About $10 million a week will be pumped into political advertising during the Federal Election over the next five weeks.

While more of this will find its way to Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter than before, the early signs suggest that where the big money goes, innovation and creativity do not necessarily follow.

Instead we have a play-it-safe, small-target start to the campaign.

Perhaps this is symptomatic of how quickly the gloss came off brand Kevin07, as well as the fact there is no long-term incumbent and the pledge for “new leadership” is implied with two leaders making their campaign debuts.

That both campaigns are being driven by 1980’s industry veterans, fuelled with large budgets, increases the likelihood that election campaigning will not be “moving forward” during 2010.

Whatever the reason, a campaign sans catchy slogan¹, iconic imagery and significant creative use of the online space, is a dull campaign – and a narrow one.

This is a shame, as when done well campaigning in the online space is cheaper and more responsive to short-time frames. It can create discussion and leverage editorial content on the online (as well as print and TV) news sites.

Although given World Vision CEO Tim Costello’s effort to leverage the incredible success of the recent Old Spice viral campaign, perhaps we should be grateful Julia and Tony are playing it safe.

1:“moving forward” is not catchy… although very few slogans lend themselves to such repetition

“It’s what some call xxx, and others agree.” 

I recently came across this sentence as part of an opinion editorial in a major Australian newspaper and found myself immediately infuriated by its vagueness.

Who are the “some” and these “others” that agree? And how many of them are there?

It’s something that I’ve encountered all too often in newspapers, and each time I see it, it brings me back to a pet topic of mine: detailed statistics.

I didn’t excel at mathematics in school, but I do love statistics. Any statistic that backs-up a claim and offers a comparative analysis appeals to me.

For example, I recently read that the Australian beef industry plays an important role in Australia’s society and economy.

I didn’t find that information alone particularly informative, so I did some statistical research, and here’s what I found.

“There are 27 million head of beef cattle in Australia. The total area operated by beef farms is 332 million hectares, which is 43% of Australia’s total land mass. Australia is the second-largest exporter of beef in the world, behind Brazil.”

This gave me a framework for understanding and accepting that the Australian beef industry is, indeed, important to the nation’s society and its economy.

Often we need statistical comparisons to help to get a message across.

For example, the statement “Australians consume an average 32.5 kilograms per capita of beef annually” gives us a statistic. But what does it mean? We need a comparison with other countries to understand this.

Finding out, then, that “Australians consume 32.5kg per capita of beef annually, compared with 17kg per person in the UK and 63kg per person in Argentina,” gives me the information I need to make sense of this consumption.

Sometimes, without statistical evidence, a story can seem fabricated or discriminatory, the source appearing to make arbitrary claims, even though what they say may be true.

The bottom line: messages in the media are often conveyed through long lines of communication. In order that a message is interpreted and passed on, statistical evidence is one way of achieving cut-through.

I call it commonsense.

Did you quit Facebook on May 31?  There was plenty of push and reminders to do so across all mainstream media outlets as well as Facebook pages dedicated to it.

I didn’t. I thought about it but like all vices, there is something about the voyeurism that kept me with an active account.  It is also really hard to quit, have you tried?

When you go to your account settings, you’re given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deleting is a process that is well hidden and takes about five different pages but, now so many people have raised the issue, the message is starting to spread.

There are many reasons to stop using Facebook. The major one and the key reason for the ‘Quit Facebook Day’ is the site’s complete war on privacy. Facebook’s management don’t care about people’s privacy and they even say so in its terms of service. Facebook states that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don’t keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14).

As one blogger puts it, “they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.”

I know the Facebook management is not driven by goodwill and so do most people. Zuckerberg didn’t set it up just for you to find your old school friends and lost lovers, he had world domination in mind. Facebook is often used poorly especially in the numerous cases of cyber bullying but it is also used well – to generate public awareness and debate about grassroot issues (such as saving a live venue from inappropriate licensing rules) and to educate people about international politics (Tehran elections).

All the attention Facebook is getting about its mismanagement of people’s data and arrogance is a good thing – it needs to lift its game to secure its long term success and flagging goodwill.

W.C. Fields once said, “Never work with children or animals”, but he was an actor, not a photographer or TV producer.

In our world of media relations, children and animals are vital ingredients (sorry!) and certainly do help to sell a story as demonstrated by our work on FarmDay.

For the last four years we’ve been promoting this national not-for-profit initiative established by Deb Bain, a sheep and wool producer from Skipton in Victoria. Her aim is to connect city families with farming families so that they can learn first-hand where their food and fibre comes from.

Rural and regional media have always been keen supporters of the event – they see a greater relevance particularly if a local farmer is hosting a city family.

Gaining the attention of metro media has been much more challenging and has required many different angles and pitches – some have worked, others haven’t.

We don’t delude ourselves, FarmDay is what we call a ‘soft story’. We also know newsrooms, producers, chiefs of staff and picture editors are inundated with approaches, many from PR companies like ours.

So how have we generated coverage for FarmDay in metro media? In the space I have here I can’t detail our communications strategy of course but I can share with you the three ‘Ps’.

Persistence certainly plays a big part. We might be knocked back by the producer on one radio show but that won’t stop us pitching to another.

Personalising the information to the media outlet rather than sending generic material also pays huge dividends we find.

And lastly, in the case of FarmDay, is pictures. Yes, the tabloid media still loves a great photo of children and animals as illustrated in yesteray’s Herald Sun!

More than 14,000 women and men wearing sparkling pink ponchos scrambled onto Australia’s most famous sporting arena, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, last Friday to form a giant pink lady silhouette.

The silhouette represented the pink logo for the Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA), one of Australia’s most widely-known, non-profit organisations. The men and women who took to the field (supporters, friends, survivors) were part of an extraordinary event which recognises all Australians diagnosed with breast cancer.

The event is a great example of a successful brand and consensus promotion. It shows the importance of creating a big idea and giving people something interesting to talk about.

Yet, as extraordinary as the event was, it does not alone make a campaign.

These type of promotional events can become a waste of time and effort, if they are not established on a solid communication platform. It’s critical, indeed, to define clear objectives and messages, build a solid strategy. Any event, as extraordinary as it may be, is always a medium. It is neither the goal nor the campaign.

Fortunately, the BCNA understands this important communications rule. As a result, the organisation’s strategic and integrated campaign of ambassadors, media publicity, web activity and events, including the giant pink lady silhouette, has been able to generate extensive media coverage and stakeholder interest across all mediums.

http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efieldofwomenlive%2Eorg%2Eau&urlhash=jSHR

* Alessandra  Malvermi is principal of Sound PR, Milan, our affiliate agency in Italy. Sound PR is a member agency of the Public Relations Global Network (www.prgn.com). Visit Sound PR at http://www.soundpr.it/

At the turn of the 21^st Century, British Petroleum (BP) launched a $220 million public relations and advertising campaign to re-brand itself as the world’s greenest oil company.

WPP Group’s Ogilvy & Mather ‘Beyond Petroleum’ campaign paid off.  It was praised by consumer business press as a prescient model of corporate social responsibility and won the Gold Award from the American Marketing Association.  In 2007 it was found by a customer survey to have provided BP with the most environmentally-friendly image of any major oil company.

But an award-winning, multi-million-dollar, green-branding campaign can’t fortify BP against the environmental (and public relations) catastrophe unfolding from the company’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Negative media has been extensive and sustained after outlets belatedly devoted lead coverage to the story more than a week after the leak first occurred.  That the increase in coverage coincided with the increased visibility of the oil spill is no coincidence – and an arguably foreseeable consequence when you’re haemorrhaging approximately 800,000 litres of crude each day (the worst case scenario is well beyond that figure).

Also haemorrhaging is BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’ re-branding investment – something that may have been prevented for a fraction of the cost.

Less ads and media releases, more mitigation on safety

One quarter of one percent of BP’s public relations and advertising campaign spend ($550,000) would have equipped the Deepwater Horizon rig with a remote-control acoustic trigger – a back-up system that would close the underwater well even if the rig above were destroyed, as happened on 20 April. 

Such a trigger, while not foolproof, may have been the best chance to prevent the leak.  It would have allowed workers escaping from the burning rig by boat to send a remote signal 1,500 metres below the water’s surface to close the valve and stop the oil. Oil producing countries such as Norway and Brazil require these triggers as added precaution for rigs of their coasts.  Everywhere else – including the United States and Australia – it is voluntary. 

Three years after BP launched their $200 million re-branding campaign, the US Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service considered mandating the triggers.  They decided against it after pressure from oil companies, including BP, who complained the $550,000 devices were too burdensome.

The oppressive cost of inaction

If $550,000 proved burdensome to BP, the potential costs as a result of the spill will be outright oppressive.

The prospective economic implications of the disaster are gargantuan — albeit highly uncertain. According to the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, the annual commercial seafood harvest in the gulf is $727 million, recreational fishing contributes $832 million and nearly 8,000 jobs, and tourism related to wildlife adds $569 million.

It remained unclear on Monday (May 3) how much damage those industries will incur from the oil spill, and how long that damage will last. The research group estimates that $1.76 billion in annual economic activity is tied to the wetlands directly exposed to the spill.

Much of BP’s time and resources will be required to address claims that are likely to be in the thousands – legitimate and otherwise. Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, reiterated a promise that BP “will honour all legitimate claims for business interruption”.  Asked for examples of illegitimate claims, he said: “I could give you lots of examples. This is America — come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

The negative press is not limited to the nature of the oil spill.  Some of the facts exposed in sections of the media following the explosion of the Deepwater rig do not flatter BP’s environmental credentials – credentials inconsistent with the key messages of the $220 million ‘Beyond Petroleum’ campaign.

Last year BP cut its investment in alternative sources by 28.5 per cent – from $1.54 billion to a little over $1 billion. 

In announcing its first quarter results for 2010, BP reported that only about $770 million of a revenue figure of $81 billion was from alternate energy sources.

Toxic government relations

Not only has BP’s environmental credentials taken a hit, so too has its relationship with the US Government.  Having played a role in willing the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service not to mandate remote control triggers, it now finds itself in the gun of the Obama administration and a Democratic senate.

The Obama administration’s language towards BP has been strong – it has vowed to “keep a boot on the throat” of BP to ensure the corporation is held accountable for the spill. Concerned about what compensation BP is willing to pay, a group of Democratic senators have introduced legislation to raise oil companies’ liability limit retroactively to $US10 billion (in response to a law passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill requiring companies to pay for cleanup costs but no more than $US75 million for other damage).

The emperor’s new clothes

In the absence of business practices that reflect a brand, public relations is little more than the emperor’s new clothes and speaks of an organisation more prone to corporate vanity than legitimately realigning its business.

Had BP made major investments into alternative energy and had they rigorously alleviated against the risks of fossil fuel, the “Beyond Petroleum” campaign would’ve played a vital role in building the new BP brand and its credibility with consumers.

Such credibility (and the ability to demonstrate all measures of mitigation were put in place) is vital when ‘protecting the brand’ against a crisis such as the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and would’ve justified the $220 million spend several times over. 

BP’s exposed lack of credibility is likely to cost significantly more. 

1. Landor “ImagePower Green Brands Survey” reported that BP was regarded as more green (21 per cent) than Shell (15 per cent), Chevron (13 per cent), ExxonMobil (11 per cent) and Texaco (9 per cent).  BP also topped the survey of companies that had “become more green” in the last five years.

We’ve all been there. Time crawls. You eat so many mints the enamel wears off your teeth. You drink large volumes water in an effort to stay awake…then are annoyingly kept awake by the need to wee.  

 Yep, it’s another workshop.

Not surprisingly, workshops often get a bad rap. It’s hard to get all the elements right, however they are very useful tools for tapping into collective wisdom and knowledge, and determining future directions. Well planned and run with the right participants, workshops can deliver clarity on complex topics and achieve considerable progress in a short space of time. However, they can easily backfire and become quite torturous for all involved – facilitators as well as participants.

Once I had the experience of opening a workshop with an executive team on how to improve their company’s communications. Five out of six participants had their laptops open and were checking their emails. I knew then we had a way to go…

However this week we had the privilege of running a workshop for a highly engaged and motivated group, and as a facilitator, it was actually – fun!

Here’s a few reasons why it worked well.

People – We had the right people in the room to be able to contribute their different but highly relevant experience and perspectives. All participants were very motivated to assist with the task at hand (and had good manners).

Goal – We determined what needed to be achieved and received a collective view endorsing this at the beginning of the workshop. A gap analysis at the end identified areas where further work was needed.

Process – It was a small group, so we kept the processes simple. Different devices were used to mine information from the group – visuals, a matrix, a Brownlow count, and yes (oops) butchers’ paper. Clear decision points were included so that participants could contribute to concrete progress. There were a couple of stumbling blocks, but the framework provided ways to get beyond these for some solid outcomes.     

Food – The danishes were fresh and the coffee hot. Some healthy alternatives prevented our clients getting ill from too much sugar.

Oh, and I tripped over the whiteboard a couple of times, which the participants enjoyed immensely.  

So next time you see butchers’ paper, don’t let your eyes well up – instead think about how you can contribute to making it a positive experience for all.

Let’s face it, technology is fun. When a new tech toy proliferates, we inquisitive humans want to grab it, look at it and play with it.

When mobile phones arrived, I remember calling my flatmate at the other end of the breakfast table. Then there was email – I would flip to my account every 10 minutes to make sure I had not missed something really important. 

And now there’s Twitter. Plenty of people are spending lots of time using it – getting recommendations on services, expressing political views, making social commentary, gossiping – but is anyone actually making money from the phenomenon? The answer is starting to be ‘yes’. I know one great example where Twitter is used for a collective brainstorming process that underpins a successful business model. Others use Twitter as a marketing tool to promote their product, service or, indeed, their person.

If you haven’t yet received your first pay cheque for mastering the art of thinking in 140 characters or 15 word sound extensions, don’t despair. You too can become a ‘Twilebrity’.

I recently read about a freelance travel journalist in America who has 1.5 million followers. This is more than Rudd and close to Obama (whom I am sure have never personally sent a tweet in their entire time in office). Previously this journalist was unemployed but now she travels the world tweeting under the name of Adventure Girl and appearing on TV. She’s got a website, sponsors and a book of travel tips focussed on how to have adventures without breaking a nail – so it seems her Twitter fame has led to lucrative employment.

Apparently the secret of Adventure Girl’s success was to harrass all the founders of Twitter via loads of emails which earned her the status of a suggested user. Now she is touted to any new person who signs up to the service. Twitter acts as her virtual agent.

But does the fame and recognition guarantee credibility?  

As a lover of travel I decided to start following Adventure Girl.  Some of her insightful tips include “Brussels is cheaper than Paris” and “Brussels has yummy chocolate” and don’t forget to “Support local communities in Rwanda by buying hand-made goods.”

The message is that with more than 16 million users worldwide, Twitter does represent a wide market with all sorts of interests and preferences.    

Personlly, I’d prefer to get my travel tips from someone less sponsored and less interested in perfect nails, but Adventure Girl’s other 1,509,507 million followers might not agree.

You may have seen the column by Meghan Daum in The Age earlier this month (16 March 2010) reporting on a study by researchers from Washington University and the University of Arizona that found a correlation between feelings of well-being and the amount of time spent talking every day. 

It reminded me of a flatmate in London, orginally from Ireland, who would ring her mother every night without fail and talk for at least an hour. At the time I used to think ‘what can she be talking about?’ and ‘when will she get off the phone so I can use it?’ but looking back I’m sure it was a coping mechanism for homesickness – talking to her Mum made her feel better.

Today, of course, my former flatmate would have a myriad of ways she could communicate with her mother: Skype, SMS, email, twitter, to name just a few. The online ‘chatter’ is becoming deafening with 35 million facebook users updating their status every day and more than 5 billion pieces of content shared each week.

The world is alive with ‘conversation’ but I can’t help wondering if a study was carried out between feelings of well-being and the amount of time spent chatting online would it produce the same results?

Yes, I acknowledge that as communicators we can’t ignore the social media phenomenon as a channel for our messages, but when it comes to building rapport, listening and empathising, you can’t underestimate a ‘real’ conversation – ideally face-to-face.

Is it a surprise that PR generates more than half of our daily news stories in Australia’s newspapers? Hardly!

The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at Sydney’s University of Technology last week released a study examining 2,000 stories across 10 newspapers over five days.

In essence, it found that nearly 55% of stories analysed were driven by some form of public relations and as many as 70% of stories in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph were PR-generated.

The story is familiar with other studies showing similar findings in the past. But understandably, many journalists and editors were defensive when questioned by Crikey.com about the survey. Reasons for the results varied from deadline pressure, resource squeeze to commercial realities.

Yet does it really matter that so many stories emanate from PR? Isn’t the key test of newsworthiness whether it is timely, balanced, relevant, accurate and in the public interest?

Also missing from last week’s analysis of the ACIJ survey were any statistics revealing how many incoming press releases are actually binned.

To a casual observer reading last week’s study findings, it might seem that the time has never been better for PR practitioners attempting to influence the news content in Australia.

The reality is quite different. In the past five years with the growth of the PR profession, many newsrooms have employed forceful assistants to act as “news bouncers” and veto calls from PR practitioners.

As the number of incoming media releases has risen sharply, journalists and editors have also become increasingly discerning about what is worthwhile news. A vast quantity of media releases are weak, generic, self-serving and only ever see the cutting room floor.

The best PR consultants will understand the news cycle and know inherently what makes news and perhaps more importantly, what does not make news. They know that it is only the balanced, targeted news releases with a strong news angle that will be deemed worthy of a journalist’s followup.