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SITTING in the press office at an international boat show, chatting with a friend who edits an important trade magazine, calm was disrupted as he tried to hide face behind hands and bemoaned: “Oh no, here comes that dreadful tense whore.”  “Tense whore,” I puzzled?  “That awful Hortense from that equally awful public relations outfit on the south coast.” 

 I did not know Hortense but I was about to see her in action as she swarmed over my defenceless pal and gushed adjectives at him, eulogising about her client’s wondrous new widget, which we all knew was the old one repackaged.  Shiny sales leaflets were thrust at him, along with a hastily personalised invitation to an afternoon press conference and champagne bash to relaunch the not-so-new product. 

 She asked me who I was.  When I told her, she spun on her heels and flew off in search of the next hapless victim.  I was reminded yet again of the chasm between journalists and many PR practitioners: so often, there is no loathing lost on the part of the former, and scant understanding shown in the case of the latter. 

 Down the years, countless books have been published giving advice to so-called PR professionals on how to work successfully with the media.  To surprisingly little avail.  ‘So-called PR professionals’ because it is not yet a profession – it is an occupation.  A pre-occupation with client-driven drivel, some might argue.

 It is not difficult to claim to be a PR person.  There are no barriers to entrance.  PR skills are not exclusive.  The knowledge base is defined loosely, with no standard model.  In spite of the efforts of the 60-years-old Institute of Public Relations and bodies such as the Public Relations Consultants’ Association, it has been inordinately difficult to enforce a regulatory framework or sufficiently high educational standards.

 Nonetheless, while ‘spin’ is the aspiration of many, successful PR builds reputations, improves understanding and can influence decisions far more effectively than advertising.  The harnessing of opportunities provided by the press, radio, television and new media can be a highly effective and cost-efficient means of communicating with and influencing target audiences.

 To succeed, it is necessary to build working relationships with the editorial media.  Taking time to understand what and how journalists write, then offering PR as a resource rather than a deflection or hindrance are ways in which trusting partnerships can evolve, with substantial payback. 

 Tell it as it is, not as you might like it to be.  After all, no business is perfect.  If it is a case of needing to return to the drawing board to improve the company, product or service, tell them how you are making it better.  Keep it simple: avoid jargon and insider terminology.  Look for and spell out the drama, allowing any genuine excitement to shine through.  Shorten it and get to the point, quickly.  By all means put on your best face, but remember that saying so won’t make it so.  Be a good listener, too.

 Top-of-the-league public relations practitioners know precisely how to enlist the support of editors, producers and compilers; they know how to provide them with the material they require in the formats they demand; they match or surpass the abilities of those with whom they are dealing.

 Quality PR also calls for in-depth knowledge of – and sympathy with – clients’ needs, their culture, aims and objectives, and the relevant marketplaces.  It requires innovative thinking and consistent strength of purpose.   Furthermore, in an industry that does not employ comprehensive standards, adopting strong ethical principles is vital.  Then, PR has the potential to become a profession.  Some day …..

Part Five – Using a presenter to tell your story:

How to tell a story using voice

With a rapid increase in the popularity of online video, how can you get your message heard above all others?

With the advances in mobile phones and digital cameras, video making has become widely accessible. Anyone can pick up a camera, shoot some footage, string it together using a basic video editing software, but the finished result (more likely than not) will not utilise the professionalism needed to make a marketing video stand out.

Part five of this blog series offers practical tips and advice for using presenters to tell your story. Novels are often written in the first person with the author taking on the task of telling his/her own story. Biographical works use a third person style. But what about video? A further dimension is added here as we can also see what is going on.  Although it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, often it is useful to have spoken words to link pictures together or bring something to life. Here are two examples of how you can use the spoken word in your video:

Telling your story with words:

• Voice over/Presenter: A voice over can provide additional information to the piece or explain something that may too be difficult to understand in a visual sense. As an alternative to a disembodied voice-over you might like to consider using someone to front your video – in other words, a presenter. Breaking the words up between presenter and voice over adds human interest and provides continuity even when the presenter is not seen on screen.
  
  

  How to use voxpops

• Vox Pop: Vox pops are commonly used in advertising and documentaries to sound out popular opinion using informal comments from members of the public. Think of aquestion related to your film and carry out street interviews with lots of people. Vox pops require the minimum of two people; one to ask the questions and two to do the filming. Shoot your interviewee close-up and facing slightly to the left or right. Make sure that you get a variation of angles for when you edit your video as shooting them all one way will not make a professional looking film. If you do shoot your interviewees all at one angle, your video editing software may feature the ‘horizontal flip’ filter enabling you to flip your shots around.

If you would like to find out more about online video, please visit our Changeworks website

When it comes to public relations, there are really only three options, either keep it in-house, employ an agency to take on the work for you or do you ignore it altogether. 

Agency or In-house, you choos

A wise person is the one who deliberates between the first two points.  The options are narrowed down considerably and it’s now thatthe choices become a little more difficult.

Which Way?

So, how does a company best choose to handle its PR and Marcoms?  Well to answer this question we need to look at the two options and see whether we can draw any satisfactory conclusions.  So let’s look at keeping things in-house.  Well not wishing to paint a bleak picture, but first of all there is finding the right person to run your communications department. It takes time for any new employee to get to understand the business, but when it comes to communications you want someone who will get off to a flying start. If you decide to go with someone who is experienced in your area of industry then you’re going to pay top dollar for them.

So you decided to employ a general all rounder, someone who can write a bit and has one or two media contacts, but are you getting value for money with this person?  Is there enough work within your communications department to keep them fully employed and if they are working on a part time basis are you, as a business, getting the publicity exposure you want/need, are they creative enough and finally are they adding real cost value to your operation?

The PRO’s tend to split into two distinct camps and in doing so it’s easy to see why each is a creature of its own habitat. But which adds real value?

The ‘Maverick’ verses ‘The Trojan’

The Maverick is the agency PRO. Outgoing, creative and savvy they embrace new technology they involve themselves with network communities. As the media platform rapidly increases, they’re generic experience grows, they are able to evaluate the bigger picture and take risks accordingly.  The Maverick will to deal with a multitude of different clients each bringing its own unique experiences and challenges.

The Trojan is different. The in-house PRO may work within a small team or as is often the case on their own, but they are part of a wider team.  They are less likely to blog and will avoid the media industry limelight. Within the business they all rise to the same challenge, there focus is but one goal and that is victory.  However they all approach this goal from different positions and although they share the same ethos they never really achieve total unity.

Opting to employ an agency is the most cost effective way to manage your communications. All the benefits may not be apparent first hand but as a company begins to work with an agency, it begins to see more and more benefits come to the surface.  Firstly the agency not only has the systems in place to provide a complete service, from copy writing and proof reading through to using a distribution network to issue the press release.  Agencies tend to focus on a specific sector of business, so the expertise is already there so the need to come up to speed isn’t as applicable.  The major factor is that the Agency PRO generally has a wealth of experience in campaigning, and can tailor that experience, when it comes to your business.

So, when deciding who to trust with your communications, you need to balance cost effectiveness and added value to the business but don’t forget the creativity factor.

Whether you choose to employ someone to look after your communications or you engage an agency, it is essential that you have the correct evaluation procedures in place. More on this next time.

Part Four – Practical Tips for Shooting your Video:

Operating the camera

With a rapid increase in the popularity of online video, how can you get your message heard above all others?

With the advances in mobile phones and digital cameras, video making has become widely accessible. Anyone can pick up a camera, shoot some footage, string it together using a basic video editing software, but the finished result (more likely than not) will not utilise the professionalism needed to make a marketing video stand out.

Part four of this blog series offers practical tips for shooting your video so that you can be more creative yet remain professional. When it comes to practical tips, practice is what makes tips useful. Have a read of the four points below, get out your camera and experiment – it’s the best way to learn.

Practical Tips for Shooting your Video:

Rule of thirds

• Composition: The most fundamental rule of composition is the ‘Rule of Thirds’ based on the classical interpretation of balance in a picture. If you have a background in still photography, you have probably already come across this concept and therefore you are at an advantage. The ‘Rule of Thirds’, when looking at a visual image, is set up with one horizontal line and three vertical lines (see diagram). The most obvious example of balance in a video picture is the tracking shot. If the camera follows a person walking across a scene with their nose up against the edge of the screen, this shot will be unbalanced. Track them so they always have two thirds of space in front of them.

• Pan, tilt and zoom:
  • The PAN shot is where the camera is moved from side to side or up and down (this is the TILT shot, aka Vertical Pan). In order for it to work in a creative way, it must be planned from start to finish and have a justification for its use. Let the action in the frame make the movement and only pan where necessary. 
  • There are two main rules to using the ZOOM; the purpose of zooming into an object is to draw the audience’s attention to something. If you are zooming out, zoom out to reveal something to the audience.

• Depth of field: What we mean by depth of field is when the camera lens is focused accurately on a particular subject to make it the only point of focus is the frame. Objects in front and behind the subject will be blurred to the eye. This is another technique to draw the audience’s attention to something. Depth of field can be also used creatively by experimenting with the Pull Focus shot. This is where the camera moves its focus from one subject to another. Three things to consider when establishing depth of field:
  • Focal distance of the lens: if you focus on an object near to you, you will have less depth of field than you would have when focused on a distant object.
  • Focal length: Moving the zoom control to the furthest telephoto range will reduce depth of field. Move it to the furthest wide angle and the depth of field will increase.
  • Aperture setting: Bright lighting conditions will give you a greater depth of field where the aperture lens is stopped down. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth of field.

EVERY ONE of today’s major industries had to emerge and evolve.  However, some have stopped growing.  Others have the shadow of decline looming menacingly.  Wherever growth is threatened, slowed or stopped it is not because the market is saturated.  Probably, it is because there has been a failure in customer relations and understanding: failure from the top.

   It is nigh on impossible to select a single major business category of today that did not go through a burgeoning era of being a so-called growth industry.  In each case, its assumed strength was attributed to apparently unchallenged superiority, with, it seemed, no feasible alternative available.  Yet one after another of such celebrated industries have retreated into decline.  More will follow, ad infinitum.

   In fact, there is no such thing as a growth industry.  Those that assume themselves to be riding an automatic growth stallion invariably fall off.  The history of the dying and dead shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.  It shows a disregard, or ignorance, of the need to mount markets and hold on tightly through innovation, change, choice and captured customer loyalty.

   Management, reaching out, must provide the customer-creating drive and customer-retention added value.  It must push this tightly focused awareness and action into every nook and cranny, exciting and stimulating colleagues each step of the way, rather than running a ‘bandwagon’ business.

   The organisation must think of itself not as one which produces goods or services, but as a conduit for developing customers – and doing those things that will make people want to continue to buy, remembering the fickleness in every marketplace.  Relationship management is all about making it easy for customers to stay, difficult to go.  The whole operation, top to bottom and back to the top, must be enthusiastically aware of the corporate style, direction, objectives, plus the needs of existing and potential customers.  If they do not know where they are going, they will never find the road to take them there. 

   Even with attitude and aptitude in place, there are dangers.  It is too easy to become obsessively responsive to fleeting customer whims and media-whipped fads; so often, there is a lack of risk-reduction market research and attitudinal surveying; sometimes, the back-office support provides insufficient ammunition for the front line troops; and within service industries in particular, there can be a tendency to reach ahead of the market, making offerings that are too complex or over sophisticated, trying to sell electronic shovels before people are familiar with using spades.

   Little in business is straightforward.  But to grow and sustain growth, managements must turn around to face their customers. 

   Professional marketing communications are crucial.  And yet saying so won’t make it so.  Products and services are selected by purchasers’ overall perceptions of the supplier, not merely by clever headlines, compelling imagery or high-sounding mission statements.  Successful marketing puts customers’ needs at the centre of every stage, every process, every activity of the business machine and its output – then presents to the outside world with unified, clear and consistent messages designed to persuade customers that they will be the beneficiaries.  (Out of sight is out of mind, is out of business.)

   This requires a totally integrated and rigorously implemented all-company approach, explained via skilled communications.  Nothing less will work.