MarCom Professional

PRs have been caught with their trousers down, once again. Bill Ray at the Register (one of the UK's key tech news sites) had the opportunity to overhear a discussion between two O2 PR people on how to position O2's bandwidth allocation (or lack of it) "O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'"

To be specific, how to find a way of saying (without offence) that customers who want more bandwidth are "a bunch of techie nerds" and expounding the view that anyone leaving O2 for more bandwidth is clearly "a muppet". It also included a discussion on the best way to rescind statements made previously. More...

John Caswell's post on changing the way people think about marcoms strategic contribution is a perfect prompt for the industry to engage in a serious debate about credibility and substance.  The  language of marcom professionals and the language of the board are, typically, two entirely different things.  We have to discuss reputation in value terms.  We need to link our activities to business objectives and strategies.  We often get it right in the planning, but not in measurement.  So, its back to the old chestnut...  have we moved forward on this at all? More...

I've been reading a lot about authenticity recently.  Back in May, Business Week devoted editorial to the subject, describing it as 'the critical component of success'.  Whilst this article looked at personal leadership, there is an opportunity for the communications industry to take a proactive position on it.  We know that social media demands authenticity (the most high profile mistakes have been due to a lack of it) but more importantly, a shift is needed if we are to genuinely engage with stakeholders to build trust and reputation. 

Authenticity is a basic tenet of good communications. More...

I'm sure many have already seen this, but it's great to see a bit of knowledge sharing going on - the Friendly Ghost's Social Media Resource.

It's a tool that showcases developments in the use of social media by PRs.  You can see what is theory and proof, and contribute to it.  It will be interesting to see how a (let's be honest) 'closed shop' industry gets on with this.  I'm all for it - may stop some of the pseudo science babble....

 

Of all the news I digested last week, one piece sticks in my mind - the FT's coverage of the ill-preparedness of UK companies for PR crises (only 26% plan for a media reputation crisis - surprise surprise).

To be fair, the article also highlighted other areas of weakness, including the fact that only one in three UK companies is prepared for the loss of a key customer (our industry knows all about this). And it did note that UK companies were stronger than average in preparing for threats such as destruction of property and IT failure.

But obviously the key message from this research is that companies continue to fail to establish a communications plan for crisis situations in advance of a crisis. More...