PR Studies

The power of stories

I've heard it described as 'story magic' - the yeast that allows the dough of a PR campaign to rise. Douglas Rushkoff writes beautifully of the power of stories to shape civilisations in a freely-available Demos pamphlet (in PDF format), Open Source Democracy: How online communication is changing offline politics.

He discusses the development of interactive technology and considers its role in our sense of community:

The birth of the internet was interpreted by many as a revolution. Those of us in the counterculture saw in the internet an opportunity to topple the storytellers who had dominated our politics, economics, society and religion - in short our very reality - and to replace their stories with our own.

There's a launch event for the pamphlet on 10 October.

Pink and pounds for cancer

A 'wear it pink' viral campaign in support of the Breast Cancer Campaign is gathering momentum, according to Brand Republic. Thanks to Marketing Wonk for the link.

It sounds an uncharitable observation, but I've always thought this campaign has been boosted by its photogenic qualities. Equally deserving health causes struggle by comparison. Prostate cancer campaign anyone?

Identity crisis

Abbey National is to become abbey. It's the latest in a line of new corporate identities which are judged on their performance against the stock market average in The Observer:

If a company is clear about where its future lies, and it chooses a new name to fit in with that, the name change should be a success. But if a new name is simply a way of trying to cover up old problems, it is more likely to have the opposite effect.

Sorting out Royal Mail

Adam Crozier is profiled in The Observer. He faces many challenges at the loss-making and poorly-regarded Royal Mail, but has succeeded in the campaign he ran with chairman Allan Leighton to avert a damaging strike:

The campaign they had run - targeting workers by email to say what they thought of the offer, writing letters explaining their position, and taking regular and systematic soundings from 1,500 managers - paid off

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Postscript on PDFs

Tom Murphy spells it out in plain text.

Cut your fancy fonts and your clever formatting. Plain HTML is best. Avoid Word files, and never, ever send file attachments (unless invited to do so).

Pointless PDFs

An addition to the debate about online press offices comes from The birth of POP! Public Relations. It's the case against having press materials in PDF format.

PDFs are fine for long and complex documents. Say, statistical or graphical releases. But for standard text documents, they just raise another barrier. A press release is not a finished work of literature, it's a means to an end. We want to enable journalists to cut and paste our copy, remember.

Portable document format? Printable document format? I can never even remember what PDF stands for

More on Microsoft

Ben Silverman agrees that Microsoft's online press office is an impressive resource. But he adds the caveat that a reporter will still need to talk to a human being, and this is where - in his experience - Microsoft's PR falls down.

I remember the point when, a decade ago, Microsoft realised that it could command the attention of national TV news in the UK. This is the point at which the company started to ignore its traditional followers in the computer press. It's a tough balancing act when you've reached the top...

Best of breed

Apple does it brilliantly; Amazon is much less amazing. It's a question of their online press offices, and the assessment is by Ben Silverman of PR Fuel.

I'll be asking some students to track an online press office of their choice over the coming months. I hope to report back on the best and worst.

I'll be surprised if any surpass Microsoft's Press Pass area, in which the company demonstrates that it understands that news amounts to more than its own press releases.

Yet I endorse Tom Murphy's opinions on the strength and limitations of Microsoft's PR machine. (Unlike Tom, I've never represented Microsoft. But I have twice worked for close competitors so have experienced this PR phenomenon from nearby.)

Lloyds of money

The Financial Services Authority has shown its teeth by fining Lloyds TSB over mis-selling an investment bond (see BBC news report).

I missed the interview with the bank's spokesperson on the radio this morning, but had noted the appointment of a new chief for its Scottish Widows subsidiary (responsible for this investment bond) just two days ago. I had suspected some bad news because of the neutral title of this statement to investors (PDF file).

Good to chat

A decade ago, new communications tools emerged that promised so much: a new world of low-cost interaction regardless of time or distance.

Already, email is losing its allure, weighed down by spam and by internal memos copied to everyone.

Now Microsoft's MSN is to close its chatrooms in the UK, citing 'unsolicited information such as spam' and 'inappropriate communication'. It's the top story on the BBC this morning.

What a powerful euphemism for our age: inappropriate communication.