The proposal by the concert promoters for the late Michael Jackson’s sold-out London gigs to offer fans the option a “specially created” souvenir ticket rather than a refund is, if nothing else, audacious - but it also demonstrates how a bit of creative thinking can go some way to changing people’s perceptions. AEG’s inspired suggestion that people might want to retain a special ticket as a tribute to Jackson - rather than be materialistic and demand something as tawdry as a cash refund - also puts me in mind of a case study of positive communication often cited by my friend and ex-colleague Steve Sanders. This involved a broken escalator with a sign next to it saying ‘This escalator is temporarily a staircase’.
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.
Tags: communications, Media, Michael Jackson, PR
