Gorkana/

Regulation requiring an integrated communications strategy

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:17:00 +0100

Grayling director Sophia Harrison makes the case that the increased media activity around Select Committees is symptomatic of the hybrid communications now needed when dealing with regulatory issues.

Since 2010, chairmen and members of Treasury Select Committees have had to stand for election. This has brought a sea-change not just in the way Select Committees are being utilised by their members but the use of media to push for regulatory change. We are seeing this is playing out to great effect in the financial services arena.

While Committees have no legal authority to change regulation, they are driving debates through all traditional and social media channels unlike ever before. Compared to the last Parliament, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of inquiries – where they are expected to behave like judge and jury and then deliver informed solutions on massively complex subjects to the media world at large.

Whereas once organisations appearing before Select Committees were simply providing insight and experience to the political process, the emphasis has now changed to giving ‘evidence’. Companies are now turning up at the House of Commons with a full communications programme in place to support them through the process – from crisis management and a robust rebuttal plan to full marketing and social media strategies. Appearing before a Select Committee can now have serious consequences for an organisation’s reputation; how do communications professionals advise their clients and boards on how to deal with the complex corridors of Westminster beyond the traditional arena of Public Affairs? Welcome the “Hybrid Communications Professional”.

To successfully operate and survive, corporate communicators need to blend the once-discrete practices of public affairs, investor relations, social, crisis management and traditional media. The simple ‘response statement’ will no longer cut it.

As Baby-Boomers and Generation X grapple with the changing face of the media especially in the City, young Millenials are storming ahead, however we are now all expected to have one thing in common, to be jack of all trades and masters of many. Whilst experience of financial cycles still counts it is no longer enough to just know the editor. Whether it be fund raising via linkedin, the weekly internal CEO blog, conferences via Youtube/Vimeo or Facebook, the interactive landscape is broader and more demanding than ever before.

So to those of us who are still treading cautiously in the realms of social media, it is time to embrace fully and ensure it sits at the heart of any recommended financial communications programme and the underlying strategy. At the next Treasury Select Committee hearing you will no doubt be following Twitter with those doing the grilling, our regular political and financial commentators and seeing the how their opinions play out to all stakeholders, the reaction and subsequent impact on your business.

Sophia Harrison, director of financial and professional services at Grayling.

Sophia can be reached at sophia.harrison@uk.grayling.com.

Stephen Waddington elected 2014 CIPR president

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:03:00 +0100

Ketchum's Stephen Waddington has been voted president of the CIPR for 2014.

Stephen, who was up against Dr Jon White, polled 68% of the vote from the CIPR membership and wider PR community.

Stephen is European social media and digital director at Ketchum and currently serves on the CIPR Executive Board. He is also chair of the Institute’s Policy and Campaigns committee.

Stephen said: "The CIPR, as the professional body representing public relations in the UK and further afield, stands at a moment in time. We have a real opportunity to assert our value as a management discipline that enables organisations to engage in a two-way conversation, and ultimately a relationship, with audiences both internal and external.

"We also have the opportunity to improve the reputation of our industry via professional development. Huge thanks to Dr Jon White for a contest worthy of the opportunity that our profession faces, and to everyone that got behind my campaign. The hard work starts now."

Jane Wilson, CIPR chief executive, said: "It has been a pleasure to work with Stephen already on the CIPR Board and he will bring great enthusiasm and commitment to the role of president elect, becoming president in 2014. I wish him every success.

"Jon White has made a great contribution to the industry as one of public relations leading practitioners and an internationally renowned academic. I look forward to Jon continuing to contribute to the CIPR as a member of Council and a leading mind on research, planning and measurement. Both candidates have my admiration and respect."

The full election report, a feedback survey on the 2013 election and further information can be found here.

London Press Club Awards 2013

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:01:00 +0100

Lord Coe has won an inaugural Londoner of the Year Award from the London Press Club his chairmanship of Locog.

In a video tribute to editors and senior journalists at the London Press Club Annual awards, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said in a video tribute: “2012 will go down as one of the great cultural achievements of our city and indeed our country, and I don’t just mean Gangnam Style and Fifty Shades of Grey. Think back to the Diamond Jubilee and of course the Olympic and Paralympic Games, where absolutely everything, spectacularly, failed to go wrong.

“The police did fantastically and the armed services people did wonderfully well, Team GB scored more medals per head than any country on earth, the weather was terrific and one man was at the heart of it all: one man worked for the better part of a decade to deliver those fantastic games.

“That man is Lord Sebastian Newbold Coe. Congratulations, Seb, on being made Londoner of the Year.”

The award was presented to Lord Coe by London Press Club president Lord Black at the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers near St Paul’s.

Lord Coe said: “I am deeply honoured to accept this award, which is a testament to how our city came together to welcome the world for an unforgettable summer of sport.”

Doug Wills, chairman of the London Press Club, commended Coe for “bringing off what many thought to be an impossibility — making the London Olympics a triumph”.

Also at the awards, John Humphrys, presenter on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, was named Broadcast Journalist of the Year, partly for his probing interview with former BBC Director-General George Entwistle last year.

Humphrys said the award should have gone to his BBC colleague the foreign correspondent Paul Wood. "All I did was get the Director-General sacked," he said.

Humphrys praised the role of newspapers as part of the wider news media. "They do the stuff the BBC cannot do," he said. "God knows what we would do without you."

The former BBC Newsnight reporter Liz MacKean criticised BBC bosses as she accepted a joint award for Scoop of the Year for her role in uncovering abuse by Jimmy Savile.

"They have singularly failed to acknowledge that the BBC should have run the story," she said. The award was also made to her colleague Meirion Jones, to ITV's Mark Williams-Thomas and The Oldie's Miles Goslett for their parts in exposing Savile's behaviour.

The blogger of the year was Susi Boniface, author of the Fleet Street Fox blog, which was praised for giving "an insider's perspective of what it was like to be a popular newspaper reporter".

The Daily Mail's Chris Tookey was named Arts Reviewer of the Year. Business Journalist of the Year was the investigative reporter Tom Bergin of Reuters for a "string of business scoops that rocked big corporates both here and in the US".

The winner of the Edgar Wallace Award was Caitlin Moran of The Times.

The London Press Club praised the Evening Standard for the high quality of its output and said it had enjoyed a "very good year" and moved into profit. The Times was named Daily Newspaper of the Year and the Sunday newspaper of the year was the Mail on Sunday.

At the awards, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told in a key-note speech of the challenges shared by Scotland Yard and Sir Bernard said he wanted young Londoners of all ethnic backgrounds to see a career in the police as a "fantastic vocation" which stood alongside other leading professions.

The London Press Club award winners are:

Broadcast Journalist of the Year John Humphrys (Today Programme, BBC Radio 4)

Business Journalist of the Year Tom Bergin (Reuters)

Scoop of the Year Miles Goslett (The Oldie) – Savile abuse scandal Liz MacKean and Meirion Jones (Newsnight, BBC2) – Savile abuse scandal Mark Williams-Thomas (Exposure, ITV) – Savile abuse scandal

Blog of the Year Fleet Street Fox (Susie Boniface)

Arts Reviewer of the Year Chris Tookey (Daily Mail)

Daily Newspaper of the Year The Times

Sunday Newspaper of the Year The Mail on Sunday

Edgar Wallace Award Caitlin Moran

Gorkana meets... Sky News

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:14:00 +0100

At a recent Gorkana breakfast Sky News’ news reporter Richard Suchet and defence and news correspondent Alistair Bunkall explained all about ‘super value’, the risks of over-briefing clients and why PRs need to think multi-platform.

Background

Richard began at Sky News in 2006, spending three years as a radio newsreader for Magic before becoming a news reporter. He started his career in newspapers, working for the Daily Telegraph.

Alistair was appointed news correspondent specialising in defence issues in October last year. He was previously a Sky business correspondent for two years and also worked for BBC One O’clock News, ITV Central and ITV Thames Valley before joining Sky in 2007.

Sky was the first 24-hour news channel, starting 26 years ago, and has built a reputation as the first to break major news, renowned for its speed of coverage and the flexibility of its reporting across multi platforms. It is a UK channel with bureaus in Sydney, Beijing, Delhi, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem, Moscow, Brussels, Johannesburg, Washington, New York and Los Angeles.

It is received in more than 106 million TV households and Sky News Radio became the sole provider of all national and international news to consumer stations in the UK when it took over the contract to supply the IRN, as well as its existing clients, in 2009. It reaches 34 million customers a week over 300 commercial stations.

Although many young people consume Sky’s sport and entertainment services the vast majority of Sky News’ audience, around 88%, are 34+ and many of them are in their 50s.

Remit and structure

There is no particular focus when it comes to Sky News’ remit – they aim to be flexible as a reporting unit and always have their ear to the ground, reacting quickly to stories as they break.

On an average day there are four or five general news reporters available to Sky News and the newsdesk acts as “an air traffic control”, sending reporters all around the country.

It is difficult to exactly pinpoint what makes a good Sky News story, but the channel has won awards for covering large news stories and live events, including the London riots in 2011.

Ultimately, like so many other news organisations, the Sky News team is looking for pictures to tell a story. Good pictures can be used across the multiple of Sky News’ platforms and can on occasions be sold onto other news bureaus throughout the world. The more platforms a story can be used across the more it is worth to Sky and they will spend time and resources on it.

Richard said the nature of 24-hour rolling news meant there is no ownership of a story and stories are passed onto other journalists at the end of a shift, but this fluidity does bring a “fantastic variety” he added.

Defence stories

Ali’s remit is to cover all defence matters within the UK and abroad and he largely deals with the MOD, particularly the three main armed services, as well as Britain’s defence manufacturers, Lockhead Martin and BAE.

His role covering defence is very different to his previous life as a business reporter. The world of PR in defence, compared to that in business, is a lot smaller, but in-house defence communication teams are extremely well briefed and efficient at supplying him with the latest information he needs to build a good defence story.

Ali has broken many defence stories and it is a key journalistic goal for him. He finds it exciting and he feels a lot of stories come out of the blue, usually after having networked his contacts to source newsworthy information. He does however not shun information from PRs which has been given elsewhere and if stories are followed by other news organisations he will not rule out covering them for Sky, but invariably he will try and convince the PR to give him the news first.

The daily routine

There is not a typical day for Richard or Ali and they are flexible to accommodate breaking stories.

When breaking the news first at Sky, the editorial team relies on the accuracy of their journalists and have trust in their ability to be accurate. They do not go through lengthy approval processes and are prepared to be wrong sometimes. Being first however nowadays, added Richard, can only last for 30 seconds, with the use of Twitter other commentators can pick up Sky News’ stories immediately.

Although the main thrust of Sky News is still television, the ratio between that and digital is changing very quickly and there are now between 650,000 to 700,000 unique users on the Sky News website every day, a readership akin to a small national newspaper.

What PRs can provide

A planning department helps schedule some of Sky News’ upcoming content and a smaller department looks ahead to Sky News Sunrise, the breakfast programme. PRs with good stories should contact the planning department early allowing them time to put the building blocks in place to get the best coverage. In addition PRs who can monitor the day’s news agenda and put clients forward for interviews on the big news stories of the day are welcome.

The main editorial meeting takes place at 8am in the morning and the sooner ideas from PRs arrive, the easier it is to float them around amongst team members.

PRs should always think about the pictures they can supply, which if good enough will be used by the Sky News team. Talking heads with the knowledge to contribute to the depth of a story are appreciated too.

The best interviewees are those who communicate in a natural way and always answer the question “in their own skin”, PRs should remind their clients to relax and not over prepare. Ali felt that too much media training could mean the natural flow of a conversation is lost.

Sky News wants to speak with the most senior person within an organisation, and they tend to start at the top and work their way down. The bigger the name for a story the more weight it will lend to it and therefore the higher up the running order it will appear, explained Richard.

The team feel indifferent about embargoes. Often in the evenings when covering the next day’s papers they will report a newspaper’s “exclusive” news story which they were aware of, but were bound by the terms of an embargo. The Sky News team will always adhere to embargoes however.

Written statements are a real bug bear for 24-hour rolling television news - sometimes they are useful if there is a breaking news story and comment is needed. More often than not however it is a way for a company to get around being filmed.

"Super value" is a phrase used by the Sky News team to describe the big names which appear on the channel's screen. If a PR can provide someone who brings "super value" this will add weight to a story, exciting the team and will lead to it being featured higher up the running order of stories.

B-roll video footage supplied by an organisation can be useful occasionally but it should not come with logos and there is a danger the footage is “manicured”, therefore the Sky News team tend to not accept them.

If a story is strong the team would prefer PRs to pick up the phone rather than email them, given the volume of emails they receive daily. The team value trusted relationships with PRs and will try and meet with them.

Health stories are popular with the team and having reported the initial discovery the team likes to feature case studies on people who have received treatments.

To make the next day’s news, quotes should be sent to Sky News at around 5 o’clock so they can be assembled and added to news items, 11pm that night is too late.

Sky News Radio deals with a higher volume of stories each day than its television equivalent. They write hundreds of stories and a forward planner goes through press releases each day to work out what will and will not work. Radio is a much younger audience and features ‘softer’ news. Radio is also likely to cover off campaigns backed by celebrities and PRs should not underestimate the size of the IRN commercial radio audience. Sky News Radio and Sky News TV work together and if radio sees something which will work well for television they will pass it on.

Doug Keighley

Gorkana meets...Red Local

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:00:00 +0100

Gorkana catches up with Saska Graville, deputy editor of Red, about the launch of Red Local, a new free glossy newspaper featuring local newsy content through a Red lens.

Red has launched a bi-annual free glossy newspaper for commuters – what’s the thinking behind the launch?

We wanted to target busy Red women in key areas with localised content but with a glossy magazine look and feel. Red Local highlighted amazing local women and things to do in your area, all through a Red lens. The newspaper also has vouchers for the magazine and a special subscription deal to drive people back into the Red brand.

The freemium model is booming - what are the advantages?

The only real advantage is easier distribution but there a difference between distribution and circulation, which is paid for content.

Where and how will Red Local be distributed?

200,000 copies of Red Local are distributed to commuters at key train stations in London and the North West by Red vendors. A full list of locations can be found at www.redonline.co.uk/news/in-the-news/red-local-newspaper.

Do you expect readers to be different from readers of the main magazine?

Red Local has the same editorial values as Red, so it will appeal to our existing readership. But we're also hoping to attract new readers, who might not be familiar with the monthly brand. We're also bringing in the voices of the Red online community, with lots of @redmagdaily call-outs for quotes and opinions from our social media followers.

Talk us through the main sections of Red Local.

The idea is to make it all about instant gratification; what to buy/cook/see/book this weekend. It's the ultimate Red edit across fashion, beauty, food, interiors and travel. A key editorial component is that the centre eight pages are localised for each region, making them even more relevant to the readers. For the launch issue, we featured travel getaways in the area as well as local women recommending their favourite things to do. We can also, because of the shorter lead times, be more "newsy" in Red Local than we can be in Red. For the first issue, we addressed the Government's childcare benefit changes by asking: "Are stay-at-home mothers discriminated against?"

How will you retain the spirit of Red magazine?

The look, feel and tone of voice are all Red. And of course, it's produced by the Red editorial team, so it has the same outlook.

How many pages are you looking to fill for each edition?

The launch issue was 24 pages.

How can PRs help with content?

Pitch to your usual Red editorial contacts, but bear in mind that Red Local has much shorter lead times, so we can include things that we might not be able to use in the monthly magazine.

It will include content created specifically for the North West and South East – what should PRs keep in mind when pitching idea?

It's a great opportunity to pitch local content that might be too specific for the monthly, national magazine. So new shops, upcoming arts events, hotels etc - anything that they think will appeal to Red's audience of intelligent, stylish 30–something women.

The next edition is coming out in October. When should PRs be feeding in ideas?

We'll start the planning process in July, so from them onwards.

What online activity is taking place to complement Red Local’s launch?

We engaged readers before the issue dropped on talking points via Twitter including #stylelifesaver #reddebate. We also launched the Red Network events, hosted a news story about Red Local and where to get it, and ran lots of social activity about the launch asking readers what they thought, if they’d got there’s yet.

And finally, do you expect other glossies to follow with a similar brand extension?

Depends if they have the appetite and /or consumer insight that leads them to this kind of innovation. It feels like a very Red territory currently.