Are ‘George Lee’ Levels of Doom and Gloom Justified?
0 Comments Published by Ronnie Simpson April 3rd, 2008 in General PRWhat’s going on? I interview respected and independent economist Dr Alan Ahearne of NUI Galway for a press release for client Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) annual investment conference this week. He suggests that not only will the Irish economy fail to meet the 3% GDP growth in 2008 forecast by another respected economist, Dr Dan McLaughlin in Bank of Ireland but is more likely to show zero or even negative growth.
Then last week we announce the Irish Venture Capital Association’s Techpulse survey which shows that Irish tech companies raised more money from VCs in 2007 than for five years since the heady days of the dot.com boom.
There’s meant to be a global credit crunch and the papers are full of ‘George Lee’ levels of doom and gloom yet as a PR agency we have more new business enquiries in the first part of 2008 than I can remember. Reading the signs is about as easy as understanding a Bertie Ahern explanation of why certain amounts of money were ‘resting’ in various accounts.
(Aside: great pointer in crisis management by Fintan O’Toole on Prime Time Special last night when he said if Bertie had come out with his hands up at the time the Irish Times first broke the story he would probably still be Taoiseach today. If he had said: ‘Yes, I accepted money that I should not have. I know now that I was wrong. I would like to apologise to the Irish people and I won’t do it again’ then he could well still be Taoiseach. The Irish are very forgiving and especially to someone with the personal charisma of Ahern).
Anyway back to what’s going on? My experience of healthy new business enquiries is replicated in the UK. A survey announced at the end of February of the PRCA PR Leaders’ Panel, made up of MDs from the UK’s leading PR consultancies, found that 65% of respondents did not believe that the UK would go into recession during 2008. Moreover, 83% of respondents expect their businesses to have a strong year.
Speaking about the UK economy, John Starr from Clareville Communications said: “Although retail sales may show a slight downturn and house prices remain flat there is no sign of a serious growth in unemployment. Clients are not talking about a cut in budgets, quite the opposite.”
Some possible explanation for the healthy state of new business enquiries and pitches at the same time as a global financial crisis is outlined in the ICCO World report for the first quarter of 2008 which is just published.
It states: “The past year showed record growth in the business of public relations consultancy in nearly all countries surveyed. With a troubled global economy and a climate of uncertainty ahead for the remainder of 2008, can this spectacular trend continue?
“Initial data from the two leading (and by far largest) markets, the United States and the United Kingdom, indicate a resounding “yes”. More than 80% of surveyed firms in both countries expect a strong business year with client budgets remaining intact. By all accounts, the rise of public relations is set to continue.”
It says: “There are several factors at work that we now suspect to be universally true:
1. “Communications” is growing in strategic importance for all types of organisations.
2. Messaging about an organisation can no longer be controlled exclusively from within.
3. Public relations is proving an effective tool and therefore taking share away from other marketing and communications disciplines.”
Certainly as an agency which specialises in technology and financial services I remain optimistic about 2008. Back in 2000, with at that time a 90% exposure to technology, we came through the first global tech recession following the dot.com bubble bursting. I reckon that time was far more scary than what is going on now.
I also have a theory as to why PR is growing in turbulent times. It is all to do with the role of PR in helping Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). I am on record as saying that Search is the most fundamental change in marketing in the last 30 years. Of which more later.
PR Sponsorship Rules Made to be Broken
0 Comments Published by Ronnie Simpson January 22nd, 2008 in General PROK I admit it. I’m doing something that I recommend clients not to do. That is, sponsor something that appeals to their individual passions rather than the market.
One of my passions is electric blues and blues rock. Think Gary Moore, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton. Some years ago I wandered into a bar in Bray and heard this amazing guitarist playing this stuff as well as material from Rory Gallagher and Jimi Hendrix.
To play any of these guys live you need to be some musician. The guitarist was Brian Meakin.
I was in heaven. A pint of Guinness and the Brian Meakin Band. Blues is a hard sell in Ireland for reasons I don’t understand when you consider the tradition we have of producing great blues rock guitarists like Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore.
Brian Meakin Band played at our annual press bash in Toner’s last Friday and the reaction was fantastic. Fergal Breen of IRISHDEV.com mentioned them today in his music slot on Phantom FM.
So anyway Simpson Financial & Technology PR has offered to sponsor the production of Brian Meakin Band’s next album. He is developing some original stuff for it which is great.
Brian Meakin Band could be huge. The guy and the band deserve it. Can I justify the sponsorship in relation to relevance to our business or our market? Probably not. But if we can help a really worthy artist then that’s what sponsorship originally was all about.
So yes, it is OK to sponsor stuff that may not have any commercial return and is just pure fun. You can listen online to the Brian Meakin Band at: http://www.myspace.com/brianmeakinband
Why PR Can’t Work for Stan and FAI
0 Comments Published by Ronnie Simpson October 18th, 2007 in General PRFollowing another fine mess at Croke Park last night against minnows Cyprus, Bill O’Herlihy commented on RTE that a big PR push had been mounted by the FAI in the media to defend Irish soccer manager Stephen Staunton.
Bill, who is something of a PR specialist himself, knows that PR is about truth. PR, no matter how good, cannot defend the indefensible. It can’t defend the illogical. And it can’t counter what consumers can see with their own eyes.
I freely admit that I cheered when Cyprus scored last night.
And in case anyone accuses me of disloyalty, I am one of those who have loyally followed the Irish soccer team at a time when it was neither popular nor profitable. I was there shivering at Lansdowne Rd with a few thousand others long before fair-weathers joined the bandwagon when we started to qualify for major tournaments. As a kid I caught two cigarette smoke filled buses to Dalymount Park to support Ireland.
But I cheered when Cyprus scored because if we had beaten them 5-0 then we were destined for another two years of a manager whose selections have been consistently illogical. Forget the learning curve. If anything, the selections are making less sense.
I gave up my €70 ticket last night to watch the game at home because I am disillusioned with a manager and the people who wrongly placed him in an impossible position. This is only the third home match and the first competitive home match I have not attended in 12 years.
As the always readable Tom Humphries commented in the Irish Times today:
“If you hand the national team over as instruments for a tone deaf novice to learn on, this sort of tuneless mess is what you get.”
PR can’t fool the public. It doesn’t need 100 caps to watch Stephen Kelly and recognise very early on that he is not a left back. That even if he beats a player he has to stop and awkwardly turn back to cross the ball with his right foot. Even if you can’t see this, you can certainly observe that when the manager was forced to change him to right back away to Czech Republic due to injury to O’Shea, Kelly was far more comfortable and effective.
It doesn’t need 100 caps to observe that Andy Reid was superb away to Denmark, created two goals and should have been in the starting line up to play Slovakia away. He may not be world class but he is that rare breed that England, for example, don’t have, a playmaker.
It doesn’t need 100 caps to have seen at home to Germany that Andy Keogh is not a right sided midfielder. Reid found him all night with passes with which he did nothing.
But what did Stan do? Selected Keogh again to play Cyprus, this time alongside Joey O’Brien, another young, untried, inexperienced player out of position in midfield – a position he hasn’t played since he had to do homework.
Meanwhile Liam Miller, a specialist midfielder playing regular Premiership football (whatever one thinks about that standard), is left admiring the Mexican waves on the bench. Might this have anything to do with the fact that Miller was left out of the original squad and to have included him would have shown up the manager’s, irrational squad selection in the first place?
It doesn’t need….Oh I could go on about Stephen Hunt and all the other totally illogical selections Stan has made or failed to make this campaign.
I can’t take another two years of this. Come on Wales. If defeat to Wales is what it finally takes for the FAI to see sense then so be it.
My daughter, who did attend the Cyprus game, calculated that Euro 70 multiplied by the 70,000 who bought tickets comes to Euro 4.9m. We can afford a world class manager. In fact we can’t afford not to have one.
It’s about time John Delaney and the FAI did the decent thing. Pay Stan generously for the rest of his contract. Allow him to resign with the dignity he has earned as a model player. Start the hunt now for a manager who has more managerial and coaching experience than collecting training cones at Walsall.
Now that’s what PR is about.
P.S. Well done to Newstalk for their excellent soccer coverage. Although surely the cruellest jibe of the week was, when it looked like John O’Shea might miss the Cyprus game due to a dead leg, one listener texted in: “I thought O’Shea had two dead legs”.
Hollis Europe was kind enough to ask me to write the introduction to the Ireland section of its 2007/08 guide to European PR (the bible of the PR industry). In it I suggested that 2007 was the year when the Irish PR industry matured to the extent that it was almost as difficult to find a good, available PR person as it always is to find a plumber.
Gerry Davis, CEO of PRCA Ireland confirms the buoyant state of the industry. “There appears to be plenty of business out there and members are reporting healthy levels of new business enquiries. The demand for staff is reflected in appointment notices on the PRII web site which are at an all time high.”
The demand for PR services appears, however, to be having an impact on the market with a growing shortage of experienced people. The industry may be paying a price for not doing more to bring on and train its talented young people.
Another reflection of the maturity of the Irish PR market is the growth of specialist boutique agencies. Traditionally, because the market was relatively small, most PR agencies were generalist rather than specialist. Today we are seeing the emergence of specialist agencies in particular across consumer, technology and public affairs.
We may start to see these firms being subsumed into bigger agencies, not only to add to the specialist capabilities of the larger firms but to add a layer of experienced staff that some of them may welcome to support future growth.
Of course the elephant in the room is the continued performance of the Irish economy which by any standards up to now has been exceptional. The Economic & Social Research Institute is forecasting that economic growth will slow to 3.9% in 2008 while Davy Stockbrokers is less optimistic at 3%. There is now clear evidence of a slowdown in house price inflation which is much needed. The worry is that this soft landing turns into something more unpalatable.
Of course the PR industry came through and survived the last downturn following the dot.com crash so consultancies are older and hopefully wiser. Indeed that very caution may be the reason why some sections of it have been reluctant to hire and train more young people. Which is where we came in. No-one ever said running a consultancy was easy.
Ronnie Simpson BBS, FPRII is founder of Simpson Financial & Technology PR in Dublin and a board member of the PRCA Ireland. In 2007 he was presented with a Fellowship of the Public Relations Institute of Ireland in recognition of his contribution to the profession.
Full version of this article is available in “Hollis Europe – the guide to European Public Relations & PR Networks, 07/08”.
See www.hollis-pr.com
How Search is Changing the PR Business
0 Comments Published by Ronnie Simpson February 23rd, 2007 in General PRI’m at the Eurocom Worldwide international managers’ meeting in Paris and Ulrike from Germany asks the question you always dread from an attractive, young PR executive.
“Well Ronnie, how long have you been in the PR business?” Knowing it will reveal my age, but with no obvious escape route, I reluctantly mumble a reply, “30 years.”
“Oh,” she says. And I’m thinking she is surprised that this guy looks so young. But then she follows up with the killer question addressed to all boring old f#*ts.
“You must have seen a lot of change in that time?”
I think for a moment. “Well, actually, no. We’re still doing more or less the same stuff we did 30 years ago. But,” I add, “I think the world of marketing and PR is about to go through the most fundamental change of the last 30 years.”
I spare her (until the next day) the presentation I am due to make on blogging to the Eurocom Worldwide conference. The theme of this is that Google and search has fundamentally altered how marketing and PR works.
It is hardly for me to preach, having come from being a ‘failed blogger’ to currently a ‘recovering blogger’. But the reason we have got to take blogging seriously is that it is one (though not the only one) of the ways of getting higher up search engine listings. As Rick Bruner of ExecutiveSummary.com has said: BLOG = Better Listings On Google.*
The good news for PR is that online stories are also key in helping to attract the Google spiders. We have measurable evidence of that following our Eurocom Worldwide launch of Saaspoint (formerly Enterprise CRM) into the UK market.
In one of my earlier blogs (yes I do them sometimes) I referred to the rather sniffy attitude to online media in Europe compared to the US. The view seems to be that “If it’s not in the Irish Times or print media then it hasn’t happened”.
In fact, now quite the opposite is correct. If it’s not online and searchable then it doesn’t exist from a Google perspective.
Reading Newsweek on the flight to Paris there was a quote from New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger: “I really don’t know whether we’ll be publishing the Times in five years. And do you know what? I don’t care either.” His focus is now on the web.
Of course, we have been here before during the dot.com boom when the demise of print media was forcefully and wrongly heralded. Print media will not die but Google has changed the rules. Search is the new word of mouth whether you’re looking to buy an MP3 player or hire a PR agency.
No, there has been little change in PR over the last 30 years. But hold on to your lederhosen folks – all that is about to change.
ends
* Courtesy of Rick Bruner, ExecutiveSummary.com and director of research, DoubleClick.net
