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On June 22, the Cannes International Advertising Festival announced the winner of their brand new category for PR. This is another boost to the PR industry which is continually becoming more and more important worldwide. Cumminsnitro in Brisbane, were the winners of the inaugural PR Grand Prix for Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’. In its first year the PR category received 431 entries from which the jury also chose to award 17 PR Lions from an initial shortlist of 37. The International Advertising Festival - Cannes Lions - is the largest gathering of worldwide advertising professionals and advertisers as well as the most prestigious annual advertising awards. More than 10,000 registered delegates from 94 countries and around 12,000 total visitors from the advertising and allied industries attend this event to celebrate the best of creativity across all media mix, discuss industry issues and network with one another. You can find out more about the winners and the awards at www.canneslions.com.
It is important to carefully evaluate your PR efforts to find out whether your campaign was a success. Items you should measure include:1) The details of the newspaper/website/radio/tv including circulation and readership (usually 2.5 times the circulation), page views/followers for online or audience for radio and tv.2) Size or length of article/clip3) Whether the article/clip was positive or negative - measure the percentage if possible4) Whether your key messages were featured in the article/clip5) Whether your company was mentioned 6) Advertising value equivalent i.e. if you had paid for that space in the media how much would you have paid? A bit contentious BUT it adds a value to the campaign. This tends to work better for print, TV and radio and less so for online. If you used a spokesperson or a celebrity in you PR campaign, it is important to measure how many times they were mentioned in the media. Measuring the celebrity mentions will help you to evaluate whether you should hire that celebrity again. If possible you should aim to do some market research first to find out the public's opinion on the celebrity before you invest in them..All of these measurements will help you to evaluate the success of the campaign. They will also help you to set a benchmark for your next one. I used to measure all of these factors, and this along with clear objectives and creative ideas, contributed to my campaigns winning awards from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Hitwise reported that the majority of searches on Bing were brand-led. Facebook was the number one search.
A couple of stories that really show that reputation does matter.First up is the adorable rogue, Gordon Ramsay. I can't believe I'm mentioning him twice in my blog. But here goes. He's been up to no good again. Upsetting TV presenters and the prime minister of Australia. But worst of all, he upset his mum! Actually the mum part possibly helped to save his backside. He was perceived so rude and offensive to a favourite Australian TV presenter that the country's prime minister waded into the argument causing bad press worldwide for Ramsay. Perhaps his type of sense of humour doesn't work in Australia, or he hadn't realised just how fiesty Australian women are. But either way he should have thoroughly checked their culture before he started using his style of "charm" on the Australians. With his reputation at risk, he needed to apologise. And quickly. And so he said sorry. On Australian TV. It was the best thing to do. We'll soon see whether this recent episode affects sales of his books, TV series or restaurant attendence. The second story is about the expenses crisis happening in the UK. The story below is from the CIPR's PR Voice blog - http://http://prvoice.typepad.com/. It's written by Kevin Taylor, CIPR President."The crisis caused by the exposure of the expenses of many MPs threatens more than just the political future of some of those individuals whose claims were highlighted and criticised.
Because if anybody ever doubted the importance of reputation, the current crisis is evidence of just what can happen when reputations are destroyed.
It is worth stating again that whether you are talking about an organisation or an individual, reputation is largely determined by three factors: what you say, what you do, and what others say about you. I’m afraid that – at different times in this crisis – various MPs and their representatives have failed on all three counts.
And where we stand now, is that the reputational damage is so great – it threatens Parliament itself. The collapse in voter confidence could very well see even lower voter turn outs in the next round of elections, which in turn could favour minority and extremist parties.
And it is hard to see where all this is currently heading. Until you go back to those factors that affect reputation and look closely at the first two – what you say and what you do. Parliament – not one party or another but the institution itself – needs now to be seen to be putting its House in order, it needs, more than ever before, to communicate clearly what it is doing, and some individuals need to either explain, apologise, or stand down – in some cases all three.
The media has played a crucial role in exposing some of the worst excesses; and – when the right actions are being taken – can also play a role in helping to rebuild confidence. I do worry, however, that the media opinion will likely divide into party political lines and that’s one reason why I feel that the organisation leading change needs to be seen to be Parliament and not necessarily Government.
There is an opportunity for party heads to show leadership, but Parliament needs to unite around a series of changes and measures that have all-party support. The issues at stake here are, I feel, too big for party point scoring."
