TM Robotics open day a great success

In November, Stone Junction arranged the press attendance at an open day and product launch by TM Robotics. The event attracted seven journalists, 21 requests for press packs and resulted in two feature articles being commissioned, in Components in Electronics and The Journal of Engineering & Technology, as well as a number of post event stories being written, including the lead feature in the MachineBuilding.net newsletter.

In addition, Stone Junction was able to compel the local mayor into attending the event. Our pre-event strategy also generated local press coverage including a video of one of the launch products being placed online here. Here are a few links to some of the press coverage already generated:

Machine Building: TM Robotics unveils Toshiba Machine TV800 six-axis robot
Machine Building: TM Robotics opens new training and demonstration facility

Do you want more feature articles published?

Are you tired of having an agency that just issues press releases? Do you long for something with more powerful and compelling content? Feature+, a new PR service designed for companies who feel that case studies, opinion pieces and feature articles are more effective for them than press releases, is the answer. Instead of blanket mailing news to hundreds of journalists, we simply write a more comprehensive feature article every month and place it in the most appropriate areas of the media.

The first stage of the process is to identify the applications, technical innovation and strongly held opinions that could be the basis of a feature article. We then cross reference these opportunities with our own database of forthcoming features, planned by the trade media. When we have identified the stories that will make the best feature articles, Stone Junction takes the process from there. Our clients rarely have to make time to do anything other than being involved in creative development and approving the story when it’s written.

Ideal for SMEs and small companies, a Feature+ campaign contains twelve articles, issued at a rate of one every four weeks, and normally results in approximately 2880 column centimetres (36 pages) of coverage. The campaign costs just £1100 per month and contains an initial message development session, twelve articles including placement and follow up, a press clippings service and a day spent meeting journalists. Also included is the photographic touch up work needed to develop the required imagery and photographs, a formal monthly report, a monthly telephone meeting and whatever ad-hoc consultation is needed to run the campaign.
Alternatively, if Features+ is outside your price range, thanks to the credit crunch, get in touch with Stone Junction and ask about Sustain, a holistic PR solution to suit smaller budgets.

And finally, if you agree to begin work before Christmas, the service is available for just £999 – a saving of over £1000 per year. That’s the equivalent of 36 pages of trade press coverage for just £999 per month!

Contact Stone Junction on 020 8699 7743, quoting Features+, or e-mail Richards@stonejunction.co.uk.

More obligatory funny stuff about engineering

I spotted from my web hits that a lot of you enjoyed the Engineer’s Guide to Cats we featured on our July edition. So, while getting into the Christmas spirit, we dug out the following video by the same people, An Engineer’s Guide to Getting a Cat Elected. It truly is genius and could have benefitted McCain and Palin substantially.



Like Sarah Palin, I sometimes I find myself looking fractionally less smart than I think I look. This is also a problem common to both marketing people and engineers. However, the clever people at US clothing label All Tribes have put an end to our problems with this video, how an engineer folds a T-Shirt. Am I alone in actually building one of these things after watching this video? Let me know.



Now you’re looking smart, it’s time to get out of the office to a trade show or conference. If you’ve ever shared a car to one of these events with some colleagues, you’ll recognise the humour in this video, from Parsec System Inc.



Finally, while not laugh out loud funny as electing cats or lampooning software engineers, these quotes about design engineering should give you some inspiration if you ever find yourself starting at a blank drawing board or page. Have a good read, here.

Get ready for the upturn – effective PR campaign just £499.99

Times they are a changing – or so said Bob Dylan in 1963. From an economic perspective times have been changing in cycle ever since. We are currently in the nadir of on an economic downturn, which tells us is that there will be an upturn soon enough. As a result, Stone Junction is offering a limited number of Sustain PR campaigns for £499.99, per month, to help you maintain a presence in the media during this slow period.

It’s inevitable that during lean times marketing budgets are cut. However, businesses that reduce investment in marketing lose customers to those that market aggressively. In history, during lean times, farmers starved rather than eat the crops they needed for the next year’s seeds. UK industry should learn from this example when considering marketing budgets.

The sensible thing to do is invest wisely. If your strategy is to maintain what you have during the downturn, then Stone Junction’s Sustain PR campaign, priced at £499.99 per month, might be exactly the cornerstone your marketing function needs.

The premise is simple, you are provided with a number of credits in exchange for your fee, which can be allocated during planning meetings to a series of PR tactics to suit to the stories your company is actually generating. There is no money wasted on non-essential activities, instead we seek to focus on only those tactics that will generate the optimum return.

“Stone Junction’s objective is to build relationships while times are hard. We hope these will then blossom when the economy returns to positive growth,” explained Richard Stone, managing director of Stone Junction. “Sustain PR will help businesses make it through to the other side in better shape as a result of maintaining a media presence. Like the rest of the economy today, Sustain PR is all about reality.”

So, if times are changing in your business, contact Richard Stone on 020 8699 7743 or e-mail richards@stonejunction.co.uk to talk about Sustain PR.

Healthy and unhealthy ways to invest in PR in a downturn

I really didn’t want to write about the credit crunch in this article. I wanted to write about why I think marketing is a bit like brick laying. And, while I was at it, I wanted to give my views on the best ways to build an integrated industrial marketing campaign. But the downturn/recession/global depression (delete as appropriate) is simply too dominant in the news agenda to ignore. So, I struggled against it but in the end, I couldn’t avoid it. Here goes nothing...

There are healthy and unhealthy ways to invest in PR in an economic downturn and I’ve been reminded of both in the last couple of days.

The unhealthy way is to cut all other expenditure and just buy more PR, ‘because it’s cheaper and it means you don’t have to advertise’. I was reminded of this on Friday, when attending one of those champagne and caviar parties us industrial PR types spend all of our time at. I was chatting with the director of a celebrity and consumer PR agency. He happily assured me that they are booming, because all their clients are slashing their advertising budgets and having to rely on PR. I asked which magazines and Web sites he will target when the current ones he uses have all shut down due to lack of income from advertising. He walked off to talk to a former division one footballer without answering.

Now, I know I can be a bit loud at times, but I thought I was as at least as interesting as a former division one footballer. Obviously not a current division one footballer...

I was also reminded of the healthy way to invest in PR last week, when I read about a presentation British Airways delivered at the annual Travel Conference, organised by ABTA. I would have gone myself but my tickets were with XL.

Martin Broughton, the chairman of British Airways, said, “In these testing times, cutting marketing spend is not the answer. Distinctive brand positioning is crucial at such times, because customers feel more secure with strong brands.” He went on to outline a range of marketing techniques in which he plans to invest, including product marketing, Web and mobile based marketing and innovation, advertising and PR. In short, he outlined a sensible and healthy plan, tailored to achieve his company’s objectives, even in an unhealthy climate.

The key to the strategy is investment across the board in a number of marketing tactics, of which PR is one and advertising is another. The two things go hand in hand – without advertising there will be no media for your fleet of shiny shoed PR executives to influence. In turn, without PR it will be much more difficult for journalists to find the right stories for their publications. After all, the best PR people are facilitators; nothing more than a junction in the road, where the business being promoted and the journalist can meet.

Most MBA’s will tell you that a healthy business is one that is using ten separate marketing tactics at any given time and I would passionately argue that this is the case. It’s the variation of voice as well as the repetition of message that helps to achieve the objective. Simply cutting all other marketing tactics and investing in PR alone will not work – unless that is literally the only budget available. Even in these cases, you might be better served by a mixed media campaign, incorporating the lower cost tactics in a holistic and targeted way.

Perhaps the best way to think about this is to imagine building a house. Each layer of bricks is dependent on the one beneath it and provides purchase for the one above it. In the same way PR, advertising, SEO, direct mail, e-mail, exhibitions and any other marketing tactic you care to name, support each other.

Many engineering firms report that, when asked why they have made contact, their own customers simply respond, “your Web site”. However, that’s a little bit like saying the reason that your walls stay standing is your house. Every customer is influenced by every marketing tactic they have been exposed to, just as each wall stays standing thanks to the combined efforts of each brick. No one simply lands on your Web site by accident and then finds that a need is created instantly.

But the question is, ‘which layer of bricks to put down first?’ Which marketing tactic should form my foundations, to horribly over extend my metaphor? The only honest answer I can give is that every marketing business in the world will say something different. PR consultancies will say publicity; ad men will argue for advertising, search gurus will say SEO and so on.

Ultimately, there is no one size fits all answer. I believe that the written and visual content produced during the PR process makes a great foundation for other elements of a marketing campaign. I offer that as honestly as possible, speaking as the owner of a consultancy from which you can buy a number of marketing tactics, including PR. If you want to chat while making up your own mind, give me a call on 0208 699 7743 or drop me an e-mail. I promise not to mention the global financial situation. I swear.

Another joke about engineering

This joke is taken from the unfailingly funny jokes page on the Web site of a materials handling consultancy called Infection Point.

“Two mathematicians, Joe and Richard, were having dinner in a restaurant. They were arguing about the average mathematical knowledge of the American public. Richard claimed that this average was woefully inadequate while Joe maintained that it was surpassingly high.”

"I'll tell you what," said Richard, "when I get back from the bathroom we'll ask our waitress a simple calculus question. If she gets it right, I'll pick up dinner. If not, you do, okay?"

They agreed, but once he'd left Joe called the waitress over. "When my friend comes back," he told her," he's going to ask you a question; you should respond 'one third x cubed' no matter what the question is; got that? There's twenty bucks in it for you." She happily agreed to the gag.

Richard returned from the men's room and called the waitress over. "The food was wonderful," he stated, "incidentally, do you know what the integral of x squared is?"

The waitress looked startled, then pensive, almost pained. She looked around the room, at her feet, made gurgling noises, (Joe was starting to sweat) and finally said, "Umm, one third x cubed?"

Joe beamed in relief as an astonished Richard paid the check and a clearly irritated waitress muttered under her breath, "...plus a constant."

It's called epMotion

Sometimes a piece of B2B marketing is so great that I have to write about, even though I had nothing to do with it. This is one of those times:

http://www.eppendorf.com/int/hawkpopup.php?contentid=13

Follow the link, watch the video. It's truly great.

It's not a recession yet! Why business should come out fighting to beat the slowdown!

When the economic odds are stacked up against you, there are really only two options. The first is to retrench; cut costs wherever you can and simply outlive the negative economic environment. The second is to come out fighting, to communicate the benefits you offer and to win as much sustainable business as possible. I’m offering you the chance to do the latter – by requesting a complementary initial PR consultation now.

The PR services offered by Stone Junction represent a way of talking to your customers through a media that they trust. Your customers all read the trade press, the local press and the national media and they are all influenced by them. In a slow economic environment, people with purchasing authority turn to authoritative sources like these to help with decision making. If you aren’t in the media, your ability to influence those decisions is reduced.

Early this year there were signs in the press that engineering was going to be the industry least touched by the slowdown. However, since then there has been a lot of talk about recession, stagflation, rising costs and businesses reporting a slower rate of sales.

The fact remains that there hasn’t been a recession just yet. There hasn’t yet been a single quarter of negative growth, let alone the two consecutive quarters required for us to be in recession. In plain English, the economy has grown for the last six months but it hasn’t grown enough to satisfy us – hence all the talk of the economic slowdown.

So, if the current rate of growth in your business isn’t enough to satisfy you, it’s time to come out fighting. You need to make your public aware of what you have to offer, you have to reinforce in their minds your status as a thought leader and you have to positively position yourselves against your competition. An economic slowdown is a time for action, so contact Stone Junction now on 0208 699 7743 or e-mail richards@stonejunction.co.uk.

Robotics firm sees success in English and German

TM Robotics has been growing consistently as a force in the industrial robot market across Europe since its inception in 2000, when current MD Nigel Smith set up the company to act as the European sales partner for Toshiba Machine.

The last two years have bought particularly concentrated levels of expansion, with a large increase in the number of robots sold each year, both in the UK and across the continent. The company has worked with Richard Stone; the MD of Stone Junction for most of its lifespan, becoming a Stone Junction client a few months after the PR agency was established in early 2006.

However, as TM Robotics' contribution to the industrial robot market improves, so must its marketing efforts and 2008 has been a year of increased activity so far. The company has attended both the Automatica and CeMAT trade shows, increased its direct marketing efforts and launched several new products. The crux of the campaign has been to encourage customers to request promotional CDs, which feature details of a key product. This campaign has been trailed in advertising materials as well as PR and was the central tactic at the trade shows.

Stone Junction has supplied a successful PR campaign in 2008, with coverage appearing in fifteen different trade publications and on countless industry Web sites. It has also provided graphic and new media design work for advertising, trade shows and interactive content. This has included graphics boards for exhibition work, interactive video CDs, a new brochure and a series of adverts all produced in English and German.

The overall response has been outstanding, with several hundred promotional CDs despatched to customers already. Nigel Smith, managing director of TM Robotics said, "The campaign has dovetailed together very effectively, with both creative ideas and Toshiba Machine's corporate style working in unison in all of the visual material, while the tactics intended to generate leads have worked well."

Contact Stone Junction straight away and request a free guide or complimentary initial PR consultation now.

Free guide to PR in the economic slowdown

Stone Junction, the specialist engineering and technology PR firm, has issued a guide to PR in the economic slowdown. It is aimed at companies attempting to make the best use of their marketing budgets, big or small. This move is intended as a rallying call to UK business currently talking itself into recession.

Marketing budgets are often the first to be cut in hard times. However, this always results in less incoming business. Thus, the promotional advice includes both how to attract customers and how to improve a company's profile. The guide covers PR and online reputation management as well as effective agency handling. In addition, there is particular focus on taking advantage of the, often free, opportunities provided by Web 2.0 Internet technology.

"Branding, advertising PR and other forms of push marketing are all slashed during hard times," said MD Richard Stone. "Indeed, reducing marketing budgets can salvage profits in a poor financial year. However, the damaging impact of such reductions comes in the years that follow."

"Those businesses that cut their marketing investment lose market share to those that don’t," continued Stone. "There are countless examples throughout history of businesses emerging from periods of economic slowdown having grown substantially. In many ways this kind of bear market is an opportunity for quick thinking, aggressive businesses."

Free copies of the guide are available from Stone Junction. Simply email richards@stonejunction.co.uk or call 0208 699 7743 and ask for Richard Stone.

More Friday videos about engineers

Two professional engineers illustrate the proper care and practical benefits of cats. None of the cats, humans, or engineers were mistreated in the making of this film. They were however, slightly annoyed.

Hartmut Pannen, the recently appointed managing director of Trumpf's UK Company, told ManufacturingTalk this morning he had recently toured some 100 UK companies that have sheet-metal working shops. He said he was astounded by the new equipment in use; also, that much of the equipment seen was under five years' old. He added he was also impressed by these companies' enthusiasm for getting things done. What Pannen could not understand was why none of this news was being published in the UK's national media.

As a PRO working in manufacturing I can wholeheartedly reaffirm Pannen’s comment. Coverage of manufacturing and engineering in the dailies is very poor.

Clearly, if you are a British, listed manufacturer it’s easy enough to get coverage. However, it’s slightly harder to get clippings that mention both the share price and the technology, although there are plenty of companies that do – Renishaw for instance do a great job.

However, there are opportunities for national coverage for everyone involved in Manufacturing - listed or not. It’s just that they are far more limited now than ever before. It takes a real nose for them to be honest, you have to dig out every column that could cover engineering and address them persistently. Of course, because you are then talking to columns that aren’t always about manufacturing, the number of engineers reading them is far fewer than they would have been on, say, the old FT technology page. That said Peter Marsh, the FT’s engineering correspondent, still does a great job of including case studies from all sorts of manufacturers as ‘contextualising’ pieces.

Anyway, rant over, I would be interested to know your thoughts.

Ladies are requested not to have children on this Blog

Fair enough, I admit to being the sort of person likely to pass on jokes in an e-mail. Especially if they are funny. I know, it's so very 1999 in these days of Wikis, social media and erm, other techy things. Anyway, my translation partner, a fine firm called Softtalk, has the following mistranslations on its Web site. I think they are really quite good:

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge: "Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar."

In an Acapulco Hotel: "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

In Krakow station toilets: "It is forbidden to steal the station's towels. Please if you are not a person to do such a thing do not read this notice."

By Krakow ticket office: "We take your bags and send them in all directions."

In a Tokyo Bar: "Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts."

On Zakopane street stall: "SPECIAL TODAY.....NO ICE CREAM"

In a Zurich Hotel: "Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose."

In a Zakopane Dry Cleaners: "Men drop your trousers here for best results." and "Ladies leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time".

In Witow mountain Pass: "Take one of our horse driven mountain trips...We guarantee no miscarriages."

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: "Would you like to ride on your own ass?"

Outside a Paris dress shop: "Dresses for street walking."

In a Krakow hotel bedroom: "You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid."

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong Dentist: "Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists."

In a Bangkok Temple: "It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man."

In a Tokyo Shop: "Our nylons cost more, but you'll find they are best in the long run."

Thought you might like those.

The Swan of Tuonela

There was a thought provoking editorial in this morning's Manufacturingtalk newsletter. Indeed, I think there have been a fair few of these of late, from Mike Page the editor. This month, he wrote, on the subject of the UK's manufacturing economy:

"Ever listen to the piece of classical music, 'The Swan of Tuonela', Op.22 No 2 by Jean Sibelius? The scene pictured in the music is that of a contented swan gliding on the surface of a beautiful, placid lake, while all the evils of hell are busy in the lake's depths. One could make a comparison with the UK's manufacturing industry riding on a buoyant market, while the service industry, sub-prime bank lending difficulties, credit squeezes, declining services fortunes and other ills, which are festering below, may soon grab manufacturing and pull it down with them! Only a thought! "The UK's Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reported at the end of February, 2008, that manufacturers were having the 'longest run of sustained demand for 12 years'. The CBI reported that orders were making their strongest showing since 1995 and that a big influence was the growing demand for capital goods. Also, the minor slowing in manufacturing demand in the UK could be offset by support from a weakening Pound Sterling - particularly against the Euro."

I would be inclined to agree with the second paragraph I've quoted here. I have a number of clients reporting booms; with one showing 100% growth in the last year and another so busy they are building a new plant. However, I've not convinced of the dangers to manufacturing mentioned in the first paragraph. The sub prime lending incident is a structural problem in the economy; it doesn't necessarily mean business is in the doldrums. The service economy is another matter, I'm unsure about my position on this. Certainly lending is continuing to rise indicating spending is still up. Furthermore, in our corner of the world, where only techy engineering related things really matter, service is booming alongside manufacturing.

Overall, the economy is a little nervous, but there are certainly reasons to be confident this year. I suspect that as in the opera, our swan will continue to safely swim on the surface. I for one am not talking myself into recession for the time being.

Build a second life scooter

Here at PRefect Towers we haven't yet recovered from Mod flick Quadrophenia and are still fantasising about owning a scooter. Probably a Vespa. Probably black with silver trimmings. Anyway, those boffins over at Siemens PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) have created an interactive tool to create a custom 3D Razor scooter in mass online game/lifestyle choice Second Life.

This morning, Electronic Product Design wrote, "There are over 12million residents of the 3D virtual world in the computer game Second Life. Siemens PLM Software, part of Siemens Industry Automation, uses its island in Second Life to collaborate with customers and partners in testing designs with end consumers in real-time." Spot on really, but are there any Mods? That's the real question. And we don't mean moderators.

Shout louder despite the cutbacks

The quarterly Bellwether report, which measures marketing spend, has been released and it paints a gloomy picture of the end of 2007, with a slightly brighter 2008. Indeed, marketing spend fell by more in the last quarter of 2007 than any time in nearly two years. However, it also shows that almost half of all companies plan to spend more on marketing in 2008 than in 2007.

But is this likely to make much difference to you and I? Marketeers and PROs in technology and engineering companies may not find their budgets rocketing up in 2008 quite so quickly. You see, much of the planned marketing spend reported by the Bellweather Report can be accounted for by the forthcoming Olympic Games and European football Cup. The sponsorship for these events is phenomenal and dwarfs most budgets. I wonder how the figures would look without these factors.

I would certainly expect it to be lower than the last quarter of 2008. However, there is also real danger of the economy talking itself into recession. This is particularly true of the element of our economy made up of marketing revenues. Our budgets are often the first to be cut in recession, despite the fact that they should be near the bottom of the list of spending decreases. You can only reap in sales next year the seeds that you sow in marking this year.

The Bellwether Report author, Chris Williamson, said: "Some positive news was provided by 2008 marketing budgets being set higher than actual spend in 2007, but we interpret this with caution." The Bellwether Report is compiled quarterly by NTC Economics on behalf of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

The report for the fourth quarter of 2007 showed that budgets were revised down for the first time in a year, and that it was the steepest decline for nearly two years. It blamed weaker-than-expected sales revenues, disappointment profits and concerns about the economic environment.

Main media advertising, which includes television, press, radio, posters and cinema, was hit by downward revisions to budgets in the fourth quarter of 2007 -- the biggest since spring 2006. All other marketing, which includes direct and sales promotion, also saw an above average cut. Even internet advertising, which has been a powerhouse of growth, is showing the weakest rises in budgets since the autumn of 2003.

My own conclusion is that if you are operating below the level of cinema advertising and the Olympic Games, like most tech and engineering PRs are, things are going to get tight. As a result, you may have to work harder and make your marketing budget work harder. But don’t cut it. Come out fighting or they may be no fight left in you by next year.

Genius and very, very naughty marketing videos

I've noticed that several companies have been producing brilliant, but naughty, marketing videos to promote their products of late. The videos are proving to be a hit on You-Tube. Here's a great example to promote self cleaning toilets. Honestly.

Beating the colour separation trap

As a public relations junkie, sorry practitioner, I’m often approached by firms who want to generate publicity for their products or services but have become tired of issuing press material only to be confronted by a request for payment before it is used.

Right: "Some magazines. No reason they are here really, except to look pretty. And the post is about magazines, albeit not these ones specifically," explained PRefect.

Often a regional or local newspaper or trade magazine will ask for something called a ‘colour separation’ before publishing an article or news story. Consumer magazines will often suggest that a business uses advertorial as a vehicle if it doesn’t feel that the story is right for publication as it stands.

The former practice isn’t great for publishing, but as pragmatists we have to accept it. I believe that if magazines and newspapers ran only editorial that had been selected or written by the editor or another journalist, the value of the magazine would be greater. Readers would give it more credence and ultimately it would be able to charge higher rates for its advertising. As a result, it wouldn’t then have to charge colour separations for editorial. However, I’m not here to argue with the business case of individual magazines – I’m sure they have a better understanding of their business models than I do.

But that still leaves plenty of businesses out there facing the dilemma of what to do if they can’t get publicity without paying colour separation requests. So here’s my practical advice to them:

- Make it interesting: The main reason a journalist will not run the material you send them in the news or features pages for free is that it isn’t interesting enough. The best thing you can do is make sure that your press releases aren’t short adverts for your company but rather news stories you could envisage one of your customers finding interesting enough to read.

- Target the magazine individually: It’s much better to generate one really strong piece of well targeted coverage than several poor quality pieces of badly targeted press. To this end, read the magazines you want to appear in and make sure the copy you send them is appropriate to their readership.

- Tackle every opportunity in the magazine: You should be producing news for the news pages, features for the features pages and letters for the letters pages - and so on. Don’t simply presume that a press release about your new widget will be perfect for the front cover. Instead find a home for it in the right part of the right magazine.

Finally, as a caveat, advertise. Most magazines that charge to run editorial do so because they can’t generate enough revenue through advertising. By choosing the right magazines for your advertising spend, no matter how small it is, you will find that the magazine is much healthier when you come target it via PR. This doesn’t mean that, by advertising, you gain the right to appear in the news pages - merely that those news pages will still be there when you have the right story for them!

I would like to conclude this month’s rant by inviting your stories and anecdotes, advice and complaints about the worlds of publishing, promotion, journalism and PR. I would love to hear about your experiences – so leave a message and get the debate going.

Exactly what I do all day

I've just found this lovely video about Hollywood PR people. This is exactly what I do all day long. Definitely this and definitely not writing press releases about engineering and stuff. Oh no...

Reputation management in Blogs, chat rooms and message boards

Many of you may know I enjoy shooting my mouth off every now and again, particularly in the virtual world of the Inter-Super-Highway, where no one can really challenge you. Or can they?

I’ve recently encountered a number of instances where a reputation, either mine or my clients, has needed some delicate online handling. One instance was a reference to me on a PR industry Blog called TheWorldsLeading. The author had taken exception to a post on my own Blog, where I argued that the business world needs more people to act like rock stars. There is more to the argument, which can be read here if needs be, although it’s not essential to make sense of this post.

Without going into the debate that then ensued on TheWorldsLeading, there was a decision to make. Should I post on the Blog where I had been criticised, justifying my original argument, or just ignore it on the basis that probably very few people would come across it? I felt that the former option was the braver, and so that’s what I did. The end result was a short debate with the Blog’s author, during which we finally agreed that certain creative principles were fundamental to business but that not enough people actually employ those principles any longer. I felt that the right step was to stick my head above the parapet and in the end this was probably justified.

Another instance arose recently with a client, an online retailer of mobile phones called mPhone. A poster, on the message boards of a Web site called MoneySavingExpert.com, asked whether it was a good idea to buy from the client. Now, as many of you may know, there is a serious ethical issue with PR people posting things online about their own clients. At present, it’s frowned upon to not disclose who you are and your relationship to the client. There are moves afoot to introduce European legislation to stop non transparent posting happening at all. So, I duly reported the posting to my client and left a message, disclosing who I was and pointing the user to a series of testimonials on the mPhone Web site. It would probably have guaranteed my client more sales if I had registered a number of different user names and left messages saying how great the client was. But, it wouldn’t have been ethical.

So, my question is about managing reputation in the social media. Have you ever encountered instances, either fair or unfair, of your reputation being tarnished online? How did you respond? Did you respond at all? All thoughts are welcome… As long as you don’t tarnish my reputation online of course, if you do I will be round your gaff with the lads any minute now.

(Post originally produced as an article for Business Link for London).

Very amusing Friday video about engineers...

Can I still have my 25%?

I’ve been watching Ricky Gervais’ Extras recently and the role played by his co-writer, Stephen Merchant, particularly interests me. Merchant plays the agent of Gervais’ out of work actor – perhaps the ultimate contractor, entrusted with a performer’s entire career. I can often see the parallels between what Merchant spectacularly fails to do and the role of a contractor in any area of industry.

One particular episode was a bit too close to the bone for anyone who has ever had to consider whether a contractor’s bill is actually worth paying. Merchant was attempting to convince Gervais that he has won him a role with the BBC. Gervais patiently explained that he knew Merchant had had nothing to do with the success. Merchant replied, “Even if that is completely true, can I still have my 25%?”

As a PR consultant the role of contractors is close to my heart. Not only am I a contractor myself but those sub contractors that I employ in turn are absolutely vital to my business.

For my part, I attempt to integrate as closely as possible with my client’s companies. In doing so I sometimes take on a little more work than I’m actually paid for (a universal problem in the PR industry, but that’s another topic) but in exchange the familiarity and understanding bred makes the working process a hell of a lot easier.

Naturally, I look for similar traits in my contractors, who provide translation, design, web design, clippings facilities and media databases. In some cases this isn’t possible – one simply doesn’t get that kind of service from a large company. However, in other cases the relationship works well from day one. I hope that by integrating like this, we all get a bit closer to understanding how to avoid the traits of Stephen Merchant’s useless agent in Extras.

Plumbing solutions

I thought you might like to hear about something I saw on the M6 the other day. It was a plumber's van, featuring an sign that described it's owners service as 'plumbing solutions'. To compound the error, he went on to proclaim that he offered 'more than just plumbing'.

I wonder what exactly it is he offers that is more than just plumbing? Maybe he’s referring to tea drinking? Perhaps he means harshly sucking air in through his teeth before telling you that what he is about to do will necessitate a re-mortgage?

The point in this case is not the jargon. It's that the jargon has led him to say the opposite of what he means. Instead of, “we do really good plumbing” he is telling the world, “we do something that might be plumbing but in addition we do something else that we regard as more important. As a result, we could well screw up your plumbing while we are focusing on 'more than just plumbing’, which is what we really care about.”

I’ve been counselling my clients against putting random nonsense into their company names for years. Happily, they have listened but there are plenty of companies out there who haven’t listened. I hear Phillips Semiconductor is changing its name to NXP. The old name told everyone what the company did and the new one tells everyone precisely nothing.

However, jargon itself isn’t a bad thing if it comes to mean something useful. Without it we wouldn’t have most of the words in the English language. As a result, I don’t object to the phrases like ‘blue sky thinking’ anymore than I do Shakespeare creating words or phrases. After all, I think the world would be worse off without the words barefaced, critical, leapfrog, monumental, castigate, majestic, obscene, frugal, radiance, dwindle, countless, submerged, excellent, fretful, gust, hint, hurry, lonely, summit, and pedant for instance. We also owe Shakespeare phrases like ‘tower of strength’, ‘rhyme nor reason’ and ‘apple of my eye’.

So in my opinion let’s keep coining new words and phrases and discarding the useless ones. We would have difficulty using this ‘social networking’ software to ‘post a comment’ on a ‘Blog’ otherwise! I think the important advice is that no matter what language you are using to express yourself, make sure that what you are saying is what you intend to say.

Should we 'symbolically' ban the words bitch and ho? - Report from New York

A New York City lawmaker is pushing to symbolically ban the words, 'bitch' and 'ho' to discourage their use in rap and pop music and among young people. Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, D-Brooklyn, suggested the non-enforceable ban, designed after a similar ban of the word nigger was passed by the New York City Council in March.

Apart from the fact that I'm not convinced about the idea of a symbolic ban, I don't think there is anything unique about the word bitch, when contextualised amongst other insulting words that relate particularly to a social certain grouping.

Words gain meaning as a result of the way they are used - this applies to both the word bitch and the word nigger, which has already been banned. All are acceptable in certain contexts but considered to be abominations in other contexts.

Coincidentally, both examples are insults that have been linguistically reclaimed by elements of the groups they apply to, in the same way that prominent gay men, like William Burroughs, reclaimed the word queer in the last century.

However, my real problem is that the process of language development will manage itself - it doesn't require intervention on a legislative level, even symbolically. If the word were universally regarded as abhorrent it simply wouldn't be used. At present, its common social use demonstrates that at present it isn't thought of in this way.

Of course, changing the way we speak changes the way we think. Without insulting words we would find it much harder to argue and fight for instance. I'm positively in favour of biasing people against violence and abusive behaviour towards women. However, I intuitively believe that language will win out against our attempts to control it.

Business book reviews: The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey

Ok, first things first, I listened to this on audio CD and didn't actually read the book. This is because I'm highly effective and I was saving time... Sorry, what I meant to say was, "this gave me an unusual insight into the overarching structure of the book; allowing me to consider the entire concept in a single sitting."

The thing that struck me most about Covey's system of self management was the first of his seven rules - be pro-active. This seems obvious but Covey's analysis of what make a pro active person was fascinating. He defines it as someone who has responsibility. He further breaks down the word responsibility into its two elements - response and ability. His point is that you have the ability to respond.

I'm not convinced from an etymological standpoint, but from a self help perspective it’s interesting. The idea that you are responsible for your own effectiveness is unusual. Most books of this nature start from the position that you are ineffective and have no choice over the issue. Instead they argue that you should adopt whatever system of management they espouse. Covey is much more of a traditionalist - he simply argues that you need to have the character to be able to take action to achieve your goals. This is empowering for those of us weighed down with managerial mumbo jumbo.

So my advice is to be pro-active and buy the audio CD straight away - it's much more effective than the book. And you can listen to it while walking the dog too…

Are you my friend on Facebook? No, I'm your friend in real life...

So opined a comedian on the ill advised News Knight with Trevor Macdonald. He has a point. I wonder about the value of such networks on occasion, despite being a regular and avid user of Facebook, the procrastination tool über alles, and LinkedIn, the identity theft staple.

I can't claim to have generated any genuine business out of either, although I have got in touch with lots of lost colleagues and friends. Indeed, this very morning I accepted an invitation from a former colleague. When we worked together, very briefly, we didn't really have much to do with each other. However, he was a nice guy and, quite frankly, a bit of a genius; so I accepted the invitation. However, the chances are it will remain just that – a link on a Web site. I doubt if we will actually get in touch again, although I would be happy to do so.

However, my next e-conquest will be Trevor Macdonald, I think. Now there's someone worth being friends with on Facebook. Is there a space for a Knighthood on your Facebook profile though?

Buy me a pizza, or the account gets it!

There has been much furore in the financial press recently about the need for big businesses to fire their worst performing staff on an annual basis. This may well be true and indeed it works for General Electric, the most outspoken advocate of the policy in the press of late. However, I’ve never run a big business – I’ve only run comparatively small PR agencies. The one thing I’ve learnt in doing so is that if you could keep every member of staff forever, your client turnover would be very low.

However, it seems that a lot of agencies do precisely the reverse. My experience is that a PR agency losing only ten per cent of its staff a year is doing incredibly well. Rather than keeping staff, many firms allow them to leave at a rate of knots.

“Attrition rates in PR vary, for a number of reasons,” explained Steve Mallison-Jones, managing director of executive and PR recruitment consultants Indigo Red. “The higher up the tree an individual goes the more likely it is that they are tied in with equity, offers of partnership and hefty pay outs should the agency be sold out to one of the bigger groups, which encourages loyalty. In a female dominated industry, there are often some other factors which encourage staff retention. The opportunity of flexi-time and part time working encourages mothers to return to work and stay loyal to their firm,” he continued.

“The most commonly quoted reasons we hear for why a candidate wants to leave their current jobs are; a new challenge, a better work life balance, and the opportunity to freelance. There is also a trend of a “quarter life crisis” where 25-30 year olds want to make a difference and a better world, so are tempted by opportunities which allow them the freedom to achieve more philanthropic aims,” went on Mallison-Jones.

In previous roles I have seen agency management teams heave a sigh of relief when employees perceived to be ineffective have resigned. I’ve even done it myself! However, those same people are then shocked when clients follow the individual out of the door.

On the subject of clients following staff, Mallison-Jones had this to say; “You can never guarantee someone can bring business with them. However, as a recruiter I always say to candidates that they will be surprised which accounts don’t follow them to a new job. Of course it does happen – some accounts do follow. If a candidate says they can bring business to a new job I always try to ask some probing questions regarding contractual obligations and so on. It’s only when you are effectively employing a one man band or small agency that you can guarantee they will bring accounts,” he continued.

The crux of the issue is listening to the client and finding out what they actually value in the agency staff they work with. It’s a safe bet that many of the things we all value would be near the top of the list. Attention to detail, creativity, writing skills and contacts are sure to be in there somewhere. However, the relationship they have built up with their account manager may well be top of the list, presuming they are happy with the agency.

I’ve known clients follow staff out of an agency because the old account handler used to send them a birthday card on their birthday - and always bought the card from their favourite football club’s shop. I’ve known clients follow staff out of an agency because the old account handler used to take them to the all you can eat buffet at Pizza Hut after every meeting.

These are humorous examples but there is an ounce of truth in them. In both cases they left because the staff member that understood their motivations also left. From the agency perspective, in both cases, the staff member was failing in certain key areas. But as far as the client was concerned, they were all that was required.

In both instances, and in many others, I was against losing the account manager. One left for more money elsewhere and the other was fired. The agency lost two to three times their annual salary in fees over the next couple of months and more in the long run. So, no matter what the financial press says, I’m in favour of keeping staff wherever possible – they may well surprise you.

I haven’t bought a newspaper for months

At PRefect Towers we recently found out that 93.2% of people making B2B buying decisions go online to research their purchases*. Furthermore, I personaly haven’t bought a newspaper for months. Actually, that’s a lie. I work in PR, so I at least scan most of the nationals everyday. But as a believable statement it’s not bad. How many people do you know who could easily do their jobs without getting newsprint on their fingers? Working in technology PR, I meet software engineers who could get by with Silicon.com and The Register alone. And Blogs of course, we would all die without Blogs now wouldn’t we?

This creates an interesting problem for B2B media relations specialists. We know we must continue to address the trade, national and regional print media and take advantage of the growing influence of the online media. After all, decision-making is a highly complex process and the print media remains part of it. A range of factors can influence how we buy on a B2B level, from the number of people involved in the decision to how close to the point of purchase we are. We also have to consider what kind of buyer we are selling to (visionary, mass market etc), what level of education they have, knowledge of the product and any factors unique to the commercial sector. To have any influence through media relations requires some serious thought about how these factors can be effected by our efforts with the print and online media.

When we decide which media to address with which message, we should consider how the customer group interacts with that media, if at all. To address the entire spectrum of the decision we need the print and online media. But each serves a different purpose at a different stage and requires different tactics and content. This is true not only because some of the people working on these sites have different agendas but also because the medium on which they publish is fundamentally different

Today a good campaign has different pro-active and re-active strategies for influencing the online and print media and in turn influencing their readers. As its foundation this involves providing the right content to attract professional and influential non-professional-communicators who work in the online media. By non-professional communicators I mean both Bloggers and administrators of genuine online communities. These online communities could simply be news groups; Engineeringtalk’s UKEPR (United Kingdom Engineering Public Relations) community for technology PR practitioners is one such group. Alternatively, they might be groups of people referring to a single point of information when making buying decisions. In the food and pharmaceutical industries a good example is RSSL’s (Reading Scientific Services Limited) e-mail newsletter service. This appears to be impartial and doesn’t feature extensive news from the company itself, instead focusing on news from the industries it serves. In doing so it has established itself as a sufficiently influential point of reference that, as a PR person, I am often referred to it by clients who perceive it to be a media outlet like any other.

As Blogs become more and more influential, particularly over early adopters and visionary customers, good PROs adapt their techniques for approaching Bloggers. A straightforward product press release isn’t going to be all that effective, indeed many Bloggers will regard a traditional elevator pitch sell-in as ‘too-professional‘. Many will not be available during working hours because, for most, Blogging is a hobby.

Bloggers love their subjects and are inspired by them, so the best way to communicate is with passion. You need to share the passion and be able to discuss honestly your client’s relationship to the rest of the market. If it’s a technology Blog it helps to provide products for evaluation, just as one would with a consumer technology magazine. It is also well worth remembering that the coverage you obtain isn’t going to remain at the top of the Blog for long, so it will be of value to your client to suggest ways of maximising its value while it is there.

In contrast, many other online communities are run as marketing tools. The two organisations I mentioned above, Engineeringtalk and RSSL aren’t charities. They are profit-making companies who, very intelligently, incorporate a community creation element into their marketing plans. And because the plan is working, for both of them, it will always be difficult to convince them to incorporate PR material into it. However, because it is a marketing plan, offering them something to further that plan, in the shape of material that is genuinely useful to their online communities, should be a compelling proposal.

Once we have attracted the journalist, Blogger or community administrator we must ensure our content is optimised in such a way that it is influential to our two online audiences - readers and search engines. The key to attracting the former is interactivity, either literally, in the form of downloads, or intellectually, in the form of useful information that will get repeated. The same research that tells me that 93.2% of buying decisions are researched online also states that 36.8% are researched and completed online. Given that many purchases can’t be completed online, this suggests that a significant proportion of those that can be are. This is all the more reason to ensure our online content is as interactive as possible - to help complete the buying cycle by drawing the reader to your Web site.

One method of attracting our other audience, search engines, is including embedded links in press material, although these are unpopular with some news sites. Another is phrasing and constructing content in a way that can be easily found in a search. Distribution is the third factor - most PROs are used to selling in stories verbally or e-mailing or posting them to journalists. Some of us are even old enough or specialised enough to remember sending faxes. However, when we have gone to the trouble of creating our embedded links, we would be wise to consider e-mail distribution mechanisms that don’t remove them as part of the distribution process. When writing this article, I spoke to five leading media databases that feature e-mail functionality and three said that their mechanism would remove an embedded link.

However, if we do manage to get the embedded link featured in our coverage (evaluation metrics anyone?) and our coverage featured in the right place and our clients stakeholders reading it, we can put our feet up. The job is well done and it’s time to read the paper - something I haven’t done for ages.

*From The Role of Search in Business-to-Business Buying Decisions produced by search engine marketing firm Enquiro.

Measuring customer satisfaction

Measuring customer satisfaction can be a difficult task for large companies. However, bigger firms do have the advantage of being able to use statistical data about their customers to calculate the best way to improve service. This is equally true if the thing they want to improve is the extent to which their service appears personal.

"This particular librarian might find it tough to improve customer satisfaction," argued PRefect. To no avail.

For instance, there was once a customer survey performed in a library. The survey found that library’s visitors believed that the service was poor, there were no books, the toilet facilities were awful and the light in the reading rooms was insufficient. In fact, you name it, the customers hated it.

The same survey also attempted to establish the factors that were most important to the customer. The number one issue that came up in this survey was personal service.

Furthermore, the differential between the current, poor, level of personal service and the value that the customer placed on it was greater than the differential between any other factor and the importance placed on that factor by the customers.

So the market research firm running the survey told the library to do only two things. The first was to hand books back to the visitors at the check out desk, instead of simply sliding them across the service. The second was to thank the customers by name (using the name on their library card).

The library put this plan into action, but didn’t improve the toilets or the lighting or any other factor. When the market research firm came back to do their second survey they found that the customers thought the personal service had improved enormously.

However, they also found that the customers now thought the toilets were great and the books were easier to find. Not only this but they also thought there were more books and the lighting was better. None of this was true – but the customer’s perception had changed.

The library had put into practice one of the oldest tricks in the customer satisfaction book (excuse the pun). They had improved the thing that customers thought was most important and that they were least good at.

Industry data suggests that this is always the case when this kind of improvement scheme is put into place. This is great news for people with a sufficiently large amount of customers to be able to conduct this king of survey.

But what about those of us who have too few customers to do this? I’ve only got six clients, so a survey like this isn’t going to work – even if I were to include all of the people in each customer’s decision making unit. So my question this month is, “how does one go about judging customer satisfaction without the luxury of statistics”. Should I just be looking for smiling faces, or are there other techniques that could be applied?

Interviewed by a marketing magazine - this means I must be very famous indeed ;-)

I was recently interviewed by a marketing magazine on the subject of e-mail marketing. I thought you might like to read my replies to their questions, which naturally came by e-mail...

What sort of content is most appropriate to e-mail marketing?
"Most forms of B2B direct marketing have a simple imperative - to generate sales enquiries. Let us put aside for now those companies wanting to influence different stakeholder groups. Just as in any other form of direct marketing your sales message must be clear and most companies get this right. However, the sales message must be complimented correctly with the right reason for buying. You need to communicate the value you add to your product or service effectively, not just the fact that buying today gets you fifty per cent of your next purchase."

For instance, if you are a wholesaler, your messages should be plain, simple and look cost effective. There is very little point unconsciously communicating to your customers that you spend all their money on flash marketing. Viking Direct is great at getting the right balance in this sort of e-mail. However, if your USP isn't price or no fuss delivery you might be able to afford to be a little more creative. For instance, a design company or marketing services firm might take a more innovative approach, couching the sales message in industry comment or humour for instance."

What form should it take?
"Again, the form of your e-mail or SMS should be a direct reflection of the values you adopt. However, there are a number of other issues to consider here as well. Firstly, there are plenty of firewalls that will keep out HMTL based e-mails on principle. So you might want to consider the kind of e-mail practices your clients adopt. If you primarily sell to banks and law firms, there isn’t a great deal of point in investing in HTML because you can guarantee their IT departments will be ahead of the game. However, if your market is SME companies you could consider some graphical wizardry. Having said that, it's always wise to produce two versions of the newsletter, one in plain text the other in HTML, so that your recipients can opt for one or the other. The key to effective e-DM is always recipient choice."

It could also be worth reflecting the brand of your newsletter in a Blog. You can even use the some of the same content in both. However, Blog writing has its own set of rules if its going to be effective as part of a corporate marketing campaign, so it is worth doing your research first.”

What laws do I have to abide by?
"The main thing to consider is how you got hold of an e-mail address or mobile phone number in the first place. The EC Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications is quite clear on the fact that you cannot communicate with potential customers without their prior consent. As a result, the old tactics of ‘getting a student in’ to scan Web sites for for contact details should be long gone. You must have obtained the address via a reputable supplier (who will have received consent beforehand) or collected the recipient’s permission along with their business card.

You should also supply either a double opt in or single opt out unsubscribe facility. That is to say that your recipients must either first say they want to receive the mail by responding to an invitation or they must have the facility to easily unsubscribe themselves.”

Finally, your must include the sender's details. This sounds like a no brainer to most B2B marketers, after all you want the recipient to get in touch! However, I am aware of companies coming unstuck with viral marketing on this very point."

Top five tips for re-writing your SEO strategy in light of personal search and the death of the Google bomb

The search environment seems to have changed enormously in the last month. First, as mentioned in last month’s newsletter, Google has re-written it’s algorithm to exclude Google Bombs. For those of you without last month’s newsletter to hand, ‘Google Bomb’ is the term assigned to the practice of causing a phrase to point to a particular Web site without changing the text on that site. It’s normally achieved by a coalition of like minded individuals tagging links on their sites and Blogs using the phrase. The most famous incidence was the pointing of the term ‘miserable failure’ to George Bush’s page on the Whitehouse Web site. The first tip in this list explains how you may well be able to carry on Google bombing successfully to market your business.

The second change is the introduction of personal search by Google – the process of using the pages you have visited, your Google homepage information and your bookmarks to determine the pages that turn up when you search for a particular term. Again, there are a number of things you can do to continue marketing your business effectively online using PR techniques:

TURN OFF THE PERSONALISED SEARCH OPTION: Personalised search creates an individual view of the Internet for each PC. In order to avoid the possibility that this view could colour your perception of how well ranked your Web site is, you need to turn personalised search off. Enter your Google account, click on search history and then click on the hyperlink that says ‘pause’. Simple, you are back to viewing the Web the way the rest of the world does. Remember personalised search only applies to Google account holders (of which there are tens of millions) so if you don’t have an account you will be unaffected.

FOCUS ON REAL INBOUND LINKS: Once you can see the Internet clearly again, you can begin monitoring the success of your Web site. Given that personalised search will make link SPAM even less useful than it already is, you need to start creating more real inbound links, from relevant and well used Web sites. Industry directories are great for this, as is a link exchange programme with friendly businesses. However, you can’t beat the issuing of press releases to online magazines. Say you issue a story with one link to your site in it. This is posted to your PR companies virtual press office (VPO) and your own. Let’s assume it’s also included on five industry sites. Already you have seven inbound links (presuming your VPO is hosted separately from your Web site, which it should be). Because these are real links that users will follow, rather than SPAM links that will only ever be followed by search engine spyders, will have an effect on your customers personalised search records.

CARRY ON GOOGLE BOMBING – BUT BE POSITIVE: As mentioned the Google Bomb is dead. Long live the Google Bomb. It seems that Google’s re-written algorithm only excludes negative Google bombs (such as the George Bush one mentioned earlier).

Google bombs are created by having a number of inbound links which feature the anchor text that you want to be searchable. For instance, I might create a link on my Blog to the Stone Junction Web site. The anchor text on the Blog could use the words PR genius, like so. If enough other sites did the same thing, we could eventually create a situation where typing PR genius into Google would return the Stone Junction Web site. This would be a positive bomb and thus excluded from Google’s new algorithm update.

So, you can continue to include Google bombs in press releases posted to your virtual press office, Blogs and partner’s Web sites. If you are issuing ten to twenty pieces of press material per year you could begin to build up hundreds of links over time.

MAKE IT USEFUL: Site usability and visitor retention are still top of the Web marketeers’ to do list. The more often someone visits your site, the more relevant it will be in their own personal search history. So re-use your PR material on your own site, with a few minor tweaks, to create compelling content for visitors.

MAKE IT EASY FOR USERS TO BOOKMARK: There is more chance of the US becoming a world leader in the prevention of climate change than Google revealing the secrets of its algorithm. However, it has revealed that the more users bookmark your site, the more significance it will have in personalised search. As a result, it’s essential to put as many book marking tools on your Web sites and Blogs as possible. Plenty of these come in the form of downloadable widgets. Google also supports a book marking system that is well worth your attention. Sadly, this last tip doesn’t have a great deal to do with PR, but whoever heard of a ‘top four tips’ article?

In conclusion there is a good deal to be achieved by adapting your PR material to suit the goals of your SEO strategy. Stone Junction includes embedded and inbound links in its client’s press material as a matter of course. It also provides all clients with a free, externally hosted Virtual Press Blog, which can co-exist with or replace a VPO. Furthermore, it will also offer a free Web site usability test to all new customers whose first contact comes after reading this article. Click here to e-mail Stone Junction with your enquiry, or ring Richard Stone on 020 8699 7743.

Or, just play Space Invaders...

Memory of miserable failure bush erased

It seems that Google's Web SPAM team is sick and tired of Googlebombs, the practice of linking an unflattering phrase to a person's name to make a, usually political, statement.

"Georg Bush: 'erased', apparently"

The classic example involved the term ‘miserable failure’ being linked to George Bush's page on www.whitehouse.gov (and secondarily, to Jimmy Carter's page).

The Google team has now written a new algorithm to erase such links from search results and memory. Shame, the Web used to be such an interesting place.

Shouting smarter: How to make the best of your PR budget

The PR landscape has changed. Once upon a time, all you had to do to get coverage for a technology product was write a press release and send it to your favourite trade press contacts. Then, bingo, rivers of coverage would flow in, mountains of media would spring up and you would have to hire another warehouse to put the sales enquiries in.But trade magazines have grown increasingly thinner and more and more pages are devoted to paid for advertorial or colour separations. So how, in this changed landscape should one continue to generate coverage?Well, here are Stone Junctions top five tips:

1. DON’T IGNORE 50% OF THE MAGAZINE: Most people write product stories and case studies, perhaps occasionally authoring the odd technical article. However, this limits your coverage to the parts of the magazine that cover such material. Next time you’re formulating your message, think about the other sections – the FAQs, the letters page, the opinion columns and the news pages. What could you do to target these areas?

2. LOOK BEYOND THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Where else could your press material be used? Direct to customer social networking sites, Blogs, online newsletters, industry Web sites, news sites and RSS feeds from your own Web site are amongst the possibilities.

3. TURN NEWS DELIVERY INTO CONTENT CREATION: Once you have eked every ounce of media coverage out of your material, re-purpose it as Web content for your own site, newsletter content for customers, staff magazine content or e-mail marketing material.

4. GET THE MOST FROM EVERY STORY: Most people look at a single event and see a single story. Take a product launch for instance – you could just knock out a product press release. However, there might be more there. Was the product developed in response to legislative demand for instance? If so, there is almost always an opinion piece in there somewhere, just waiting to be drawn out. There might be a letters campaign on the efficacy of that particular piece of legislation or set of regulations. Maybe the product was developed in an unusual way or by a unique individual? Could there be a story there for the design press? Or a regional press release targeting the area the developer came from? How about profile work for the business press?

5. MEASURE, MEASURE, MEASURE: If I had a pound for every PR tactic I’ve seen left half done when its originator moves on to soon I would be rich. So rich in fact, I would barely need to write this newsletter. However, there is a serious point. If you don’t measure the success of an activity, you can’t tell if the results are commensurate with the power of the original idea. Good measurement will tell you if any ideas should be re-visited to generate the extra column inches they deserve.

My last tip is simple – invest. A public relations campaign is an investment in the reputation of your company. As a result, invest your time, the time of your staff if needed and sufficient budget to make it work. If you are doing it in house but not getting results, maybe it’s time to hire an agency. If so, contact me on 0208 6997743 or e-mail richards@stonejunction.co.uk. If you are using an agency that isn’t getting the results you expect, talk to them about why it’s not happening. If it’s a budgetary issue, you might find a few more agency hours or a little more attention from you makes the difference. And, of course, if it doesn’t, you’ve got my e-mail address.

Exploding pigs and machine guns firing sheep

Online game Second Life has taken on significance in the French presidential election following an increase in use for business and political purposes. The game has become a virtual political battleground with two of the main parties setting up headquarters and their supporters engaging in confrontations. First to make its presence known was the National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, which set up a permanent office in this virtual existence six weeks ago.

That led to clashes with other users, who armed their characters with placards showing Le Pen with a Hitler moustache and picketed the office. Last week, the party was forced out of its first headquarters by an attack of exploding pigs and machine guns firing sheep. It sounds like a Damian Hirst installation but it's virtually real life.

Nothing will come of nothing

A jolly interesting assessment of the state of evaluation in the PR industry
























In King Lear, the eponymous central character asks his three daughters how much they love him. The two nasty pieces of work embark on diatribes on their affection for their father, while the honest Cordelia explains in simple words her modest love for him. When he asks what she can add to her statement, she replies, ‘nothing’. Lear then utters the famous line, ‘nothing will come of nothing.’

Each time I re-read this I am reminded of the process of evaluating the activities of a PR agency. Like most in the PR and marketing industries, evaluation is a subject close to my heart. In PR we can only aspire to the exacting methods of evaluation of the direct marketing industry. However, every agency has a methodology which they apply, and most have a standard apology for its shortcomings.

The biggest problem is that for most clients good evaluation costs serious money. Unfortunately, 90 per cent of PR budgets don’t stretch to good evaluation. I speak from experience on some top ten global companies as well as plenty of SMEs and smaller firms. In this context too many companies expect something to come of nothing.

When faced with the option of allocating ten per cent of a budget to PR evaluation, most companies will baulk at the idea. The fact that they could get ten per cent more outbound activity instead always seems too enticing. And of course, there are also the people who believe that they can buy the evaluation option but expect the ten per cent more outbound PR activity as well.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue – evaluation in PR is so difficult because it is bound up with over servicing. When faced with a formal contract evaluation in four or five month’s time, PR agencies go into overdrive. I’ve seen, and been part of, teams who have delivered up to sixty per cent more than the client pays for in these periods.

Apart from creating serious problems in the agency’s bottom line, this also creates a serious problem with evaluation. How can you measure the efficacy of, for instance, a £100,000 spend if the agency has actually delivered £160,000 worth of work?

Worst still, what if the results are still not satisfactory?

While many agencies will make the client aware of this over servicing, and can even apply a metric to balance it out, the results remain permanently skewed. Quite simply, in PR, some projects are more effective than others. Some fall flat on their faces and some create epidemics of interest in a client’s product. Others perform consistently over the years. If the evaluated period is made up of a mixture of effects, how does one factor this into the metric? In evaluation terms, over servicing always results in nothing coming of too much.

I find it difficult to imagine conducting a direct mail evaluation which begins with the account manager explaining, “I know we only agreed to send out 100,000 pieces but actually we found the job so rewarding that we sent out 160,000! And the results have been great!”

I understand, and comply with, the argument that when a client has invested in a campaign, the onus is on the agency to make that campaign work. As I mentioned above, I’m just as guilty of over servicing as the rest of us. However, in the long term we are better placed to either price the campaign correctly to begin with or ensure our ideas work as well as expected before we put them into practice, at least if we want our evaluation to remain unspoiled by over servicing.

So, the bottom line is that in order to evaluate effectively, the PR industry must curb over servicing. Unfortunately, at the same time it needs to convince those clients where it is genuinely a valuable exercise that they need to allocate budget to evaluation. We have to begin to understand that Lear’s daughter Cordelia offered the best evaluation of her love for her father. She expressed it to him plainly and didn’t add anything more than was true. The irony of Shakespeare’s play is that what Lear describes as ‘nothing’ is the only statement of value that has been made. In evaluation terms, this can too often be true.

Does business need a rock ‘n’ roll soul?

Richard Stone, managing director of StoneJunction, a PR and strategic communications agency, hardly ever meets any rock stars. However, he does think that business needs more of them.

Normally rock stars make awful businessmen – take for instance the $510,000 The Beatles spent on Apple Electronics in 1969. Belying the usual rules of business, the Fab Four invested the cash without any real hope of it multiplying. Apple Electronics did however introduce electronic paint, real flying saucers and recording studios with working force fields to the world.

Equally, business people that actually pick up an instrument tend to make fairly dull rock stars, as anyone who has ever witnessed the Fortune magazine battle of the corporate bands will attest. Apologies to last year’s winner, PANTS! who represented ad agency McKinney and performed a twelve minute rock opera.

However, some of the best businessmen carry more than just a little bit of rock star around with them. There are obvious examples; Branson, Gates and Sugar for instance are all talented showmen. In the PR industry we have Mark Borkowski, Chris Lewis and Matthew Freud. Without picking up an instrument, these people have transferred some of the qualities of Bono, Jagger and Gallagher into a world more used to spreadsheets, PowerPoint and red tape.

What they have in common is the capacity for extraordinary creative thought and, more so than going about with a guitar slung round your neck, this is what I mean by being a rock star in business. These three all deliver genuine value to their businesses, not least through the value of the personal brand they create for themselves by expressing creative thought. Before I go on by the way, I don’t doubt that the majority of the stunts these chaps pull are thought up by clever advisors. In fact, I think Branson has a PR agency just to send letters to the FT for him, so active is his publicity machine. However, it takes bottle, style and charisma to put the ideas into practice and function as their mouthpiece.

This willingness to go out on a limb is another characteristic of a rock star in business. Of course, sound planning is essential to all businesses but sometimes a decision based on the evidence of this planning comes down to tapping into the zeitgeist and following your instinct.

However, instinct and creative thought would be of little real value if the right outlet were not available to express them, turning them into impact on the bottom line. In order to harness these qualities, a business rock star needs an understanding of how the media responds to the extraordinary. It’s this recognition, that only by being really creative can we generate truly impressive media coverage that brings the rock star in business real benefits.

So, there are lessons here to be learnt for us all. We need the ability to harness extraordinary creative thought, even it its not our own, we need the bravery to follow it through and we need to understand what the media will do with it once we have put it into practice.

Even as a, predominantly, B2B PR specialist I try to keep these lessons in mind when planning a campaign. No matter how commonplace your product or service, the best way to generate high profile press coverage is by adding a dash of the extraordinary. Imagine how much more interesting our lives would be if we all had a hint of it in us. Perhaps then I would get the chance to meet a few more rock stars.

Looking for advice on business plans (and getting on Dragon’s Den!)

I shall begin this Blog entry by saying that I am really looking for your advice and thoughts on business plans and their value – so please leave a message and I will try and respond to everyone. Here goes…

As my first year in business begins to draw to a close, I find myself once more doing the very thing that I started the year with – drawing up a business plan.

I can’t stress enough the value of a sound business plan even though I realise that you are probably a convert just as I am. However, as the evenings have now drawn out and the office parties are starting, I thought it might be a good time to share our thoughts on the subject.

For me, the set up process was relatively straight forward. As a PR consultancy I sell intellectual property and time to businesses, which is much less complex than setting up a company to market an invention to consumers. I didn’t have to include in my plan the deadlines from the contract manufacturer, different rounds of VC funding or filming dates for Dragon’s Den! Although, that said, I do fancy making an appearance in the Den, it looks like fun.

Despite my relatively straightforward set up process, the plan has been invaluable. By contrasting it with my actual performance I’ve been able to see where I was falling short, where I was ahead of the game and which elements of my business needed work. Hopefully, next year’s plan will be just as useful.

For me, it was the financial element of the plan that proved invaluable. Despite the fact that I didn’t need any external investment to set the company up, I devoted days to the production of this part of the document and it has certainly reaped dividends. I’m a very visual person and being able to visualise company performance in a spreadsheet has been a big benefit. This means more to me than QuickBooks print outs for instance (although these too are useful) and really helps keep me on track.

So, I will end by asking for your advice on the matter – which part of your plan has been the biggest help? Was it the disaster recovery scheme that kicked in when you had your flood or break in? Was it the recruitment strategy that kept you on track? Or something else that stopped you going under? Equally, if you are about to start the first year of your business and want advice on your first plan, this would be a great place to get it.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Richard

PS – My Web statistics (and the e-mails I recieve) suggest that many more people read this Blog than leave a message, which of course is fine – you are more than welcome to ‘lurk’! But your input is welcome and valued, so if you have something to say, just go for it!

Interesting stuff to do with online marketing

We like interesting stuff here at Stone Junction, particularly when it’s pertinent to marketing technology or engineering technology. Not surprising really? Most people like interesting stuff don’t they? And I’ve found some interesting stuff I thought I would share with you – it’s from Global Spec’s Marketing Maven newsletter.

"Online marketing - According to this picture, it's mostly about being handed @ signs by etheral hands poking out of your computer. Good, that's what I thought..."

The interesting stuff in question is an article on the value of Blogs, RSS, Webinars and Podcasts for engineering technology related firms. If that’s the sort of thing you like, and you probably do if you’re reading my Blog, you can take a look at it here: Interesting stuff from Marketing Maven.

You can even subscribe to the Marketing Maven newsletter by e-mailing marketing@globalspec.com. It will almost certainly convince you of the value of online PR and marketing things in general. When it has done so, you can always come back here and talk to me about your needs… Whoops, one isn’t supposed to be that commercial on a Blog. Never mind…

Social networking by PRefect theatre

Welcome to PRefect theatre. The scene opens in a University where the students are studying the impact of Social Networking Web sites on the marketing mix. A befuddled lecturer asks questions of his fashionable marketing students, all bedecked in matching NHS style glasses and polo necks.

Lecturer: Right then, hands up if you actually know what social networking or social search is? Anyone? Good, well done Jones, give me your answer.

Jones: Sir, Social Networking is a term coined to describe the increasing quantity of Web sites driven by user generated content and social search is a phrase describing the more sophisticated idea that such sites can rank the relevance of their own content according to how interesting the users themselves find that content, Sir!

Lecturer: Well done Jones, you may have a house point. Now, are there any benefits to business in placing content on such sites? (Jones frantically waves his hand in the air, begging for permission to speak). Yes, Jones, you may answer again.

Jones: Well Sir, to the extent that Blogging can be seen as a kind of social networking Sir, yes. For instance Chris Rand, an online journalist, reports that he recently bought a TV which turned out to have compatibility problems with a satellite receiver - a problem with the equipment which only revealed itself when the design was out in the real world. He recently wrote in one of his newsletters:

“Instead of ignoring the problem and perhaps replacing the TVs of customers who complained, the manufacturer set up a Blog where its engineers working on solving the problem could let us all know how they were getting on. As a result, customers like me were happy to wait for the resolution, and our opinion of the manufacturer, Pioneer, wasn't damaged in any way (in fact, they turned a potential negative into a real positive).”

The relevant Blog can be found at http://www.pioneerhdblog.com/, Sir!

Lecturer: Okay Jones, thank you. But what about things other than Blogging?

Jones: Well Sir, if you can locate a site with the right audience, it seems to me that social networking could be a powerful medium for businesses willing to approach it in the right way. Wikipedia, perhaps one of the first and best Social Networking sites, provides the following set of links for others Wikipedia. This could be useful in finding your audience. However, there are plenty of places to look – you simply have to tour the Web. Furthermore, if you have a general consumer story to share, a site like www.digg.com could be appropriate.

Lecturer: I see – perhaps I will stick with Friends Reunited for now.

The camera pans away from our scene as Jones begins making a paper aeroplane…

Getting PR involved at product marketing stage

"Positioning - a bit like a game of chess. With little people replacing some of the pieces in this instance. Which is odd..."

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to attend a product marketing day run by a prospective client. The day was not only great fun but extremely useful. Much too often, PR consultancies are brought in after the product orientation is complete and often after the initial marketing communications phase is over. Sometimes we are invited in even later than that – around about the point where somebody says, ‘damn, we forgot to find a PR agency…’

This is a hangover from previous marketing eras - when PR sat very firmly in second place to advertising in terms of creating brand strategy. However, this has changed in the last decade, to the point where PR should now be at the head of the positioning table.

In contrast, yesterday was a chance to get involved in developing a product and ensuring that it will be in a position to both please the market and generate publicity when it is launched.

A strong positioning strategy is so utterly intertwined with PR that it makes perfect sense to involve PR practitioners in developing it. Furthermore, without the right positioning strategy even a great PR campaign will fall flat on its face. The right name, the right relationship with competitors and the right attitude towards those competitors can make the difference between and ineffective effort and a real return on investment.

So, thanks to all involved for yesterday’s meeting. I can advise anyone out there looking at launching a new product to follow the lead of the company in question and get your agency involved early – the long run benefits will be well worth it.

Business book reviews: Confessions of an advertising man

Continuing my series of book reviews about books that haven’t been published recently (see also Martin Lukes; who moved my Blackberry?) I’ve been reading David Ogilvy’s seminal Confessions of an advertising man of late. It’s a great insight into a bygone era of advertising, in which almost all of Ogilvy’s clients were peers of the realm, but, despite this, still relevant.

What’s more, this book about advertising is relevant to the PR industry and to anyone running a small business. Actually it’s quite relevant to anyone running any business of any size.

Firstly though, its significance for PRs lies not only in its insights on positioning but also in its wonderful chapter on copy writing. The section on headline writing is particularly pertinent. I won’t reproduce these guidelines here in full but, let’s just say, fans of headlines that are little more than clever if irrelevant puns will not be delighted.

In terms of running an agency, or indeed a business of any kind, Ogilvy’s thoughts on creating a company culture are still important. Ignoring the fact that, due to being written by an ad exec in the sixties, they are rigidly male orientated, many of the tips in the book are still useful.

For instance, Ogilvy believes that you get nowhere in business without manners. He writes, “We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness.” In terms of setting the standard for an agency culture he isn’t far short of the mark here.

So, in summary, Confessions of advertising man may not be new but it’s still worth a plane ride or two of anyone’s time. Now, I’m off to the House of Lords to see if I can bag a few more clients…

PS – My only complaint might be that, if one insists on lambasting the readability of type when set in reverse (a light colour printed on a dark background) in a book it might be an idea to not set the type on the cover using exactly that technique. I should revert to the more attractive sixties cover which featured a haggard Ogilvy smoking a pipe if I were them…

Highly innovative new mechanism to help journalists find the right story

Stone Junction has today added a couple of new pages to its Web site of late, which might just interest those of you out there with a journalistic bent. There is now a ‘clients’ page online accessible from the Stone Junction home page. By clicking on the logo of each client you can access a short profile and a link to a Blog containing the latest news from that company. Simple really, if only other PR companies had thought of doing this, life would have been a lot easier for journalists over the years...

What do you mean other companies do it as well? But... Are their sites completely password free so you can get hold of the information you need, whenever you need it, any time of the night or day? Do they clearly mark any material originally produced on an exclusive basis and not post it online until the magazine that commissioned it has had the chance to publish it in its original form? Oh, OK... And do they include easy links to the clients Web sites and appropriate contact details so you can arrange an interview or get hold of pictures as easily as clicking on a link? They do that as well? Oh, I thought I was the only one!

Oh well, it might not be original but it's still really quite useful. So, if you are looking for a juicy story, this is the place to go http://www.stonejunction.co.uk/clients.htm

What advice would you give?

As it’s World Cup time I’ve been pondering two things recently. The first is whether I can really afford the time off to watch every single game. The answer, sadly, was no. The second is how important advice and coaching is in every realm of human endeavour.

When I was setting up my business, a small PR firm, I asked for advice from almost everyone I know. I even asked a couple of small business owners I already knew well to act as informal ‘coaches’ for me. One of the things I asked everyone was, ‘what’s the single most important thing to stay on top off if you want to succeed?’

All of the answers helped me. Responses included ‘your business plan’, ‘cash flow’ and ‘keeping your customers happy’. It was all good advice but no one said ‘time’.

Small business owners, and PR people for that matter, are notorious for working long hours. So everyone knows we are committed with our time, but are we clever it? I’ve found that I have to be. Furthermore, the more time saving tips I employ the more effective I become as a small business owner.

The first thing I cut out was driving. Actually, my car’s on eBay if you fancy an R Reg Rover. Being behind the wheel uses up hours of otherwise productive time. Say you leave London for a meeting in Birmingham by car. It probably takes three hours to get there and the same amount of time to get back. Imagine what you can achieve in six hours?

Once more the crux of the issue is technology. If you can take your office with you, travelling time can become really productive time.

So, on that note I will leave you to ponder how much of the World Cup you can really afford to watch. But before I go, there are two things I would like a bit of coaching on. The first is time and how you save it. The second is advice itself. If you were talking to someone who was setting up a small business what would you tell them?

(This post was originally produced for Stone Junction's BusinessLink for London Blog).

I wanna be a rock star and live in the sky

Stone Junction has been selected to provide a monthly column for leading marketing and media news site Creative Match. The first of these columns was published in May, on the subject of taking advantage of electronic marketing resources as part of a PR campaign. The next column will be published in June and the subject will be… acting more like a rock star in order to gain B2B press coverage. Yes, I know it sounds odd but all will be revealed when the article goes online.

To read Stone Junction’s first Creative Match column click here: http://www.creativematch.co.uk/viewNews/?92243. Alternatively, to get a sneak preview of the article about being a rock star, e-mail rockstararticle@stonejunction.co.uk.

Wrapping up red tape

Stone Junction was recently offered the chance to write a Blog on the BusinessLink for London Web site. Here's a copy of its first entry:

Is red a good colour or a bad colour? Red carpet, Red Nose Day, ‘C’mon on you reds’; all good stuff. Red light, Chris de Burgh’s Lady in Red, Red light district - not so hot.

Then there’s Red Letter Days, Red Rum, Red O’Dare and, of course red tape…

It’s the last of these that I’m going to concern myself with. Regulations, recommendations, laws, guidelines, standards, hoops to jump through, opportunities - whatever you want to call them, they need to be faced.

Often red tape really is an opportunity. Take Part P of the building regulations introduced last year. Most members of the public haven’t heard of it but it’s busily protecting them from Cowboy electricians without their knowledge. Furthermore, Part P compliance is a wonderful marketing opportunity for those electricians who register. What better sales tool than being able to tell your customers that the Government has created a regulation that says you can be trusted?

However, just as often red tape can be a disadvantage, particularly for small businesses. My own experience, of setting up a small PR firm in late December last year, includes waiting for two months for a VAT number and seven weeks for a bank account to be opened. Clearly, VAT is a Government issue and the delay with my account is an issue for the Bank to address. However, both were the result of changing procedures or the introduction of further red tape.

So, what‘s the answer - magic scissors? Lobbying Government? Taking my banking elsewhere? Actually, I think its communication - small businesses helping each other. Resources like the Business Link Blogging community are great for this and I’m certain there are other networks and advisory groups that can help.

So here’s my call to action - share your advice and links to other advisors that can help small businesses with red tape. I’ll kick off with a couple of links (below) but please divvy up your own experiences and tips below. Lets make red a good colour!

http://www.fsb.org.uk/ - The Federation of Small Business

http://www.avn.co.uk/ - A network of accountants who specialise in small business advice

Stone Junction made Business Link for London correspondent

Richard Stone, managing director of PR firm Stone Junction, has been selected as a correspondent on the Business Link for London newsletter and Website. Stone will contribute at least one article per month, in the form of a Blog entry. This will be displayed on the start up section of the B4L website and in the organisations regular newsletter, distributed to 80,000 people.

“I think Business Link for London does an outstanding job,” explained Stone. “I’ve worked with the organisation before, arranging PR seminars, and this project is an exciting next step.”

The Blog will highlight issues relevant to small businesses across London and begins with a discussion on red tape. “I’m hoping that readers will be able to benefit from the joys and headaches I’ve had in setting up a business and help build up ideas for better practice overall. I also plan to raise some issues related to marketing and hope that this will become an interesting forum in which these can be discussed.”

The first entry on the Business Link for London Website was published on Monday April 24 and is being circulated in the Business Link for London newsletter on Wednesday 26.

If you are interested in subscribing to the Business Link for London newsletter, click here. If you would rather just cut to the chase and request a free initial PR consultation, click here.

Do lenses bring mark of online trust into focus?

eBay’s recent defence against the possibility of action on behalf of the General Optical Council (GOC) may set an interesting legal precedent. The GOC objected to private individuals selling contact lenses on eBay – normally such private sales are outlawed. In turn, the online auction site argued, amongst other things, that it couldn’t be held responsible for the visitor submitted content it hosts. eBay’s defence was based on four principal grounds:

- the GOC had failed to demonstrate that the directing minds behind eBay were aware of the specific offences being committed, which is necessary to prove aiding and abetting,

- the EU eCommerce Directive makes it clear that, as an Internet company hosting content, eBay cannot be liable for that content without being given reasonable notice to take it down or remove access to it;

- the GOC had failed to contact eBay prior to bringing the criminal prosecution (contrary to its stated policy at the time) and that therefore the prosecution was an abuse of process as a result, and

- the EU eCommerce Directive explicitly excludes the imposition on any information society service provider of any obligation to monitor

Representing eBay on the case, Paul Stevens, partner at Olswang, commented, "The law applicable to eBay is very clear. We have acted for eBay in a number of cases in the UK, where someone has tried to hold eBay responsible for the activity of its users. In each and every case we have had an unqualified success on behalf of eBay demonstrating that without knowledge of the particular unlawful activity concerned, eBay cannot be held liable. In fact, eBay's policies and systems go far beyond the obligations imposed by the law, which made a defence of the prosecution brought an easy one."

These lenses bring into focus an interesting lesson for the countless firms in the UK selling, or planning to sell, online. It is also an example for those sites, like MySpace for instance, hosting unregulated content. The keynote of this lesson is trust. ebay has clearly proven its business model to be trustworthy. Indeed, it has emerged from this issue with its reputation glowing. Not only can it be argued that the company is blameless but, as most reporting of the incident mentioned, it has a team of people in place to prevent such situations.

And this trust is essential. When we book or pay for anything online the customer must trust a site they may not know enough about to have faith in. Thus, it is the buying process itself, which must provide that trust. This has been a partial success for organisations like Paypal. However, for it to be a complete success, the industry must provide a mark of online confidence that can be employed by any accredited organisation, like the Corgi standard or an electrician’s Trustmark. Perhaps such a mark could be earned not only by online retailers but also individuals using the sites like e-Bay as a vehicle?

Cheeky chappy's tone of voice

This morning's FT featured an article about last year's national hero and face of Sainsbury's, Jamie Oliver. The article put forward the thesis that Oliver's work for the food giant is a particularly successful example of branded content that succeeds due to the cheeky chappy's tone of voice.

His conversational phrasing, claims The FT, allows him to cut through the general media melee. While l have no argument about the truth of this in Oliver's case, l would argue that it is also indicative of a growing, positive, trend in communications overall. This trend is most encouraging in B2B communications.

The evidence can be found on this page and on others like it. Blogging, as part of a pro-active marketing, plan is on the up. By both necessity and nature a Blog is conversational in tone.

However, beyond the InterSuperNetHighway there is also a growing inclination towards a conversational tone in media relations work. Again this is something that is beneficial to the industry and positive for the client’s results.

But back to the FT's article on our friend Jamie. To what do they attribute his conversational tone of voice? Well, mainly to the fact that his Dad owned a Pub. And I thought there would be some profound insight into marketing. Any ideas on other occupations a parent could hove that might drive you onwards in, and lend character to, your chosen career? Leave a comment...

Business book reviews: Martin Lukes; who moved my Blackberry?

Not technically a business book, but certainly a book about business, Lucy Kellaway’s, ‘Who moved my Blackberry’ is perhaps the funniest novel about marketing ever. A satire on corporate life but also on language, Kellaway makes us cringe every time her characters say, ‘me time’, ‘face time’, ‘empowerment’ or ‘blue sky thinking’. Anyone who has ever played ‘meeting bingo’, where you tick of the business jargon as its used, will recognise a familiar face in Kellaway’s mirror.

Kellaway’s central character, Martin Lukes, will be well known to readers of The Financial Times. He’s an arrogant, selfish, self-obsessed, insecure and ambitious marketing director in the London office of a fictitious Fortune 500 company. By publishing a collection of his emails each week, the FT allows us to follow his roller coaster career and personal life, and his adoption of every corporate and marketing fad that comes along. This book is a re-working of twelve months worth of e-mails. If you read the column in the FT, the in-jokes of the book will keep you hooked and make you feel smart. Meanwhile readers who don’t subscribe to the UK’s pinkest paper will find a fresh and humorous voice in Kellaway’s writing.

Martin Lukes was responsible for introducing the word ‘Creovation’ and the phrase ‘love mark’ into the marketing lexicon. Last year ‘Podcast’, ‘chip and pin’ and ‘gamepad’ were all added to the Oxford English Dictionary. If you have an idea on which words should be entered this year, e-mail creovativepodcast@stonejunction.co.uk

Find our more about ‘Who moved my Blackberry’ http://news.ft.com/comment/columnists/martinlukes

All those in favour say Absolute Power

Those of you who were lucky enough to watch Stephen Poliakoff’s entertaining drama Gideon’s Daughter on Monday night, may have spotted a similarity between it and other portrayals of PR people in films and on television. Poliakoff’s drama, about a disillusioned PR man wanting to escape the high profile hell he had got himself into, continued to perpetrate the image of the sharp suited guru who somehow dislikes his own success. It was reminiscent of portrayals of PROs in Jersey Girl (2004) and Phone Booth (2002). Both featured people desperate to escape their own careers.

But why do we always end of up being dramatised like this? It’s not like we’re a mysterious industry. We are actually the third most popular choice of career for graduates. So, in the name of research, a scriptwriter could ask 35% of third year students what a PR person is really like and get a fairly accurate answer. Surely then, every dramatist out there can’t believe we are all tortured publicity geniuses, crucified by our own ability to get things published in Computer Weekly? Can they?

In reality, most PR people are ruthless, self serving, self publicists… erm, I mean perfectly well balanced individuals who just happen to have a job getting stuff in the papers. Personally, I prefer the images of PROs we find Bridgette Jones’ Diary (ditzy, twenty something slightly lost) and Will Self’s The Book of the Dead (tired fifty something, bored with writing press releases about thermal gloves).

I think Poliakoff’s unlikely characterisation must be fought if we are to escape it. I’m thinking of starting a campaign to bring back the image of PROs as happy go lucky G&T swigging champagne connoisseurs, content to spend their time in London Gentleman’s clubs talking in loud voices. All those in favour say, “Absolute Power”.

PS - If you are on the team behind Absolute Power, I did e-mail you begging to be on the show last series. If there is any justice in the world you will find me a role this year. I could be standing in the background or bringing Stephen Fry coffee… anything really. Cheers.

More Jags for two Jags - possibly

I can't resist mentioning the furore over the choice of car being presented to UK Cabinet Ministers. Faced with either a £50K Jaguar or a £17.5K Toyota Prius (a hybrid vehicle that emits less carbon), several ministers seem to be taking decisions based on factors other than climate change. One minister said he would go for the Jag for ‘security reasons’.

Security in his context comes down to the size of the car and its ability to get away quickly in the event of a terror threat. Now there is a difference of almost three seconds in the ability of the two cars to go from 0-60. However, I wonder how often such acceleration is possible in the UK? Certainly not that frequently, not unless ministers are making state visits to motorways or long stretches of quiet A road. Perhaps the ministers choosing Jaguars should be more honest about their reasoning – they could avoid the media backlash that’s brewing.

Anyway, I thought at least one member of cabinet already had Two Jags?

Gr8 news 4 pigeons

Technology is a funny thing sometimes. For instance, The Manchester Evening News has reported that pigeons with mobile phones and GPS backpacks will be released into the sky over San Jose this August. The birds are going to 'send' text messages back to The University of California to let researchers know the state of pollution in the area.

It’s a clever use if technology, but it’s laden with the potential to go wrong. What if the birds start using the phones to organise their social lives? That could really screw up the research couldn’t it? “Hi M8, meet u @ the loft l8er?”

MacGyver fixes it with MasterCard

News that Richard Dean Anderson, star of eighties TV show MacGyver, is appearing in an advert for MasterCard has got PRefect thinking.

The ad got its first airing during last Sunday's Superbowl* and featured MacGyver escaping from a tight situation using only items bought with his MasterCard. In doing so he simulates the story line of the ‘classic’ series.

But what would happen if technology brands started using TV stars in adverts? Forget about those bland IT ads we saw last year. What about Terry Venables advertising Intel, using the slogan ELTel inside? Or, fake tan aficionado and Eastenders star Pam St Clement (Pat Butcher) advertising a famous mobile phone company? “The future is bright, the future is orange…” Alternatively, an anti-virus firm could use the stars of UKTV’s ‘The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses’. Perhaps that’s one association too far?

*PRefect thinks the Superbowl is a bit like an American version of the FA Cup but you’re allowed to pick the ball up… It’s not sure really… Feedback is welcome superbowl@stonejunction.co.uk

Really quite scary robots

The 2005 Fourth British Computer Society's Annual Prize for Progress towards Machine Intelligence was won by IFOMIND, a mobile robot system that demonstrates intuition as it meets a new object in its world. The machine was designed and developed by a team working from Belfast University.

Second in the same event came an online ‘robot’ able to chat with human interlocutors. Called George, the robot is a ‘personality’ from Jabberwacky, developed by Scientist Rollo Carpenter. Visitors to its Web site can have conversations with the robot, which are so odd they seem real. Frankly it has to be experienced to be believed. And, with typical responses to normal questions including, ‘are you a ghost’ and ‘I am interested in your mind’, it’s also quite scary.

PRefect wonders if one day it will be possible to develop a race of humans who demonstrate intelligence when they meet a new object in the world. Until this happens, it will content itself by talking to George - http://www.jabberwacky.com/. Of course, if you are bored talking to George, you can always talk to PRefect – PRefect@stonejunction.co.uk.

Music (not) for my ears

American music lover John Patterson is filing a lawsuit against Apple because he believes he could damage his hearing listening to his iPod. That’s right, the potentially hard of hearing resident of Louisiana hasn’t done his Britney Spears (ears) any damage yet. He is suing Apple because his iPod’s 115 decibels maximum volume might hurt him in the future. Thank heavens he hasn’t come across the music of the real Miss Spears.

Welcome to PRefect - grassing on the world of PR

Welcome to PRefect - over the next few weeks I shall be posting news, stuff, business and nonsense about the world of PR for you to think about, laugh at and get angry over.

Or, just play Pac Man instead?

COLOUR SEPS, FREE CONSULTATION, CASE STUDIES AND SOME OTHER, QUITE FUNNY, THINGS

Subject: COLOUR SEPS, FREE CONSULTATION, CASE STUDIES AND SOME OTHER, QUITE FUNNY, THINGS

December 17, 2007

‘PRefect BY MAIL’ – PR & MARKETING NEWS FROM STONE JUNCTION

===========================================================
IN THIS ISSUE:
- EDITOR’S LETTER
- BEATING THE COLOUR SEPERATION TRAP – HOW TO WORK WITH MAGAZINES TO - PROVIDE BETTER CONTENT
- FREE COMMUNICATIONS AUDIT
- SEE A STONE JUNCTION POWERPOINT CASE STUDY
- BUSINESS BOOK REVIEWS: CONFESSIONS OF AN ADVERTISING MAN
- CLIENT TESTIMONIAL – TM ROBOTICS (EUROPE) LTD
- THINGS WE’VE FOUND FUNNY THIS MONTH – FROM THE STONE JUNCTION BLOG

Participate in the Stone Junction online vote on the most effective elements of your marketing mix here: www.stone-junction.blogspot.com.

===========================================================
Dear Communications Professional,

“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat and the time to reconsider the way you spend you marketing budget, before creating a plan for 2008 is coming.” Okay, perhaps that phrase doesn’t trip off the tongue quite as well as the original Christmas carol version but nevertheless it’s true. December brings with it the opportunity to look back on the year and consider the results your PR spend has delivered. With that in mind, this edition of PRefect, the Stone Junction newsletter for marketing and PR professionals, has been created to help you make those decisions.

We begin the newsletter with a short analysis of that bugbear of engineering and technology PR, the practice of charging colour separations. If you have a strong opinion on this practice, I would love you to post it on the Stone Junction Blog. There’s even a link in the article below for you to follow if you want to do this, making things simpler than simple.

If this has whetted your appetite for a good chat about PR, take advantage of the offer made in the next story – a free communications audit from Stone Junction, covering your PR practice and its impact on other elements of your marketing activity. The second offer in this festive season of Christmas plenty takes the form of an auto running case study in PowerPoint format. This contains analysis of a Stone Junction run, Toshiba Machine campaign - covering both product launches and opinion forming tactics. To take advantage of either offer, read on to the story in question or contact Richard Stone direct on 020 8699 7743 or richards@stonejunction.co.uk.

Next, if you still don’t know what to do with your marketing budget for 2008, why not dip into Confessions of an advertising man, David Ogilvy’s seminal text reviewed in this issue? It really does contain some sound advice that can be applied to the modern technology marketing mix.

December’s issue has as its penultimate story another testimonial for Stone Junction, this time from TM Robotics’ managing director Nigel Smith. Following this, there will, of course, be some light-hearted observations gleaned from the Stone Junction Blog. Oh, and for the two recipients of the last edition of this mail who were interested enough to play Pac-Man on our Web site, you can play Space Invaders this month.

Blimey-o-Reilly, that’s an interesting newsletter and a half in anyone’s money…

Best regards,

Richard Stone, BA, MA, MCIPR
Managing director,
Stone Junction Limited

PS – If you want Stone Junction to discuss your PR needs, get in touch. We would love your business, that’s why you’re on this newsletter’s circulation. Contact us by replying to this mail or using this contacts page: http://www.stonejunction.co.uk/cont.htm

===========================================================
BEATING THE COLOUR SEPERATION TRAP – HOW TO WORK WITH MAGAZINES TO PROVIDE BETTER CONTENT

As a public relations junkie, sorry practitioner, I’m often approached by firms who want to generate publicity for their products or services but have become tired of issuing press material only to be confronted by a request for payment before it’s used.

Often a trade magazine will ask for something called a ‘colour separation’ before publishing an article or news story. This is particularly true in the engineering industry and related areas of the media. The practice isn’t great for publishing, but as pragmatists we have to accept it. Personally, I believe that if magazines and newspapers ran only editorial that had been selected or written by the editor, or another journalist, the value of the magazine would be greater. Readers would give it more credence and ultimately it would be able to charge higher rates for its advertising. As a result, it wouldn’t then have to charge colour separations for editorial. However, I’m not here to argue with the business case of individual magazines – they too are pragmatists.

But that still leaves plenty of businesses out there facing the dilemma of what to do if they can’t get publicity without paying colour separation requests. So here’s my practical advice to them:

- Make it interesting: The main reason a journalist will not run the material you send them for free is that it isn’t interesting enough. The best thing you can do is make sure that your press releases aren’t short adverts for your company but rather news stories you could envisage one of your customers finding interesting enough to read.

- Target the magazine individually: It’s much better to generate one really strong piece of well targeted coverage than several poor quality pieces of badly targeted press. To this end, read the magazines you want to appear in and make sure the copy you send them is appropriate to their readership.

- Tackle every opportunity in the magazine: You should be producing news for the news pages, features for the features pages and letters for the letters pages - and so on. Don’t simply presume that a press release about your new widget will be perfect for the front cover. Instead find a home for it in the right part of the right magazine.

Finally, as a caveat, advertise. Most magazines that charge to run editorial do so because they can’t generate enough revenue through advertising. By choosing the right magazines for your advertising spend, no matter how small it is, you will find that the magazine is much healthier when you come target it via PR. This doesn’t mean that, by advertising, you gain the right to appear in the news pages - merely that those news pages will still be there when you have the right story for them! I say this without bias – Stone Junction doesn’t book advertising for its clients so I can’t make money out of this particular suggestion.

I would like to conclude this month’s rant by inviting your stories and anecdotes, advice and complaints about the worlds of publishing, promotion, journalism and PR. I would love to hear about your experiences – so leave a message about this article on the Stone Junction Blog and get the debate going http://stone-junction.blogspot.com/2007/12/beating-colour-separation-trap.html. Alternatively, if you are more interested in talking to Stone Junction about your PR requirements, give us a call on 020 8699 7743.

===========================================================
FREE COMUNICATIONS AUDIT

Stone Junction, the media relations and strategic communications firm that produces PRefect by Mail, is offering all of its readers the opportunity to receive a free marketing communications audit. Contact Richard Stone on 020 8699 7743 for more details.

The audit will be conducted at your premises and can cover any or all of the following issues:

- Media relations – Assessing not only content but also the tactics and strategies you employ*
- Speaker opportunities – Looking at the process you use to obtain places as well as preparation and ways of maximising the opportunities available on the day
- Integrated communications – An analysis of how above the line tactics work in tandem with other investment
- The Internet – How you can improve your Web site content, present it better and integrate it more closely with PR strategy
- Direct mail material – Addressing the way your PR tactics positively benefit your direct mail campaigns

Within a week of the consultation you will receive a written report focusing on areas of improvement. This report will include recommendations on how to improve areas of concern as well as budgetary guidelines for doing so. However, it will not be a proposal from Stone Junction nor a quotation, although this can be provided on request.

Contact Richard Stone, on 020 8699 7743 or e-mail richards@stonejunction.co.uk.

*Please note: Stone Junction will not offer advice on investor or analyst relations practice, should this apply to your campaign, on the day.

===========================================================
SEE A STONE JUNCTION POWERPOINT CASE STUDY

If you are addressing the way you conduct your PR campaigns, we would love to send you a copy of a recent case study, in auto-running PowerPoint format. The case study covers the promotion of a several new products on behalf of a Stone Junction client, as well as the initiation of a thought leadership campaign to position them at the forefront of thinking within their industry. If you would like to see a copy, just e-mail me at powerpointcasestudy@stonejunction.co.uk.

===========================================================
BUSINESS BOOK REVIEWS: CONFESSIONS OF AN ADVERTISING MAN

Continuing my series of reviews of books that haven’t been published recently I’ve been reading David Ogilvy’s seminal Confessions of an advertising man of late. It’s a great insight into a bygone era of advertising, in which almost all of Ogilvy’s clients were peers of the realm, but, despite this, it’s still relevant.

What’s more, this book about advertising is relevant to the PR industry and to anyone running a small business. Actually it’s quite relevant to anyone running any business of any size.

Firstly though, its significance for PROs lies not only in its insights on positioning but also in its wonderful chapter on copy writing. The section on headline writing is particularly pertinent. I won’t reproduce these guidelines here in full but, let’s just say, fans of headlines that are little more than clever if irrelevant puns will not be delighted.

In terms of running an agency, or indeed a business of any kind, Ogilvy’s thoughts on creating a company culture are still important. Ignoring the fact that, due to being written by an ad exec in the sixties, they are rigidly male orientated, many of the tips in the book are still useful.

For instance, Ogilvy believes that you get nowhere in business without manners. He writes, “We detest office politicians, toadies, bullies and pompous asses. We abhor ruthlessness.” In terms of setting the standard for an agency culture he isn’t far short of the mark here and very in tune with modern HR practice.

So, in summary, Confessions of advertising man may not be new but it’s still worth a plane ride or train journey of anyone’s time. Now, I’m off to the House of Lords to see if I can bag a few more clients…

PS – My only complaint might be that, if one insists on lambasting the readability of type when set in reverse (a light colour printed on a dark background) as Ogilvy does, it might be an idea to not set the type on the cover using exactly that technique. I should revert to the more attractive sixties cover which featured a haggard Ogilvy smoking a pipe if I were the publisher…

To read more business book reviews, go to the Stone Junction Blog, PRefect: http://stone-junction.blogspot.com/

===========================================================
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL – TM ROBOTICS (EUROPE) LTD

“Stone Junction produces all the text for our PR and advertising material, as well as brochures and other print copy. We rarely change a word. The key is to provide the right person with the right information at the right time. If you can do this, the end result will be effective material, produced quickly,” Nigel Smith, managing director, TM Robotics (Toshiba Machine).

To see the kind of material Stone Junction produces for TM Robotics, take a look at the company’s press Blog http://www.tmrobotics-pr.blogspot.com/ or its German press Blog www.tmrobotics-presseanfragen.blogspot.com/

===========================================================
THINGS WE’VE FOUND FUNNY THIS MONTH – FROM THE STONE JUNCTION BLOG

This month Stone Junction has mostly been laughing at amusing videos sent in by visitors to its Blog – PRefect (http://www.stone-junction.blogspot.com/). The first is an absolute classic on the makings of an engineer. Take a look at it here:

http://stone-junction.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-post.html

And if laughing at engineers doesn’t give you enough of a sense of self deprecating pleasure, why not laugh at the other side of the technology marketeers’ personality by taking a look at this video about Hollywood PR execs planning a campaign:

http://stone-junction.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-post_30.html

It should be stressed that the views expressed in both of these videos are not necessarily held by Stone Junction. We do think they are funny in the most part though.

===========================================================
WHY YOU’RE GETTING THIS NEWSLETTER: We’ve probably met at some point and you gave me your business card. Or, you may have subscribed to the newsletter from our Web site. There is even a slight chance that I’ve purchased a commercially available e-mail list and your name was on it. Actually, if this is the first edition you have received, that is almost certainly the case. Anyway, all you have to do to stop receiving this newsletter is send an e-mail with a blank subject line to mailto:unsubscribe@stonejunction.co.uk or use the auto unsubscribe facility at the bottom of this e-mail.

Or, and this would be my preferred option, just play Space Invaders on the Blog instead. You know who you are http://stone-junction.blogspot.com/2007/03/or-just-play-space-invaders.html

===========================================================
ABOUT STONE JUNCTION: Stone Junction is a PR and strategic communications agency specialising in technology and engineering technology. As well as PR it offers writing services for other media, such as newsletters and internal communications material. If you want to contact Stone Junction, you can do so on 020 8699 7743 or by e-mail on mailto:richards@stonejunction.co.uk.