Questioning the contribution?

A few days ago while driving at work and listening the morning news, once more I understood the extend of deprecation of PR’s role in my country. The broadcaster of a highly respected radio station was wondering why the Greek Ministry of Education included in its budget, during these difficult times, the amount of 15.000€ for PR activities! Can you imagine it?

It is true that still in Greece there is a lack of knowledge concerning PR profession and its contribution to the achievement of effective relationship building.
The last decade there was a huge improvement towards the acceptance of PR profession by the communication market as well as by the general public. Nevertheless, many things have to be done till we may achieve the recognition the profession experiences in other western societies.
The main reasons for this lack of appreciation are that:
 A number of persons present themselves as PR practitioners and offer ambiguous level of services
 Media entitle PR gurus persons that have no actual relation to the profession
 There is a lack of legal rules according to which the professionals are eligible to offer PR services


PR practitioners should see this situation as an excellent opportunity to communicate their job contribution as best as possible. At the end, communicating effectively is not what we are supposed to do better?

Twitter & PR practice

Twitter, since its launch in 2006, is an excellent tool in the hands of communication specialists. It allows organizations to communicate in a direct, informal way with its interest groups and create an active online, virtual community of followers.



Although Twitter shares some common characteristics with other social media - products of the last decade’s technological developments - it forces its users to be concise by responding with a maximum of 140-character messages. Further more, it is a mean that provides the unique ability to the user, of posting a tweet regardless of where he /she is (e.g. via mobile).

Its benefits have been identified by PR professionals who based on the special needs of its communication program, take full advantage of it.

More specifically it:

* Provides an instant access to an organization news
* Adds the human element in strictly business relationships
* Promotes the loyalty of followers
* Is an extremely valuable tool for the effective crisis management / especially in cases of emergency, due to its real time monitoring aspect

I am employed in the Tourism sector and my recent registration to Twitter proved to be extremely helpful! As I chose the TRAVEL option from the Interests list, I receive on a daily basis news related to new destinations, hotels, travel packages, travel guides and tips from trustworthily sources such as nymag.travel, Frommer’s, Conde Nast Traveller. Thus not only I save time and money but also it is a precious tank of ideas that promote my creativity!

MarthaTalks.com

As I was reading about the tactics followed by communication specialists for the effective communication during a crisis and more specifically about the role of blogs and web-sites, I was thinking of Martha Stewart’s case.

Martha Stewart has been the incontestable lifestyle icon for more than 25 years. She has founded the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. while she has signed a number of books on the domestic arts and entertaining. In 2005 she has been involved in a financial scandal and she has been imprisoned for several months.

Just hours after she was indicted, Martha Stewart communication team has launched MarthaTalks.com, a site aimed at presenting her side of the story to the publics, formulating a ground of support and repairing her reputation.

Since its introduction, more than six million people have visited this website and over 40,000 people have sent emails expressing their support. The immediate launch of the site provided Martha Stewart an excellent platform to express herself, where each of her statements was first carefully designed by her PR team and lawyers. Although checked in every detail, the side included a disclaimer that each note was a personal statement from Martha Steward and not issued by or on behalf of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. Once out of prison, Martha Stewart lapsed the domain name MarthaTalks.com and started the work for rebuilding her media empire.

The web is for sure an excellent PR tool during a crisis and it seems Martha Stewart made full use of it. But I have some considerations whether it was a correct action to take of from her communication strategy the Marthatalks.com after her release from jail, or as it was an established successful mean of personal communication with her fans, she should use it for uploading messages about her new activities!

Online shopping & PR activities

In 2007 in an article of The Sunday Times it was estimated that by 2010, UK shoppers would spend £78 billion a year online. In 2010, the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) reported according to Reuters, that Britain - which is the largest online market - worth around 48 billion euros. Although quit a big deviation from the original estimation of £ 78, it is obvious that online shopping has gained a significant market share of overall sales.
This shopping culture has been identified by retailers as an excellent opportunity to expand their operations and influence. Day by day is increased the number of people that are choosing to research on the web for purchase opportunities.
In most European countries, it is almost taken for granted that the recognized firms have a well-organized website through which, consumers may purchase online, their products.
As the market sets these new rules, which was the product of the development of new technologies, it was imperative PR specialists to develop the know how and tools for reaching these online target groups. Many companies have created and uploaded on the Internet blogs and other social media related to fashion trends.
A successful example is this of Net A Porter which after signing in, you become a member and you have access to a number of fresh trendy services. Among these my favorite is to discover the designers I love and Net A Porter twice per week informs me with an e-mail about their exciting new pieces that have been added in their collections. You may try it at Net-a-porter.com!!!

The Chase Corp campaign

As I was studing about the opportunities new media offer to PR specialists, I made a research on the available case studies in order to become more expecit to me their contribution to innovative and effective communication with publics . During this process I found out some info about an awarded on line campaign that I would like to share with you!

The campaign that will be discussed is called “What a fun to be here”, was designed and implemented by the PR agency Rogalski Grigoriou Public Relations and won the PR On A Shoestring Award on the 2009 Golden World Awards by PRWeek.

More analytically:

A Romanian enterprise Chase Corp decided to finance a campaign for the improvement of Romania’s image, as its board of directors strongly believed that the bad country image has negative impact on business activity as well.

At that point, was clear that the general image concerning Romania was not flattering, although this perception was not derived from personal experience but from stories heard and read on the news. Althoug many institutions launced communication campaigns in order to improve the country’s reputation, they proved to be ineffective as they communicated very official and formal messages.


The main objectives set, were to:

-Develop a platform where people could join ideas and experiences about Romania (Virtual Bucharest)
-Make in a short time this platform known at national and international level and create a community that would have the role of campaigners
-Make the campaign self sustainable in financial terms
-Promote the debate and as a result individual actions, in order to restore the existing image

The campaign was based on the concept of mixing virtual and real worlds by creating happenings and gave people a platform to express themselves. This platform called Virtual Bucharest was a reproduction of the city center of Bucharest, that among others, included museum collections, conference rooms equipped for live broadcasts and cross reality events – meaning events that simultaneously happened in real and virtual life. Virtual Bucharest was also included a marketplace in order the project to have the financial autonomy discussed above.

The outcomes of the campaign were really impressive, as 199 articles about the project were released in a 3 month period, 12,221 persons visited Virtual Bucharest the first day of its operations, with a peak of 76.589 visitors per day by February 2, while Virtual Bucharest was voted as the 3rd best case presented by Second Life with a loyal community of more than 40.000 people.
For me, the most impressive in this campaign is not its tremendous success but the fact it was the product of a private business initiative not even directly connected with the Chase Corp operations. A great example of a progressive business way of thinking!