Is this what Labour means by 'stretching the kids'?

Scanning the news online recently I happened across this piece which left me thinking. Apparently the Government are supplying over 1,000 lifestyle coaches to primary schools to help children “play” in a bid to crack down on obesity.

The lifestyle coaches will be aiming to take into hand those youngsters deemed to be “too inactive”, interpret the definition as you will. Up to 20,000 of these soon-to-be alienated youngsters will be given at least an additional hour of extra-curricular activity that could include yoga, break dancing, cheerleading or free running (health & safety anyone?).

In theory an additional hour of exercise a week is a fantastic idea. Let’s get British kids moving­­, ideally away from the Xbox!  In reality I wonder how many four-year-olds need to know the basics of Brazilian martial arts (also to be included) and should we be encouraging them to try them out on their pals?  Which, if we are being realistic, may happen.

Unsurprisingly the new scheme has been received with mixed reviews.  Political opposition has labeled the scheme “another expensive, top-down gimmick from a Government which has run out of ideas”.  And a leading heart charity accused Labour of “shilly-shallying around” with headline-grabbing schemes.

Are these Labour’s last ditch attempts to launch initiatives and grab headlines? To me it seems like Labour tightening the lid on the nanny state they have created and gaining further control on the education and lifestyle Britain’s children adopt.  Messages like this from the Government are, I imagine, meant to instill trust and confidence and as such create loyalty from potential voters.  To me it seems like a waste of taxpayers’ money that could be going towards paying off Britain’s debt.

But data is getting big – too big to even get your head around in some cases. So, dear reader, here’s the Economist’s guide to units of data, which I found most intriguing. Have a look, familiarise yourself with them and then try dropping the term ‘zetabyte’ into your next management meeting and seeing the look on your colleagues’ faces. For more information (see what I did there?) you can read the full article here.

Units of data, courtesy of The Economist

Thought you were pretty clever when you ordered this, didn't you. But how the hell are you going to eat it?

Lunching with a journalist or two is always enjoyable – well nearly always – but there’s one critical factor many PRs tend to overlook when booking the restaurant for said lunch. The venue itself is, of course, vital in terms of location, decor, speed of service and ambiance, but the key thing to consider is the choice of dish itself.

Let me explain: you’re probably thinking I’m referring to journalists being radical vegetarians or vegans, or perhaps just plain gluten intolerant. But no, what I’m talking about to is what I call ‘the mess factor’. Put simply, you need to consider how easy it’s going to be to eat this dish while holding an apparently intelligent on-the-record conversation without making a complete dumpling of yourself.

It’s a lesson I learned some years ago when I sat down with one journo to eat a rather odd combination of noodles and black bean sauce adorned with some kind of expensive lichen. It was a nightmare: not only did the noodles behave like freshly-caught elvers, virtually throwing themselves out of my chopsticks’ grasp, but both of our shirts ended up like Jackson Pollack canvases covered in black bean sauce. There was no time to talk stories, such was the degree of concentration required to wrestle with this particular Pacific fusion delicacy. We both came away from the lunch mentally exhausted and in need of  a good lie-down.

So think very carefully about your choice of dish and how much of your mental bandwidth is going to be required to tame it. To help you, here’s a little dish guide from the FWD PR team:

• Noodles – just don’t unless you want to spend the entire lunch attempting the mealtime equivalent of holding a fistful of sand.

• Rice – depends of your chopstick skills and the amount of alcohol that’s going to be imbibed. Be cautious. As they used to say in Kung Fu, when you can snatch the rice grain from my hand, then you will be the master.

• Pasta – the shelly stuff and penne, fine; spaghetti, watch out! You’re going to have tomato sauce on your shirt for the rest of the afternoon, and your mobile, and probably your culinary reputation. And that sucking up the strand into your mouth á la Lady and The Tramp: not attractive.

• Fish – not a bad choice but got to watch the bones. Trying to spit out a fish bone under the hostile gaze of a City Editor is not something to relish.

• Oysters  – I love them but the gigantic platter they’re usually served on forces the journalist to shift his or her notepad off the table, plus if you drop one, it’s like chasing the baby Alien. Yuk!

• Meat – dull but probably the best choice for a press lunch. A simple chicken breast or a decent steak, although not too rare as the blood can offend squeamish hackettes and vegetarians.

• Prawn cocktail – yes, it may hark back to the era of surf ‘n’ turf and the 70s, but generally you can’t go wrong. Easy to consume, no messing.

• Chips, French fries etc – perfect. Also allows weight-watching hackettes who’ve plumped for the couscous salad to say: “Oo, do you mind if I just help myself to a chip?” before stuffing 10 of them in their mouth and smiling like cholesterol wouldn’t melt in their arteries.

Any other suggestions for good press lunch fare, yet me know. Even better, if you’re confronted with a foul dish during a PR lunch, take a picture of it with your mobile and send it in. Bon appetite!

Flo, the Progressive Girl, in action

I’ve a confession to make. I’m a bit of a fan of Flo, the Progressive girl. Indeed, I’ve gone so far as to become one of the 300,000-plus  fans of her Facebook page. And let me tell you, it’s not often I become a Facebook fan of anything to do with insurance!

So who’s Flo, I hear you ask. Well, she’s the star of the TV ads of US underwriter Progressive Insurance. I came across them a year or so ago on a Florida holiday and have kept track of Flo’s progress ever since. Frankly, as insurance ads go, they’re pretty damn good. And what’s interesting from a UK perspective is how darned customer-centric they are. Progressive’s core pitch is that we’ll make a policy to suit you – we’ll even build one from scratch.

Flo has proved a bit of a hit with American viewers and has graduated to her own social media campaign involving Facebook and YouTube. In order to engage viewers, Flo is now appealing for people to join her in her ads, which they can do by sending in an audition video – and that’s precisely what American viewers are doing.

Progressive’s campaign shows how you can take a well-worn product and with a bit of thought, some quirky humour and the right actress, you can make ads that really have an impact on their audience.

Enjoy for Flo for yourself.

"Hmm, my ears are burning. Wonder if it's the missus or the Samsung marketing team?"

Once upon a time sponsorship was all about big consumer and financial brands.  Insurers were nowhere to be seen. But today the global economic downturn has led to a huge shift in the brands we associate with sponsorship.  Perhaps the most well known example is RBS in the UK, which cut almost all of a huge sponsorship programme in the face of massive public criticism.

What has been the net effect of this withdrawal?  The answer is twofold.  First, sponsorship has become significantly cheaper, as the big sports and entertainment clubs and venues face up to huge holes in their budgets. Second, sponsorship salespeople have had to cast their nets wider to find potential sponsors for their ‘properties’.  This has ultimately brought them knocking at the insurance world’s door.

Last year, many senior marketers and CEOs in the insurance industry have woken up to find themselves offered – and suddenly able to afford – a brand, spanking new marketing tool:  sponsorship, bringing with it multiple mouthwatering benefits such as free tickets, access to sporting stars, television advertising exposure, and even global reach.

Not that insurance is a complete stranger to sponsorship:  there were already a couple of obvious examples out there, such as Norwich Union/Aviva’s long-term support for British Athletics and Brit’s association with cricket. However, broadly speaking, at about the time that Aon announced it was replacing AIG on the Manchester United shirts, the floodgates began to open for the smaller players in this industry.

And that means that a lot of people without experience of getting value from sponsorships finding themselves in the firing line.  And if any form of marketing activity relies heavily on previous experience to succeed, it’s this one. Why?  Because sponsorship success is all about a number of intangibles which are hard to appreciate unless you’ve been there.

It begins with negotiation.  The rights holder (say FIFA or the RFU) will offer any likely sponsor a pre-set menu of benefits.  Deconstructing this, removing the benefits which you don’t want and ensuring that you get full usage of everything you do need is the first step to making your sponsorship a success.

A classic example is free tickets.  Almost every rights holder will throw in large numbers of match tickets as part of the package.  This is great, but you need to be aware of the true cost of these.  For a start you will pay around 40% tax on the face value of any  tickets that go to staff – making those free tickets less free than you thought.  And watch out to see if the tickets also include any hospitality.  After all, if you’re going to use them for clients, you want to be able to provide a truly memorable experience, not just two tickets in the stands and a Ginsters pasty for lunch.  It’s often better to take fewer tickets and look to receive a better hospitality package  – or more tickets for key games in the season.  This won’t be an easy negotiation but it is most certainly worth doing.

Another example is access  to players.  The rules around this are extremely complex and ‘access to players’ can mean many things – often  adding up to only to a few personal appearances, and excluding any rights to use pictures of the players.  In this case you need to know exactly what you want , which means that if you are going to use the sponsorship  for a huge ad campaign, plan for it up front and include it in your negotiation, or be prepared to pay extra for advertising rights.

So, if you are the leader (or the head of marketing) who’s offered a tempting sponsorship, think long and hard about the implications of saying yes.  Follow the pointers above and add one more, which is ‘if you haven’t done it before, get some expert advice’.  There are plenty of sponsorship agencies who will offer to negotiate and activate a sponsorship on your behalf.  If you do use one of these, the best advice is to hire an agency that has experience in this industry, and also in the sport that you have chosen.

Sponsorship can provide real value but only providing if you customise the offer. If you get it right, sponsorship is an exciting and very rewarding marketing tool.  It can bring glamour, life and value to your brand, and the kind of magic that no amount of adverting in Post Magazine will buy.  How to get it right?  Well, in one sentence, get some advice, know what you want, and be realistic!

Never mind the Micky Mouse watch, get a Barack Obama one.

Another article I came across recently I thought would be of interest to you, constant reader, is this one by Naomi Klein from Saturday’s Guardian. Naomi, as I like to call her, is the author of the thought-provoking bit of zeitgeist called  No Logo 10 years ago. The book studied how the growth in branding was affecting many elements of our lives and also looked in particular at how big multinationals like Nike and Starbucks had, in effect, become marketing businesses, having outsourced pretty much everything else that they did.

As a PR practitioner, No Logo made for a fascinating if slightly schizophrenic read. On the one hand, I was appalled by some of the corporate sleight-of-brand (ooo, I like that); on the other, there were some great ideas. I particularly recall the beer company that held a series of free rock concerts to promote itself but, in order to ensure maximum coverage for the brand, only released the names of the performers the day before the gig. Genius.

In this new article, Naomi talks about what’s happened in the decade since No Logo was first published. She looks at how branding has thrived and adapted and become subsumed into corporate culture. She also examines how Barack Obama has become the first president to be a superbrand in his own right.

Really worth a read so click here.

Healthy PR as illustrated by The Economist

Fascinating piece in this week’s edition of The Economist examining why public relations has fared well out of the recession and is encroaching on the traditional strongholds of advertising. US spend on advertising contracted 3% and 8% respectively in 2008 and 2009, but in the same years PR spend  grew 4% and 3%.

According to The Economist’s piece, two of the reasons behind this rude health are that PR is cheaper than mass advertising and that, in these price sensitive times, media coverage can be measured and evaluated readily.

But the article also points to PR’s success at moving into the territory of the advertising firms. Simple media relations has given way to more sophisticated PR campaigns based around events, building dialogues and moving online.

Indeed, the growth of online communication and social media is, the article argues, another plus point for PR as it has been the communication discipline most able to adapt to deal with the online forums, blogs and video sharing platforms. The ease with which online traffic and related data can be captured and evaluated also helps.

Finally, a warning:  public relations is often so successful are launching what appear to be independent campaigns and causes that regulators are beginning to take note. The article cites the case of the US Federal Trade Commission which has published new guidelines for bloggers requiring them to disclose whether they have received payment for writing about particular products or services.

All in all, a heart-warming story of communications facing up to the economic and technological challenges of the new world order. Y’know there’s nothing like a bit of good PR…

Read the article from The Economist here.

“Giant cheque?” I hear you say. “What on earth does he mean?”

Well, gentle reader, I mean the numerous photographs of giant cheques that appear, all too frequently, in local newspapers and the odd trade magazine and are, to be honest, the bane of the photo editor’s life. In short, the giant cheque picture is the low water mark of news photography. It is the lowest common denominator of the lowest kind; it is the cliche of cliches, the Jedward of popular journalism, the death of the imagination.

Nothing demeans an organisation more, or scuppers its PR reputation so quickly, as sending a picture of the MD and Shona from accounts and the local MP holding some swollen NatWest cheque made out for just over one thousand quid to the local dogs’ home. It’s not the dogs – the good cause – I’m complaining about you understand; it’s the lack of creativity and professionalism on the part of the press officer which prompted him or her to suggest: “What about a picture of a giant cheque?”

There are hundreds of ways of illustrating charity donation stories, so why o why is giant cheque the default image? See my gallery below and weep. And if you’ve any other examples of this type of depraved photo you’d like to highlight, drop me a line.

So how did the dog raise the money? Or is it a cow?

Some very tall people (apparently)

This cheque is a hard hat zone

Thinks: Why me? Why me?

Formation cheque dancing

New hires Victoria Sisson and Alexandra Thompson will lead the agency’s growth drive.

Victoria Sisson has been appointed PR Director and joins from insurer QBE having spent over 16 years with a variety of financial services brands including asset manager Investec. She was also formerly marketing manager for Getty Images.

Alexandra Thompson has been appointed PR Consultant joins from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) where she worked closely with the financial adviser arm, the Personal Finance Society. She has experience of both insurance and financial services PR.

The pair have over 25 years’ experience between them of asset management, personal finance, mortgages, capital markets, insurance and reinsurance. Reporting to Adrian Beeby, Head of Media Relations, the duo are tasked with building FWD’s client roster outside of general insurance, the sector FWD launched into. The agency has the largest number of insurance-related clients of any UK PR and marketing agency.

FWD founder and Managing Director Michael Gaughan, commented: “Since our launch in 2000, we have successfully carved out a well-founded niche for ourselves in the insurance sector and we now see tremendous opportunities to duplicate this success within financial services.”

“The new team are well-placed to deliver that success for the business. Victoria was recently voted one of the ‘Top 100 PR contacts in the City’ by journalists, while Alexandra brings in-depth understanding of broader financial services which will help support our new direction. In fact we have already celebrated our first significant non-insurance new business wins following their arrival and we look forward to announcing these, as well as further successes, over the coming year.”

For further information, please contact:

Adrian Beeby,
Head of Media Relations, FWD

T  020 7623 2368
M 07879 403564
E   adrian.beeby@fwdmarketing.co.uk