Agenda setting by PWC

While browsing, I came across a good example of using social media in an agenda setting role by PriceWaterhouseCoopers'.  As a leading provider of accountancy services globally, it is, I assume, asked to comment on proposed new regulations by financial regulators and other industry bodies worldwide.  This is a well established process by regulators and government civil servants involved in developing regulation in seeking specialist opinion from a wide range of interested parties.  PWC has a section where it publishes its formal responses online (PWC Inform)- a good example of transparency and of course agenda setting by an industry leader in a particular field.  Incidentally a good source on the EU Transparency Directive and relevance for financial reporting and implications for financial PR.

Google pays no tax in the UK (or as good as) - what impact on reputation in the UK?

The Times has highlighted that Google pays virtually no tax in the UK - even though it earns around £1.6bn from the UK alone; one of its largest country markets.  In addition to paying no tax, Google has through the growth of online advertising related to search, seriously damaged many British local newspapers and put people out of work, with consequent reduction in tax revenues and additional cost of unemployment benefit.


Quite legal, but from my perspective that probably damages its corporate reputation in the UK; particularly as some comments below the article suggest it has made only minimal contribution to UK charities.  If I was the UK government or an MP asked for a meeting by a Google public affairs advisor to discuss some issue which is affecting its business, would I bother?  Doing a quick search on Twitter suggests that it is an issue with a reasonable amount of discussion.

It would be interesting to have a listing of businesses which pay the most tax in the UK.  Certainly contribution to the UK exchequer in the form of tax payments in these days of tightening public sector budgets may enhance and damage some companies' reputations with the public.  Does such a listing exist?  Are companies which pay a lot of tax emphasising this factor strongly enough or is paying too much tax seen as a negative factor with investors?  I suspect organisations are somewhat unsure how to play (even pay) the tax card.

Iraq Enquiry end of an era - time for social construction in public enquiries?

Is the current Iraq Enquiry the last one of its type?

The idea of an Enquiry of the "great and the good" asking polite questions of the "great and the good" with limited aspects of inquisition has surely passed its sell by date.  It is looking somewhat old fashioned and tired. The format has been given a general pasting by the media and the latest incident with the Chairman cutting off TV coverage because some mild comments were made about US intelligence makes the whole process look even more bizarre.  Certainly I don't think any one on the Enquiry is going to have their reputations burnished by this process.  In fact, if one was responsible for PR for the "British Establishment" currently one would be worried - MPs and expenses, the City and financial crisis, the "great and the good" - they all look so tired and unimpressive. 

But is there a different approach?  I think it is time that consideration was given by the authorities to allow people to comment on this and future Enquiry web sites in some form of moderated forum or web comment. Yes, the Enquiry did take views from people initially but why not develop this process further online.    After all Enquiries are a form of seeking out the "truth" and to date they have been a vehicle in all countries generally to allow an "establishment" version of the "truth" to be created.   Now it is surely time and with social media entirely possible, that different versions of the truth can be discussed and aired and people can make their own minds up.  This is the form which online media is moving towards with social media commentary at the end of main articles and blogs.  It is interesting that the BBC has set up a forum site to ask people's opinion on what they want from the Iraq Enquiry. 

In other words a social construction of the "truth" should be part of the agenda of government Public Enquiries and the discussion can take place around each one as well as in the media.   Interestingly both PR and marketing are currently very interested in social construction of brand and reputation as traditional approaches to construction of brand and reputation are seen to be too controlled and lack authenticity.

In fact from an archive perspective, the web site and commentary along with the final report can become part of the permanent record of the Enquiry online.   A decision might be made to allow commentary to continue for a further two months after publication and then it is closed down on that site as representing a full and complete record at that moment in time.  It might be that retrospective comments say at 5, 10 and 20 years on the various sites become a pattern to allow for new thinking and discussion on the subject.

Anybody got a good example of a public enquiry running alongside social media?

Big companies watch out - a developing agenda against market domination?

There seems to be a developing agenda in the UK about addressing the fact that we have allowed large swathes of the economy to be dominated by one or two key players - finance, food retailing, energy, media  just for starters.  Might this become a developing agenda in the next Tory government which seems more focused on the issue than Labour?

The Governor of the Bank of England is concerned about banks which have become "too big to fail" and has raised this on a number of occasions.  Today's Financial Times has a commentary piece from Maurice Saatchi, someone who is close and influential in the free-market end of the Conservative Party on the way cartels have found their way around the work of regulators.   While today  sees the launch of  ResPublica an interesting new  think tank launched by Philip Blond and someone who is supposedly close to David Cameron.  He argues that the degree of monopolisation in many key markets in the UK damages society and urges further development of the John Lewis model - where it is owned by a charitable trust with the workforce sharing in ownership of the company. David Cameron is attending the launch.

Of course large organisations are notoriously hard to dislodge and will no doubt be highlighting their role in society but it will be an interesting agenda to watch over the coming years.  It does highlight how weak the role of the Competition Commission has been in this country.  Why does it not set a target that no company can own more than 15% of a key market?   Tesco has a 30.7% share of the UK food grocery market.

Goldman Sachs grapples with society's changing demands

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in simple terms is in response and has in turn seeded the wider agenda in society that there is more to business than just making money.  A business has a wider responsibility to its varied stakeholders not just returning money to its shareholders or paying large bonuses to its employees.  Now what happens when a company's culture is built entirely on making money - end of story.   That appears to be the case with Goldman Sachs according to many of the comments in a recent Financial Times article.

(Photo from FT.com)

The strength of the money making culture at Goldman Sachs would appear to have made it harder for them to understand the developing anger around the large profits made by the bank over the last year and the forthcoming bonuses for staff.  Note even the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch can do a piece on "5 reasons we hate Goldman Sachs".  

Goldman Sachs is trying and has announced a major initiative supporting small businesses in the USA and has said sorry in a somewhat ritualistic way.   But the PR team at Goldman Sachs need to read Prof. Jensen's 2001 paper on the public sphere and the role of the public sphere in developing organisational legitimacy and identity for an organisation.  The implications of this paper is that Goldman Sachs to achieve organisational legitimacy going forward will have to change its culture and that unbridled money making is no longer acceptable for such a large and influential organisation.  Did the Goldman Sachs partners think of that when they went public back in the 1990s?

Changing influence in the boardroom

• Media section of Guardian.
  

Is anybody doing international PR for the Tories? They need it and so does UK.

The Pierre Lallouche outburst in the Guardian by the French Europe Minister has been building up for some time.  Reading the French media for a number of years, which I do, both online and print, it is clear they find the Conservative position on Europe totally baffling.  The word "autistic" used by Lallouche which may be politically incorrect but is an interesting choice of words as it is a condition which I think the medical profession find somewhat baffling to understand the causes, hence its controversial use in this context.

For many years, the Tory party had the wonderful brand even if unofficial of the "natural party of government" and a strong feel for international affairs.   After all it was a Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who helped set a post-Empire agenda with his "winds of change" speech.  All that instinct seems to have disappeared from the Conservatives, hence Lallouche's comments and sense of bafflement. 

 French media tend to highlight the Conservative leadership as coming from a narrow elite and also one which has no experience of working in industry compared with their énarques.  (The famous Bullingdon dining club photo with David Cameron and Boris Johnston.)

Worryingly for the Conservatives and UK plc, other governments are giving the same message to the Conservatives and its position on Europe with both the US and German positions made clear in briefings to senior journalists.

Are the Conservatives concerned?  Probably not as being attacked from France will play well in marginal seats where they are fighting UKIP and perhaps the BNP, which incidentally has become the most actively visited political website of the UK parties.  However almost certainly the Foreign Office is concerned and I would have thought the City and wider business community is starting to worry that this uncertainty over Europe makes the UK an increasingly uncertain base for a stable long term investment climate.

Strategic agenda for PR

I don't know anybody who articulates the wider agenda for PR as well (and as influentially) as Richard Edelman and in a language that senior management in organisations understand.  That is why McKinsey, the consultancy firm have interviewed him in their online business journal.  

Twitter, Trafigura, and the public sphere

The Trafigura episode is a good example of an active public sphere (Habermas) not least because it was not primarily in the mainstream media or by government that the episode was resolved but by active discussion across social media notably Twitter.  Prof. Jensen's use of the concept in a 2001 paper on the role of PR and the public sphere looks remarkably relevant today, as she further developed the role of the public sphere to include a further sphere in which  "the identity and legitimacy of organisations are discussed and reflected - without necessarily claiming governmental intervention" - a concept very relevant to CSR.

Perhaps an active public sphere momentum has developed in the UK as it is interesting to see that later the same week, media itself was under the spotlight.   Following a column in the Daily Mail by Jan Moir on the death of Stephen Gately which many saw as homophobic, and again following a firestorm of comment on Twitter, the Daily Mail saw advertising withdrawn by major companies as a result of the controversy and many thousands of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission.   Some, of course might argue that Twitter is a limited vehicle for discourse - an important feature of the public sphere - but at this moment Twitter seems the most poweful form of social media in terms of the context of the public sphere and "legitimacy of organisations".

Trafigura - also test case on role of lawyers and PR in organisational reputation

Now that Trafigura has withdrawn its injunction against the Guardian, it is time to look over the entrails of a fascinating episode which surely will be a much studied event for its implications for corporate social responsibility, online PR practice, crisis PR, organisational reputation and legal practice.

The role of the whistleblowers site, Wikileaks needs to be recognised.  This I understand was where the Minton report - a chemical analysis of the waste material in the hold of the ship - first appeared in a publicly accessible location and the initial Guardian injunction also forbade it to publish the link.  Wikileaks, based on Wiki software is a haven for whistleblowers to bring documents to public attention which governments and organisations wish to keep buried. You can see on the Minton page on Wikileaks, how it operates with about eight different servers in different countries, and which enhances the overall resilience of the system to being closed down in one particular country.

The role of social media in the event has been well covered.  Perhaps we can say that the "Court of Public Opinion" has overwhelmed the "Commercial Courts" and certainly it was interesting to hear Lord Goldsmith, a former Attorney General the morning on the BBC Today programme, acknowledging that the law would need to look at the implications of technology.  It is also worth noting that a Norwegian lawyer, representing NRK, the Norwegian broadcaster which covered this incident highlighted that in fact the rights of news media are protected more strongly than they realise by European human rights law.

However, another consequence, I would suggest, is that over time it will have enhanced the corporate reputation of PR in the corridors of power.   This may seem strange when surely every professional body involved with Trafigura has come out with some reputational damage.  However, Carter Ruck, the legal firm representing Trafigura has been promoting their role as guardians of corporate reputation based on their use of judicial injunctions to suppress unpleasant news.   A technique which the early proponents of PR in the last century, seeking to control communications, would have understood well but modern PR practice knows is just not feasible.  It also appears that Carter Ruck were the lead counsel in the handling of this event, not the PR advisors, Lord Bell and Bell Pottinger., as is often the case as legal advice carries great weight in the corridors of power and the hierarchy of external opinions.  

But if the "Court of Public Opinion" has become the highest court in the land, on occasions when society judges an injustice is being done or freedoms are being infringed, a function amplified by social media, then the skillset of lawyers basing their defence on law not rhetoric or dialogue (where many such as Michael Mansfield are actually very strong); then lawyers may  not be best suited to putting a case to this "court" while PR has a better understanding of this role on behalf of organisations, as PR Week has highlighted in an interesting commentary by the Editor on the challenges and opportunities for the profession at a senior level. 

How long before this story comes out on Twitter/social media?

Guardian has been gagged on a story including reporting a question in Parliament.  How long before the person(s) and organisations involved comes out?    A search on Twitter suggests those involved have already been discussed yesterday on the Guido Fawkes blog.  Apparently Carter Ruck the solicitors are trying to close down this mention on Guido Fawkes.  Why do organisations bother to try to close down stories through the courts - it seems an antiquated approach in this day and age?  Are any legal firms working with PR agencies to address these type of stories using social media?  It would be interesting to hear of any examples.

History of mass media - two landmarks in UK media

For those interested in the development of media (decline of mass media - rise of new media) in the UK, the past week has been particularly noteworthy.  Earlier in the week the IAB (an excellent resource on most aspects of e-commerce, nationally and globally) announced that online advertising overtook TV advertising in the UK for the first time. The first major economy where this has occurred.  The internet is now the single largest recipient of advertising across all types of media with newspapers - regional and national - having been passed in 2006, according to a report in the FT.

On Friday it was announced that the Evening Standard, the London afternoon and evening newspaper, was adopting a free model starting on Monday 5th October, giving up the 50p daily charge and £12M of subscription revenue, and so becoming, as far as I am aware, the first major city anywhere in the world to adopt this model.   One question I have not seen answered is how is it going to be distributed as I am assume that small shops are not going to provide space for its distribution as they get nothing in return.  This move will not be popular with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper owners as it must result in a further downgrading of the value of traditional mass media brands on their balance sheets.

What goes around comes around - financial regulation

The history of PR highlights that one of the early drivers of PR was to try to protect industry against regulation and early luminaries such as Ivy Lee and Bernays partly made their name in this respect as Stuart Ewen in PR - A Social History highlights. 

In this context it is interesting to note that regulation has been dominating the news agenda again and this time regarding surely the most powerful global sector - financial markets.  Clearly we have witnessed a great failure of financial markets and particularly the efficient market theory which has underpinned the workings of modern markets  - but should this also be seen at the micro scale as a sign of the failure of the financial PR industry generally?  Probably it would have been so regarded by the early PR pioneers.  Time for a retrospective on financial PR and the lessons learned?

Social media conferences - Oxford and Georgia, USA.

• Report in Guardian
  
• Reuters Institute Oxford which hosted the conference.
• University of Georgia and Integrating Social Media and Traditional PR
• Conference blog with highlights of main contributions.
  

Happiness is now on the agenda and its official

Following the discourse in policy and political circles since the financial crash has been a giddy but fascinating ride.  The latest development is that President Sarkozy has called for the way we assess GDP and national economic performance needs, to be reassessed and that happiness and health need to be measured and added to the picture.  This would have the impact of pushing France much higher up world economic rankings and closing the gap with the USA. 

What gives the speech added impetus is he is drawing on the work of US economist and Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz and the publication of the results of the Commission of Economic Performance and Social Progress, set up by the French government of which he was a leading member. Stiglitz is quoted in the FT (print version but not online) as saying "What we measure affects what we do." (Useful to remember for PR campaigns as well.)   He then goes on to say "Behind the cult of the figures, behind all these statistical and accounting structures there is also the cult of the market that is always right."  (A nice nod to Foucault.)

What is interesting for PR is the way that the dominant paradigm of market force supremacy which has stood relatively unchallenged for 40 years continues to be worked over from a range of sources.  It would be very interesting to hear how this discourse is influencing the work of the large PR agencies and in-house teams for major global companies.  Second, it also raises issues about the way that PR programmes are measured - what metrics are being used and are the metrics all market based or is there some debate going on in the industry about using metrics which might have a wider social context.  Finally, it could be argued that what Sarkozy and Stiglitz are wanting to measure and to value in an economy are aspects such as social cohesiveness even social capital.  Some commentators have argued that PR is about organisational social capital and that makes this intiative particularly interesting and also one which will further add to the interesting discourse developments over the coming months and years.

PR Academic Conference, University of Stirling - initial thoughts

Just a few initial thoughts on the PR conference at Stirling which I much enjoyed.    

• Foucault and Habermas were mentioned more than Grunig.
• PR as dialogue, discourse, rhetoric as well as power and contested space were well explored reflecting developing research agendas.  
• The PR practitioner as an ethical negotiator might have been a sub-heading for the event as certainly ethics was a constant refrain.  In fact by the end, when Joanna Fawkes from Leeds Met said that "PR as persuasion" was a more ethical stance, there were plenty of nodding heads looking for some moral confidence and certainty on the subject.
• From a practical PR perspective, Prof. Anne Gregory's talk with Paul Willis on work on the UK National Health Service was fascinating for integration of business and PR strategy, interpretation of social values which the NHS embodies into the campaign and then how the communications training programme is being rolled out across the NHS. 
• Some interesting European research from Ralph Tench on corporate communications due to be launched this week was unveiled.  Perspectives from practitioners on new and developing areas of practice from the survey highlighted decline of marketing communications in terms of importance for corporate comms and growth of internal communications.  Research also highlighted uncertainty about how to use social media. 
  
• A fascinating session on terrorism and PR; with a particularly interesting paper from University of Coleraine in Northern Ireland on the way they have used a research project looking at first year students' perspectives on the Troubles to develop awareness about media and PR.
• No mention of social capital which surprised me.
• Leeds Met and Stirling had an impressive range of papers and both bring different and complementary research perspectives to the industry.  Leeds Met is more practice based while Stirling is more focusing on explore the influence of different social sciences on the PR sector.

Stirling is a great location and the conference was held in the management centre which is superbly designed for networking with the bar just off reception.  Very welcoming and stimulating event.

A great summary of the media landscape in a Robert Peston blog/speech

Planning a course on Media Relations it would be hard to find a single source which raises so many issues on role and future of journalism and by implication role and future of media relations as Robert Peston's latest blog entry.  This is a reprint of Robert Peston's speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival sponsored by the Media Guardian and reprinted as a blog.  The speech being a blog is of course significantly enhanced by readers' comments underneath (114 two days later) - for a recent Royal Bank of Scotland blog he ended up with over 700 - and this is of course an increasingly interesting and important aspect of media relations in terms of monitoring and judging how a story and discourse is being received and in its future development. 

I also thought it was particularly noteworthy how important the blog is in the development and disseminaton of his ideas; "For me, the blog is at the core of everything I do, it is the bedrock of my output. The discipline of doing it shapes my thoughts. It disseminates to a wider world the stories and themes that I think matter.....Most important of all, the blog allows me and the BBC to own a big story and create a community of interested people around it. Sharing information - some of it hugely important, some of it less so - with a big and interested audience delivers that ownership and creates that committed community."

A grand discourse on the future of the City of London

The fall-out from the financial crash continues. Markets and economies may be stabilising but we are now in the midst of a grand discourse and clash of ideas on the role of financial markets. Lord Turner, head of the FSA, the City regulator, has been quoted in a magazine article as saying that some City trading activity is "socially useless" and "efficient market theory" has been found wanting and consideration should be given to a transaction tax called Tobin's tax, after the US economist who first suggested it, to reduce the power of financial markets.

The reaction from the City and also government has been strongly critical but interestingly the reaction from the financial press has been more nuanced and supportive of the debate. This supports my sense that the City has ridden roughshod over the financial media (and society?) for too long and is paying the price. The City has also ignored the requirement in a modern democracy that a major sector needs to participate in the debate of ideas with society, along the lines of Habermas' communicative action with a genuine interest in hearing different perspectives. The City has put forward a very narrow ideology based on jobs and importance to UK plc and the financial crash has led to this being questioned. Somehow one cannot imagine that the industry body, the British Bankers Association, has ever funded research on supporting the rationale of financial markets, but perhaps this now needs to be part of its communications strategy going forward, if it wants to protect the interest of its members.

The French philospher, Michel Foucault, would surely have been interested in this debate. Not only is the accepted "truth" of the primacy of financial markets now being contended but it is the way that the new discourses are being developed. Foucault was interested not only in the "regime of truth" but the processes developing it. The current debate has not come from the left and traditional critics of the City; but this time from the heart of the City establishment - and in Foucauldian terms, this is what gives it such power. In fact the original Prospect article which takes the form of a round table discussion/interview with Lord Turner by leading City analysts and journalists including a recently retired Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, John Grieve. In PR terms it will be interesting to see what discourse strategies are developed by the City establishment in the coming weeks and months to defend its position; certainly it is a particularly interesting challenge for the City's financial PR community to consider.

No doubt the City will "win" the argument in the short and medium term. However, as some media have suggested the most difficult long term blow for the City comes with the comment that it is "socially useless" In a society where corporate social responsibility is part of the framework and language of modern organisations and the way that they sell themselves to future employees - that is indeed a damaging blow.

US healthcare debate - PR's dirty secret?

Is the US healthcare debate which seems to have quickly moved to "sound and fury" and limited illumination of the various points - or at least how it is reported over here in the UK - also an example of PR distorting the "public space".

Bloomberg highlights that it is a lobbying feeding frenzy with most of the lobbying coming from the major interest groups such as the health insurers. Open Secrets a NGO whose mission is to bring into the public forum, the link between private finance and Washington politics, has a table showing that healthcare lobbying accounts for some of the largest investment in lobbying by any industry sector groups over the last 10 years. Another list provided by Open Secrets , shows leading Washington lobbyists. I can only see one firm which jumps out with strong links to major international agencies, Ogilvy Government Relations, which is part of WPP.

Behind the lobbying will be some very large PR campaigns, both media relations and public engagement. A former PR director of communications in the US insurance sector has given insight into this area and criticised some of the techniques used in an interview on another NGO site, Center for Media and Democracy, whose domain name suggests the agenda, PRWatch.org.

I am not across the debate and the various points of view. However I was very struck by hearing recently from my cousin who lives in the USA about her fears and concerns about health care and the cost as she and her family get older particularly as unemployment grows. Certainly looking at the sheer volume of money from the health industry in the US going into the political process which has probably been matched by PR and advertising campaigns over this period and it does suggest that the communication process has been "colonised" as Habermas suggested.

Is there a debate in the US PR industry about its role in the healthcare debate as it raises important issues for all of us involved in the industry?

Goldman Sachs reputation under the spotlight - time to read about Habermas and social legitimacy

The reputation of Goldman Sachs, the legendary investment bank, which survived the financial crisis in better shape than almost all financial institutions, has now come in for a new series of attacks in the media, some from unexpected media sources, such as Rolling Stone magazine as well as the New York magazine. These articles have in turn generated a wider news agenda.


Recent comments have been more nuanced than the general attack on all banks earlier in the year; as this time it has primarily focused on Goldman Sach's access to power particularly under President Bush, and how the bailout of the banks and other key financial institutions such as the insurance company AIG was especially beneficial for the organisation. Taibbi, the author of the highly critical article in Rolling Stone would say even saved Goldman Sachs.

The Financial Times this week, entered the fray about Goldman Sachs, as it had commissioned WPP company Brand Asset Consulting, to do a major survey on the attitude of US citizens to financial organisations. This large 17000 people survey, which one assumes had taken place prior to these recent critical articles, highlighted that the reputation of Goldman Sachs had suffered over the last two years, more for example, than Morgan Stanley which has been noticeably less successful. The FT quoted survey organiser, Anne Rivers, that "Goldman Sachs still has that Gordon Gekko look to it among the general public,” referring to the villain of the 1987 film Wall Street.

It raises an interesting point about corporate reputation which the New York magazine suggests, that Goldman Sachs may be suffering as it is seen as too successful and powerful. Can too much success be damaging for the corporate reputation of a major organisation - Microsoft might suggest this is feasible. But is this the reason in the case of Goldman Sachs?

I think the problem is related to the fact that financial organisations are still coming to grips with the new order. They are no longer "Masters of the Universe" - able to set the political and financial agenda - which for the last 20 years they have been able to do so, with governments in awe of them. The financial community needs to think about the concept of a "licence to operate". Social legitimacy draws on, amongst others, Habermas and communicative action and that organisations need to earn the right to operate. The financial sector has been a classic example of a sector which has "colonised" and so distorted the communicative process with wider society about its role i.e set the agenda, not listened carefully to society and other interest groups.

The financial crash and rescue of the financial community by international governments has changed all this. I would suggest that society is now requiring that large financial organisations like Goldman Sachs need to be more than just financial technocrats and need to articulate more strongly how they are contributing to society. This is not something which changes over night but, I would suggest, is an important element of corporate reputation and the latest comments from the Head of Communications at Goldman Sachs suggests that this lesson is still being learned, as the Reuters blogger suggests.

Every company is a media company

I have recently had a trawl through the news related applications on iPhone and downloaded a number of these to try them out. It is interesting to note that a number of US government organisations have developed applications for the iPhone at a minimal cost (99 cents) and one of these is for the CIA.

What struck me looking at my iPhone this morning is that alongside the Financial Times icon, Sky, Daily Telegraph, BBC (why has the Guardian not created one?) etc on my iPhone, now sits an icon for the CIA - but it could be BP, University of Greenwich or any organisation which I have a relationship with or interest in. Somehow the iPhone screens and collective icons - all of the same size - bring home the point made by various commentators including Andrew Heyward and Richard Edelman that all companies are now media companies and content producers in the social media environment. This of course raises major challenges and opportunities for PR as credible "content producers" for organisations. But perhaps this process can be seen as a necessary development for organisations as they seek to develop new more direct channels of communication and dialogue with stakeholders as traditional media fragments.

The Queen v President

David Bowen of Bowen Craggs, an agency which advises large corporates on web design, has analysed in his blog the new web site for the Queen versus President Obama's. In other words, Buckingham Palace v the White House. He points out what a number of people have commented on, that Obama's team has not carried into practice the techniques used in the Primary and Presidential campaigns online, and is running a very attractive but conventional one way information web site. Will this change?

Where the hell do we go now?

Grim piece in the Guardian on regional journalism today. Raises at least two major issues for PR.

First the need to build relationships directly with stakeholders which does not involve the media as in some areas there may not be a local media which carries the authority and credibility which it once had. This is something which PR has been doing for some time and moving away from a media relations model but the pressure is on to develop this faster.

Second it is going to require a high (higher?) ethical code for PR, as for example some local authority PROs might be operating in areas where there is no longer a strong independent media to act as a counterbalance and to hold the council and local authority to task. Will the gap be filled by newer, leaner media operations entirely based on the web? Or will the local authority PRO have to build much stronger links and relationships both online and offline with local citizens so that new forms of checks and balances are created? Certainly Habermas' public space looks under threat at least at least at the local level.

Collector's item - Future of Capitalism

The Financial Times yesterday (March 9th, 2009) is a collector's item. A major new series has been launched with a banner head across the print version - The Future of Capitalism and its own section online. The feature heading inside, "Seeds of its own destruction", a nod to Marx's famous phrase about capitalism. PR is always interested in the current great debates or metanarratives which are setting the context for the smaller narratives which we are trying to weave into the wider debate on behalf of clients. None come much bigger than this but we live in interesting times.

The FT's decison to launch this major debate can also be seen in terms of the addressing the news agenda in the run-up to the G20 meeting in London in early April, which does appear to be developing as potentially an international political event of some substance.

On another front the FT series is also a collector's piece as it is not often that UK media explores the interplay of big ideas such as the Future of Capitalism with a bow to Marxism, modernism and postmodernism. This is something which French media enjoy but not traditionally UK media with our tradition of anti-intellectualism.

Text 100 report on PR effectiveness with major brands

Text 100 has produced report on role of PR and in particular relationship between media coverage or media prominence and brand value. According to PR Week a second report is due assessing role of tone of coverage which perhaps highlights one of the areas of the first report open to criticism. Role of media coverage according to research was more marked with more complex products as compared with "low involvement" products.

Command and control and Labour's developing love affair with new media

Good interview with Alistair Campbell in the Guardian highlighting his growing absorption with new media and acceptance of limitations of command and control. Also PR Week highlights recent Labour conference "Campaigning for the net generation." The event was organised by Progress, a new Labour think tank/campaigning group which if you follow political PR is one to follow.

WPP highlights growth of PR globally

"Public relations saw some of the greatest growth in the group, aided by social networking sites and polling" Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP was quoted in the Financial Times (6th March 2009) referring to its end of year results for 2008. This continues the trend which WPP highlighted of PR currently growing fastest of any of its disciplines in its previous Annual Report and Accounts.

Apart from the headline figure, the significance of this for PR is that WPP as one of the world's leading marketing communication groups is specifically identifying PR as an increasingly important component of its operations and so in turn this will influence the planning within global and national organisations worldwide as they consider their marketing and communication budgets. The WPP Report and Accounts over the last 15 years one imagines would provide an interesting historical record of the growth of PR alongside other "promotional culture" disciplines such as marketing, advertising etc.

Discourse analysis now part of the narrative

I am only an occasional reader of the Guardian's print version (Times and FT is my usual read), although look at it regularly online. I was struck by the use of content or discourse analysis in its coverage of Gordon Brown's speech to the US Congress last Wednesday 4th March. It is covered online but you don't get the full impact except in print. Wrapped up in different terminology to make it more accessible - "What the Prime Minister said and what he meant" but essentially making us the readers part of the analysis and able to access the story from a range of perspectives in what one might term a collaborative process.

What is interesting for PR people is how media savvy we have all become and the discourse analysis in the Guardian only develops this further. We increasingly spot the clues and meaning behind "news" stories and can spot the "genuine" or "manufacturered" story. PR has traditionally wanted to hide or at least play down its involvement in developing news agendas and discourse, perhaps this position is no longer sustainable and we should welcome the fact that stakeholders can increasingly understand the source and methods used as we become more open and transparent as a profession. Certainly Kate Moss appearing in the TopShop window in Oxford Street in 2007 - a classic manufactured event - did not stop everyone enjoying and participating in the event and helping make it a genuine "news" event.

PR as propaganda and control

Last week, I attended an excellent debate at the London School of Economics hosted by the Polis media team and addressing the issue "Why did we not see it coming" referring to the role of media and the crash in financial markets.

For the PR industry it was disturbing as a number of the panellists highlighted the baleful influence of financial PR companies and PR generally in obstructing alternative views about issues such as the "primacy of unregulated markets" and denying access to senior management.

Those speaking and on the panel included: Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman; Evan Davis - BBC; Alex Brummer - City Editor - Daily Mail; Gillian Tett - Deputy Editor of FT, and author of shortly to be published new book looking at role of exotic financial products on the crash and Wilhelm Buiter -LSE and formerly on Bank of England policy committee. The event was chaired by Howard Davis, Vice Chancellor of the University (superbly). Huge number of media folk in the audience.

What came through very strong from three speakers (Brummer, Tett and Vince Cable) was the dire influence of financial PR over a long period in making it very difficult for journalists and other voices to raise concerns or different perspectives from de-mutualisation of building societies in the 1990s onwards. Some of the best quotes which I took down were as follows:

"Incredibly powerful public relations machine whose job it is to lie and dissemble", Alex Brummer, City Editor of the Daily Mail.
"a ferociously powerful PR machine...a PR machine controlling the rhetoric", Gillian Tett, Deputy Editor of the FT.

Two further contributions highlighted how the whole rhetoric and discourse about the role of the City were circumscribed. Vince Cable described being called in during the 1990s and asked by City high-ups why he was trying to damage the City and UK plc for putting forward views that demutualisation of the building societies was not a healthy development. Equally significant was the perspective of Wilhelm Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England interest setting committee who said that everybody - economists, media, politicians etc - were "captured cognitively" by the rhetoric of financial markets.

The PR industry is only just starting to debate the role of financial PR but this is, or should be, a powerful issue in the months to come. Just as we are witnessing the demise of unregulated financial markets so surely we must be witnessing the end of financial PR as currently practised. Perhaps in time financial PR as currently practised/perceived might be seen as one of the last bastions of PR as propaganda and control - or is that wishful thinking.

Mandy - PR for UK plc

The Guardian today (Thursday 19th) highlights a master PR craftsman at work and someone in a senior position in government wrestling with major communications perceptions and issues at a UK plc level. Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State for Business is particularly concerned about perceptions of UK currently on Wall Street and corporate America, that the UK is now "Iceland-on-Thames". He is understandably worried that this will impact on investment decisions in the UK by major global corporations. The articles surrounding the main story are particularly interesting in highlighting some of the key participants and issues which are framing the discourse. Termed "commentariat" by UK diplomats and referring to Wall Street columnists, pundits and economists.

It is unusual in an organisations, in this case UK plc, to find a senior person who has such antenna and insight about the mood of the current discourse, its significance and how it needs to be reframed. Perhaps, he has been able to use his tactical insight as well to realise that the discourse will gain greater currency if it can be linked with some element more immediate. His swearing and general attack on comments made by Howard Shultz, CEO of Starbucks while on a trip to the USA (covered in the Guardian on Wednesday 18th) has given him strong coverage back home - "Plucky Peter standing up for UK plc" etc. (Note the particularly strong discourse around this article - around 300 comments on the first day. Interestingly the Guardian has moved the commentary from original story on Thursday to today's development of the story, now over 400 comments, midday Thursday - a topic for another blog.) Boy, is Mandelson getting a good press now. He has also picked a good target as Starbucks has a current valuation of $7.5bn while three years ago was $25bn and is about to probably further damage the brand by introducing instant coffee. I kid you not.

World Economic Forum starts exclusive social network

The World Economic Forum has not had a good week in terms of media commentary with its brand of thought leadership, namely globalisation and role of free markets, under fire from many quarters. However it has certainly achieved extensive coverage and provided a forum for a wide range of arguments which the media have enjoyed covering from having a go at the bankers and corporate leaders to supposed allies Turkey and Israel having a very public argument.

As an organisation I admire the way it has used new media to open up and allow the rest of us to look over the wall or through the fence at the discussions taking place inside. As an excercise in communications it has worked hard to fight the charge of elitism. But has it scored an own goal with the announcement of an exclusive social network called Welcom? Do exclusive online social networks work? They certainly do offline but online I find it hard to think of a good example. It will be interesting to see how it develops and the discussion online about it.

Digital Britain

Mixed reactions on the recently launched report by the UK government on broadband and its vital role in UK competitiveness. But an excellent source of data on UK media, impact of internet, size of e-commerce in the UK, online growth rates, etc.