That hole, Prime Minister, is a credibility gap!

Troubling times for the Coalition with a series of ‘presentational’ or PR gaffes that have led to the inevitable headlines that the honeymoon is well and truly over. Pasty-gate, charitable giving, jerry cans and the Granny Tax not only provide plenty of headlines, but also give the Eds (Miliband and Balls) an opportunity for a photoshoot at Greggs.

However, it would be wrong to blame the Government’s PR for this (although one suspects the No.10 communication team has had a bit of a roasting recently). The sense I have is that something more strategic is going wrong. Charitable giving appears to cut directly across the Big Society programme. Whacking pensioners threatens the “we are all in this together” reasoning behind the austerity programme (and I suspect threatens to drive a large percentage of those who actually bother to vote into the arms of UKIP).

Next up, I suspect, is the Green Deal. According to the Sunday Telegraph there is currently a battle royal going on between the Treasury and the rest of the Coalition about the Government’s flagship environmental initiative. The Chancellor and a number of other Conservative MPs want it scrapped. The Deputy Prime Minister on the other hand made a major speech last week, which can be read HERE, telling us all that it would revolutionise how we heat our homes. Scrapping it would be rather uncomfortable for a Prime Minister who came into office promising to be the “Greenest Government Ever”.

Now, the Green Deal isn’t perfect and privately many across the building sector (and many MPs) will express deep reservations. I specifically recall one former MP telling me that even a slight move in interest rates in a northward direction will turn the scheme from a ‘Pay As You Save’ scheme into a ‘Pay As You Pay’ scheme.

The point is, this has the potential to be the latest gap between PR and policy, what the American writer Walter Lippmann would have called a ‘credibility gap’ where rhetoric fails to match reality. Whilst I do not expect the Green Deal’s demise to bring down the Coalition, the yawning gaps that keep appearing all have a corrosive effect and can perhaps explain Labour’s current position in the polls.

How not to handle the media!

Can people change? I’ve always taken a charitable view of human nature and have chosen to believe that individuals can turn their lives around, learn a little humility and begin to act a little differently towards their fellow humans. But, I have to say, Tiger Woods is sorely testing this theory!

His post-round interview at the US Masters in April was a monument to stonewalling. It went like this:

Q1: Do you feel you played well enough to win? Answer: “One stroke back. We’ll see.”

Q2. Do you feel you are back in the swing now? Answer: “One stroke back. We’ll see.”

Q3. (Interviewer clearly getting flustered) What are your plans now, are you going to the driving range? Answer: “Gonna eat. I’m starved.”

Thank you Tiger for that in-depth analysis. OK, maybe he was deeply disappointed in his performance (if he’d have made a few more of the putts he used to make he’d have won at a canter) but a little civility towards the poor interviewer and some information for the viewers would not have gone amiss.

Anyway, all of this almost pales into insignificance compared to tweets from Mr Woods and entourage this week.

Firstly, Greg McLaughlin, head of the Tiger Woods Foundation. “Tiger Woods arrives in Philly for AT&T National media day tomorrow. Puts the % of media questions re injury & US Open at greater than 50%”. Ha ha ha!

This was followed by Mr Woods himself a day later with: “Almost press conference time. I’ll donate $1 million to the TW Foundation if no one asks about the leg” and “Press Conference time. Off to visit with my best friends”.

There are several points here. Firstly, Woods is still clearly very angry at the media and seems unable to distinguish between golf writers who bizarrely want to write about golf and The National Enquirer who want to write about his ‘indiscretions’. As any decent PR person will tell you, never ever put an angry person in front of the media and don't give them access to a Twitter account.

Secondly, Geoff Shackelford, the American golf blogger, made this point on Tuesday: “It really is remarkable that at this point they call a press conference after everything that happened - namely the lies - and hope to get nothing but fawning softballs.” Well yes exactly Geoff, the idea that professional golf journalists are going to go to a press conference and not ask about the #1 subject in golf at the moment, namely Woods’ leg, is extraordinary!

One final point. There was much discussion at the time of Woods’ car accident about his need for professional PR support. Personally I was doubtful and the train wreck of the stage managed press conference in Florida confirmed my instincts that he doesn’t listen to anybody.

Now I’m not so sure. Somebody, somewhere has to try and get through to him because we are watching a career, an image, a brand and, most importantly, a life go from very bad to even worse!

The London 2012 Orwellian PR machine cranks into gear!

How are ticket sales for London 2012 going? The reason I ask is that I can’t find any information anywhere. What I can hear is the sound of the 2012 Organising Committee’s Orwellian PR machine going into overdrive with it being the last day for ticket applications and all.

Apparently, according to London 2012 Chief Paul Deighton, applications have “hit the roof” and “since last Friday we have seen a high level go to a really high level”. Yes, well, thank you for that, most illuminating, but how many have you actually sold?

“We have been getting three or four times the applications above and beyond what was coming in for the previous five weeks,” says Paul. That’s all very well but if you only had half a dozen applications over the previous five weeks it wouldn’t add up to much would it?

“I think that a lot of people are ordering quite a number of tickets.” Fabulous, could you quantify that?

Dear God, he goes on and on and on with this banality. “Families seem to be ordering so they can go together.” I’m shocked, really? I thought there was a rule that children had to go to the javelin unaccompanied by an adult!

Anyone who has been in PR over the last 4-5 years, particularly those with clients in the construction sector, will know that the 2012 Organising Committee has held a vice-like grip over 2012 PR. Threats have been issued, PR people have been cowered, some of the biggest companies in the country have feared being unmasked as a London 2012 supplier.

You would think after all that, the organisers would actually provide the world with some useful information, particularly as London 2012 needs to get 25% of its revenue from ticket sales to actually pay for all of this. Well, you’d clearly be wrong!

Have I Got News for You? No, actually.

Is it just me or is the news just not, well, news at the moment?

Last week, we had some particularly curious headlines like “PM Used to Enjoy Wine with Dinner” and then “Man Shared Twin Bedroom with Colleague” and today I turned on the lunch time news to discover that a story about Rooney allegedly, reportedly, supposedly etc, sleeping with a(nother) prostitute was number two in the running order.

Did it put me off my lunch? Yes. Did it surprise me? No. Shame these footballers aren’t as energetic with their tackles as they are with their tackle, really.

If you go along with the “Man Bites Dog” theory then “Footballer Doesn’t Cheat on Attractive but Stupid Wife” is much more of a story than” Footballer Pays Granny for Sex”. I am beginning to think they need their big fat wage packets just to keep their libido at bay.

More worrying than all this though, is some peoples' reaction to all this terrible news. And I don’t mean terrible as in tragic – I mean terrible as in utterly rubbish.

I had the pleasure of spending some seven hours in my car on the day that Blair’s book came out and I was completely gripped by the total complete fools calling into 5 Live. One lady actually, genuinely, I kid you not - said that Blair had no idea what stress really was as he had never tried to bring a family up on a strict budget.

Now, I’m not saying that dragging a pair of screaming kids round Iceland on a wet Tuesday is a barrel of laughs (look what it did to Kerry Katona) but it has got to beat deciding who to wage war on next.

Quite frankly, if I was Blair I would have had gin fed to me by intravenous drip.

Another caller said she was shocked that Blair found evenings “long” when he had four children to look after. Apparently, it didn’t even cross her mind that he was perhaps referring to long, late night political engagements - as opposed to hours spent paring the kids’ socks.

And as for the story about Hague – I just don’t get it at all. I too have shared hotel bedrooms over the years with a variety of people – my husband, my best friend, my colleague, my sister and my mum. I can categorically state that I am not adulterous, incestuous or homosexual. I just refuse to spend more than I absolutely have to lying awake in an overheated room, listening to a footballer paying for sex in the room next door.

I like silly season when it means that I get my PR stories picked up more easily - and I like silly season when stories about dogs that can bark Ava Maria get prime time coverage but when we obsess over the ridiculous (Hague) and the revolting (Rooney), I am not so keen. So, some words I never thought I would utter – come back politicians. We miss you.

New York Times puts Met PR in the dock

That it has taken the ‘Paper of Record’ to bring to light not only more evidence of continued News of the World phone-hacking, but also the lackadaisical approach of the Metropolitan Police towards investigating illegal phone-tapping operations, is only one extraordinary part of this unfolding story.

The entire New York Times article can be read HERE (it’s eight pages long so one for lunchtime probably!) but for those who have better things to do the facts are these. Firstly, unnamed sources within News International are now saying that Andy Coulson, then editor of NOTW and now David Cameron’s director or communications, knew full well what was going on and actively encouraged it.

There’s no surprise there, but what is extraordinary is the role of the Metropolitan police. Apparently, the Met’ has chosen not to investigate evidence of industrial-scale phone hacking of celebrities, MPs, members of the security services, football administrators because they were too busy, choosing to limit its investigations to hacking of Prince Harry’s phone.

What’s more, the Met’ has chosen not to inform those hacked by the NOTW that they had been targeted, which means that the targets can’t launch civil lawsuits against News International which could cost the organisation hundreds of millions. Gordon Taylor, Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers Association, has already taken them for £700,000 for one hack.

The article infers that the cosy relationship between the Met’ and the NOTW, encouraged and defended by police communications people (subsequently denied), has got in the way of the legal system. In other words, neither party wanted to disturb the flow of tip-offs about arrests in return for positve police-friendly headlines.

There are a number of concerns here, not least that hacking, according to the article, continues at the NOTW to this day and also the role of Coulson as special adviser to the Prime Minister.

However, I believe there is also a wider issue, namely the precise role of civilian PR representatives within the police service and, critically, how proactive they should be in publicising the work of the police.

I have no problem with the publicising of CSR related ‘good works’or arrest rates. However, working in PR, I know that the natural inclination of the PR person is to justify our existence with news headlines and 'good coverage'. I worry that this tendency has potentially led to television cameras and the press pack outside football manager Harry Redknapp’s house at four o’clock in the morning when the police knocked on his door. What were they doing there? How did they know?

If, and it remains an if, civilian PR people are responsible for these tip-offs then many would argue that they exceeding the boundaries of their job and encouraging the sort of cosy relationships which could potentially hinder the proper investigation of criminal activity.

The Met' is under pressure now and may well have to re-open its investigation, but the New York Times has also highlighted a wider issue which deserves debate in the PR community and beyond.

A Star or A Farce?

Another year, another rise in exam pass marks. Based on current trends, everyone who is able to get up in the morning and navigate their way to the school hall will be walking off with an A by 2093.

A quarter of everyone who sat A Levels this year, got awarded an A. Well done them. What I don’t get then, is why the standard of Graduate job applicants seems to be falling at the same rate as A level pass rates are climbing?

I am not saying this to be nasty, or to defend my own rather ropey A-Level results (GCSEs were marvellous though). I am saying this for the sake of my family. For the people that see me open another email sent late at night from pinkandsparkly@hotmail.com, who begins her quest for a career in PR by writing, “I hope your well.” You hope my well is what? Full? Nicely renovated? The actual well that featured in Ding Dong nursery rhyme?

After polite enquires about the state of my garden feature, they go onto tell me that they have always wanted a career in pubic relation’s. Nice touch - suggest I familiarise myself people’s nether regions for a living and then stick an errant apostrophe in for good measure.

I could go on and, as I find myself in quite a bad mood on this autumnal August day, I will. People that don’t use capitals in my name. People that have recently graduted from University. People that have spoke to many PR agency’s already - all of them get on my goat.

It’s fantastic that these people can tell me why Ferdinand married Isabella, the difference between Igneous and Sedimentary rock and the cause of the Potato Famine – but it would be better if they could actually string a sentence together. They would then be able to actually get a job to pay off their vast swathes of university debt that we hear so much about.

The reason that I am so cross, is because I get the distinct impression that this isn’t the fault of the students. More and more of them seemed to be a bit like well trained monkeys. Teachers have got a handle on how to get decent A Level pass rates, and grammar doesn’t feature very highly in this – so they skip that bit out and go straight to lesson titled, “Past Exam Papers. Hints and Tips”.

As a result, British businesses have to go back to school and teach students the fundamentals of English Language before letting them loose on clients and customers. What a complete and utter waste of everyone’s time.

Surely, the point of education is to equip the youth of today (and now I really do sound like my Grandmother on a bad day) with the skills they need to just get on in life? Unless you intend to make a career out of pub quizzes (which, whilst fun, wouldn’t chip away at the Student Loan very quickly), under the current system, you are going to struggle.

I am being a bit mean here as there are some brilliant graduates out there – and we have been lucky enough to employ quite a few – but I feel mean when I shout down my computer at yet another graduate with an inane hotmail name and total lack of dictionary knowledge. No, they can’t hear me but they aren’t going to get a job in public relations (or even pubic relation’s) for that matter – and what’s the point of all those A-grades then?

Wine or Beer? A harmless little bit of social lubrication?

Scouring the vast knowledge bank of Twitter yesterday morning I stumbled across an extremely interesting article via @DanHowe. A new bit of research entitled “Drinking Your Way Up the Ladder : Expectations for After-Hours Drinking Among Professionals.” ( See: http://www.zevgroup.com/socialdrinking.html)

And, in the style of Carrie Bradshaw “It got me thinking...” Would I be able to function in PR as a tee-totaller? Would networking and work-bonding inhibit me by the fact I was clutching a glass of orange juice rather than Merlot? Or, more importantly, without a glass or two - would I be as confident in social situations?

Jennifer Halpern, the author of the paper, uses the statistic that female non-drinkers earn 25.5% less than drinkers. And whilst this seems like a huge differential you can, at some level, see how those opportunities and moments could be lost if you were a no show, or went home early at events.

For me personally – two events immediately sprang to mind.

Firstly, on my second day doing work experience at Willoughby I was invited to a leaving-do night out. Far from being dressed for it, and not knowing many people’s names, I knew that it would be a great opportunity to get to know the team and... by 3am was singing karaoke with the best of them! ‘Sweet Home Allaaabaaama!” (You get the drift.)

By the time the bacon sandwiches were doing the rounds the next day I’d had a chance to speak to people in the next office, share some embarrassing stories – even crash a few cigarettes. By getting to know the team and listen to client stories I got a real feel for the agency that general office duties would have never given me – and who knows, a job offer may have never happened?

But just as importantly, as the report comments, “alcohol lubricates friendship as well as business.” And it is on this basis that I have my second example - the classic journalist liquid late -lunch. Swapping a coffee for the favoured Expresso Martini, it not only gave us a chance to talk about our favourite cocktail (please say you’ve tried it?) but also a means to both let our guard down. Talking holidays, hometowns and beauty horror stories led to a nice piece of coverage for our client and a positive outcome for both of us.

But the most interesting part of Halpern’s study for me, was the role of women and drinking.

“If a woman drinks a little too much, tells off colour jokes, or is a bit loud, she risks being seen inappropriately as a woman....

The woman most likely to succeed in navigating this gauntlet is the one who can drink enough to be seen as willing to drink, but who keeps her wits about her enough to figure out how to act with different people.”

And, surely, this is key. Yes the odd glass of wine can give you an extra spring in your step, a bit of gumption, and a bit more balls. But no-one wants to be the person sliding down the walls, throwing up in the toilets, or going into work in the same clothes the next day. (Cue raised eyebrows)

As to the level of difference in genders – do I really think it is more acceptable for men to do the above, maybe? But in my experience the only drinking difference for gender is age. For women, you reach a point where balancing your children and work life is enough of a drama – and adding a hangover into this mix on regular occasions is definitely not going to be appealing.

But for the other sex, I know a fair few male professionals who can give the most spirited exec a run for his money.

What is clear is it’s up for debate - fancy a bottle why we talk this over?

There's No Such Thing As A Free Hunch

It’s a funny old world we live in these days. There’s no way we’d let Bob from accounts pick our next TV commercial on a hunch, but he’s ok to run our corporate Facebook fan site. After all, Bob likes Facebook. He uses it all the time. And anyway, Facebook is free so what’s the harm?

HUGE I tell you. OK, Bob might not be the sex -crazed fool who hijacked Vodafone’s tweets last week (those who are not so easily offended can find out more here). But Bob probably doesn’t know much about brand engagement and the difference between permission and interruption marketing. He probably doesn’t know his apps from his apples either, if we’re honest.

You see (Bob), having a Facebook presence because you feel you should is a bit like sending someone a piece of junk mail because you want a new pen friend.

As a PRO I am used to having to fight my corner when it comes to getting my share of the social media pie – but I am increasingly having to fight Bob to get it - and that’s not fair.

My dear old Dad once told me (when I was a slimmer and less wrinkly version of my current self and about to embark on a career in PR) that, “advertising is controlling what you say about yourself and PR is controlling what others say about you.” I am not saying I am old - though that was some time ago – but it still rings true.

Yes, Facebook is free but so is The Clap – and we don’t much want that, do we? Facebook, like all social media, says an awful lot about a company – whether your all about ME, ME, ME or you, you, you (the latter being infinitely more appealing). It’s a new(ish) platform but relies on the tried and tested PR techniques of old to work so move over Bob from accounts (and Jemima from 12 Bubbly Baboons for that matter). Social media is ours, all ours...

If you give it away it has no value!

One of the biggest issues PR faces as an industry is credibility. In part, I suspect that comes from the fact that the most high profile characters in our industry are probably the celebrity PRs, such as Max Clifford and Phil Hall.

I have enormous respect for what both do, but because it is high profile it tends to dominate the PR landscape and people assume that this is what PR is all about. To the cynics my job is a few quick calls to the papers and then off to the wine bar.

Let me give you an example. I have a friend who is a commercial lawyer in London (his actual job title is Multi-Jurisdictional International Trade Litigator) who delights in asking me what I have done with my day and, before I can answer, usually says something like "sitting in a wine bar quaffing Chardonnay presumably."

As it happens, I've probably met more CEOs than he has (when I point this out he gets huffy) but in his world he is a power player protecting the UK's commercial interests with the simple sword of truth, whilst I am busy organising photoshoots for Katie Price.

It was with some dismay therefore that I found out yesterday that a well-known PR company has come up with the strategy of offering free PR for a 3-6 month period in order to snag new clients. Now I know times are tough but I can't think of a quicker way to destroy credibility than to go down that route.

I remember once having a conversation with the MD of a major UK building products company. I asked him what he thought of the idea of a free environmental audit. His answer was succinct, "free equals worthless."

As one former colleague, whom I would describe as my only mentor, once said to me, "the biggest problem with this job is that everyone thinks they can do it."

If we give away our services free of charge that won't change.

Declaring War on the Twitter Frauds

There’s something that’s been bugging me of late. Since Twitter has exploded into the mainstream, more and more companies, individuals and sites have been springing up which claim to be able to artificially grow your number of followers in an instant. What’s more, there are plenty of people out there who seem to think this is a genius idea. 0 to 1000 followers in a few seconds flat? My, aren’t you popular! That’s sure to impress the suits who insisted you start a Twitter feed for their company because they’ve suddenly realised they need a social media strategy.

I hate to ruin the party, but isn’t this completely missing the point? The idea of Twitter – particularly from a business point of view – is that it allows you to form valuable, personal connections with like-minded people who are genuinely interested in your opinions/services/products and vice versa. What possible purpose can it serve to have a following made up of users who either don’t exist or have absolutely no relevance to you whatsoever?

In the same way that Youtube cheats pay to increase the number of views to their videos, so Twitter frauds are creating a false reality just to puff up their own egos – or those of their bosses and clients. The practice delivers zero commercial benefits: these people aren’t going to form a relationship with you or your brand and help you convert their following into sales, work or footfall.

All it does is cheapen the entire concept of Twitter and cause a headache for everybody else. 300 followers who are grown organically and are bona fide fans of your brand and Twitter commentary are worth infinitely more than 30,000 fake followers – but try telling that to the powers that be who just look at the numbers.

And therein lies the problem. When using Twitter and other social media, businesses need to embrace a major cultural shift and understand that it’s about quality, not quantity. It’s about connecting with the right people and having conversations which give your brand personality and humanity, not blindly pushing sales messages to as many people as possible.

Until this sea change occurs, we’ve got a battle on our hands. As for the Twitter frauds, they may be winning the numbers war, but in my book it’s a very hollow victory indeed.