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.