The PR Year

While I wait for my washing at the laundrette to finish I thought I'd pop over to my local internet cafe and quickly jot down some thoughts on this year.

Briefly.

I think it's been surreal this year. The number one stories dominating the news this year were either about a missing girl in Portugal, or a man missing in a canoe. We like drama, sex, drugs and rock' n roll and that's why Amy Winehouse has had such a fantastic year, although tragically she seems weeks away from the publicity killing her.

We watched as Facebook dominated the world even though it still continues to grow, if I were Mark Zuckerberg I would sell up fast before it becomes the next Myspace.

PR struggled this year in my opinion. Bite PR got the Facebook account, successfully proving that something that has become so successful without PR, is now preparing for a dark era where expert help will be needed to keep the advertisers interested.

My favorite PR this year has to be - Richard Branson flying in at the scene of the Virgin train crash. Pure genus and pure Branson. I remember watching it live and he stood there and defended his trains, the heroic driver and Virgin. I distinctly remember thinking that I had no quarrels getting on a train of any description afterwards, and that certainly Virgin was still safe.

My PR low was the amount of coverage the Simpson's Movie got. The PR stunt was to draw a picture of Homer in a cliff edge, not very moving, didn't get me thinking about the movie, and it just left me thinking how much money wasted, and the limits the PR team imagination stretched too when offered such a large scale budget.

What next? Google will retain the crown, no doubt with the demand for mobile media to go global. The iPhone was slick, but I see Google doing something truly different and far superior. Too sum up, which I don't think could have been done better than Jeff Jarvis - "This may have been Facebook's year. But so far, it is still Google's century."

Marketing debate

I found myself in a very interesting conversation the other day whilst manning my bar that I work in. A man called Simon Filler who is a freelancer who's roles include, Head of Marketing for Arc Inspirations and a few other companies based in London. He sat down on his own, I recommended him with a drink and he sat down at the bar and we started to chat. Soon after we were in that typical debate about PR being part of the marketing mix and the limits with PR according to the greater scheme of things.

I was surprised to the level to which I was standing up for PR, maybe I'm really getting stuck into it. I even silenced him once or twice with points about product placement being advertising, to which he thought was PR. Then his friend arrived sat down cottoned on to what we were talking about and laughed. Simon looked at him at they both started to laugh, seems they were surprised to be going out to a bar and finding a bar tender who new a thing or two about their profession. The other guy, forgive me I didn't get his name, was high up in marketing for the NHS.

The debate thickened mostly around product placement, the wider marketing mix and the role PR has in the modern world. Apparently PR is dying. Anyway there isn't any real ending to this post, except to say that I finally feel like I've grown up a bit, and that these academics and practitioners aren't as scary as first thought. We all have views that have validity and it doesn't matter how much experience someone has there is always something to learn from another.

Fizzy and new, or old and Flat

Pepsi have now joined facebook. They pay to advertise their product on a profile where others can become "fans" of the product. This then shows up on the profile of the "fan" showing the world that they are indeed a little bit partial to a bit of cola.

Along with a few thousand companies so far, Pepsi have decided that there is just cause to pay for this honour to be on facebook. I don’t see why.

I was brought to this by an article in Broadcast magazine which I was flicking through whilst at a music video the other day, and even became a "fan" of Pepsi just so I could officially write on the wall, which went a little something like.....

"Using facebook as some sort of advertising platform is very silly. People don’t really care about these pages, they aren't secure, impossible to monitor its effects and are open to criticism. You spend millions elsewhere and for the person who set this up, I would advise you think carefully how you use this particular media."

Am I right? Is this the cheapest if not tackiest form of product placement?

What ever the components of this equation of advertising or however you wish to classify this form of communication are, the answer will always be the same.

COMPANY (Pepsi) pay £?,???’s to have facebook profile.

TIMES the amount of companies who think this media is worth communicating through ?,???,???'s

EQUALS - Mark's early retirement comes even earlier, and the next 1.6 percent goes for twice as much.

PR Credibility

I happened to stumble across a very interesting poster at uni the other day advertising a guest lecture featuring Anne Gregory entitled "PR ands its struggle for credibility".

Interesting as PR students we weren't told about this directly, personally I would have loved to have gone. Maybe we are not been invited in case we would not enjoy the content, it seems to me that we spend a lot of time listening to why advertising is "dying" and marketing is similar but not as "dependable" or "efficient" as PR, we should be able to view all aspects of what we study otherwise we will become even more naive and ill mannered in our ways towards "rival" disciplines.

Fight night PR vs Marketing vs Advertising now that sounds like a plan. I can already imagine the mayhem. HA!

We communicate, but do we really communicate?

I'm sure there are some very respectable people out there that are paid plenty to advise others on how the future generations will communicate. Well I am one number that will not be following fashion trends in communication like all the other sheep out there.

I'm sick and tired of people using these forms of "communication" on university computers. Professional agencies have made these sites unattainable, I spoke to a friend at Freud Communications and his office has banned these sites. Why cant we do the same at university?

I have lived a very social life thus far and I seem to be getting further enraged by the day. Why must we bog up time and energy talking to people who we may not really care about. If you use facebook or any other "social" networking site, I challenge you today to answer this question - have you used these forms of media away from your personal PC and/or have you used these media to talk to someone who you do not rank as a loved one or a good friend?

If you have your hacking me off and wasting other people's time, space and energy. Sorry.

Souper Men!

My first news release aimed at regional coverage has made print
(Yorkshire Evening Post). I feel like a freelance practitioner, very cool.

P.S any male freelance PR practitioners out there please contact me, I'm writing a feature on a related topic and would love the opportunity to ask you some questions.

New Ideas Please........

TV channels are feeding us with nothing but old crap. Re-runs of Top Gear, Who's Line is it anyway?, Family Fortunes, and Wheel of Fortune to name just a few are clogging up telly. New channels such as "Dave", "Dave+1", "Challenge" etc are just plowing out old tripe, and we are watching it. There is simply not anything else being made that is good enough anymore, so we turn to old classics.

Music? Well lets look at the charts. Spice Girls and TakeThat number one and number two. Boyzone are getting back together, Westlife have just released "Home" their third cover in a row and All Saints are also coming back soon.

We are in a drought of new and exciting entertainment. Can anyone change this? Not even Simon Cowell's best efforts this year look like raising a single eyebrow.

Beginners Luck?

My first ever news release for my first client has attracted some great coverage. Katie Baldwin at Yorkshire Post has agreed to run the story and everyone at Soupa seems very excited. The new company approached me in aid of some exposure for their company, and hopefully The Yorkshire Post will do just the job.

Soupa deliver a range of products and are worth checking out if you are in need of a new healthily outlook on life. Look out for related coverage to follow shortly this week.

Fight Night - Agency or In House

Last nights CIPR Fight Night saw "In House" vs "Agency" battle it out. The reason behind this I though was quiet clever, behind all the friendly antics was a sort of pitch. The lecture hall was two thirds full of potential employee's. As students we are too inexperienced to go straight into freelancing, and so it’s in house or agency when we finish.

Although we didn't have that promised vote at the end of the discussion I thought agency seemed to win over the majority. The students I spoke to after all said they preferred the idea of a busy office packed with plenty of staff, safety in numbers. In house seemed to me to be represented by a slightly older crowd, apologies!

Already thinking of direction for after my degree I see myself in agency, with six months previous experience in Freud's the draw to agency is strong. I will find in house work eventually to broaden my experience and insight; however I can see myself ultimately working freelance.

Feature Fantastic

I finally got talking to the editor of The Met, the lovely Kat Baldwin. I went through three potential ideas for stories hoping that at least one would get the go ahead for production. After I finished telling her my thoughts, I closed my eyes and prayed.

"There all excellent! Can you do all three?" She replied.

Looks like I'm going to be a busy little bee for the next few days. If any one needs help being pointed in her direction just let me know.

Disclaimer

This is my blog, the views expressed by me are 100% my own and do not reflect views from colleagues, my university, or other blogs/web pages linked through my blog.

I strive for accuracy, but any mistakes will be altered as soon they are brought to my attention. Any comments/complaints please e-mail me.

Network to Getwork!

OK one more student blogger added…. Who wants to be next?

I think we can become quite a formidable pack online. Hopefully we can start a little movement where others can admire our willingness to promote ourselves. We don't have to write about our course worries all the time, sure we can discuss things and help each other out, but there is only a certain number of people complaining about models and theories that I can take.

Let’s get stuck in and see where we go. Before we can go anywhere, we need numbers!

Tattoo removal !

Just quickly.

Ive been branded for what seemed to be for eternity with a terrible Google rating.

Turns out thanks to the recent interest, my blog has jumped to number 1.

"Paddy Doyle PR" search it and see. Fuss for nothing I'm sure.

Facebook brainwash

After pacing up and down the library Ive finally succeeded in jumping on a PC, not like I should be complaining, its great to see so many people working so hard.

But wait, at second glance I can see that more than half are logged into facebook. There are numerous laptops to be seen, I can see four screens from where I am and yes there all on facebook.

Ive just spotted my friend sitting with a laptop with some colleague's planning a presentation, and yes once again they are working alongside the social networking masterpiece.

Is this going to plague our lives forever?......... Should we not ban facebook on uni PCs?

Rant over.

Just need to tag those photo's of last night and then I'm off home.