Edelman release 2008 Trust Barometer survey
Posted Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 6:54pm in Blogging, Business, Media, PR General | 1 Comment
As my mate, Simon Collister let me know today, Edelman’s released this year’s (and the eighth I believe) Trust Barometer survey. I already knew, though, as he and David Brain were ‘live tweeting‘ it this morning. Here’s a snippet:
OVERALL MOOD
• Generally improving mood on trust: ‘opinion elites’ in many countries show significant increases in trust scores for specific companies, and credibility scores for media sources and spokespeople.
MEDIA
• “The voice of media is back” – Traditional news sources still hold the greatest credibility, with webbased, peer-to-peer sources continuing to play an influential role.
BUSINESS
• Trust in Business is a trend, and not a one-year blip. Business ties with NGOs as the trust leaders globally
⇒ Significant increases in business trust in the U.S. and Japan, and drops in China and Sweden.
⇒ US trust in business is at historical high 58% in 2008 vs 44% in 2002
YOUNG OPINION LEADERS
• 25-34 year old Young Influentials give business a new entrée for engagement
• 25-34 Young Influentials use multi sources of information and are more trusting of several
spokespeople.
SPOKESPEOPLE
• A “Person Like Yourself” and experts (such as documents, academics, industry analysts) continue to represent the most credible spokespeople; not the CEO
⇒ Companies must change the way they communicate to opinion leaders. They should blend “traditional high level communications” with peer-to-peer efforts.
⇒ Person like yourself defined by common interests rather than shared demographic features and attributes. Communities are not geographically contained.
TRUST ACTIONS
• Elites will act positively based on trust or negatively based on distrust in companies.
ONLINE
• Use of web-based information sources (e.g., online forums, social networking, video-sharing sites), is particularly high in the countries which have typically had the most government control over media, such as China and Russia.
⇒ The majority of young opinion elites in these two countries are using online forums and social networking sites to get information about companies.
Recession looms, PR is doomed
Posted at 8:53am in PR General | 4 Comments
Sorry, couldn’t resist that headline. I don’t mean it though.
However, if you’ve read at least one newspaper or listened to/watched at least one news bulletin this month you’re probably aware that the UK economy is heading for a downturn. Some are saying a recession while others are believe it’s more of a slow down; depending on where their vested interests lie, of course.
One thing’s for sure though, the UK has enjoyed excellent economic growth over the last ten years. Unemployment is at an all time low; London is the financial capital of the world; property prices have risen (a ridiculous) 190% and the banks are were willing to give the public cheap credit willy nilly.
Just to touch on house prices a second: The Express newspaper’s journalism quality/integrity has been shocking. Here are a few of their headlines from the last few weeks:
28th December 2007 Daily Express headline HOUSE PRICES FALL AGAIN
29th December 2007 Daily Express headline HOUSE PRICES RISING AGAIN
1st January 2008 Daily Express headline HOUSE PRICES PREDICTED TO FALL
9th January 2008 Daily Express headline HOUSE PRICES UP 5.2%
Friday 11th January 2008 Daily Express headline HOUSE PRICES NOW SET TO ROCKET IN 2008
Obviously a few things have happened recently. We’ve had our first run on a bank in over a hundred years and now none of them are lending to one another. The British tax payer has had to pick up the £24bn Northern Wreck bill and will be doing so for years to come. The many Americans who were given sub-prime mortgages have since defaulted causing financial firms like Citigroup, the world’s biggest bank (I believe) to write off billions of dollars due to the fiasco and like the dollar, the pound is weakening.
Only just yesterday the global stock markets were at their worst performance since 9/11.
There’s a saying I’ve heard mentioned a couple of times which goes something like “if the US has a cough the UK usually catches a cold.” We’ve certainly got a tickly throat.
It’s little wonder that incidents like these have started to trickle down to the PR industry? Here are a few posts/articles I’ve read lately:
Tim Dyson - Next Fifteen
Will McInnes - Nixon McInnes (Will isn’t strictly PR but he’s a digital/social media guy so still relevant)
Stephen Waddington - Rainier PR
Peter Chadlington (in a letter to PR Week) - Huntsworth Group
Whether or not these factors will have an impact on the PR industry remains to be seen but I believe the online/digital PR sector will remain sturdy throughout any economic downturn. Other sectors might not. As proved, online PR is becoming increasingly important to both PR people and their clients so 2008 should prove to be the year when a bigger slice of the (potentially decreasing) budget is allocated to the online arena.
However, as I mentioned in a tweet last month, social media activity in 2008 will demand more measurement and results. Why? As Ben Ayers said in his response “businesses will demand it”
Corporate social responsibility in the Economist
Posted Monday, January 21, 2008 at 9:17am in Blogging | 4 Comments
If you’re interested in CSR you’ll do yourself no harm reading this week’s Economist. There are six interesting articles all available online dedicated to the role of CSR as a business function. I’ve read them all and broke down the interesting bits here. All are linked to their full original article so if you want to read of them in full you’re better of just clicking through to the original pieces.
Business leaders embrace CSR for a number of reasons. Some businesses are often forced into concentrating on CSR initiatives through accidents, mishaps, court settlements etc. Some concentrate on it after catastrophic events as Wal-Mart did after Hurricane Katrina.
“Most of the rhetoric on CSR may be about doing the right thing and trumping competitors, but much of the reality is plain risk management. It involves limiting the damage to the brand and the bottom line that can be inflicted by a bad press and consumer boycotts, as well as dealing with the threat of legal action.”
Globalisation is the biggest problem to CSR as companies are using goods from all around the world including China and India. Sustainability is another new issue making initiatives much harder to implement. CSR is now a consideration in new business ventures. “In such cases CSR is not a public-relations exercise but part of systematic due diligence for new investments.”
CSR has clearly arrived but does it work? Robert Reich, a former labour secretary under Bill Clinton, now at the University of California “argues that the energy spent on CSR diverts attention from establishing rules that advance the common good. In a democracy, he says, that should be the job of elected governments, not profit-maximising companies.”
“In 2004-05 Oxfam, an agency devoted to poverty relief, and Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods company, jointly conducted a detailed study of the economic impact of Unilever’s operations in Indonesia. The conclusions were eye-opening, especially for Oxfam. Unilever in Indonesia supported the equivalent of 300,000 full-time jobs across its entire business, created a total value of at least $630m and contributed $130m a year in taxes to the Indonesian government. The lesson for firms is that they have been far too defensive about their contribution to society. If efforts to do good become a distraction from the core business they may actually be downright irresponsible. After all, a socially conscious but bankrupt business is no good to anyone.”
People will begin to ask how well CSR is adding value to the business. At present few companies would be able to tell.
Al Gore has helped put climate change at the top of the global agenda which has opened up new opportunities for business. “The green theme allows chief executives to adopt a planetary perspective.” Companies being environmentally friendly can also cut waste and thus save money.
“For some companies the gains to be had from cutting waste and improving energy use are very large. United Technologies Corporation (UTC), whose products range from aerospace to air-conditioning systems, has reduced its carbon footprint by 19% over the past ten years even as it has doubled its output, according to George David, the CEO”
UK retailer, Marks and Spencer’s CSR agenda is called ‘Plan A’ which has “a set of 100 worthy targets over five years. The company will help to give 15,000 children in Uganda a better education; it is saving 55,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year; it has recycled 48m clothes hangers; it is tripling sales of organic food (and) it aims to convert over 20m garments to Fairtrade cotton.”
CSR is booming and a survey carried out for the Economist showed that it is taking more prominence in global executives’ priorities. Government is taking interest too. In Britain “the 2006 Companies Act introduced a requirement for public companies to report on social and environmental matters.”
Because of scandals at Enron, Worldcomm and elsewhere, the public have fewer trust in big business hence the big boom in CSR initiatives. “And, more than ever, companies are being watched. Embarrassing news anywhere in the world—a child working on a piece of clothing with your company’s brand on it, say—can be captured on camera and published everywhere in an instant, thanks to the internet.”
An economic recession could be bad for the CSR industry and if one is on the horizon CSR “might be seen as a luxury companies could live without.” The next wave of CSR will involve disruptive innovation and introduce a ’social entrepreneur’. These social entrepreneurs will introduce CSR programmes that are “for profit and self sustaining”.
“The extraordinary wealth-creation of recent years has produced a large number of extremely rich people, many of them from the software and finance industries, who are interested in a new kind of philanthropy: a smart, capitalist kind. It involves using money for maximum impact by investing in potentially disruptive technologies (in the environmental field, for example) and in social enterprises that can be scaled up as required.”
“This kind of enterprise has several advantages over established big business. It has focus, rather than being a sideline, as CSR often is for large companies. It involves people who are using their own money and are interested in measurable results: “real good” not “feelgood”.”
Britain, especially London, has been the hive of innovation in the CSR field since the mid 90s. Other markets such as the US and Japan have impressive CSR records also which have been introduced in alignment with their own cultures. With this in mind, expectations of the emerging markets’ adoption of CSR will more than likely have a different approach to one another which “means that a one-size-fits-all approach to corporate responsibility may not work.” What is right for one country/continent may not be right for another.
Russian business seems less interested in CSR where “Brazil has a lively CSR scene”. As does India with its “long tradition of paternalistic philanthropy” and “China has become the new frontier for the CSR industry” although “It is still early days. For Chinese companies that serve the home market, the relentless focus on growth leaves little room for worrying about the niceties of corporate citizenship.”
It’s those little things…
Posted Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 3:31pm in PR General | 6 Comments
Last month my annual car insurance was up for renewal. For some reason, on the run up to Christmas, I generally spend the bulk of the month’s wage on annoying bills such as said insurance which, by the time I’ve succumbed to the Great Consumer Rip Off more commonly known as Christmas, I’m usually broke over the festive season.
Car insurance is one of those outgoings that has to be paid. It’s a pain. There’s no material reward at the end of shelling out for it, unlike that joyful feeling of glee you receive after spending the same amount of money to bolster you wardrobe or the hours of entertainment that the 37’’ plasma you’ve been eyeing up in Currys gives you.
Nevertheless, if you drive a car, it’s the law.
When renewing my car insurance, or any insurance for that matter, I have no particular affiliation or affection to any company that offers insurance solutions. I tend to just enter my details into an insurance search engine such as Confused.com and go with whichever company offers me the cheapest deal. This time around, the best (cheapest) offer came from More Than.
“Great!” I said, “Even cheaper than last year, you’ll do for me.” And off I went and entered my credit card details.
Generally, after I’ve paid whichever company that allowed me to spend the least money, I’ll expect my policy to arrive through the post and that’s it. End of story. Provided I don’t have any accidents and everything goes smoothly I won’t speak to you, you won’t speak to me and who knows, if you can quote me the least next year I’ll use you again.
Cheers.
Yesterday an envelope came through the post from More Than. I knew before I opened it as they have branded ones with the distinct green logo. I thought it must have been a brochure to tell me about the “fantastic” deals they had on home insurance, business insurance, pet insurance, life insurance or some other type of **sigh** insurance.
Nope.
It wasn’t some kind of advertorial. It was a letter from one of their “UK based” Personal Customer Managers. His name is Liam and he wasn’t trying to sell me anything. He just wanted to drop me a note to introduce himself and should I have a query about my current policy or any other insurance related policy to let him know.
What I particularly liked most about Liam’s letter is that it didn’t give me the generic 0800 number; it was his direct line and extension number in case I needed to contact him. As well as this, he also added his email address but not the typical enquiries@ email address but his own with his Christian and surname are part of the address itself.
He even gave me the hours he works so I know when to call but told me that if I can’t get through to him to speak to one of his colleagues who’ll pass the message on.
Now, if I was a high-rolling, big pimping, bling bling insurance spender, I may have expected this type of service. But I’m not. My car insurance doesn’t cost me thousands as I have a full no claims bonus and my car isn’t a Ferrari. Far from it.
Thing is, should I want to take out some other insurance I’ll probably send Liam an email enquiry. I’ll probably introduce myself and mention that I received his letter. If the quote from More Than is a little more than another quote I’ve received elsewhere I’ll probably still be inclined to go with More Than. Or, more specifically, with Liam.
The point of the story
Everyone bangs on about social media and how a personal, human approach needs to be taken in any type of outreach you do. This is true but we often forget that the same applies offline too. This simple letter has had much more of a positive effect on me than any kind of advertising brochure would have. The brochure would have been binned immediately, the letter will be kept for future reference.
To me, this letter is a signal that PR’s value to companies like More Than is taking a higher precedence over other marketing disciplines. And rightly so. I reckon we’ll see more of it too.
It’s those little things that make all the difference.
PR Career 3.0 (2015 - ?)
Posted Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 11:52am in PR General | 4 Comments
Inspired by a great post on past, present and future media careers by the SacredFacts blog which David Brain linked to over on my new addiction Twitter. Here’s my (probably very far fetched) interpretation of PR career 2015 onwards:
Take a PR related degree mixed with media production, sociology and a foreign language (preferably Mandarin). At university you should have built up a large online footprint and have established relationships with those that matter to your career through the medium of Twitter or the blogosphere or whatever new technology is around then. You’ll know the media inside out and have key journalists and bloggers added in your IM application (including those working for the last remaining ‘dead tree’ national newspapers around the world) which is left on 24/7 and integrated with your mobile should you be away from your laptop.
Network like hell and think ‘global’ while doing it. The good ones are part of an elite virtual global network of PR pros based in various locations around the world working together on global campaigns. Doesn’t really matter where they’re based so chances are it’ll be in some exotic location or beautiful city. Hawaii, Barbados, Prague, County Durham etc but preferably only a few hours flight from each of the world’s major business cities: New York, London, Hong Kong, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi. Unfortunately you have to meet people in the ‘real’ world about twice a year.
A lot of your work will be outsourced to Africa (India is too expensive these days) including translations, client brand monitoring, press release writing and distribution, and the general admin. Your role is more of a ‘connector’ or middle man these days with an emphasis on long-term strategy. The work time of ‘9 til 5′ means nothing to you. Depending on the country both you and your client’s in, you can be working any part of the day or night. Pro Plus is your best friend. You’ll remember the days when the internet was ‘fun’; you’ll remember when you got a kick out of adding your holiday snaps to Facebook. Not anymore. No time. Besides, things are moving pretty quickly and you’ve got to stay ahead.