Cougar
According to a report from Pew Internet reported on the BBC Online today, teens in the US are giving up blogging: simply too long-winded, darling! However the over 30s are showing more interest in blogging – so I’m not giving up just yet!!! The youngsters dont seem to be interested in Twitter either – just going on-line on their mobiles and updating the social network sites.
This is a quote attributed to Mae West. But when it comes to an on-line reputation, there is a growing consensus in the PR industry that organisations dont consider their on-line reputation at all! Joanna Lund’s post “Word of Mouth: Reputation Builder, Reputation Killer” points out the need to recognise the growth of social networking and for PR expertise to help organisations to manage their on-line reputation.
There is indeed a huge gulf in thinking on reputation management and evaluation. Many public sector organisations, when they do evaluation, still assess print media only. It is judged to be too expensive to keep up what is being said on broadcast media and with almost a dismissal of what is written, spoken or viewed on-line.
The successful instances of social media influencing organisations to change are viewed as aberrations, perhaps only happening in America.
Yet an opposing force can be the desire to “have some of that digital stuff” – not always in a strategic way. The implication being if you have a manager with responsibility for “digital” that somehow the organisation will be perceived to be forward thinking. And that the on-line route is another way of pushing out yet more information just using different channels rather than an opportunity to engage in dialogues and conversations with new audiences.
Fascinating stuff – and thanks to Joanna for raising the issue.
Comparisons with Obama’s digital campaign can be made – but the reality is that the UK has internet usage rates of 46.7% compared to 74.2% for USA.
World Internet Usage Sept 09
Plus we simply don’t have the usage of social media in a political context. Obama was able to use the skills of Blue State Digital to create huge lists of e-mail addresses and phone numbers to build a tribe of committed supporters. Blue State Digital had been working with the Democratic Party for years to test and build expertise and reach out to grassroots campaigners. There is little evidence of that long-term planning and committed resource here.
There still seems to me to be a focus on websites and individual political blogs and not an integrated campaign.
It is also important to note that Obama’s campaign was also historic in its unprecedented spend on advertising in the closing stages of the presidential campaign. It is perhaps ironic that the fundraising success of the new media campaign resulted in massive spending on television advertising. The most controversial tactic of the Obama campaign was the spend of a projected $6million to broadcast a 30 minute advert on 7 major US television networks in the month before the election. The Campaign Media Analysis Group which tracks political advertising compared the expenditure of both campaigns. They estimated that the McCain campaign spent $125.5million on television advertising from 3 April to 5 November 2008 compared with $236.0million by Senator Obama. The Obama campaign increased the rate and impact of its expenditure in the weeks leading up to the election with spending on advertising running at three times of what Senator McCain could afford. Tracey, President of Campaign Media Analysis Group said: “This is, in media terms, a rout. John McCain is in a shouting match against a guy with a megaphone.”
So my conclusion is that UK political parties still have much to learn from the US style of integrated media campaigning – but ‘classic’ mainstream media will still be the dominant player!
At the beginning of 2009, I wrote a post attempting to forecast what would happen in the year ahead. It was fun to speculate on who would win Oscars and Wimbledon. And perhaps not too difficult to predict back then that we would be having serious cuts in the Pre Budget Report or that Obama’s honeymoon would be over.
The election campaign in America was run on the premise that hope will overcome. Unfortunately, the reality of the US political machine appears to have ground down good intentions and left the newcomers unable or unwilling to act.
We still have the partial eclipse on Old Year’s Night to look forward to – and I hope the skies will be clear enough to view it!
Eclipse
It’ll be time soon to share our predictions for 2010.
Any suggestions?
I’m making an attempt to define ‘spin’ as I was called a ‘spin doctor’ today and felt pretty annoyed, although I realised that some people may see it as a compliment! And I am sure they didnt think I was a member of the New York band!
‘Spin’ is a pejorative term (isn’t it?) signifying a heavily biased favourable portrayal of an event or situation. Leach in “Exploring Public Relations” defines ‘spin’ as: “…attempts by politicians and their advisers to put their own selective interpretation on news stories…” which he identifies as leading to public cynicism and distrust of government.
Exploring PR
The origins of the term, may go back to the phrase ’spinning a yarn’ which seems to have originated with sailors telling ‘tall’ stories. Bagnall wrote in The Independent on Sunday back in 1996 that the origin of the term could have begun with baseball whether the pitcher attempts to disguise the delivery of the throw. It began to be used in a political and promotional context in the late 1980s, originally in the US then also in the UK.
The effects of ‘spin’ in the UK have been written about in the context of the election campaign of 1997, although it is widely acknowledged that the earlier Conservative government used ‘spin’ too. Stuart Ewen argues in “PR! A Social History of Spin” that political spin grew out of the presidential campaigns in the US and was adapted through the corporate use of PR through the early exponents in the ‘20s and ‘30s such as Bernays.
The ethics around the use of persuasion by PR practitioners have not been fully resolved in my opinion. In his discussion about negative political campaigning, Drew Westen in “The Political Brain”
The Political Brain
attempts to define when campaigning goes beyond acceptable ethical standards as:” A candidate or party that is willing to practice the “politics of personal destruction”, showing no concern about who is destroyed in the process, lacks the normal capacity for conscience that is a prerequisite to participatory democracy”.
George Pitcher writing as a journalist (and also the founder of an issues management agency), about a ‘spin-culture’, describes it as “…both a product of the society in which we live and a replacement for engagement with real issues – a triumph of presentation over content, that values how we are perceived rather than how we behave or what we believe”. He argued that “You no longer argued about an issue. You argued about a position”. Pitcher is also well aware of the irony of his own name in any discussion around spin!
In my opinion, ‘spin’ is one of the tools or techniques of propaganda and operates as a one-way communication seeking to give a distorted or highly favourable interpretation or events or news. It has become a negative force in the reputation of PR and PR practitioners – hence my dislike for being called a spin doctor! It has also damaged the credibility of politicians and is a contributing factor to the public’s discontent with politics in the UK and USA.
The profile of Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital in PR Week (18 September) criticised the Labour Party’s digital strategy saying that it “lacked senior-level buy in…”
It is all too easy to criticise digital strategies and to assume that if something worked in the US then it would work here.
The Table below is my attempt to summarise areas of cultural and political similarity between the US and the UK. There are some strong areas of similarity (shown as Box 1) which would argue that similar communications techniques could be transferable from the US to the UK. There are, however, also areas (shown as Box 2) which suggest that the cultures and political systems are too dissimilar.
The take up of the internet in the UK (43.2%) still lags far behind the US (74.4%) according to research by Internet World Stats in March 2009.
| US & UK Culture & politics | Comments |
| BOX1 – similarities1. Mass communications media: US film, television
2. Mass new media: YouTube, internet, Twitter 3. ‘Special Relationship’ 4. Common language 5. Two ‘Houses’ in Congress and Westminster 6. Elections to choose party to govern the country 7. Two main political parties 8. History of community involvement 9. Disengagement with formal politics 10. Political issues: Iraq, Afghanistan, health, education, the economy 11. Joint military operations |
1. Version of US culture is filtered by producers/directors so not a true version of US culture
2. New media not as prevalent in the UK 3. Strong political alliance going back to second world war.
8. Civil rights movement in US not replicated in UK. 9. The disengagement is prior to the 2008 Presidential campaign in the US. |
| Box 2: contrasts1. UK relies on its own news media
2. Cultural ties in the US to African-American and Latin American culture 3. Cultural ties in the UK to Europe and the Commonwealth 4. US President and UK Prime Minister selected differently 5. Choice of party to govern elected differently 6. US lack of focus on foreign policy prior to 9/11 7. Different focus in UK for education & health – more concern with quality than access 8. Federal government in US and devolution in UK different systems of democracy 9. UK has hereditary monarchy |
1. Internet gives access to global
news reporting. 2. No election for the post of Prime Minister |
Last week I attended a seminar organised by the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership. The topic was to encourage debate about what the next economy may look like to build sustainable development rather than the reliance on unsustainable growth.
One of the speakers was Nic Marks, the founder of the nef Centre for Well-Being. He was the lead author of the Happy Planet Index and is an advisor to the government of Bhutan on how to construct indicators for Gross National Happiness.
In his talk, he outlined his analysis that the lack of a positive vision for a sustainable future resulted in the psychological condition of ‘freezing’ when confronted by the fear of the negative environmental impacts. He recommends a more positive vision to have a new economic system based around improving ‘well-being’ which he defines as “people’s lived experience”. He pointed out that the current economic system which until recently had delivered booming growth, had not led to increased happiness.
I thought that there was some resonance to his arguments to focus on positive messages to the Obama campaign which promised change, hope and positive values. This emotionally compelling approach was also outlined as a blueprint for campaigns by Drew Westen.
Nic’s research had identified 5 factors or themes which contribute towards increased well-being which I will attempt to summarise below:
1. Connect
Develop ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ relationships. ‘Thick’ relationships are the close ones to your family and closest friends. ‘Thin’ relationships are your wider social network of colleagues, associates and aquaintances.
2. Get Active
This is not only being physically active, but can be as simple as getting outside for a walk. Nic pointed out that depression can be alleviated by taking a walk. Physical activity boosts the sense of well-being through ‘happy’ hormones such as endorphins.
3. Take Notice
This was described by Nic as developing “mindfulness and reflection”. It could also be spirituality – whatever works for an individual.
4. Keep Learning
Keeping learning is important to provide new stimulus and keep the mind alert. Nic claimed that the capacity to learn continues right through into 80 year olds so that it is possible to “teach old dogs new tricks“!
5. Give
Compassion and generosity for others was also identified as a major contributing factor to well-being.
Lots of interesting ideas! I was particularly interested in the concept of producing and communicating a positive vision to encourage change. It will be interesting to attempt to apply the 5 steps or themes!
So why should we (Corporate Communications professionals) care? At the core of public relations is the concept of a two-way relationship between an organisation and its stakeholders. With the advent of social media and the concept of Web2.0, the two-way relationship has been expanded to multi-way. The CIPR definition is “PR is about reputation – what you do, what you say and what others say about you”. This idea of multiple conversations was floated in August 2008 by Brian Solis with his ‘Conversation Prism’ which artistically attempted to demonstrate the evolving network of relationships available through social media.
Conversation Prism
He has now written a new book with Deirdre Breakenridge called “Putting the Public Back into PR” . The book is a very straightforward guide to how PR professionals can use social media and what Web2.0 and PR2.0 can offer. I liked the way it was written in straightforward language, rather than the inaccessable ‘Geek-speak’ which can put people off!
Put Public Back
The reason I argue that all corporate communications professionals need to know how to make use of new media is pretty simple: our audiences use new media. We can bypass traditional media channels and reach out and engage directly with individuals and groups interested in our organisation and in its products or services,or interested in our values and the way we do business.
My view of the interim market for senior corporate communications roles is that it continues to be very thin. Fortunately for me, I am on assignment with NHS London courtesy of Veredus. The NHS across London are on a real recruitment drive for non-medical staff in a number of roles.
In addition to Veredus, Morgan Law also seem very active at the moment, although Veredus tends to cover more senior roles.
Good luck to interims looking for assignments at the moment!
I was surprised to read that Simon Lewis is becoming Gordon Brown’s spokesperson. He has taken on and thrived in some really tough roles (Centrica and Buckingham Palace) and achieved success in having communications accepted as a Board appointment.
He was very courteous to me, giving me career advice when I left Royal Mail.
His new role must be the toughest challenge that he has undertaken.
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