Spokesperson Working Overtime

I'm don't own a Toyota, and the implications of the faulty accelerator pedal on Toyota's UK customers and their reputation are not fully clear as yet, but I have been impressed by Scott Brownlee who has been the face of Toyota in the UK around this crisis.

It seems that I have not been able to turn on the radio or watch a news programme in the last 24 hours without seeing him interviewed.

Clearly this is a HUGE issue for Toyota but when faced with a crisis of this proportion it is often hard for spokespeople to remain calm, consistent, responsive and clear. From where I'm sitting he has done all four.

Although I am not convinced that holding an updated accelerator pedal in all interviews is necessarily that helpful - especially radio.

How to Report the News

Contains strong language

Can PR Drive Sales?

This post was first published on the blog of my colleague Kate Hartley. Food for thought.

We're always being asked to demonstrate what return on investment we can promise to clients - and from various conversations I've had with colleagues in the industry, we're not the only agency to be asked. If a client spends 5k with us, what will they make back?

It's an almost impossible question to answer - and trust me, I've tried as hard as anyone to come up with a metric that shows the direct impact of PR on sales. Note here that I'm talking about a direct link from PR to sales rather than the things we can track rather more easily (reputation, awareness, positioning etc).

The problem is that mostly we have no real control over the end product we're promoting. We can choose not to get involved, or we can spot problems and feed them into the R&D process - but ultimately, we rely on our clients to produce things that people want.Recently, we've worked with a company that lets people compare the best prices and buy stuff from their mobile phones. It launched a very clever iPhone app, and we thought it might fly. We drafted the launch release, got some great photos, and talked to a lot of journalists. A half-page in The Sun later, and the company was top of the paid apps list on iTunes, with 30,000 people paying to download the app the first three days (it was then used 400,000 times in the first week). Did PR influence the sales? Absolutely.

Six months ago, we did something similar for another company, operating in the same sort of market. It too produced an iPhone app, we helped the company gets lots of exposure, and... nothing. Very little impact on sales. And yet, the coverage was just as good - the journalists and we all thought it was a decent product. Did PR influence sales? Not at all.

The difference was that people wanted the first product, and they didn't want the second one.While media coverage is great at bringing a good product to the attention of potential customers, it won't persuade them to buy something they don't want; and it won't gloss over something that doesn't work. Which is why I'm yet to be convinced that it is possible to guarantee a direct sales return on a PR investment. I'd love to know what others think.

Because the pictures are better!

It comes as no surprise to me that a survey of 1000 CEOs, Whitehall permanent secretaries and media leaders - The Thought Leadership Index by TLG -has identified that radio is the most influential medium. Television came second, print third, and online fourth.

These results might reflect the average age of those surveyed, but as someone with a radio in almost every room at home (including the garage) I fully understand the attraction. You can do other things while listening, 'the pictures are better' and the range of subjects available seem broader and more varied than on television.

As the survey suggests part of the attraction may well be the 'listen again' opportunities available online. So is online really in fourth place?

Either way - long live radio. You won't find me shouting at GMTV presenters first thing in the morning, something that John Humphries is quite capable of driving me to.

Don’t shoot the messenger

I was stuck by a report in The Telegraph today that Lord Mandelson maybe taking on the role of unofficial information minister for the Government. This could include video briefings via the Downing Street website and weekly on-the-record briefings with journalists.

Putting party politics to one side, I welcome any developments that make the process of Government more transparent and easier to understand for the electorate. The key is going to be making sure that the information, dare I say message, is not lost in negativity towards the spokesman.

Lord Mandelson’s career has been controversial as it has been successful and you have to ask if this was a commercial communication whether you might recommend a less contentious spokesperson. On the other hand we all know that gaining mass media attention often requires a name – celebrity, business person or politician. It is a tough call but I for one will be putting the Downing Street briefings into my RSS reader and watching with interest.

Pumped and Dumped

I have to agree with Ross Furlong’s comment on a PR Week survey published today that agencies often get ‘pumped and dumped’ in the pitch process. The survey surmised that getting paid for pitch ideas is a good thing, with 83 percent of respondents in favour of payment for thinking.

The PR Week piece does not mention if the survey was of in-house PRs or agency but this is not a new debate on the agency side. An agency I was running in the late-90s received £10,000 from a car manufacturer for an idea that we pitched. I don’t recall being paid for any ideas before or since.

The other bigger issue is the pitch process itself which often leave agencies feeling bruised and out of pocket for the pitch costs. Although other disciplines seem to have it tougher. Sir Martin Sorrell mentioned at last week’s PRCA Conference that WPP had submitted a media pitch document that ran to an incredible 36,000 pages. Ouch!

My view is that if I was on the client side I would be happy with the current pitch process.

I guess that the question consultants should be asking themselves is whether the fact that payment is such a rare thing is a reflection of the quality of our ideas, massive over supply of agencies or simple commercial commonsense on part of the prospective client?

What are you selling? I’ve never heard of you.

Whether you believe that the end of the recession is in sight or it is a dead cat bounce, being able to add new clients and fees is crucial for any agencies success.

I got an email from new business agency Rainmaker a few weeks ago pushing the results of the annual Rainmaker survey which highlights what clients like, and don’t like about how agencies approach and sell to them.

It is well worth a read. Three points in particular stood out for me:

1. Overall, the general impression is that the economic situation has increased the quantity of approaches decision-makers are receiving from agencies, in many cases at the expense of quality.

2. 71% of the respondents felt that agencies do oversell to them, and that it has a negative effect on that agency’s chances of working with them. A further 10% agreed that agencies oversell, but were more forgiving of why they do it – ‘a necessary evil’.

3. When asked specifically about pet hates, we received a variety of responses. The most common response was when they are approached by people who haven’t done their homework, or demonstrate a lack of understanding of the business – 30% of respondents mentioned this.

All good reminders on what we need to avoid when approaching prospective clients. But it seems that we maybe missing a trick. Surely the best recommendation is a personal one, rather than trying to differentiate your agency from the UK’s 3000 PR agencies through a cold call.

During the summer and with my PRCA hat on I had lunch with Anthony Wreford, Deputy Chairman of Omnicom Europe. When asked which agencies he thought were going to be successful during the economic downturn he suggested that it was those with two key differentiators.

Firstly, winning agencies will have a proposition that is clearly defined, well packaged and most importantly differentiated. I’m not convinced that all of us would be able to answer yes if asked whether our proposition truly differentiated our agency from competitors, big or small.

Secondly, he felt that it was those agencies that had a real network of contacts to sell the proposition to that would benefit fastest from any uplift in the economy. Again how many of us can honestly say that we have an active networking programme in place that is effective and consistent? If the answer is no then it seems that now is time to start to get your senior team members to get out there and make contacts.

So good advice from Rainmaker and Anthony Wreford, and something I am sure that we would recommend to our clients.

The rubber HAS hit the road

Very pleased to see that Porter Novelli has won the won PR Week's 'The Big Idea'.

In her video interview for PR Week (above) Porter-Novelli's associate director Shilpa Saul said that she felt that PR was best placed to provide media neutral communications because it demands real understanding of audiences; the creation of two way dialogue and on-going communications.

Seems she was right.

NSPCC director of comms John Grounds, said that Porter Novelli won The Big Idea because of its impressive insight into key target audiences.

We should take heart from this independent confirmation that PR has the central role to play in the development and implementation of media neutral campaigns.

Time for the rubber to hit the road

I’m going to be watching the results of PR Week’s initiative – The Big Idea - with interest. It’s the first time that I can remember a public pitch for a media neutral campaign for a major organisation such as the NSPCC, with all the major communications disciplines involved.

Now I know I’m hugely biased, but I would have thought that Porter Novelli would be able to demonstrate that PR really is the best placed to deliver a media neutral. After all, a good PR campaign demands a detailed understanding of all aspects of an organisation, and the various media channels that are best to influence customers, employees and stakeholders. Plus, with a fee for time based model channel decisions should not be influenced by potential revenue returns from specific media choices.

In the video above Mindshare’s MD Ita Murphy explains why she thinks a media agency is best placed to deliver a media neutral campaign.

Harsh. But is it fair?

Thanks to Jon Silk at PR Geek