Posts Tagged ‘Network PR’

1. A Time for Self Reflection

   Published on Friday, September 23rd, 2011
   With Parliament set to rise in a couple of weeks ahead of November’s general election we are about to head into the valedictory speech season. The last ‘hurrah’ for those MPs that have decided not to stand for re-election.  This time around there will be 14 of them starting on 27th September with Green MP Sue Kedgley and finishing on October 5th with Simon Power.

   I strongly encourage you to catch as many of these speeches as you can. All will be streaming live on the Parliament website or on Sky TV.

   They will offer personal insights from our national leaders that we rarely see, regrettably due to the nature of the political game.

   Based on a very quick estimate there is more than 200 years of collective parliamentary service departing over the next few weeks. In anyone’s book that represents a phenomenal amount of parliament experience and insight into the machineries of government.

   There is no standard format for a valedictory speech other than conformance with the House standing orders. MPs are therefore free to dwell on their successes or otherwise and their musings on public life. Many with experience in the government benches reminisce about legislative triumphs, others who have spent their whole parliamentary career in the opposition benches will reflect on how they have tried to make New Zealand a better place. Some like to leave with a bang while others prefer to slip out quietly.

   The topics and tone, the highlights and lowlights will be fascinating to observe over the coming weeks.

2. Get into the spirit of it NZ!

   Published on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011
   I think we’d all agree, for the most part our Rugby World Cup so far has been a great debut of our hosting talents on the world stage, with impressive hospitality extended to our international guests spread throughout the country.

   While still backing our Boys in Black, we’ve seen our patriotic towns and cities get on board with their adopted country’s flavour – and into the true spirit of the occasion. Most notably, Blenheim has translated every street sign in town into Russian to make the team feel at home, the Wairarapa has launched ‘Operation Georgia’, and Northland has been painted red in support of Canada, Japan and Tonga.

   Of course, an event of this scale is not without its mishaps – opening night transport, and more recently some of the behaviour toward our visiting Aussie neighbours, which unfortunately is bordering on corrosive. As our earlier blog suggested, win or lose our job is to host the tournament and to do so in the best way possible.

   As we approach what is sure to be a crowd pleaser, NZ vs. France this weekend, as a gesture of true bipartisan neutrality we will be watching the game dipping into a complimentary snack of Kiwi dip and chips. While authentically NZ, it still has distinct French roots (at least we think so!).

   Our money’s on the ABs of course.

   What do you think? What are some of the other small gestures we can offer to make all visitors feel welcome?

3. Not dead, but often in need of resuscitation

   Published on Tuesday, September 13th, 2011
   When Google acquired the restaurant survey guide Zagat last week one media columnist boldly declared that the “press release”, the traditional format for announcing such initiatives, was now “officially dead”.

   You see the Zagat owners used the style of one of their restaurant surveys to communicate with stakeholders, and Google, unsurprisingly, tweeted the news.

   In our view, the way the acquisition news was conveyed said more about creativity of the parties involved than the demise of any particular form of official communication.

   Their creativity is to be applauded.  It was simply their recognition that social and online media are empowering us to be more creative with our tactics for news generation. And with the ‘medium is the message’ in-mind, now more than ever we need to be proactive about crafting to-the-point, snappy messaging.

   Press releases are not sacred and they are not dead.  They will continue to be the “record” of certain events.  However, in many cases they need some creative resuscitation, and they need to be leveraged to ensure they touch all the necessary audiences.

   With the treatment of the announcement of their deal, Google and Zagat are challenging us to work harder at finding audience-specific forms of communication to achieve our goals.  The traditional press release will almost certainly be part of the mix.

   A press release tells our story – plain and simple.  The communicators then needs to tell that story to different people in the best way possible.

4. Earning A Place For PR At The Board Table

   Published on Monday, November 8th, 2010
   A fundamental tenant of public relations advice is the need to be in ‘the circle’ when key decisions are being discussed and made. It is easier to convince others to your viewpoint before the decision is made rather than get people to reverse a decision already made.

   Professor Anne Gregory, who lectures on public relations at Leeds University and is a board member of the prestigious Global Alliance, an umbrella organisation that links PR professionals world wide, turned that argument on the profession itself when she addressed a small gathering at Network PR last week.

   Anne, who was passing through New Zealand on her way home after addressing a world-wide PR forum in Melbourne, laid down the challenge for PR practitioners to earn the right to sit at the corporate board table.

   She contended that to earn that right required PR professionals to be more than experts in communication. They needed to understand the language of business – in short be able to read a balance sheet and discuss the financials as equals.

   Once at the decision making table, once accepted as a peer, then the PR professional had the ability to influence a range of decisions made by boards that impacted on the organisation’s corporate reputation.

   As traditionally public relations has drawn its practitioners from the language end of the education spectrum, with the minority having an interest in, or understanding of, accounting or economics, PR practitioners may be few and far between at the board table for some time to come.

   It is a message that the teaching institutions should take on board, as well as those in PR with the ambition to get to the very top of their profession.

5. “Observation is key to innovation”

   Published on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
   “Observation is key to innovation”

   These were the words of wisdom from guest speaker Ray Avery at the Salvation Army’s launch of their Hope at Christmas appeal at the Holiday Inn in Auckland last week.  He also told us that being alert to the opportunities around us can result in one person changing a single person’s life and potentially the world.

   Of course Ray is more able than many to illustrate this point. Plucked from the streets of London as a young orphan, and following a Pygmalion-like transformation by the good people who rescued him, he has gone on to restore the sight of many millions of people through pioneering intraocular lenses, implanted into the eyes of those suffering cataract blindness.

   With a 23% increase in demand for Salvation Army food bank services during the last quarter and a 38% increase in the number of families who visited the Sallies for the first time, it is clear that the impact of the recession continues to be felt. While some observers might suggest that the hard times are behind us and things are on the up, these statistics show quite a different picture.

   “Focusing solely on the details of process can divert our attention,” said Ray. It’s hardly rocket science to further add that pre-conceived ideas and attitudes will further impair our powers of observation. Too often people have already made up their minds about how they will interpret a scenario and this influences how they then receive information or respond to the situation. 

   The family who need a hand could be an example of the way we might pre-judge situations, when in reality each situation is likely very different and is not always stereo-typical.  An individual’s response to this will also be influenced by their philosophical stance. 

   Building mutual understanding between publics is at the heart of what we consistently seek to achieve through public relations, and Ray’s own experience demonstrated the opportunity that can be revealed when the walls come down.

   Following Ray’s launch of the Salvation Army’s Christmas appeal, Network PR is privileged to be able to support the Sallies’ food banks through our work with Wattie’s on the annual Wattie’s Cans Film Festival which is on next Wednesday. We’d appreciate if as many people as possible could support it also.

   Visit www.watties.co.nz for more info on this or www.savlationarmy.org.nz to support the Salvation Army Christmas appeal.

6. Giving is in the blood

   Published on Thursday, June 11th, 2009
   It seems every day brings a new cause to support. Charities are constantly pushing their barrow into our lives with some national awareness month, week, day, hour, minute, second…whatever.  Ads with desperately cute but painfully sad looking children appear everywhere, designed to tug at the heart strings – and more often than not the wallet.  Amongst this torrent of worthy persuasion, is a communications professional poised to bombard every newsdesk in town to drive their message home.

   For all not-for-profits the challenge of influencing journalists and convincing media decision-makers of the value of your cause is relentless. Sometimes it can be met with an air of indifference. Indeed a recent conversation with one particular journalist went something like this… “I need something more newsworthy. Find me someone who’s dying!”

   In working at Network PR I’ve been able to work for the NZ Blood Service (NZBS), and I know from personal experience the importance of blood donation.  My grandmother passed away twelve years ago after a long illness, but without the people who donated the blood she regularly received, she would have died a lot sooner.

   World Blood Donor Day is the NZ Blood Service’s main annual campaign and happens to be celebrated in this country on Friday 12 June.  The campaign is largely driven by the World Health Organisation who decides on its annual theme.  As in other years, we have the challenge of creating attention.

   One of the pluses for the New Zealand Blood Service is its point of difference: it is not seeking money. And in the current climate this is quite significant. People who donate blood save lives – simple as that.  And all it costs is about an hour of time.

   Currently around 4% of New Zealanders donate blood without incentive or remuneration.  Some have their own personal stories for this. Others simply donate for no other reason than it’s a good thing to do.

   Annually around 42,000 people need this blood, many unexpectedly, others regularly. Statistically there is a good chance we’ll all have a need for blood at some point.

   As far as I’m concerned that’s the best reason of all for taking special note of World Blood Donor Day and the work of the NZ Blood Service.

   

7. Who’s really reading the news?

   Published on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008
   The objective of news is to inform an audience.  Yet what happens when the audience has no desire to engage with the news?  According to a recent study about news consumption in the US by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press, 34 percent of Americans aged under 25 say they get no news in a typical day.

    

   Despite our 24/7 news culture, this figure is up from 25 percent in 1998.

    

   The study calls this group the ‘disengaged’ and can be generalised as those who have a low interest in news and news consumption.

    

   Perhaps this is because there are so many media channels out there to choose from and so much information to digest, that they choose to become disengaged. However, we also need to keep in mind that while people may say they do not listen to or read news, they take in enough information from a variety of sources to remain informed.

    

   Interestingly, while social networking sites are very popular with young people, they have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites.  Maybe an opportunity exists to ‘network and news’?

    

   As PR professionals, a core part of our business is supporting clients’ news opportunities, but are we sufficiently familiar with the needs of their target audiences and how they get their news?  How do we engage the disengaged? 

    

   The Pew report shows that trends in US news consumption continue to move rapidly towards online news usage and away from traditional news, especially newspapers.  That trend is less pronounced in New Zealand.

    

   “Net-newsers” are the fastest growing group, depending on online sources for all of their information.  Usually male, affluent and well educated, they read political blogs more than they watch network news and have a particularly strong interest in tech news. 

    

   At Network PR we have always known that relying on one high reader or viewer channel is not the most effective way to get to core audiences.  Identifying and using the myriad of channels and developing customised approaches are far more effective.

    

   For example, while hundreds of thousands might have read the Herald today, did every one of them read your story in the health section on page six?  And if they did, was it really your target audience?

    

   The term ‘target audience’ clearly needs to be examined carefully and their real life media consumption understood in order to reach them.