Archive | May, 2012

Are business cards a waste of time?

9 May

I have a pile of business cards on my desk which have been thrown in a pot after meeting a variety of people and haven’t been looked at again since. In a world where people have often connected on LinkedIn or Twitter ahead of actually meeting is it necessary to have a card with a list of ways to connect on?

I asked myself this very question about a year ago when Berkeley PR was revamping its staff photography. You may have seen from my avatar we asked everyone to bring a prop in that said something about them outside of work for a photo as well as the standard head and shoulder shots. The results were brilliant and far more interesting than the same tedious shots you see at any company.

We were so happy with the shots we have actually put them onto everyones business cards which have given them a new lease of life. Client love them and always want to get the whole set – whether it is to take the piss or just to learn something about their team.

Journalists always find them hilarious and we have used them to good effect at a variety of conferences and exhibitions to start conversations which often lead to us building better relationships. Journalists rarely forget us after seeing our business cards which stops us from disappearing is a sea of PR pros.

At new business meetings they can break the ice. By handing out the cards at the start of a meeting we have found that we have shown we don’t take ourselves too seriously and this opening exchange usually settles nerves and allows us to get on with talking about what we are good at rather than worrying if we have built a rapport with them.

In short, I still think that there is a place for business cards but not bland or boring ones.

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Is McDonalds the Dr Evil of the blogging world?

8 May


I was reading the paper this bank holiday Sunday when I saw an interesting piece about how McDonalds is approaching blogger outreach. After a couple of disastrous forays into using social media it is now trying to build an army of friendly bloggers to drown out noise about pink slime, McDstories and recruitment. McDonalds are trying to recruit 1m bloggers which sounds like the social media version of Dr Evil!!

The Family Arches (as the group are being called) was vetted by McDonalds who looked for bloggers with influence who also liked McDonalds. Sounds like a sensible approach until I later read the comments of one of their spokespeople: “We looked at their social profiles and found out who they were. Now we’re giving them information so that they can advocate for us. And if they start doing stuff we don’t like, we are going to take action.” It is that last bit I don’t like.

The problem I have is about transparency. If McDonalds speak to a journalist you can generally be confident that the journalist will have done their research and what they are reporting is factually correct and looking out for the best interest of their readers. Can the same be said of the bloggers McDonalds have recruited?

I think the Family Arches should publish a badge or make it clear that McDonalds is incentivising the publisher to write the content they are posting. Without this there is the chance that a mummy blogger interested in having the chance to win a trip to New York will post a piece about the nutritional value of McDonalds to children without properly researching it. If that blogger has a big following, McDonalds will have got what it wanted but will the blogger lose credibility with their readers?

This approach feels a bit like the PR equivalent of advertorials. The only difference is that in publications will make it clear it is a sponsored piece, which I am afraid that bloggers won’t. I hope this isn’t the start of large corporates bribing their way to good coverage because there is every chance that if a blogger falls for this without the appropriate level of transparency they could lose their credibility and years’ worth of hard work to build influence could be flushed down the toilet.

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Meet the media: Chris Maxwell, Director

2 May

The next interview in my meet the media series is Chris Maxwell from Director. I met Chris for the first time recently and as well as knowing a heck of a lot about lower league football I found him to be one of the most approachable and straight talking journalists I have met. It was a no brainer to ask him to take part in the series and I am delighted that he agreed. His background was working for a broadcaster so it is particularly interesting to see how his experience of PR in that space differs from that at Director. He also didn’t have a photo so he joins the ranks of the mystery men of journalism. Enjoy.

Name: Chris Maxwell
Title I work for: Director

Paul Stallard: What is your pet hate of PR?
Chris Maxwell: A lack of updates on the status of a request. If it’s looking unlikely, I’d rather know immediately so we can give the space to something else.

PS: What is the best way to contact you?
CM: Email. I’m often out at events, conducting interviews or in meetings – so the phone can be a little hit and miss.

PS: Do you think that most PR professionals read the title you write for before contacting you?
CM: In this industry (business journalism) yes. I previously worked in TV journalism and the same could not be said!

PS: How many emails / calls do you get a day?
CM: Around 100 emails and 15 calls.

PS: How has the increase of social media affected traditional journalism?
CM: There seem to be a lot of young writers coming directly from a blogging/social media background who think of themselves as journalists, but lack some of the essential training – most crucially from a research and legal perspective.

PS: Is there a future long term for hard copy publications or will online rule?
CM: I think there will always be a place for hard copies – people still want longer reads, which don’t lend themselves so well to online. But any magazine that isn’t simultaneously embracing digital formats is sure to fall far behind.

PS:  Bar your own, which news titles do you read?
CM: Most regularly The Times and The Guardian plus BBC News and Sky News online.

PS: What is the worst case of PR you have come across?
CM: Worst is a little strong – but on more than one occasion interviews or meetings have been set up that I haven’t requested. Not an appreciated tactic. Awkward.

PS: What do you want from a PR to help make your life easier?
CM: In the initial email pitch, it would be really great to have a top-line of just a sentence or two summing up the entire proposition. Trawling through reams of biog and jargon to find the hook can be frustrating.

PS: Do you believe PR professionals are rude to journalists?
CM: I find the vast majority of people in business PR brilliant to deal with. Again, the TV industry was a different story…

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What my Whiteoaks alumni have taught me

1 May


My first agency was Whiteoaks in Farnham and this was where I started to learn my trade. Although looking back I don’t agree with the way they structure and approach PR,  it is undoubtably a good agency and helped fuel my love for this industry. More importantly, I made some friends as an exec at Whiteoaks that have made a massive impact on my life over the past ten years.

A few have turned into some of my dearest friends whom I have shared all aspects of my life with and others have become benchmarks to push myself against. Others have disappeared altogether, but most have gone on to bigger and better things and it is always good to see a familiar name in PR Week.

What made me think of this was a recent invite to join a mini-Whiteoaks reunion the other week which due to my fractured leg I was unable to attend. The email trail made interesting reading. There were three European PR managers, a UK PR manager, two successful freelance PRs and a couple of marketing managers. There were also names not included in this trail from my time at Whiteoaks that are now also agency MDs or serious players in our industry.

Even in the four years I have been at Berkeley PR I am proud to see a number of my ex-colleagues go on to great things at other agencies or in house.

Why mention this? Well I was talking to one of my account execs this week and told them that they need to treasure the friends and contacts they make now and never alienate anyone. Our industry is far too small and the nature of our work is that people can progress fast and it is always good to stay in touch. Only the very stupid would think that just because you have left the building that circle of influence doesn’t continue to impact your career.

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