Dockin' around the Christmas tree...

As over a million iPads and Kindles are unwrapped this Christmas, newspapers are publishing their first Christmas day editions since 1912. While excited new digital media owners scour the Internet for the favourite publications, Christmas is now a landmark in the media calendar as newspapers publish their very best work to lure digital subscribers. While newspapers as news generators will continue to flourish, whether it will be on paper or not is another matter. This means news will look different: it will be faster, more interactive, with video and click throughs for more information. This means PR will be different too. Read this Guardian article for more.

Lobbying in the spotlight

A parliamentary investigation into the activities of lobbying firms with links to UK ministers is announced today. This comes at the end of a week that has seen lobbying in the spotlight with a sting operation involving the PR firm Bell Pottinger. See this film as journalists pose as representatives of the government of Uzbekistan, speaking to the MD of the firm, and exposing links to government officials, their role in editing Wikipedia and the manipulation of Google rankings to drown out stories about child labour.

Tim Collins, MD of the firm, claimed "I've been working with people like Steve Hilton, David Cameron, George Osborne for 20 years-plus. There is not a problem getting the messages through". One example was David Cameron raising issues of copyright infringement on behalf of Dyson, with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. Tim Collins said "He (the Prime Minister) was doing it because we asked him to do it." Meanwhile Downing Street insist: "Bell Pottinger nor any other lobbying firm has any say or influence over government policy" and called accusations "outrageous".

The investigation is supported least strongly by conservative MPs who tend to be more heavily implicated in engaging with lobbyists, and senior executives of Bell Pottinger have been invited as witnesses. For an overview of the issue see this opinion piece in the Independent

It's not just naked women

In the tutorials we often talk about how much naked women are used to sell stuff to men - here's a fun example of an, almost, naked man in a great PR stunt aimed at young women in continental Europe. All the ingredients are there: sex, staying fit, a night out... Great video on youTube - this is the kind of thing that gets forwarded and it shows the brand, a slimming drink from France.

Heinz catch up with ketchup

Heinz have launched their first ever limited edition product, a balsamic vinegar ketchup - and the launch has been largely via social media. 57 bottles went out to food bloggers and 'VIPs' at a food breakfast, and their facebook fans will be the first of the public to be able to buy the new product - with the first 3000 to 'like' it being first in the queue.

AdAge report that Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas' Media Contacts (the PR firm) said, "This is a great PR stunt. It's unexpected for Heinz - which is not the first brand you think of in terms of social media - so it has created a lot of buzz. People go to Facebook to engage with friends; they are only interested in brands if there's something in it for them, like discounting, vouchers or exclusives."

The campaign has added another 9000 fans to their Facebook page (which already had 45,000), appeared on food and other blogs such as the Huffington Post, and Heinz are also launching an augmented reality app with recipes - and yes, it's also been in the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, and even the new York Times...

News? What news?

From Tom Chivers' (Telegraph journalist) twitter feed: "PR email: 'Opportunity to film and photograph model and eco champion Donna Air, modelling a dress made entirely of sheep’s wool insulation'. You don't get that sort of opportunity everyday". Hardly newsworthy, eh? But look out for it over the next week or so...

Can you see the future?

Yes, you can do better than looking at an IKEA light rigged up to look like a crystal ball, like this lass here, when looking into the future... As a PR professional, your ability to predict the next trend, the next smash hit, the next big news, is key to your success for 2 reasons:
1) people won't read old news - you have to be cutting edge,
2) new ideas spark creativity - a new idea with your tired old product may create something extraordinary.
Here are some useful sources for trend spotting: trendwatching.com, TrendHunter magazine, YouTube trends blog, Mintel (including this consumer trends article), Euromonitor, Office for National Statistics (UK government) e.g. this report on household spend, and watch the newspapers and magazines too - here's a repeat of a Trendwatching.com article in the Independent...

Blackberry in a PR jam

As Blackberry users continue to experience email and internet outages, leaving them with 'essentially, a phone attached to a tiny typewriter' (thanks, Tom Chivers of the Daily Telegraph) we have a great example of crisis management, or not, as in this case. Chivers has also penned this excellent blog entry about the failure of Blackberry's PR in the face of crisis, comparing the company's response to that of Apple: "it's hard to imagine a crisis like this enveloping Apple, but if it did, you'd expect round-the-clock crisis management, constant, helpfully communication and swift resolution". Interestingly - Apple's handling of the iPhone 4 antenna gate story was neither helpful nor swift. How we forget...