be built on the X Chromosome'. With this phrase in mind we should carry on trying to conquer the world of public relations.

Will women rise to the top in PR?

2010-03-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

Are you a woman in a male-dominated industry? If the answer is no, you're probably employed in PR sector. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm going to talk about the issue we were discussing not a long time ago. The statement we tried to focus on was whether women will always work in PR but will never run it, or on the contrary, women will be able to climb the career ladder and break the glass ceiling in the future.
In Public Relations it's really important to have good intuition and the ability to recognise how to response to a certain type of behavior or expectations. Intuition is something that you can't learn or adopt from others. It's a talent inborn. It may seem a stereotype, but intuition is something that women are better at. And this quality is an invaluable asset in PR.
Some scholars as J.Grunig suggest that the most effective public relations grows out of a worldview that is feminine. My question here is why the world that is feminine by the nature has to be ruled by men?

If we look at public relations industry in detail, we most probably will notice that PR people are called on to explain the actions to their employees, to listen to complaints and often to raise money. The skills required for doing this are socially emotional, and women are more likely to be good at such kind of skills than men.

Cooperation and relationship building are the core things females seek for in communication.
Moreover, some experiments show that women are more people oriented and like relationships more than facts when compared to men. I've watched an amazingly interesting video by BBC1 called 'The Secret of Sexes' recently. Actually, what they showed in this movie supports my previous argument quite well.

Not only women are good at communications, but also they outnumber men in higher education institutions, and they tend to do extremely well at it. This fact supported by some statistics indicates that women are more professionally apt to do their job from the very beginning of their career.And as professional experience has become a more powerful predictor than a gender of managerial role, there's a high probability that women will be able to receive what they deserve for what they're worth of and for what they've done rather than for just being a man.

The problem now, in my opinion, is that women are afraid of taking higher level tasks even if they're permitted to advance into higher management positions. They lack confidence to leave their duties. So why not to feel more confident and show the skills we have?
Another problem is that a lack of female role models may prevent other women from envisioning themselves in high-level position. A way out of this problem can be increasing the number of women in managerial roles.

A good example on where women have succeeded enormously in PR is high-tech sector. The article by PR week 'Technology: Women byte back' explains why.
In short, the reason for this is not that women are more tech savvy than men. It comes down to a willingness to ask questions and an ability to translate the answers for a non-technical audience. In other words, it's an ability to transfer knowledge into words and be emphathetic with the audience.

As Rachel Hawkes, account director at media consultancy Elemental, says technology PR has become an even playing field now for PR professionals who know their clients' needs and understand how they can appeal to the audience. And one of the most important skills in this area is being able to use language that is engaging to anyone, not just to technical experts.

I think many would agree with me that our world now is powered by technologies. So if women start taking over this world, I'm pretty sure we will witness many more PR female professionals taking up top management positions.

So how can a woman in PR profession rise to the top? The only way to get ahead is to earn it. We can sit and whine about our bad luck and unfair fate, or we can just do it.

In the next post I'll try to show some real life examples on where women in PR have done extremely well. These women can become (and I'm pretty sure, they've already done so) good role models for other PR female practitioners who are in doubt about their career in PR.

Supporting good causes: CSR in business

2010-03-07T04:28:00.000-08:00

Recently we've had debates on a very interesting and controversial topic. My colleagues were trying to decide whether the attempts to align companies or brands with good causes are mere window dressing and companies should stick to the business of making money or Corporate Social Responsibility is the issue that deserves only 'praise and applause'?
I was one of those students who held on to the position that the business of business is business, and the lack of credibility can't be compensated by dealing with the issues that are sometimes even out of company's capacity.
I'll try to explain my position and give some support to my statement below.

Philip Kotler and Nancy Lee in their book about Corporate Social Responsibility give an interesting list of causes related to CSR as those that contribute to community health, safety (designated driver programs, crime prevention, use of car safety restraints), education (literacy, computers for schools, special needs education), employment, the environment and so on an so forth. My question in this case is quite obvious: aren't all these spheres and activities the primarily concerns of the government? And shouldn't the government take care of their citizens to prevent crime, save the environment and satisfy the basic human needs and desires rather than business?

Of course, CSR can create a luring shine around a company, given that all people like when somebody takes care of their needs. But does business really care about the well-being of the general public or CSR is simply a smokescreen or window dressing that tries to cover up more egregious issues? Ethical initiatives are put at the forefront of business, people are getting relaxed and companies are able to bypass a great portion of consumer concern. Say, a company that makes cars may distract people with a campaign launched to announce environmentally friendly manufacturing plant, and continue producing inefficient vehicles that rely on 'prehistoric' fossil fuels.

The popularity of CSR is growing, therefore the organizations that want to keep up with business trends try to adjust themselves to these trends and take as much 'social responsibility' as possible.

But here comes another question: when businessmen decide to make some steps involving CSR and not just to raise profits, how do they know what is good for the society? Do they have enough power to decide on that? Business executives, no matter how important they are, are not selected by the public. No one votes for them, no one goes to elections to vote for corporations. They decide to serve public interest on their own. And the public is not asked whether they really need it or not. It might seem a cliche, but what I think about all of these questions is that the business of business is business. Let the government take care of its 'flock'.

When a crisis hits

2010-02-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

One of the topics covered at our classes was devoted to crisis communication. I’ve been interested in this issue for quite a long time now, so I’ve read a couple of books on crisis communication and management. What I’ve found there was an enormous amount of theoretical assumptions on how organizations can possibly deal with a crisis, but I wasn’t convinced though that the same template could be applied to any situation.
Every crisis is unique. Every problem is important. However, there’re are some characteristics of organizational crisis common for all (and I agree with all of them):
1. High level of uncertainty with unknown causes and effects
2. Low probability of occurrence and at the same time the main threat for an organization
3. Time for reaction is limited
4. Unexpected for all members of the organization
5. The necessity to make decisions and take actions that can lead to improving or worsening the situation
No one expects crisis. Though, to be prepared for a crisis and to have a contingency plan for tackling problems can be vitally important.

But at the same time an ability to produce information and take deliberate decisions during a crisis is considerably lower than in everyday situations. Authorities sometimes tend to isolate themselves from core information sources, and those who are responsible for taking decisions just exempt themselves from the process at the most critical moment.

Let's take as an example the case with Toyota crisis. I think the crisis that's happened recently with this car business can expose some interesting facts to PR practitioners and to show how not to behave when the crisis hits.

I'll try to explain the situation in a few sentences. The problem evolved last year, when a driver of Lexus in California
lost control of the vehicle and hit another car. As as result four people died because of the problems with car brakes.
Since this single event bad fortune has been following Toyota continuously. After two recalls involving 7.5 million vehicles, Toyota's authorities announced suspension of 8 million cars following a string of safety fears.

For those who want to know more about the situation there's a good article by Guardian.co.uk 'Toyota issues global recall of hybrid cars'

Now we can see a lot of messages in various sources, offline and online about the ongoing crisis with Toyota. But it hasn't been like that recently. In the first place the reaction of company was rather interesting in terms of PR, though very typical if we look at it from bad crisis management angle. The company went in complete denial of the situation and chose the strategy of silence instead of revealing the facts to the public.

Only after people started filling the information vacuum, it seemed like professionals dealing with Toyota's communication and reputation management unwillingly launched a campaign that was meant to expose some 'unpleasant truth' to the public. Actually, it seems like they were ignoring the problem and were trying to hide it from everyone until they were forced to take action.

Telegraph wrote that 'Billions of pounds could be knocked off the value of Toyota's brand because of the slow way the company has dealt with the crisis of faulty accelerator pedals in its cars, according to branding experts'.

Summing up the situation with Toyota, I can say that this company is a classic example on how not to behave when a crisis strikes. Going in denial and giving just small portions of information after a long time (in a crisis this time is limited to days) to conceal the ugly truth leads to skeptical perception of the organization by the public thereafter.
One of the rules I'll most probably learn by heart (if I'm ever to deal with any crisis in my professional PR activity) is to react honestly, timely and 'across-the-board' to alleviate the impact of crisis if it takes place.

I'll be monitoring the news about Toyota's situation, as I'm really curious what happens next and if they manage to tackle the crisis.

So far I've found this recent video by Telegraph

Dramatizing the story: war propaganda

2010-02-25T16:50:00.001-08:00

After attending one of my classes at the university I started thinking about some issues that (to be honest) had never bothered me before. War propaganda. What is hidden behind these two words?

Yes, I was interested in history, and I know the sequence of wars that took place in different corners of the world in different centuries. Yet, I’ve never even tried to think about wars in terms of PR or, if to be precise, war propaganda.

One of the most accurate explanations of war propaganda was given almost a century ago by sociologist Harold Lasswell, metaphorical yet all-embracing explanation. He called war propaganda

'new hammer and anvil of social solidarity', a new and subtler instrument welding thousands and thousands and even millions of human beings into one amalgamated mass of hate, will and hope.

More recent and less metaphoric definition of the general concept I found in the Columbia Encyclopedia: ‘Propaganda - systematic manipulation of public opinion, generally by the use of different symbols as flags, monuments, oratory, publications etc. War propaganda usually used to boost civilian and military morale and to demoralize the enemy. Sounds strong and very masculine.

But in reality, it's just a game big boys like to play to entertain themselves. At the same time this game appears to be tricky and sophisticated, especially with all those complicated techniques modern authorities deploy to twiddle it.

When I watched a documentary by BBC called War Spin about such a ‘game’ run during the Iraqi campaign (2003), I asked myself a lot of questions: "What is it all made for? What kind of emotions do people get when one truth replaces another? And where's an actual truth in the end?" If you are curious, you can try and watch this video or simply read the article about this video. ‘The Truth About Jessica’ is a story of the private Jessica Lynch (John Kampfner, http://www.guardian.co.uk), well-known heroine of the notorious Iraqi campaign.

Here are some interesting facts about the 'war in terrorism' mentioned by Strafor.com, a global intelligence consultant: "Coverage of the 'war on terrorism' has reversed the traditional role between the press and the military. Abandoning the hypercritical coverage of the past, the media have become cheerleaders — allowing the conflict in Afghanistan to become synonymous with the war at large and portraying that war as an unalloyed success. The reversal of roles between media and military creates public expectations that can affect the prosecution of the war."

Indeed, if you know and tell everyone that you’re going to win the war, people will finally believe in your power. Therefore it can be said that the perception of war legally influences its duration.

Moreover, when it comes to war propaganda nothing is left to chance. Everything is thought over, rehearsed and ‘secretly’ revealed to the public. And the public consumes it with a great pleasure.

Then I made a research on what some people think about this video and war propaganda in general, and found some interesting facts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/read_your_comments/3034009.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/read_your_comments/3034009.stm

Global or local PR?

2010-02-25T16:48:00.000-08:00

Global or local approach to PR? Does PR paradigm work across cultures? These questions were posed to my classmates and me during one of our recent classes.

In order to cover this topic and try to answer these questions, I would like introduce one of the case studies that was quite interesting to me in terms of how global PR was unable to cope with the local policies in improving country's image at the international level.

This country is Belarus. The fact that I have a direct relation to this country makes this case study a bit closer to me than to some other people. However, I'll try to stay impartial when describing it here in my blog.

In August 2008 the Bell Pottinger Group signed a contract with Belarusian government aimed at improving country's image on the international scene. The former Saatchi&Saatchi employee Timothy Bell was hired by the belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko to makeover the country nicknamed an 'outpost of tyranny' by the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. This nickname appeared as an outcome of some previous records indicating violation of human rights in Belarus. UK based online edition called 'The First Post' posted the news about the launch of the campaign almost 2 years ago.

Here's a link to the story 'Tim Bell takes on Belarus'.

I don't want to go too deep into detail about the political situation in this country, I'll just try to outline the results the Bell Pottinger came up with.

Let's just turn to what the international press said about Belarus. Apart from negative exclamations of the US state secretary, there were many articles (including influential press like Financial Times), claiming that 'Belarus bears a more than passing resemblance to the former Soviet Union. Lenin broods from his plinth in the centre of town, the KGB is still called the KGB, the economy remains in state hands and the state is under the authoritarian control of a single leader'. Take a look at this article here:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/501ebab2-b431-11dd-8e35-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1

Interestingly enough, this vivid description and some other facts about the Belarusian head of government appeared in the article after an interview of Alexander Lukashenko with the Financial TImes initiated by Tim Bell.

Though, some of the steps undertaken by the British agency proved to be quite successful. Belarus' decisions to free political prisoners and a refusal to recognize South Ossetia as an independent state have lead to inclusion of Belarus into the EU's Eastern Partnership project.

But the attempt to engage with the European public has appeared to be the weakest point in this PR campaign. An article by Alexander Fedulin in EuObserver gives us quite a clear explanation of what happened to the country's image after the launch of the campaign.

In short, Bell's agency concentrated their efforts on the virtues of the Belarusain authorities, but didn't even try to raise general European awareness about what makes Belarus and its population so unique. Apart from that, the fact that there was a very powerful internal propaganda machine in the country at the time, and it would have been ruined if someone had tried to undermine its roots and position in the eyes of people indicated quite clearly that no thorough research had been done before the Bell Pottinger agency launched the campaign. Therefore, changes that were possibly offered to the Belarusian government at the stage when the campaign was launched could have been considered 'inappropriate and inconsistent' by some local authorities.

Though, I don't mean no research at all had been done. But it's very obvious now that bearing in mind some mentality and cultural, as well as social and political issues would be of great help to the global PR agency.

I had been monitoring this story online for almost a year, as it was very interesting and exciting to observe the enthusiasm and willingness of the external global agency trying to tackle the problem and create a positive image to a country hardly known to many people internationally before the launch of the campaign. I was also wondering if this campaign would bring any results in the end, and probably would improve the overall situation. But unfortunately the EUobserver has completely destroyed my illusions:

'EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - London-based public relations firm the Bell Pottinger Group has ended its EU advocacy work for Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

"We had a 12 month contract from last August and it has expired," company chairman Timothy Bell told EUobserver on Tuesday (18 August).

Mr Bell, who personally handled the Lukashenko account, declined to give further details.'

I don't want to make any sweeping generalisations, but the thing I've learnt from this case study is that without a thorough understanding of the country's original approach even the most expensive PR campaigns are doomed to failure.

Social Media use in business

2010-02-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

Social Media use in business is a webcast created for studying purposes. Though I'm trying to reflect on the idea of Social Media, its application in real business world, and how a PR agency can help to deal with Social Media issues.

In this webcast I'll try to review the following issues:

- Best practice case studies, illustrating how you can use social media tools to get fast-track insights for your business

- Cultural and sociological concepts behind social media

-Advantages and disadvantages of using social media for business

- Different kinds do Social Media tools that can be utilized within the company to increase profitability, sustain reputation and empower your employees to be brand ambassadors.

-An overall explanation of Social Media and the importance of its adoption in business

- How a PR agency can help effectively deliver company's messages to the audience and and tackle challenging problems that can arise when using Social Media