During the Christmas break I read Leigh Montville’s biography on Evel Knievel, simply titled Evel.

As a boy, Evel Knievel was the personification of awesome.

The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle was my favourite toy as a kid.  The key component was a plastic contraption that featured a crank that activated the gyroscope that powered the back wheel.

The rider was a bendable rubber figure, dressed in red, white and blue jumpsuit with a little white plastic helmet for a vinyl head, a little plastic cane. You’d put Evel on the bike, crank up the gyro as hard and fast as you could and the bike would shoot off at enormous speed across mum’s kitchen lino (or the lounge room shag), off ramps and out windows.

The possibilities were endless and the crashes brilliant. The motorcycle went one way, Evel another. And he always got back on the bike. Just like the real thing – although the toy version didn’t come with same level of testosterone or a gift for self-promotion.

So much of what Knievel said about himself was untrue – and having read Evel, much of what was until now left unsaid was true, namely he was an abusive, lousy and for the most part, heartless.

But the man was good at old-school PR – albeit in a not entirely ethical way that could only work in the late 1960s and 70s.

A story.

In Las Vegas to watch a heavyweight title fight, Knievel first saw the fountains at Caesars Palace.

He decided to jump them.

But how to get an audience with the casino’s CEO, Jay Sarno?

Stakeholder Relations, the Evel Knievel way.

Knievel placed phone calls to Sarno claiming to be from a number of media outlets such as Sports Illustrated and ABC’s Wide World of Sports, asking about when this Evel Knievel was going to jump the fountains. Of course, Sarno knew nothing of this and was confused.

Knievel then created a fictitious corporation, Evel Knievel Enterprises, and a few fictitious lawyers who would call Sarno on the corporation’s behalf, annoyed that Sarno was using Evel Knievel to promote the casino and threatening legal action.

As a result, Sarno agreed to meet Knievel and a date was sent to jump the fountains.

Crisis management, the Evel Knievel way (a).

The jump was a disaster.

After a shot of Wild Turkey and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began the jump.

Hitting the take-off ramp, Knievel had a sudden loss of power which caused him to come up short, ripping the handlebars out of his hands, sending him tumbling and skidding across the parking lot.

As a result of the crash, Knievel suffered a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion.

But courtesy of Linda Evans’ (the same Linda Evans who would go on to star in Dynasty) vision of the crash, they had something crucial to any PR campaign – good pictures.  And these were great pictures.

After the crash Knievel was more famous than ever.

ABC who initially passed on filming the jump live, bought the rights to the film – at a price way above that they would have had they televised it live.

Being a daredevil, crisis management is not a bad skill to have.

However, Knievel’s fame came to a grinding halt in the late 1970s when his crisis management plans went from capable to, well… illegal.

Another story.

Crisis management, the Evel Knievel way (b).

In 1977, Knievel’s former publicist, Shelly Saltman released Evel Knievel on Tour, a book based on recordings he had made on a tape recorder during the promotion for the Snake River Canyon jump.

Knievel was outraged because he claimed the book portrayed him in a bad light and misled the public about not only himself, but his family as well.

This is understandable. In PR we like to have as much control over ‘the message’ as we can.

What isn’t so understandable is that a few weeks after the release of the book, Evel went onto the lot of the 20th Century Fox Studios where Saltman was now Vice President and beat him with an aluminium baseball bat.

Despite his all-American stars and stripes persona, Evel was clearly not a fan of the First Amendment.

Evel pleaded guilty to battery and was sentenced to three years’ probation and six months in jail

Which brings me to my final PR observation…

PR’s relationship with the client.

PR works best when in The Wizard of Oz parlance, when the man behind the curtains pulling the levers remains hidden behind the curtain.

We do our job to make our clients look good.

Revealing how we do this to make ourselves look good does not always have the intended consequences.

It’s tempting to evaluate the success of a media announcement simply by gauging how many of your friends are talking about it at a weekend barbie – and even promising to change their ways.

That’s what you call a real-life outcome of a PR campaign – even if it’s anecdotal and inexact.

The reality of the PR profession in Australia today is that too often we don’t have the budget to truly measure the outcome of a campaign and are stuck with measuring outputs, such as the volume and tone of media coverage and pick-up of key messages.

As Professor Tom Watson and Dr Peter Simmons found in a major survey of Australian public relations evaluation practices in 2004 (http://tinyurl.com/6yebxhu)  – and I doubt it has changed – the focus of evaluation has remained on outputs not outcomes. They found 89% of practitioners often or always measure the volume of communication but just 32% often or always measure resulting changes in behaviour.

Certainly by calculating total audience reach for a particular media announcement, we have a useful benchmark to compare its effectiveness with other campaigns.

But total audience reach as a tool to measure PR effectiveness is rubbery at best.

For example, we know that every buyer of The Herald Sun’s daily circulation of 395,000 copies won’t have read the particular article – perhaps buried on Page 36 as a small, single column item with no photo – which relates to our campaign.

And on the other hand, if we truly want to include potential reach, how do we factor in readership to account for the “pass around factor” where a newspaper is read by all members of household and many more people than stated in the audited circulation figures?

Surely we don’t want to get into the ridiculous position where total reach from a number of media sources exceeds the population! (see: http://tinyurl.com/4xuzybf)

At least video views and unique page views provide us with a more reliable level of readership of online media and social media tools such as the Public Relations Global Network’s utilised Radian6, Marketwire and Alterian2 can graphically illustrate the degree to which readers have endorsed, liked and responded to online news.

The fact remains, however, that the best indication of the success of a PR campaign is the outcomes – whether they be sales, market share, customer loyalty, registrations, donations, cost savings or legislation – and these can only be known if they are measured.

So, rather than focus on outputs, the challenge for communicators is to set aside the budgets and time required to evaluate the level of engagement, influence and change that great PR delivers.

At a time when governments and corporates don’t want to be seen to be using PR, it’s never been more important to accurately prove the value of work that gets people talking at a BBQ.

By Katrina Walter, Senior Consultant

I don’t normally like watching people getting picked on, yet I enjoyed every squirm of the Murdoch moguls in their testimony at the parliamentary inquiry about their involvement in the protracted phone hacking that occurred at their newspaper, News of the World.

They were prepared, for sure. They had they hired top public relations firm Edelman. No doubt they received coaching from the most experienced legal team in the world, too.

Their strategy: open with a sincere apology to the British people, including Murdoch senior saying ‘this is the most humble day of my life’. Then position Rupert as the head of a global company that has 53,000 employees and the business in question is only 1% of News International’s revenue.

How is Murdoch senior expected to know every last detail of this tiny newspaper? He oversees many issues in a working day. This story was relatively convincing, even if he sounded like a boob and a slow old man and was clearly unfit to manage a business of this scale.

James was to fill in all the detail (as best he could) and when the questions were particularly damning he would dial up the corporate jargon/management speak and bore everyone.

He prefaced many responses with the classic line, ‘that’s a good question, thanks for asking it’ which felt so inappropriate when he was being asked if the company was continuing to pay legal fees of staff who had been convicted of phone hacking or whether they continued to subsidise wages of ex-staffers now working for the UK Prime Minister.

Yet the underlying feeling I had was everything was going to be taken care of, the Murdoch’s vast legal team would sort it out – just as they had always done. The double-act was merely for show.

Murdoch and his cronies have been buying content for stories for years, printing smut that has changed lives and won elections. This hacking scandal, however, shows how low the old man and his boy are willing to go.

Murdoch senior talked about his father (Keith Murdoch) who was ‘not rich but a great journalist’. How will we remember Rupert? To me, I will remember him as a rich man but not a great bloke.

Ernest Hemingway

By Craig Little, Senior Consultant

This week marks 50 years since Ernest ‘Papa’ Hemingway ate a bullet sandwich. He was brave and authentic, both in his work and in life.

Hemingway’s distinctive writing style, characterized by economy and understatement, has had a minor influence on my PR career.

But sadly, that’s where it ends.

As a career, PR hardly screams ‘machismo’. It is barely a whisper.

When I studied at university, the PR course was dominated by women. Of a class of about 40, I was one of four men. The other three men were never in danger of being cast in a beer commercial. While I was covered in mud on a country footy ground getting kicked in the ribs, they were likely shopping for clothes with their classmates.

This is not to say I’m a man’s man, far from it. I don’t know how to hunt, build a shelter or start a fire without a match. If you dropped me in the middle of a forest Bear-Grylls-style, I’d be dead within the hour (and there is no way in hell I’d drink my own piss).

Sure, I can use my iPhone to tweet and update my Facebook status, but if the grid went down, I’d be next to neutered.

So would most men.

Most of what we know comes not from experience, but from Wikipedia (fact: a large chunk of the second sentence in this blog entry was lifted directly from Wikipedia).

We’ve become so afraid of death that we refuse to actually live. I’ve been to an industry function where men were scared of the steak because it might raise their cholesterol – the same men whose exercise regime consists wholly of yoga and Pilates!

And we’re shit-scared to fail.

This is not entirely surprising. While Hemingway bent the world to his liking through sheer gusto, today a single impulsive tweet can cost you a career.

Maybe this is why we’re inauthentic, why we don’t take risks and challenge convention in the way that ‘Papa’ did?

Which brings me to a theory I have that’s likely to be wrong, but *#&@ it!

My theory is we’re about to enter a period dominated by the search for authenticity.

I’m a few months away from 40, and many of my peers are now moving into positions of influence.

Ours is the last generation that will remember the world before the Internet, and we’ve become nostalgic for a time that was never quite ours (Exhibit A: The popularity of Mad Men and Deadwood). Despite Don Draper’s double-life and that the show is based around advertising, what appeals to our generation is the authenticity of the time.

How will PR adjust to this search for authenticity?

How do we encourage our clients to take risks, challenge convention and not try and bury their mistakes in a blanket of weasel words?

How do we make ours a profession synonymous with authenticity?

Last year, the Public Relations Society of America listed authenticity as the number one challenge facing the industry1.

I would suggest the first thing we need do is be more authentic in our day-to-day lives and dealings with our friends, family and associates.
So, in honour of Papa Hemingway, I’m signing off and going fishing with my mates2.

Notes:
1. http://media.prsa.org/article_display.cfm?article_id=1298
2. Bullfights and civil wars were not practical at the time of writing

When Kelloggs recently used Twitter as a method to recruit a possible PR agency, it was inundated with creative responses.

In 140 characters or less, PR companies spruiked their talents by instigating competitions, breakfast jokes and a “cereal serial” through Twitter. http://tinyurl.com/3vajfzu

The Twitter invitation was a welcome change from the all-too-frequent request of getting PR companies to spend a minimum of 150 hours on detailed plans, divulging strategic insight and valuable IP just to get a foot in the door.

But using Twitter to seek out a creative, social media savvy PR outfit also highlights the importance that many companies now place on social media as a tool for public relations.

Social media has become a vital ingredient to drive opinions and advocate change. A case in point was the recent and now-infamous Four Corners report into the brutality of animal slaughter in Indonesia. http://tinyurl.com/3hknoh6

Within three days of the report going to air, a petition to ban live exports was circulated online by animal welfare groups and able to garner 165,000 signatures.  http://tinyurl.com/3ggypf2

As Kelloggs obviously knows, the beauty of Twitter, Facebook and its incarnations is that advocates don’t need to rely in advertising, traditional media or other third parties to reach the public directly. They simply tweet or blog and a campaign can gather momentum and galvanise public support in lightning speed.

Even journalists, who go to great pains to report objectively for their own media outlets, are using Twitter as an outlet to circumvent traditional media restraints or create spin. But perhaps that’s a subject for another blog!

It is wrong to assume that public relations is a relatively recent development.

The origins and what is regarded today as modern public relations practice started in the United States at the turn of the last century, around 1901.

George Westinghouse established a PR office within his organization in the 1880s.

However, the man who is regarded as the father of public relations is Ivy Lee Junior, an ex-journalist who worked with Grover Cleveland during his three Presidential campaigns as an ideas man and speechwriter.

He gained wider public recognition by working with Standard Oil and the Rockefellers particularly during their strike breaking activities for their Colorado oilfields investments.

This is part of a fascinating story, which is recalled in Titan, The Life of John D Rockefeller Snr. by Ron Chernow.

The relatively brief mention of the work for the Rockefellers by Ivy Lee Jnr, is particularly fascinating.

Although John D Rockefeller Senior was born in 1839 and died in 1937, many of the implications of his work are still around today, particularly in the business legislation to curb some of the more unscrupulous practices of Standard Oil.

In Lee’s time, there were numerous press agents. The concept of ‘paid for editorial’ was also well known, but lacked credibility then as it does today.

His involvement in changing the strategy of the organization was a key aspect that set apart from his competitors and why he is regarded today as the ‘father of public relations’.

One particular action that Lee undertook in 1906 in his role for management during a coal strike, which set him apart from his competitors, has become known as ‘Lee’s declaration of principles’.
The declaration, which was sent to editors stated:

”This is not a secret press bureau. All our work is done in the open. We aim to supply proper news. This is not an advertising agency; if you think any of our matter ought properly to go to your business office, do not use it. Our matter is accurate. Further details on any subject treated will be supplied promptly, and any editor will be assisted most cheerfully in verifying directly any statement of fact…

“In brief, our plan is, frankly and openly, on behalf of business concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about”.

That declaration is still valid today and it is a shame that many people in public relations appear to have moved away from these simple principles.

Public relations in Australia

In Australia, public relations started developing in the 1940s after the Second World War. Many of the early practitioners came out of wartime Government Departments where they had undertaken public information roles.

Journalism was still the main recruiting ground for most PR people, partly because PR success was seen as being directly proportional to the amount of newspaper coverage that was generated.

This all changed in the 1970s with the introduction of degree courses in public relations. The first commenced at what was then Mitchell College, Bathurst, now the Mitchell Campus of Charles Sturt University.

Graduates from these courses have been widely accepted throughout Australia and throughout world, which is a reflection of the level of training and the syllabus.

The professional body of public relations profession in Australia is the Public Relations Institute of Australia, which is divided into State Chapters.

The professional qualifications of PRIA members also act as a protection for clients and organizations as it sets the minimum standard that practitioners have to reach to be recognized. There is also a Code of Ethics, as part of the upholding of standards.

There is also a professional body for consultancies, known as the Registered Consultants Group, which was established under the auspices of the Public Relations Institute of Australia. To be eligible for membership, the consultancy principal must be a Member or Fellow of the PRIA.

The role of the RCG is to improve consultancy practice and member consultancies must conform to a Code of Practice.

Propaganda versus public relations

An area of confusion to many people is the difference between propaganda and public relations. Some even believe that the terms are interchangeable.

Wikipedia defines propaganda as a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself.

However, in the way that we understand the term today, particularly in the aftermath of the Nazis and the propaganda of Dr Goebells, we know that for propaganda to be successful you have to be in charge of all the means of communication.

Clearly, this is impossible in the freedom of communications under which we live today and even more so with the increasing impact of the Internet and the blogosphere.

Therefore, propaganda and public relations are really opposites. Propaganda needs total control to be successful, while public relations needs freedom to flourish.

Public relations is something of a mystery to most people, part of which comes from the fact that those who profess to have an understanding of it believe that the PR role is solely concerned with generating media coverage or at the very least managing the reputation and/or marketing interface between an individual, a business entity or government. 

While this is part of the job, PR goes a long way further than that.

Someone once said that if you had a group of 10 people in a room and you asked them to write down what they thought public relations is, they would all write down something different and all be correct.
 
While in practice these days, most PR companies call themselves corporate, community and government communications practitioners, the majority are not simply spin doctors but planners, strategists and relationship managers.  This may sound boring but it certainly isn’t in the real world.

So, to establish what public relations actually is, it is helpful to examine the many definitions that exist out there, some of which are rather long and convoluted, and many jingoistic.

Wikipedia has a definition which is certainly long winded.

Public Relations “may consist of a variety of activities engaged in by organizations or celebrities that are intended to promote a positive relationship or image with their customers and prospective customers (members of the public). 

 “Public relations activities may include maintaining relationships with the media and establishing a visible presence at trade shows and other public or private events. It may also include the preparation and distribution of press releases, which are newsworthy articles intended to be published in the media for the purpose of showcasing the company’s activities to the public.”

One of these, which is in widespread use and generally accepted by the major professional bodies such as the Public Relations Institute of Australia follows: Public relations practice is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its public.

The Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) of which Currie Communications is the sole Australasian member, details the services that modern-day PR consultancies offer.

For access, go to http://www.prgn.com/services/ and while you are on the home page click on Australia for a look at the services offered by Currie Communications.

*In the next BlueBlog Derek will consider the history of public relations and its development in Australia.

I’m yearning for some flavour.

I wouldn’t ask for much … just a little salt, or some chilli, a sip of coffee?

Together with my colleague Julia, I’m taking part in Live Below the Line  – a new awareness and fundraising campaign to fight extreme poverty.

From May 16th – 20th, we’re two of the six thousand Australians who will spend just $2 each day on food, and use their daily experiences to bring extreme poverty to the centre of conversations in homes around Australia.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says the number of hungry people in the world is unacceptably high.

And, the UN’s  #1 Millennium Development Goal – part of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed by world leaders in September 2000 – is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The FAO focuses on improving agricultural productivity and incomes, and promoting better nutritional practices and programs that enhance direct and immediate access to food by those most in need.

The number of people who will suffer from chronic hunger in 2010 is a whopping 925 million.

Add to this poverty the looming issue of food security that is being predicted and the situation is a lot more concerning.

The sheer numbers involved make it clear a re-think of how we grow, sell and eat food is necessary.

It’s a theme that a growing number of corporates – particularly in the agribusiness and research areas – are factoring into their growth plans.

At Currie we’re fortunate to work with a number of agricultural companies and we know the global situation is on their radar.

So Julia and I are half way through our challenge. How has it been?

Well, the fact is, if you spend almost every waking hour thinking about it, if you can access a range of supermarkets, markets, and butchers to cobble together your weekly shop; if minimal nutritional requirements are not a priority; if you don’t mind being a little hungry; and if it’s only for a short time, you can actually live on $2 a day.

But life’s far from fun.

If you would care to donate, visit Live below the line

What a PR coup.

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has made English royalty look better than it has in decades.

The marriage promises a new style of regal life that will save the monarchy beyond 2050. This generation of royals modernises an institution that was fast becoming out-dated in a 21^st Century world.

The younger royals possess something that most recent forebears don’t – natural charm. They are warm, accessible, good-looking, down-to-earth, optimistic and ‘real’. 

For public messengers, charm is a vital ingredient that has been sadly lacking in English royal circles since the passing of William’s mother Diana, the late Princess of Wales http://tinyurl.com/ulrk.

William is his mother’s son. He has chosen not to live the traditional life of a Windsor. William does ‘normal’ things. He goes to university, takes a gap year and falls in love with his college sweetheart.

He has chosen a sensible girl (a “commoner”) that, historically, would not have been courted by the Windsors. As a result, we have a partnership that has the potential to reignite the public’s love affair with English royalty.

So, how ironic it is that a person who was so badly treated by “The Firm” has, via her genes, kept royalty in vogue. Diana’s royal legacy goes way beyond providing “a heir and a spare”.

What remains to be seen is how Buckingham Palace manages public perceptions of the Windsors beyond the celebrations for the Queen’s golden jubilee during 2012 http://tinyurl.com/3tohht3 .

Will the Queen step down?  Will the king-in-waiting, Prince Charles, take the throne?

Like any institution, the House of Windsor operates with the permission of the rest of society, including those who are not monarchists.

Notwithstanding whether Charles or his son William will make a better king, William and Kate are and, most likely, will always be more popular than Charles and Camilla.

I suspect those who support the English monarchy (and those among us in the colonies who tolerate it) will grow impatient waiting for William (and Kate) to take over.

The longer it takes for the newlyweds to take the throne, the more PR coups Buckingham Palace will need to maintain the House of Windsor’s freshly-updated image.

How much of your salary do you give to those less fortunate than you?

If it’s more than half a per cent of your income, you are more generous than most, according to an article in The Age last week, http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-zone.

The latest publicly available taxation figures from 2007/2008 reveal that of the 12.6 million individual tax returns lodged in Australia more than 8 million did not claim a deduction for gifts to a charity. We can assume that two-thirds of Australians with a job didn’t give any money to charity that year – or at least not enough to make it worth declaring.

The real bugbear for philanthropy expert Peter Winneke, who is mounting the ‘Give’ advocacy campaign, is that the wealthy in Australia (the 7,905 people who earn more than $1 million per year) are the least open-handed.

I don’t think it will change though, until we consolidate the number of charities we have to choose from in Australia.  No wonder Australians are reticent to give – who do you give to?

Recently my partner and I wanted to start giving money to the anti-whaling movement. It’s a very specific cause yet we were amazed at the number of programs operating – WhaleWatch, Act Now, Friends of the Earth, ACF, IFAW and Sea Shepherd all came up in our research.  Try giving money to people affected by the tsunami in Japan – at a glance, Australians can pledge money to World Vision, the Red Cross, Save the Children and The Salvation Army.

I understand why so many organisations start: we are all different, with different interests and life experiences so the one size cancer foundation doesn’t work for everyone.

But, ultimately, the number of charities we now have is excessive and is leading to waste and uncertainty among potential donors about who is most capable of using their money effectively.

To stand out and get critical mass, these charities need to employ lots of staff, advertise and spend money on marketing materials, eroding the funds they have been given for relief.

I know most state openly that for every dollar they are given, 20 cents is used for administration and the rest for the cause, but I’d be interested to know if they are still achieving this.

Maybe if we saw more consolidation of effort as we did with the Queensland Premier’s Flood Relief Fund, more people would bother to give and more funds would reach those in need.

P.S. I don’t want to stop you from giving – I just want to make it easier to do.