Burson-Marsteller must now wish there was more Privacy than Pitch

The tale of Burson-Marsteller's botched smear campaign against Google commissioned by Facebook is a very interesting study into the concept it all revolves around - Privacy.

It all began with Burson-Marsteller pitching a story about "Google’s sweeping violations of user privacy" to both mainstream and niche writers, namely privacy advocates. BM were so willing to help their client, they offered to ghost write pieces for those wanting to run the story but were hard pressed finding the time or resources to give it the attention they thought it deserved.

The thing they didn't factor in was the suspicion privacy advocates have regarding anyone trying to push a story about privacy. Enter Christopher Soghoian, a noted blogger on Internet privacy. He questioned BM on who the client was for the campaign and the reply was ""I’m afraid I can’t disclose my client yet". This prompted Soghoian to publish the entire email conversation online, effectively pulling the pin on a grenade that went off in BM's face. USA Today ran the story of the subterfuge and both Burson-Marsteller and Facebook copped a shellacking from media outlets and PR industry bodies alike.

Debate raged for a couple of days about unethical practices and how campaigns like this are a blight on the entire PR industry. Just as things were dying down and most of the fervour had dissipated, Burson-Marsteller themselves reignited the furore by getting caught deleting negative comments from their Facebook page.

Amongst it all, noone seems to have asked about the ethics of confidentiality between PRs and the media. Does the Digital Age and the world of New Media mean that everything is on the record or is this a unique case?

It's well worth following the links reading up on this debacle to help avoid making the same mistakes Burson-Marsteller did. No doubt they would have preferred this whole thing to have remained private.
Also worth reading:

http://prbreakfastclub.com/2011/05/17/smear-campaigns/
http://prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Why_all_of_PR_will_pay_for_WhisperGate_8255.aspx

CAS2011 Proves to be a Winning Formula

The inaugural Corporate Affairs Summit has concluded with high praise from delegates.

The main theme that emerged from the two day conference was 'transparency'.

In the opening address by Consulate General for the US, Neils Marquardt, spoke candidly about issues of Open Government, the Wikileaks scandal and the lessons learned during that incident. Mr. Marquardt reinforced the need for Governments to be more transparent however cautioned that, as with business, the need to protect sensitive information, intellectual property and business plans is vital. The key is finding the balance between security and transparency, something that's often perceived differently between the generations.

The addresses by former QANTAS CEO and now Tourism Australia Chairman Geoff Dixon and the Chairman of Investec Bank, Coca-Cola Amatil, ASK and Director of Westfield Group, Singapore Airlines and Ingeus, David Gonski AC were inspiring.

Mr. Dixon provided some key insights into the importance of public affairs executives.  Some of his more memorial pearls of wisdom were;

• "Good communications is vital to any business - bad investments you can recover quickly, bad PR can destroy a company or at least take years to recover from."
• "Good news travels slowly but bad news is almost instant."
• "Having a public affairs operator involved in strategy discussions is vital to assess whether an idea is a good one or bad one."
• "Public Affairs executives should always be the custodians of transparency, accountability and ethics."
• "Try not to have any secrets because it'll always get out. Far better for you to leak it yourself than have some do it for you and then try to recover."

His underlying message was, however, that of all the employees in a corporation, a good Corporate Communications person is the best placed to take the helm of CEO.

Mr. Gonski echoed these sentiments going as far as saying that "if boards (of Directors) do not embrace the need to include corporate affairs in strategy the entire concept of the board as we know it will disappear". He also reinforced the need for transparency noting that "public companies rarely fail because of greed but because of a lack of openness", citing the Barings Bank disaster as an example and arguing that Nick Leeson was more interested in hiding his mistakes than he was in outright gain.

As you might expect Social Media played a big part in the discussions. While the way to implement social media strategy varied, the need to include it as part of strategic planning was without question.

The Roundtable format also proved to be popular with most proving to be enlightening and entertaining, prompting lots of questions from the delegates. The session we were involved with "Thriving in a Networked World: New Tools and Tried and Tested Rules for Media Relations" allowed us to express the need for an online newsroom as an integral tool to help connect communicators with both traditional and new media. All panelists agreed that a clear and consistent message is vital during any PR activity - something an online newsroom can play a vital role in disseminating.

Across all areas up for discussion, from social media to crisis management to investor and government relations, the concept of "it's no longer a monologue, it's a dialogue" was demonstrated to be the most important understanding in a Corporate Communicators arsenal.

Correct usage of language is everything in PR

Here's a bit of fun for all of the wordsmiths out there. Even if you've seen all or part of this before, it's a good way to remind yourself why English is so hard to learn and even harder to use correctly!

Let's face it: English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
And while no one knows what is in a hotdog, you can be pretty sure it isn't canine.

English muffins were not invented in England
Nor French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies
While sweetbreads, which aren's sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted
But if we explore its paradoxes
We find that quicksand can work slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea, nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of "tooth" is "teeth", why isn't the plural of "booth", "beeth"?
One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese?
Is cheese the plural of choose?
One mouse, 2 mice.
One house, 2 hice?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Why do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
Ship by truck or car, and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
How can the weather be hot as hell one day,
and cold as hell on another day?

When a house burns up, it burns down.
You fill in a form by filling it out.
An alarm clock goes off by going on.

You get in and out of a car,
yet you get on and off a bus.

When the stars are out, they are visible.
But when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it
But when I wind up this note, I end it?

English is a crazy language.
It doesn't know if it is coming or going!!!

Journalists Warming to Social Media but not for PR pitches

The Society of New Communications Research (SNCR) and Middleberg Communications have announced the results of the 3rd Annual Survey of the Media in the Wired World. The study examined the effects and impact of social media, new media and communication technologies on modern journalism. Responses were received from 200 journalists, primarily in the US.

Even thought the pool of respondents is relatively small, the shift in attitude from journalists towards the benefits of social media for information gathering is clear.
Key findings include:

• 75% of journalists use Facebook as a tool to assist in reporting, a 6% increase from 2010 study.
• 69% of journalists use Twitter as a tool to assist in reporting, a 21% increase from 2010 study.
• 68% of journalists believe that reliance on social media has increased significantly.
• 95% of journalists believe that social media can be a reliable tool for sourcing stories.
• 69% of journalists use mobile technology to search, use social networking apps, and capture videos and pictures for reporting.

Despite this trend towards social media as a tool, it seems that it’s a party PR professionals are not invited to. When asked about relationship building, the figures show 53% still prefer receiving emails and 34% still prefer receiving information via phone. Only one 1% of respondents stated that they would like to be contacted via Twitter or a direct message via a social network.

This survey is more evidence to suggest that, while it’s vital to understand social media, it’s still critically important to keep more traditional lines of communication open with journalists.

For full survey results, visit http://www.slideshare.net/sncr/how-are-media-journalism-evolving.

As Newsrooms shrink, PR grows to fill the gap

There is a fascinating and well researched article on ProPublica.org by John Sullivan titled “PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms”.

While it’s fairly lengthy, Sullivan examines the relationship between the diminishing amount of journalists and the rise of the PR profession. He proposes that rather than the premise new forms of reporting will eventually fill the void left by traditional newsrooms, the void that is created by the collapse of traditional journalism is being filled by public relations.

Some of the more interesting points are;

• The birth of PR and how the rise of the “publicity agent” created deep concern among America’s leaders, who distrusted a middleman inserting itself and shaping messages between government and the public. US Congress was so concerned that it attached amendments to bills in 1908 and 1913 that said no money could be appropriated for preparing newspaper articles or hiring publicity agents. This sentiment changed rapidly during WWI and the value of the PR professional has grown significantly ever since.
• Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the number of journalists has fallen drastically while public relations people have multiplied at an even faster rate. In 1980, there were about .45 PR workers per 100,000 population compared with .36 journalists. In 2008, there were .90 PR people per 100,000 compared to .25 journalists.
• Census data to track revenues at public relations agencies between 1997 and 2007 found that revenues went from $3.5 billion to $8.75 billion. Those figures include only independent public relations agencies — they don’t include big companies, lobbying outfits, advertising agencies, non-profits, or government.
• The Newspaper Association of America reported that newspaper advertising revenue dropped from an all-time high of $49 billion in 2000 to $22 billion in 2009.
• Research from the Pew Research Center that focused on when the University of Maryland announced on July 22, 2009, that it would test the new swine flu vaccine. Of the 19 stories Pew reviewed that covered the development of the vaccine, three contained significant new information, another three had new details, and the rest either repeated the same basic facts as the press release or were identical stories appearing on a different platform.
• In 2005 and 2006, the New York Times and the advocacy group PR Watch did separate reports detailing how television news was airing video news releases prepared by corporate or government PR offices, working them into stories as part of their newscasts. PR Watch listed 77 stations which aired the reports, some of them broadcast nearly verbatim.
• It took Drew Armstrong, a health-care reporter for Bloomberg, months to nail stories showing how the health-insurance industry had funded efforts by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to fight against changing the health system. Armstrong dug into tax records to show what had previously been hidden — that AHIP contributed a whopping $86.2 million to the Chamber to fight against the Obama health-care plan. Neither group would confirm that it was the same money but no one called for a correction.

Isn’t it time you were Offering Video as part of your Media Strategy?

Video is emerging as one of the most sought after content types on the Internet. Youtube reportedly receives 35 hours of video content every minute.

While it’s easy to dismiss this evidence of people’s affinity for the moving image as irrelevant to news media, a recent survey by D S Simon, suggests there are vast opportunities for PR to catch a ride on this wave of popularity.

According to their survey of 1,000 media across TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and web media properties 85% use online video content to cover the news. That’s 33% more than last year.

Of those that use video content, 84% say they are using third-party video in addition to in-house created content. Predictably, radio stations, magazines and newspapers are the biggest users of externally provided video.

Douglas Simon, CEO of D S Simon, says, “The 2011 Web Influencers Survey illustrates the shift from textual or static communications to video communications by media websites.  It appears that almost all forms of media have transformed themselves into online television networks.  It appears this trend will continue to accelerate given the response to our question of whether web media companies planned to increase their use of video footage.  Nearly four-fifths of respondents indicated they would use more or much more video in 2011 than they did in 2010.”

This survey is further evidence that the modern PR profession must include multimedia to support their media campaigns.

Having a comprehensive Online Newsroom that provides the media with broadcast quality video and reproduction quality images to support press releases and media alerts is no longer a luxury but a necessary tool.

If you aren’t providing video content, and just as importantly making it readily available via an Online Newsroom, there is no doubt you are missing out on opportunities – possibly as many as 85% of them.

Hear about the report form Doug Simon himself in the video below.

The full survey results can be accessed here: http://dssimon.com/whitepaper/filedownload.php?filename=2011_WebInfluencers_FINAL.pdf