Posts Tagged ‘Network PR’

1. 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.

   

   

2. 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.