Both of these involve tactics straight out of a good PR operative’s toolkit. Day in, day out we are tasked with nuancing language, finely tuning key messages and finding the positive angles to convey our client’s news in an engaging way. Of course it’s easy to say that’s just ’spin’ dressed up in fancy words - but the truth is that good communicators can secure meaningful coverage by applying imagination and creativity subtlety without having to resort to expensive (and high reputational risk) stunts or questionable hyperbole that, on closer inspection, diminish the integrity of the story.

For example when we were briefed by Bolton Council about The Spirit of Sport sculpture (which we had been hired to launch) we were told it was a relatively uninspiring 30 metres high. But by replacing that with the message “it’s a third taller than The Angel of the North” the media warmed to the story much more quickly - especially those journalists based in the south-east that had never actually seen Gormley’s modest 20-metre Angel close-up.

Bolton's not-so-tall order

I know this probably doesn’t sound that earth-shattering on paper - but a more traditional council press office approach would have been to simply state the dimensions of the artwork with no attempt to give the facts some sort of emotional ‘pull’. The Angel comparison created a mental image and got the interest. It opened the door, allowing us to tell the bigger story.

Another effective technique that can propel something up the news agenda with a simple tweak of language is the deployment of a creative synonym or nick-name. SKV can lay claim to numerous examples of populist phrase-coining including ‘The Tardis Terrace’ for a housing association client  (a phrase which has now become synonymous on with any terraced house that is deceptively spacious inside) and ‘Podestrians’ (people immersed in tunes from their MP3 players who cause traffic accidents when stepping out to the cross the road) on behalf of Swinton Insurance. Both of these played well with the national media but, more importantly, the quirky moniker didn’t detract from the actual story we were trying to tell on behalf of our clients. Again it was the ‘in’ - and not the story itself.

But what tops both of these (IMHP) has to be our successful repositioning (literally) of the entire North of England on behalf of The Lowry’s Myth of the North exhibition. By commissioning a respected Professor of Geography from Sheffield University to officially define the North/South divide - putting the top half of Gloucester ‘oop north’ and instantly making thousands of people living just below Hull ’soft southerners’ in the process - we had a sure-fire media hit on our hands. The Daily Mail duly spluttered into its middle-England tea-cup, The Guardian stroked its liberal-left beard, The ONE Show did the obligatory regional vox-pops (”How do you feel about being called a northerner living in Worcester then?”) and The Today programme tried to instigate a row over it live in Radio 4’s  studio.

It's grim up north Gloucester

Pure PR gold derived from a simple, squiggly line running across a map of the UK.

Obviously not every campaign lends itself to this approach, and if you try to force a clever twist or tweak on every story you’ll kill its chances there and then by trying that bit too hard.

But sometimes a little bit of linguistic or creative craft can go a long way to help give a good story the fighting chance it deserves without resorting to shock and awe tactics. Or relating back to beginning of this post, it’s about using a dash of flair now and again to help a story get a few decent footholds -  rather than attempting moonwalks every time.

Ten years ago email marketing was touted as the holy grail of Direct Marketing and it has, on the whole, delivered on its promise. It’s an incredibly cheap and effective way to communicate news or an offer to millions in just a few seconds.  And with most responsible practitioners only mailing to legitimate opt-in addresses it targets people that actually want communication from a particular business. Permission based, cost-effective and targeted - the marketeer’s dream weapon in the online war for eyeballs and click-throughs.

Now of course we can all get carried away;  signing up for numerous trade newsletters, email bulletins and consumer communiqués which we gradually edit down with a quick click on the ‘unsubscribe’ link as their genuine value becomes clearer. However, one email alert I have stayed loyal to for nearly a year - despite me anticipating that 99.9% of its content would be of no interest to me whatsoever - is Aldi’s special buys.  The reason?  Cycle clothing.

Yes folks - it’s just over a year since I packed in my 20-a-day Marlborough  habit, bought a second hand bike (for a mere £60.00) and took on a 4-mile (each way) daily commute from Prestwich to SKV in a combined cardio/credit crunch change of lifestyle.

Now they say you never forget how to ride a bike - and after about 20 years this adage proved to be true.  But what has changed is the apparent obligation to spend about £1,000 on a variety of breathable hi-vis jackets, padded tights and shorts, arm and leg warmers, wicking base-layers, special shoes, sun-glasses, gloves and garish cycling tops featuring little zips and pouch pockets round the back. Bearing in mind the modest investment I made in the actual bike which I take into battle on Bury Old Road every morning, I was obviously loathed to spend ten times as much on a set of Gore-Tex gear from Evans.

But other cyclists did manage to convince me that I should try and get a couple of bits of specialist gear to make my arduous daily pedal a tad more comfortable - so naturally I turned to the web and signed up to a couple of bicycle chat-forums. Apparently I was not alone in trying to track down some practical cycling kit at sensible prices - with Decathlon being the preferred retailer. But there were also quite a few posts recommending Aldi’s own brand of sports clothing Crane.

Now I’m not a shopping snob - but up until that point Aldi had never really appealed despite the obvious value it offers across a variety of product categories. I could also never work out how all the random cages of goods in the middle of the stores ‘worked’. But these recommendations for its sports kit was intriguing and, after a bit more research, I garnered  that many of Aldi’s special buys (including the Crane bike clothes) were stock that only went into stores on a particular week of the year, sometimes not returning for a full 12 months, and that what was put out on display was ‘it’ and once it was gone it was gone.

This is what goes in the cages and on the clothing racks. I now understood. I had got an insight into how Aldi ticked.

Well this was last summer and it turned out I had missed the 08 Crane Bike collection, resulting in Decathlon getting my business. Aldi on the other hand got my email address and permission to contact me - because their twice-weekly email alerts were  going to tip me off when certain things were due in store, things like bike clothing.

Every time one dropped into my inbox I would take the time to scroll through numerous offers on everything from pickles to power-drills, laptops to loo rolls, sat navs to sausages, tea-towels to telescopes.

The motorbike clothing came and went, as did the running gear, the skiwear and the walking boots. Every week for nine months I checked - but alas no cycle clothing. But despite this I did start to enthuse about Aldi’s prices and diversity of seasonal stock. I even started shopping there on occassion.

Then two weeks ago a work colleague asked if I’d got any Aldi bike gear from the 09 range that they noticed was “on its last legs” in their local branch with only men’s XXL and ladies s sizes still on the hangers. A quick google revealed that yes the cycle clothing had arrived in store some ten days before - but trawling through all my Aldi emails I realised I had not been sent a special buy alert for that week’s particular offers. Word had got around the cycle community and the most popular sizes had flown off the shelves. But for me - with nine months of waiting  and over 100 emails received, opened and read - and I had missed the opportunity to buy the only Aldi products I really, really wanted.

Where social media and peer-to-peer networks had helped build reputation (and changed my perception and eventually my consumer behaviour) so it was corporate comms that in the end failed to capitalise. It also left me feeling somewhat let down and disappointed by a retailer that I had began to evangelise about. Plus I’ve now unsubscribed from the alerts.

Now I’m sure Aldi won’t sweat a few cheapskate cyclists like me bemoaning an apparent communication cock-up   - but I think somewhere buried in this lengthy semi-biographical rant there’s some PR and marketing lessons to be learnt about how to engage with social networks and how direct marketing via email can still be a negative experience despite being 100% opt-in.

In the meantime I’m off to google Decathlon’s latest cycle range, and see what the forums are saying about it. There’s a branch in Stockport by the way and it’s really very good value - something I might post online in fact, especially if any beginner or born-again biker (like me a year ago) is  asking about good value bike clothing. That is the true cost of Aldi’s slip-up, not a measly few quid from me.

]]> http://www.skvcommunications.co.uk/skv-conversation/social-media-1-email-marketing-0/feed/ http://www.skvcommunications.co.uk/skv-conversation/more-on-the-war-of-public-sector-words/ http://www.skvcommunications.co.uk/skv-conversation/more-on-the-war-of-public-sector-words/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:26:57 +0000 Richard Bond http://www.skvcommunications.co.uk/?p=1538

This just in -

Ministers  should speak more plainly, a peer urged today.

Liberal Democrat Lord Smith of Clifton highlighted the “increasing reliance of ministers on using weasel words and euphemisms to obfuscate reality.”

Now that’s not done a lot to help my…

Cllr Eaton also went onto say: “From claiming council tax benefit and how older people can get a lift to the shops, to telling people how they can get their old fridges picked up or how to report criminals who flytip, people need to know what is available to them.

“Unless information is given to people to explain what help they can get during a recession then it could well lead to more people ending up homeless or bankrupt. If a council fails to explain what it does in plain English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote”.

Blimey!

Apparently civil servants and councils that dare to use ‘impenetrable jargon’ such as ‘autonomous’, ‘challenge’, ‘customer’ and ‘dialogue’ could actually be undermining the economy and local democracy. And under the circumstances it’s lucky that ‘impenetrable’ itself wasn’t put on the blacklist, or else the LGA’s press release would have needed a speedy re-write.

My point is this - as someone that has had worked closely on a number of engagement campaigns for a range of public sector bodies  I know that  some of the language used can be tricky when trying describe or communicate an initiative for public consumption. However this is an internal language - just like the professional jargon used by every sector in the land.  From the building site to the  boardroom, the shop floor to the space programme, we all have trade-speak.

Yes the public sector needs to communicate to everyone and be understood by all in our society - and yes the language used should be appropriate to the audience it is aimed at. But in my experience the worst extremes of council gobbledegook highlighted by the LGA is never used in public-facing communications.

But the suggestion with this particular story  is that if you phone up your council to arrange to get an old fridge collected you are quite likely to be subject to a stream of Councileese such as being be referred to throughout the conversation as “a valued stakeholder”, rather than Mr Jones, and told that “the refuse technologists will be operating in your sub-region from 0900 hours a week on Tuesday”. It simply doesn’t wash.

Now you might say my objections to this is wrapped up in self-interest and it’s true that one of the reasons us PR-types are employed  is because we are considered to be good with words and communication (at least when we aren’t typing rants about the LGA for a blog post) and that we benefit from being called in as ‘translators’ by many of our clients. But putting that to one side, I genuinely believe people shouldn’t apologise for having a wide-vocabulary or knowing how to use language.

Ban the banal and banish the bullshit yes - but don’t dumb down democracy by suggesting that public servants using a variety of words and perfectly decent English are helping to fuel social injustice and compounding the problem of political disenfranchisement.

Using more words is how we enrich our language and improve communication with each other, and I’d much rather people be accused of swallowing  dictionaries than accused of building bonfires with them.

Have I made myself clear?

Chaired  by the very relaxed (and occasionally mischievous) Dale Hicks from MFN, us agency folk (Andrew   Brown-Allan from And Partners, Photolink founder Dave Walter and Helen Thomas, MD of Meredith Thomas) were asked if we were partly to blame for creating an unsustainable economic boom through creative and marketing hype and didn’t we (and our clients) now deserve to be suffering.

Thanks Dale.

Other issues included what the post-recession marketing and advertising landscape will look like (unsurprisingly most agreed it would be leaner, more targeted, accountable and, above all, increasingly digital), who is likely to suffer the most (agencies and media owners who rely on mass market broadcast advertising or classifieds), and how best to spend budgets in these difficult times.

Everyone on the panel agreed that it was not very representative of the industry with no actual client-side marketeer present - but  we also didn’t simply take the opportunity to puff-up our own services with the mantra ‘you must spend, you must spend’ to any potential clients in the room.

The evening rounded off with a plea from some Salford design students (the University was a co-sponsor for the evening)   for advice and support on how to raise money for a swanky portfolio of their work to use to engage with potential employers.

After  a few pearls of wisdom were thrown out by the panel to the assembled throng of budding creatives, one student in particular announced that it was really tough to get sponsors and that it all didn’t seem very fair. In trying to help give her a steer Dave from Photolink asked what exactly she had tried so far. The response was (to paraphrase) “helped organise this event, put up loads of posters around the venue, sent loads of emails to people” concluding “y’know it’s been really hard work”.  A sharp intake of breath from the panellists followed and it looked like Dave might actually explode. He didn’t - but it was close.

Aparrently later today an audio recording of the debate will be uploaded - and when it does I’ll post the link. Finally a big thanks to Rachel Ainsworth for inviting me to take part and look foward to doing another one sometime.

One technical development I’ve always thought would catch fire and help web-based radio challenge other DAB platforms is WiFi internet radio. But even after a few years on the market, and Currys and Argos both retailing a sub £60 model, they seem destined to remain the preserve of the gadget completist.

I actually own two of them and have been trying to fathom why they are not a must-have for anyone who likes the radio. Admittedly you need access to a wireless network to use one but they are increasingly common at home and work.

In a nutshell the issue seems to be that consumers don’t know enough about them or understand their simplicity and the benefits - which is clearly an issue of communication.

If you yourself are not familiar with the wonders of WiFi radio, here’s a very brief summary:

It looks like a portable radio, you turn it on, it detects your wireless network then links directly to an online gateway hosting  indexed radio feeds from across the globe - including all UK national and local stations (BBC and independent) and the BBC’s Listen Again archive. Even those good people at All FM in Levenshulme and other community radio stations are available.

You navigate by location or genre via a LED screen and a scroll button, find a station you fancy, hit select and after a few seconds of buffering your selection will commence streaming. On many of the models you can also pause, rewind and fast foward the stream as desired.

So quick and easy access to 20,000 radio streams, including the Beeb’s on-demand services,  all accessible through a user-friendly radio-style box for around £50 with no computer or laptop boot up required. Sounds like a minor broadcasting miracle - so why don’t more people know about them?

turn on, tune in

I think the PR issue here is one faced by many technically-based ‘too good to be true’ innovations when they hit the mainstream - promoting and explaining both the benefits and the technology principles behind it.

It’s a bit like the self-service check outs in supermarkets where bemused first timers stand there holding a pack of sandwiches they’ve just scanned thinking ‘I don’t want to put it in a bag, I just want to pay and go!’ while an automated voice keeps barking ‘put the item in the bag!’ at them.

Now if it was explained from the beginning  that the way the till recognises each item being purchased is based on a weight-sensitive panel that sits below where the bags are, and placing each item on it (bag or no bag) registers its presence then most people would  ‘get it’ immediately. I think  WiFi radio needs a similar ‘explanation’ PR campaign - articulating how it works in addition to what it does.

But to be fair to the retailers in this case the manufacturers themselves appear to struggle with how to pitch the product, as most of the technology that makes all this possible is supplied via a third party company called Reciva.

I as understand it Reciva had the idea, developed the technology and the built the portal of radio streams and have sold the whole package to  DAB radio brands including Bush, Pure and Roberts. However, no-one (including Reciva themselves) appears to have worked out how to successfully communicate the subsequent ’radio magic’ to the potential end user.

So having successfully PR’d a number of tricky technology campaigns for pioneering products and services (both b2b and b2c) what’s the answer you might ask. I’m afraid that’s what clients pay us for - but at least if you’ve read this you hopefully have a better idea about WiFi radios than you did before - and that surely is a good start.

However even this deal has a bizarre caveat - Liverpool’s imitation SLB will be able to stay in the city for ‘at least 80 years’. This would suggest that despite the deal struck between the artist and council, the ‘ownership’ of SLB Mark II will revert to the artist’s estate come 2089.

Meanwhile at the other end of the M62 the MEN reported another controversial piece of public art, Thomas Heatherwick’s B of the Bang at Eastlands, will be pulled down as planned due to structural issues but then re-built, possibly at a different location. Authorities have reportedly said that the tax-payer will not foot the bill for the reassembled BotB - but the issue has reawakened all the old arguments and debate about the cost and value of public art to society.

Professionally I have had to wrestle with such arguments when tasked with launching Bolton MBC’s Spirit of Sport tower outside of the Reebok Stadium. The council and other partners were (quite rightly) concerned that even though there had been a cap put on the amount of public money put into the  project, any tax-payers cash going towards a public artwork could provoke a backlash.

Well, I won’t bore you with all the details but in a nutshell most people (helped by positive reporting in both local and national media) bought into the Spirit of Sport and the principles behind it.

What really helped achieve this (beyond an award winning PR campaign) was that the work made  images of people from the local community  intergal to the entire concept. This automatically elevated it above the usual mud-slinging, sniping and finger-pointing that often dog public art projects, and it certainly got a much softer ride in the media than SLB or the spiky explosion of steel sat in East Manchester.

Of course you could say that what the Spirit of Sport gained in striving for mainstream acceptance it lost in terms of creative edginess or ‘daring vision’, but the fact remains when launched the message was ‘it’s art about the people, for the people’ - and on that front it still delivers 100%.