PR In A Jar

The Pride of East Hull - Hull KR

Hull KR (a client) hosted the launch of the 'Pride of East Hull' , a revolutionary strategy to increase sports participation, tackle obesity and strengthen community cohesion.  The architect of this initiative is John Prescott MP, also a director of Hull KR, who has worked tirelessly with the club's Education and Sport Trust to bring together education, health and local sporting partners to improve the life-chances of the public of east Hull. 

A Staycation in Lancashire is worth more than a look

by Nathan Smith

I love neologisms, which is just as well because I work in public relations, an industry that does its best to lead in the creation of neologisms.  So imagine my delight when I was asked last week when I was asked by the Lancashire & Blackpool tourist board to speak to some of its members about social media.  Staycation, we’re all having staycation’s I can hear you cry!

All eyes on Milan

By Susan Lefebvre

 

I recently returned from Mido, the Milan eyewear show where our client The Brulimar Optical Group was showing its latest eyewear designs to the European market.  Highlights of their stand included new designs for Bench, Hooch and Playboy and the launch of a new range of gorgeous superhero frames for Batman, Superman and Spiderman that are bound to get children everywhere pulling on their parents’ purse strings.

 

My days were spent at the show meeting with journalists, customers and distributors, but I did get chance to soak up some Milanese culture and taste a few of its gastronomic delights. My top tips are hazelnut gelato, custard-filled brioche and the view from the top of the Duomo!

EMBF Awards - fingers on buzzers!

By Nathan Smith

I was at the second EMBF (Ethnic Minority Business Awards) Awards on Thursday evening.  It was a great event especially if you want to see business succeeding in a difficult environment.  Highlights of the night were Ugochukwu Obi from the African Caribbean Company (pictured) who won the Rising Star Award.  The company is the first social networking site for African and Caribbean students in the UK – a special mention to Obi who despite being initially lost for words did a fantastic acceptance speech.
 

Another popular winner was Olive Strachan (pictured) from Olive Strachan Resources (OSR) who won the International Business Award.  OSR are an international training consultancy, established in 1998 and are now operating successfully through Europe and beyond.

What was particularly interesting about the awards is that the audience on the night voted for the winners via an electronic pad that everyone was given during a celebratory meal.  It’s an interesting twist on the awards theme and I suspect many people appreciated being made to really feel part of the event on the evening.

 

Other winners during the evening were:

Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Umar Mohamed – Deliz Limited

 

Social Enterprise of the Year

Castlemere Community Centre

 

Entrepreneur of the Year

Fazilaq Malek – Fazila Foods

 

Northwest Business of the Year

Gafoor Poultry Products Limited

Ink v storytelling

Seth Godin really has a point - the challenge to PR professionals is not to end up reducing great storytelling to ink because column centimetres offers a 'tangible' evaluation.

Nathan to lead Marketing Workshop for Language Professionals

On 28 April our MD Nathan will be leading a workshop on marketing and PR for language professionals, organized by the Regional Language Network North West.

The half-day workshop in Manchester will cover press releases, feature artciles, basic social media and the essentials of putting together a marketing campaign.

For further information contact Sarah-Ellen Hounslow at the RLN North West, tel:               0161 932 1085       .

Holy Guacamole! Or: how to make sure your custard cuts the media mustard

Far be it from me to condone custard-throwing outside of a Tiswas studio, but I couldn't help myself in noticing a few faux pas on the part of the Mandelson-facing, gunge-hurling protester at the end of last week.

Some tips for next time:

*    Make sure you say something concise about the issue at hand AS you're throwing the custard. This is the bit of footage that will be shown over and over again, so you want there to be a bit of relevant audio that furthers your cause.

*    Wear something that looks like you're there for protest, not something that makes you look like you're just having a mad political moment in the middle of a normal day. This may make it a bit more difficult to approach the custardee, but it will look better.

*    Preferably choose a setting where an entourage / passers-by will react appropriately to the event (with outrage / concern / shock / mild surprise). OK, you may get arrested or even citizen's-arrested, but again, it makes for better telly.

*    Choose someone who's not going to likeably smile at you as you approach them for a 'chat'. It makes you look a bit mean.

I'm not trying to be cavalier about the incident, and certainly not about climate change - just pointing out that protesters aren't always the media-savvy types they used to be.

Language and culture event

By Nathan Smith

Yesterday evening I was honoured to be asked to speak about language and culture in international trade for an event run by the Regional Language Network and hosted by HSBC in Spinningfields.

We have 6 languages in-house at Smith & Smith and we are running a number of pan-European campaigns.  During my talk I tried to share my experiences, highlighting how for us, people with language capabilities tend to be good communicators full stop.  To this end, we’ve consistently tried to recruit staff who either have languages already or who are willing to take on language training.  It’s a policy that’s served us really well to date as has given us a great USP in business.

 

Along with myself the other two speakers were Richard Barnsley from the HSBC who did a terrific job of illustrating his banks support of international trade, and Colin Gore from Skymart who shared some great insights into some of the cultural issues around overseas business.

How do we know who's the daddy on Twitter?

by Nathan Smith

I must say that the ‘Twitter suddenly exploded’ article in this week’s PR week  misses many points and probably just highlights how far the PR industry in the UK is trailing in the area.

The cornerstone of the article relies on Porter Novelli research, the word research is used but surely in its most limited capacity.  The ‘research’ doesn’t outline how many agencies we’re included in the ‘research’ but basically 15 agencies were contacted in asked how many of their staff use Twitter – we are then told that Hotwire are the most active agency (in the UK? World? London? Based on the research?).

The low point comes when we are told that influence is evaluated based on how many users someone has and how often they tweet.

It’s a tardy piece of writing that sheds little light on one of the most fascinating subjects to have emerged in our industry for many a year – how we evaluate influence on twitter is still being debated,  but I can categorically tell you that the explanation given by this article is very wide of the target.

Tonight I’m going to start work on an algorithm that will in no uncertain terms derive once and for all ‘Who’s the Daddy’ when it comes to influence on Twitter.  The elements that are included in the algorithm are as follows:

1)      Followers

2)      Tweets

3)      Retweets

4)      Who you are in the real world.

Out of the above 4, I would say that retweeting and who you really are probably are the most important factors. There are lots of retweet lists popping up all over the web at the moment that are definitely worth considering whenever you talk about influence and twitter in the same sentence.  As for who you are – well that’s just obvious, ask Barack Obama.