Five Things

Five Things: Trump vs Google, bullying, WPP, Bake Off and May dance

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This week, Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed includes Trump vs Google, three bullying stories, WPP’s new chief exec, the return of Bake Off and Theresa May, dancing queen.

1. Trump vs Google

TrumpThe President of the United States has attacked Google twice this week for ‘bias’. The first time, Trump said the search engine had rigged results to the search ‘Trump news’, so that they were negative against him. He tweeted: ‘96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!’

He also suggested his administration might regulate Google – though this would likely violate the first amendment (free speech).

The second attack came with a tweeted video along with the hashtag #StopTheBias:

The video shows how the Google homepage allegedly linked Obama’s State of the Union address each year on its homepage but stopped when Trump came to power. Google hit back, saying that Trump’s first speech had been to Congress and was therefore not a State of the Union address and also provided evidence that the video was not accurate, as reported by BuzzFeed News.

Trump attacking negative views, opinions and facts against him is nothing new. Trump attacking businesses and companies is nothing new. But the most powerful man in the world attacking the most powerful search engine in the world could change the face of the internet as we know it. Though actually, this will probably go nowhere – with the midterms on the horizon, Trump has bigger fish to fry.

 

2. A trio of bullying

Now MagazineStacey Solomon, Tess Holliday and Kim Woodburn – all three are considered to have been publicly bullied this week.

Stacey Solomon called out Now magazine for its cover, which used tweeted comments to describe her as ‘boring’, ‘desperate’ and ‘cheap’.

Solomon’s response generated huge public support, leading to an apology from the magazine. However, this wasn’t good enough for Solomon, who rejected the magazine’s apology on Loose Women.

In the second bullying story, Kim Woodburn appeared on Loose Women to ‘reconcile’ with Coleen Nolan after the pair fell out on Celebrity Big Brother. With Janet Street Porter playing ‘judge’, the pair argued and Woodburn left the set, leading to over 3,000 complaints of bullying against her to Ofcom.

Finally, Tess Holliday, plus-size model, has appeared on the front cover of Cosmopolitan in what many are calling a huge step forward for body positivity. Tess received a swathe of negative responses, which were widely shared on social media, so Cosmopolitan followed it up with an article titled: ‘Why the feedback to our Tess Holliday shoot proves this is the magazine cover we all needed’.

 

3. WPP to appoint Mark Read as chief executive

WPPThe FT has reported that that WPP is appointing Mark Read, currently co-chief operating officer at WPP, as its new permanent chief executive after deciding against an external appointment. Read has been in charge of WPP since April, when Sir Martin Sorrell resigned. His appointment has not been confirmed by WPP but could come as early as Tuesday when WPP reports its interim results, or later in September.

The FT also reports that Roberto Quarta is expected to move back to a non-executive role, after he became executive chairman following Sorrell’s resignation.

In an April interview, Read said: ‘The key task is to restore growth in the business and that is what we will focus on’, though whether he can stave off competition from Google, Facebook AND Sorrell’s new S4 Capital, while streamlining the unwieldy WPP, remains to be seen.

 

4. Bake Off is back

Bake off

The Great British Bake Off returned on Tuesday with the same judges and hosts, 12 new contestants and overnight viewing figures of 6.1m. Though this is down on last year’s opening of 6.5m viewers, the programme managed to capture 57% of the 16-34 audience, making it the most-watched TV show for this age group in 2018 outside of the World Cup. That means it’s more popular with ‘young adults’ than Love Island.

Full consolidated viewing figures are yet to be released, but as more people now watch TV on demand or via catch-up, it’s very possible the opening show will be more popular than it was in 2017.

In terms of the content, the show stuck to a familiar format, though there was noticeably less innuendo from the days of Mel and Sue.

 

5. Theresa May: Meme-tastic Happy Feet

Prime Minister

Theresa May has been filmed dancing several times this week, while on her whistle stop tour of three African nations. Surprisingly, Twitter redubbed the videos to different music. Enjoy:

You get the idea.

 

Seen something we missed? Let us know on Twitter – unless it’s another version of May dancing. We’ve seen that. We’ve seen a lot of that.

Ethics in PR and comms

Global PR associations agree new ethics code

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A task force of public relations and communication management organisations has identified 16 principles for ethical practice that they deem to be universal and fundamental to the practice of PR and comms.

The organisations, which includes the UK’s PRCA, based the principles on an analysis of the most prominent codes of ethics in public relations and communication management to build on the 2003 global protocol on ethics, the recent Helsinki principles and the IABC code.

Francis Ingham, of the ICCO and PRCA, said: ‘Less than a year ago, we expelled one of our most high-profile members from the UK Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) because of a breach of ethics. Building on that decision, the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO) developed the Helsinki Declaration – our global principles of ethical practice. We warmly welcome these complementary principles from the Global Alliance. Seen together, our collective work represents the new gold standards of ethical public relations practice.’

The principles are split into two parts – guiding principles and principles of professional practice:

Guiding principles

  1. Working in the public interest
  2. Obeying laws and respect diversity and local customs
  3. Freedom of speech
  4. Freedom of assembly
  5. Freedom of media
  6. Honesty, truth and fact-based communication
  7. Integrity
  8. Transparency and disclosure
  9. Privacy

Principles of professional practice

  1. Commitment to continuous learning and training
  2. Avoiding conflict of interest
  3. Advocating for the profession
  4. Respect and fairness in dealing with publics
  5. Expertise without guarantee of results beyond capacity
  6. Behaviours that enhance the profession
  7. Professional conduct

Jose Manuel Velasco, chair of the Global Alliance, which represents more than sixty organisations, said: ‘We are happy to announce that the members of the Global Alliance and IABC have agreed on sixteen principles that should be covered in every code of ethics for our profession. We are also happy to announce that these principles have the support of ICCO, the PRCA UK and PRCA MENA.

‘Our combined efforts will help elevate the profession and promote ethics from a position of strength.’

Project lead, and GA past chair Jean Valin said: ‘As communicators and public relations professionals, we have the potential to influence economies and individuals. This carries obligations and responsibilities to society and to organisations. Ethics must be at the core of our activity. In our world of fake news and concerns over privacy as artificial intelligence ramps up, we are at an ethical crossroads. There is no public relations/communication profession without ethics.’

All members of the Global Alliance (sixty plus organisations) will be reviewing their codes of ethics to determine if they align with the new global principles within six months. The Global Alliance has updated its own 2003 code to reflect the new global principles.

Members of the task force included representatives from:

  • Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
  • Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS)
  • Public Relations Institute of New Zealand (PRINZ)
  • Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA)
  • International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO)
  • International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
  • Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) United Kingdom and Middle East North Africa

Recognising the importance of putting principles and codes into practice, the task force has also assembled a repository of critical resources such as case studies, podcasts, newsletters and advisories culled from the members of the Alliance and other organisations, which is available here.

If you’d like to add anything to the resource list, please contact Jean Valin directly.  

Five Things: BDC, Netflix, Dec, Brexit and Fabricant

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This week’s five things includes the Corbyn’s proposal for a BDC, Netflix acquiring the rights to the Bake Off, the new Ant, pick your own Brexit and Michael Fabricant in a whipping.

1. BDC

Corbyn

The Edinburgh International Television Festival is on at the moment, which always throws up a multitude of gems. For example, Ian Katz, director of programmes at Channel 4, today revealed that Sacha Baron Cohen’s Who Is America? is the first Channel 4 series to have a bigger audience on All4 than live TV.

However, the story from the festival that has grabbed all the headlines is Jeremy Corbyn’s Alternative McTaggart lecture. The leader of the opposition used his speech to propose a British Digital Corporation (BDC), that would, as reported by The Guardian, ‘commission online TV, offer easy access to archive material held by public sector institutions and operate a social networking arm that could play a role in direct democracy’.

While his full speech explains some of the functions of the BDC, it’s unclear how it would be funded to compete with the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon or Netflix (all would be direct competitors), nor how it would be different from the BBC (which presumably it would be sharing the licence fee with, or perhaps the aim is to replace the broadcaster).

The BDC is not Labour policy but the leadership is committed to the proposals as part of its plans to reform the media.

 

2. The Great British Baking Show

GBBO

Netflix has acquired the rights to air the Great British Bake Off in the US. The streaming giant will show last year’s series (the first from Channel 4) on 31 August, with this year’s series showing later this year. It has also secured the rights to a third future series, which will stream next year.

The show will be streamed under the title ‘The Great British Baking Show’, which is what it is known as in the US. The previous BBC series aired on PBS.

Let’s be honest, this story is included so I can remind everyone that this year’s Bake Off starts on Tuesday. Exciting.

 

3. ? and Dec

Ant and dec

Ant McPartlin will not feature on the next series of I’m a Celebrity
 Get Me Out Of Here, as he is recovering from his addiction to prescription drugs. While it had been assumed Dec would be presenting the show alone, Kevin Lygo – director of programmes at ITV – has revealed at the Edinburgh TV festival that Ant will be replaced.

Different outlets are suggesting different presenters are favourite to fill the space, with Scarlett Moffat and Holly Willoughby the most likely frontrunners and David Walliams, Vicky Pattinson, Philip Scofield and Cat Deeley also in the mix.

 

4. Bloomberg’s Pick Your own Brexit game

Brexit

It’s hard to write a great deal about this, you really have to play it. Bloomberg has created a choose your own adventure game with two options for each round. Your aim? To get a Brexit outcome, whether that’s hard, soft or not at all.

 

5. Michael Fabricant’s whipping

Michael Fabricant

Michael Fabricant MP ‘hit’ the headlines after publishing a video explaining what the Government Whips are and do. Above is a picture of him whipping someone with a shoe horn. Below is the full video:

Five Things: influencer marketing, Google in China, Alex Jones, Scottish papers and Heat

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While everyone in the office is trying the Dele Alli challenge (easy when you know how), here are the stories you probably missed, but shouldn’t have.

This week, Five Things includes the CMA influencer marketing investigation, Google staff protesting censorship plans, Alex Jones banned (again), Scottish papers to merge and 1,000 Heat magazines.

 

1. CMA launches influencer marketing investigation

CMA influencer marketingThe Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into celebrities and social media stars who aren’t disclosing paid-for content. The CMA has identified the practice as a major issue and has written to a number of users to find out how they are working with PRs and brands.

We spoke to leading industry experts to gauge their reaction to the announcement, with the overwhelming response being in favour of anything that standardises practices across content creators and their collaborators.

 

2. Google staff protest China plans

CensorshipOver 1,000 Google employees have signed a letter to protest the company’s plans to a build a censored search engine for the Chinese market.

As reported by The Guardian, the letter calls for executives to review the company’s ethics and transparency – the latter point referencing the secrecy of the project codenamed Dragonfly. Google staff demand to know what they are building and why.

Google, which left China in 2010 due to censorship and ‘state-sponsored hacks’, has made only vague references to the project and claims it is ‘not close to launching a search app in China’.

 

3. Alex Jones banned from Twitter

Alex jonesObviously wanting its own headline in Five Things, Twitter waited a week to join every other major social network in banning right-wing conspiracy theorist, and Info Wars owner, Alex Jones. The platform appeared in last week’s edition defending its decision to leave Alex Jones’ account running as he hadn’t broken any rules.

Now the account has now been considered to have broken to rules against abusive behaviour but the punishment is small; Alex Jones has only been banned for one week and a majority of his tweets remain on the platform. The Independent suggested Twitter, which often faces criticism for its handling of abusive users, was responding in the most ‘minimal way it possibly could’.

 

4. Daily and Sunday paper to merge

HeraldsGlasgow’s Herald is merging its editorial team with the Sunday Herald, as the publisher seeks to save on costs. Plans being mooted include rebranding the Sunday Herald as the Herald on Sunday, and making the papers share the same editorial line and broadsheet format.

As The Guardian points out, The Sunday Herald was the only paper to back independence in the referendum, a move which saw the paper’s readership double in 2014. It has since declined, though, as many pro-independence campaigners accuse the paper of turning on the cause.

The news is just the latest blow to the print industry, which continues to suffer in the digital age.

 

5. 1,000 Heat magazines

100 issueHeat magazine is celebrating its 1,000th issue this week with a bumper edition, including a mini mag that features all the original content from its first issue in 1999. While the magazine boasted a massive print circulation of nearly 600,000 copies back in its 2006 heyday, now it has fallen to less than 120,000.

However, as the Press Gazette reports, thanks to its app, radio station, website and social platforms, the brand claims to reach 4.3m, keeping it relevant to a modern audience.

Marking the thousandth issue, a Heat spokesperson said: ‘Like the Queen and a cup of builder’s tea, Heat is a much-loved British institution – and one that has entertained millions of loyal readers over the years and is still going strong, outperforming our competitors on a weekly basis.’

 

Did we miss something? Let us know on Twitter.

Five things you shouldn't have missed

Five Things: Alex Jones, online TV, Twitter Tories, Queen portraits and Ed Balls

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This week’s Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed includes a high profile social media ban, the rise of online TV, the very shy Tories, Australians going mad for portraits of the Queen and Ed Balls being Tased. Scroll to the end for that video.

1. Social media bans Alex Jones

Alex jones

Alex Jones, the far-right US conspiracy theorist who owns InfoWars, has been banned from nearly every major social media platform. Apple removed five podcasts by Jones and Infowars, a move which was almost immediately followed by Facebook unpublishing four pages run by Jones, YouTube deleting his account and Spotify removing all of his podcasts.

Of the major platforms, only Twitter has left Jones untouched. Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted his explanation:

The other platforms all claimed violations of some sort against their company rules, often linked to hate speech or glorifying violence, apart from YouTube who banned Jones because he ignored a 90-day ban.

The move has sparked a ‘free speech’ debate in the US, where the first amendment is held in high regard and often creates confusion for people who don’t understand that the right to free speech does not include the right to be listened to.

 

2. Online TV use soars

Online TV

Nearly half of all adults have watched Netflix, Now TV, Amazon Prime Video or a similar service in the last three months. The data comes from the Office for National Statistic’s Internet Access and Use report.

The huge rise, up from 29% in 2016, compounds the findings from last week’s Ofcom Communications Market Report 2018, which found that the revenue for online TV continues to rise, now up to £2.3bn from £1.8bn.

Other findings from the ONS report show that weekly internet use is broadly the same year-on-year; the number of over 65s shopping online has trebled in the last decade; 25% of adults who use smartphones do not have smartphone security; and 70% of employed adults need computer skills for their job.

Oh, and yes, you do recognise the woman in the middle of the above picture.

 

3. Are there Tories on Twitter?

TM MP PM

MPs from all political parties are on Twitter, with nearly every MP having their own account on the platform. Some MPs’ party allegiance is easier to identify than others, which hasn’t escaped the notice of Gizmodo’s Gavin Whenman, who trawled through every single MP account to find out if they declared their party in their bio.

Nearly every party has proud members: 100% of MPs from the Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and Green party identify their party in their bio, as well as 91% of MPs in Labour and the SNP. In Northern Ireland, 89% of the DUP declare and 85% of Sinn Fein do.

So, what about the Tories?

Just 42% of Conservative MPs declare their party affiliation on Twitter. Whenman posits a number of theories, suggesting they keep it secret because Twitter abuse in the run up to last year’s election was mostly directed at Tory candidates, or perhaps they hide it on purpose in order to hoodwink people into sharing their content.

Whatever the explanation, Twitter is clearly now home to the Shy Tories.

 

4. Australians request portraits of the Queen

Duke of Edinburgh

Australia has official rules that allow citizens to request ‘nationhood’ material from their MP. This material may be an Australian flag, a recording of the national anthem or portraits of the head of state – Queen Elizabeth II. It seems this was a little known rule until a Vice story exposed it and now hundreds of Australians have made requests for portraits of the Queen.

MPs’ staff have been busy fulfilling orders that also include portraits of the Duke of Edinburgh. Tim Watts MP said most requests for portraits of the Queen were due to a case of ‘excellent trolling’. Terri Butler MP said: ‘I’ve been talked out of providing a photo of BeyoncĂ© to constituents whose correspondence does not adequately particularise their request for a picture of the Queen’.

In other news, it’s silly season.

 

5. Ed Balls getting Tased

Ed Balls

Did we mention it was silly season?

How to create an award winning campaign II

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How do you create an award-winning campaign that challenges consumer perceptions?

Creative PR specialist Tin Man knows how – as its recent win at the CIPR Excellence Awards shows. Its #ISeeMore campaign tackled the challenge of getting young girls to consider careers in engineering for The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

Join Mandy Sharp, founder and CEO of Tin Man, and Hannah Kellett, External Communications Manager, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, as they explain why the campaign worked, what it takes to win awards and what lessons can be taken from their success.

Award Winning Campaign II

Five Things: TV, Radio, Mobile, Internet and Post

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Ofcom has published its 2018 Communications Market Report, which covers television, radio, phones, the internet, online content and post. It covers a lot and there’s a lot for the PR, communications and media industry to learn from it – and plan their future strategies – so, without further ado, here are five things you shouldn’t have missed from Ofcom’s report.

1. TV

TV stats

Broadcast TV is in decline, with revenue falling for the first time since Ofcom started measuring it in 2012. It is down from ÂŁ14.2bn to ÂŁ13.6bn. At the same time, online TV revenue has increased for the fifth consecutive year, up to ÂŁ2.3bn from ÂŁ1.8bn.

The number of minutes being spent watching TV per day has fallen, as it does every year. It’s now at 203 minutes per person (aged 4+), down from 240.7 in 2012. BBC One is still the most popular channel, followed by ITV, BBC Two, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

Across the four main genres Ofcom categorises programmes into – UK drama, sport, soaps and entertainment – the average age of the audience for each is between 54 and 57.

 

2. Radio

Radio stats

Radio is still a hugely popular medium, reaching 90.2% of the population (since 2012 it has always been about 90%), though each listener is spending fewer weekly hours tuning in, down to 20.8 hours per person a week – the lowest on record.

While the BBC’s share of listening is down to 51.9%, it is investing more in local radio and less in its flagship channels such as Radio 2 and Radio 5 Live.

DAB digital radio devices now have a record share of adult listeners, reaching 63.7% of adults up from 57.9% in 2017 (and 44.3% in 2012). Digital platforms also, for the first time, account for over half of all radio listening.

In terms of age, 29.4% of radio listeners are 15-34 and favour commercial radio; 33.4% of listeners are 35-54, also favouring commercial radio; and 37.2% are 55+ but favour BBC radio.

One-in-ten radio listeners use a smart speaker, such as the Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod.

Podcast listeners are also on the up, with around 11% of the population listening to a podcast each week. Two thirds of podcast listeners, who are generally younger listeners, are male.

 

3. Mobile and apps

Mobile stats

A whopping 96% of the population now has a mobile phone, but only 87% have an internet connection.

App usage is on the up, the average adult has 74 app sessions a day, each lasting over six minutes. For social media, the stats for the big four are quite varied:

Facebook is used seven times a day on average, with 18-24 year-olds accessing it the most. Sessions last on average just one minute, though for the over 55s it’s 75 seconds. While 71% of all adults have the Facebook app, 80% of women have it compared to just 66% of men.

There is no information for Twitter sessions but on average people spend 51 seconds each time they visit the Twitter app, with those over 55 spending 64 seconds. Only 37% of adults have the Twitter app, which breaks down into 41% of men and only 30% of women.

Instagram is used on average just three times a day, though 18-24 year olds use it five times. On average, adults are spending just 37 seconds on the app, though this rises to over 40 seconds for over 35s. The Instagram app is used by 39% of all adults, 47% of women and 34% of men.

YouTube is used in just two sessions per person per day, but on average adults are spending 85 seconds on the app, with 25-34 year-olds spending 103 seconds. Matching Facebook, 71% of adults have the YouTube app, though this is almost equally split between genders with 71% of men and  72% of women.

Unsurprisingly, the most popular apps are those categorised as communications or social.

 

4. Internet and online content

Internet stats

The internet continues to be the focal point for 21st century lives, with 42.42 million adults now regularly accessing it. For the first time in 2018, women spent more time online per day (206 minutes) than men (197 minutes).

A huge ÂŁ11.6bn is now being spent on digital advertising, up from ÂŁ10.4bn in 2016 and just ÂŁ6.8bn in 2013. Paid-for search dominates this spend, taking just over 50%.

It is perhaps not surprising then that Google is the most popular site, with 41.9m monthly visitors, followed by Facebook (40.2m), BBC (29.5m) and Amazon (37.7m).

 

5. Post

Post stats

Fewer letters are being sent but more parcels are being sent. That’s the Amazon effect.

 

Did we miss something? Let us know on twitter @Vuelio. 

Diversity in Comms – How the PR and comms industry can improve

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The PR and comms industry is not diverse enough, but the Taylor Bennett Foundation is trying to change that. Taylor Bennett Foundation alumnus Kuldeep Mehmi tells his own inside story of diversity in the industry and what we can all do to improve it.

Listen to the recording to hear how Kuldeep has worked his way to the top and learn:

  • How diverse our industry truly is and why diversity matters
  • What the Taylor Bennett Foundation is doing to promote diversity and how you can help
  • How we can change attitudes to improve the PR and comms industry

Diversity in comms webinar

you shouldn't have missed

Five Things: Google fine, BuzzFeedNews, Trump, Top 50 and DJ D-Sol

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This week’s Five Things You Should Have Missed – sorry I meant to write ‘Shouldn’t’, rather than ‘Should’ – includes Google’s record fine, the new BuzzFeed News, Trump’s bizarre approach to communication, the Top 50 Blogs and DJ D-Sol.

1. Google’s Fine

Google fineLast week’s Five Things included a story on the fine Facebook had incurred from the ICO for breaching data rules. The £500,000 fee was just a drop in the ocean of Facebook’s earnings as it applied to offences committed before the GDPR came into force. This week Google has made the news for violating EU antitrust laws, which has led to a significantly higher fine of €4.34bn (£3.8bn or about 5% of revenue). As reported by the Guardian, the EU claims Google has carried out ‘serious illegal behaviour’ to secure the dominance of its search engine on mobile phones. Google search is the default on Android phones and the EU believes this doesn’t give people serious choice.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said consumers ‘pay with their data. Or to slightly paraphrase what [US free market economist] Milton Friedman has said: “there ain’t no such thing as a free search”.’

Google plans to appeal as it believes ‘Android has created more choice for everyone, not less’. However, if Google doesn’t end its ‘illegal conduct’ within 90 days, it could face fines of 5% of its daily revenue (in excess of $15m) every day it is late.

President Trump has now waded into the argument, on Twitter (of course):

 

2. BuzzFeed News

Buzzfeed

BuzzFeed has created a new standalone website to house its serious journalism: BuzzFeed News. This new brand not only showcases its impressive journalistic content (it has been nominated for and won a number of international awards) but also makes it stand out from the content BuzzFeed is famous for, namely listicles and quizzes.

As reported by TechCrunch, Buzzfeed senior product manager Kate Zasada said the company’s own research has found that some readers ‘don’t completely understand’ that while BuzzFeed is famous for GIF-filled lists, it also produced ‘deeply researched and fact-checked’ journalism. The BuzzFeed main site will still host news content and BuzzFeed News will still link to the main site, but the entities are intended to be distinct.

BuzzFeed News’ design means content is not separated into traditional news topics, instead it is focused on trending and top stories as selected by the BuzzFeed News editorial team. The site will also eschew traditional sponsored posts that appear frequently on BuzzFeed. Currently the site is based in the US and covers US news – if successful it is likely to roll out to other BuzzFeed markets including the UK.

 

3. Trump Derangement Syndrome

President

President Trump has had a tricky week. While we could say this of most weeks of his Presidency, this week Trump has uncharacteristically backtracked, sort of.

After Trump met Putin in Helsinki, the pair gave a joint press conference during which Trump said he saw ‘no reason it would be’ Russia who had meddled in the US election. This flew in the face of intelligence from several American agencies and led to Trump being branded by some as a ‘traitor’.

Perhaps realising he had created a potentially career-ending remark, Trump made an incredible correction. Back on home soil, Trump said: ‘In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t”’. That means he meant to say he saw ‘no reason it wouldn’t be Russia’.  Though this doesn’t make much sense the context of the speech, it is very typical of Trump’s approach to comms, telling his own narrative and sticking to it.

His opinion on Russia since is very mixed, with some tweets suggesting the meeting was excellent and people hated that he got on with Putin because they had ‘Trump derangement syndrome’, and others suggesting he believes Russia meddled in the election. This week it was announced that he has invited Putin to the Whitehouse.

Adding more pressure to Trump’s bad week, Barack Obama gave a speech that was seen to target Trump even though he wasn’t named. Obama said politicians today lie, which isn’t new, but when they’re caught out, they keep lying. He also explained that it’s very difficult to engage with people who refuse to agree on basic fundamental truths. Watch Obama’s speech below:

 

4. Top 50 Blogs

The biggest ranking Vuelio publishes each year has once again found Guido Fawkes to be the number on blog in the UK. The political giant, whose posts literally have the power to shape Government, is enjoying a boom time as Brexit makes politics a daily news factory. This is reflected by the other political bloggers in the list: ConservativeHome (7), Wings Over Scotland (12), Politicalbetting.com (14), LabourList (15), Bella Caledonia (21), Left Foot Forward (24) and Slugger O’Toole (30).

As always, football and automotive blogs have done very well, the former no doubt boosted by this year’s World Cup. Outside of these dominant categories, the Top 50 shows great variety with bloggers covering everything from fashion and beauty to crafts and photography.

Find out how Vuelio decides its rankings here.

 

5. Wicked, Wicked, Goldman is Massive

Goldman Sachs

A surprising bit of news from Goldman Sachs has been a boon for its PR this week. While most new CEO announcements are dry affairs, Goldman Sachs’ appointment of David Solomon has brought an added bonus. The new boss, who will take over the top job in October, is also a DJ, who goes by the stage name DJ D-Sol. No, really. Check him out on Instagram or Spotify.

This has made the corporate giant seem that bit more human, young and interesting this week – something Goldamn Sachs perhaps didn’t need but has certainly gained it an incredible amount of additional press.

 

Did we miss anything? Let us know on Twitter @Vuelio. 

Diversity in Comms

Diversity in Comms webinar: PR can change recruitment processes to improve diversity says Kuldeep Mehmi of the Taylor Bennett Foundation

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The PR and communications industry must change its approach if it wants to recruit people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, says Kuldeep Mehmi, a graduate of the Taylor Bennett Foundation and director at FTI Consulting.

Our recent webinar Diversity in Comms, highlighted the work of the foundation, which is the PRCA’s charity of the year. Kuldeep was our guest and he said: ‘I think that it is more of a question of how you attract your candidate base. There is a number of things you can do; look back at where you advertise – maybe you can advertise in different places for the role, for example through a diversity charity like the Taylor Bennett Foundation.’

He also suggested that if using an external recruitment agency, employers should ask their recruiters to provide a more diverse candidate shortlist.
For the wider industry this might mean recruitment processes have to change as the challenge is attracting people who are ‘not going to actively seek out the communications industry’.

To do this, he added, the Taylor Bennett Foundation is actively seeking out speaking opportunities at Universities and schools to reach these audiences.

It also runs networking events and a 10-week ‘traineeship’ where the trainees get access to mentors in the industry and are taught about how different aspects of PR and communications work. ‘It was very intense and highly educational,’ Mehmi explained, having completed the course in 2012.

The traineeship helped him get his first role in PR with agency MHP.

‘It is very important to open those same doors for other people who want to enter the communications industry, people who don’t have a network to rely on,’ he said.

A recording of the webinar will be available next week.

World Cup

It’s coming home: England’s road to the final

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England’s first semi-final since 1990, with the opportunity for our first final since 1966. It’s coming home.

England’s road through Russia has been long and tough. But using the new Vuelio Canvas, it looks easy with match reports, news, tweets, posts, images, graphs and stats all in one place.

Check out the Canvas we’ve created for England’s Road to the World Cup Final > >

England World Cup

 

With our new and improved Canvas you can:

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Five Things: MPs and the media, Eddie Mair, Pride, Copyright and It’s Coming Home


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This week’s Five Things includes a top story from ComRes about where MPs get their news, Eddie Mair leaving the BBC for LBC, Pride in London, Copyright law rejected in the EU (for now) and football, which is, I believe the saying goes, coming home.

1. Where do MPs get their news?

PollsterComRes has asked 151 MPs for their favourite news sources to see where our leaders are getting their news. The BBC News Channel is the most popular news ‘programme’, followed by BBC Radio 4 and BBC 6 O’Clock News/BBC News at Ten. For Labour MPs, BBC News is the most popular but for Conservatives it is Sky News.

The Evening Standard is the most popular daily print newspaper, read at least twice a week by 45% of MPs, followed by The Times (36%), The Daily Telegraph (27%), Daily Mail (22%) and The Guardian (21%).

Online it’s a different story, The Times is the most popular site, followed by The Guardian, Mail Online and The Daily Telegraph.

In terms of blogs, it will perhaps come as no surprise that Guido Fawkes is the most popular political blogger – read by 28% of all MPs. It is far more popular among Conservatives – 50% read it – than Labour – only 5%. HuffPost is the second most popular ‘blog’, but only read by 7% of MPs (11% of Labour but no Conservatives). The rest of the list breaks down along party lines as you’d expect.

For favourite broadcast journalists – Andrew Neil is the most popular, listed by 21% of MPs as a favourite (though again, party lines means that’s 36% of Conservatives and only 5% of Labour). BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg is second on 17%, and the rest (from Peston through to Crick) all manage less than 4%.

And finally, for favourite print journalists, there’s less of a distinction among favourites; Quentin Letts tops the list being chosen by 5% of MPs, then Matthew Parris, Daniel Finkelstein and Fraser Nelson on 4%. Party lines split as you’d imagine.

 

2. Eddie Mair leaves the BBC

LBC

It’s the end of an era, you might say. Eddie Mair, long-time presenter of Radio 4’s PM programme, has announced he is leaving the BBC after 30 years. In a statement, Mair said: ‘I thought this was the appropriate moment to step out and give someone else a chance, before I’m so old my sentences make no lasagne.’

Shortly after the announcement, LBC confirmed Mair would be joining the station to host a new show from September. The talk-radio broadcaster continues to grow in popularity, with its highest ever listening figures recorded in May.

Despite suggestions to the contrary, Mair has explained the decision is not motivated by money, or anything to do with the BBC’s ongoing pay issues. The veteran presenter had even offered, in writing, to take a pay cut from his salary of £300,000-£350,000 a year.

 

3. Everybody Say Love

Pride

Tomorrow is Pride in London and to celebrate, Vuelio has published the Top 10 LGBT+ Ranking. We also spoke to a number of leading bloggers, including top spot Justin Myers, of the Guyliner, Kate Everall, one half of LesBeMums, and Jamie Beaglehole, one half of Daddy & Dad.

Also, this week, Theresa May announced an LGBT Action Plan to ‘end anti-LGBT hatred’. While it goes some way to tackle issues facing the LGBT+ community, our bloggers feel it leaves a little to be desired – Kate said: ‘It doesn’t take much research to see Theresa May’s voting history when it comes to LGBT+ rights’, and Justin said: ‘Some of these action points are just previous pledges rehashed’.

Pride was also celebrated this week with the first LGBT STEM Day, an international day celebrating LGBTQ+ people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

London magazine Shortlist has this week published its Pride issue, which required every advertiser to support Pride and have their adverts framed by a rainbow border. Other brands to get involved include for Pride include the RSPB, the Royal Mail, Senate House, Lloyds Bank, Crufts, Great Western Rail, Southbank, Lorraine and Skittles (by no means an exhaustive list).

And one final mention for DublinBus and its tear-jerker Proud Dads campaign:

 

4. Copyright law rejected

YouTuber

EU lawmakers have voted to reject changes to copyright law that would have meant tech companies had to share more of their revenues, and memes may have become extinct. The vote was 318 against and 278 for, so the battle for ‘internet freedom’ is by no means over, with a second vote due in September.

There are a number of articles in the law that have caused concern, including a ‘link tax’ where the likes of Google and Facebook would have to pay for showing extracts and snippets of publishers’ content in search results and on feeds; and the ‘meme law’ where platforms would be liable for content uploaded by users that infringed on copyright. The second one was seen, among other things, as the potential death of memes, which are often made from copyright protected material. There are a number of notable names on both sides of this argument, so expect September’s vote to start it all up again.

In a second piece of copyright-law-online news this week, YouTuber Paul Davids has been called out for breaching copyright on YouTube. Bizarrely, it’s his own content that he’s infringed, and someone else who stole his music is seen as the original creator. Paul has very magnanimously allowed the other musician to continue using his track – and thanks to this BBC article – everyone now knows the truth.

 

5. It’s coming home

It's coming home

In the UK, 23.6 million people watched England’s penalty shootout against Colombia (spoiler: England won – the first time it has won a World Cup shootout ever), making it the most-watched five minutes of television since the Olympics.

Whether you believe goalkeeper Jordan Pickford had all six infinity stones in his glove, or were just there for Gareth Southgate being a decent human being (check out #GarethSouthgateWould), one thing has been inescapable this week.

It’s coming home.

Did we miss something? Let us know on Twitter @Vuelio.

Crisis Comms – Lessons from Greater Manchester Police

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What if a crisis is a matter of when, not if? What if it’s both unpredictable and inevitable? What can you do to make sure you expect the unexpected?

Amanda Coleman is one person who knows how to stay cool in a crisis.

As head of corporate communications at Greater Manchester Police, Amanda has been through some challenging times, including last year’s Manchester Arena terrorist attack and the August 2011 riots.

Amanda has learned valuable lessons from every crisis she’s been through and will share all of them with you on an exclusive Vuelio webinar.

Crisis Comms webinar

Amanda Coleman

Crisis Comms webinar: People should be at the heart of your crisis communications says Greater Manchester Police’s Amanda Coleman

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People – and their welfare – should be at the heart of your thinking when reacting in a communications crisis says Amanda Coleman, the head of corporate communications at Greater Manchester Police.

Ultimately, if you consider your actions and the impact they have on people, then you are doing the best thing for your company, she told the audience of our recent webinar Crisis Comms – Lessons from Greater Manchester Police.

‘People have to be at the heart of what you are doing. Most importantly it is the people affected – by the incident – and the wider public. If you have people at the heart of your thinking, you are likely to make the right decisions,’ she stressed.

‘We talk a lot about the plan, processes and procedures – and they are important – but you have to have people at the heart of it all.’

Coleman, who has been in her role during some challenging times for Manchester – including the 22 May Manchester Arena terrorist attack last year – said the focus on people should include support for the comms teams working in a crisis.

Initially, as events unfolded after the attack last year, she explained that the comms team at Greater Manchester Police worked 12-hour shifts, were undertaking ‘draining and emotional jobs’ and needed to be supported too. They showed how resilient they were, she added.

She said that investigating the opportunities for further support from other police forces in the UK was part of her ongoing planning for the future.

In the webinar, Coleman set out the key principles of crisis communications and answered questions from the audience. Two key areas she covered were:

‱ Planning and preparation are essential for crisis communications but you have to be flexible if a crisis occurred. Lessons in communications were taken from other incidents in London, she said, but Manchester is unique and some things are done differently. ‘You can look at the risk areas but you have to have flexibility to adapt when you respond to a crisis,’ she explained.

‱ The importance of speed in your first response to breaking news. ‘When we had the Arena attack the speed of getting the first response out was crucial’, she said.

‘Crisis communications is such an important area and you do need to be ready for it’, Coleman added.

A recording of the webinar, together with copies of Amanda Coleman’s presentation, will be available next week.

Coming home

6 PR Goals for a winning 90 minutes

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Want to go one better than England? Score six quick PR goals in the next 90 minutes AND keep a clean sheet.

1. Research, research, research
No journalist, blogger, member of the public or politician is going to take you seriously if they don’t think you know what you’re talking about. In-house? Take 15 minutes to read the latest news and features on your company’s sector. Agency? If you specialise in a sector, great, take 20 minutes to read about the latest news – especially anything that’s about your clients. No specialism? Focus on just one area you have important clients in; you can catch up on the others later, tomorrow or next week.

2. Grow your network
Take 15 minutes to find new contacts that are relevant to your sector. Make sure their bio says they work with comms and check out their latest content to see if it’s a good fit for a future pitch (football or otherwise). If you grow your network by just five people each week, you’ll know an extra 260 people at the end of the year.

3. Send out a comment
It may be one of the simplest press releases to create, but journalists are always keen to hear from experts to add colour and richness to the news. If you work in sport, you should be all over this after the weekend saw the Queen’s tennis final, Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the French Grand Prix and signs from the World Cup that football possibly IS coming home. If sport’s not your thing, check out the political headlines, or any news headlines and see where your management or clients could intelligently add to the news agenda. And check what’s coming up; planned events (whether it’s the World Cup or otherwise) give you time to plan comments in advance.

Half time
Take a break and have lunch – you’re only human.

4. Check out the competition
Don’t make this an obsession; it can be easy to be so focused on your competitors that you lose sight of what you’re doing (and probably doing well). Take 20 minutes to run through your competitor monitoring, see what’s being said, and check if they’re controlling the conversation or if the conversation is controlling them. Staying on top of the competition is a great way to benchmark your own brand, spot opportunities and avoid abject failures.

5. Prove your worth
How often do we hear that PR and comms have to prove themselves to get a seat at the table? Why won’t the c-suite take our industry, and its value to their business, seriously? Take 25 minutes to prove your worth by putting together proof of your success, and show how you are meeting your objectives. Maybe you’ve achieved coverage, maybe you’ve got your CEO on TV, maybe sales have increased off the back of a viral campaign, or maybe your business is now the number one in your sector. Whatever it is, measure it and own it.

6. Call Vuelio – 0203 426 4125
We’re in stoppage time, but that’s okay because it only takes one minute to call Vuelio and get the software you need to achieve your goals. Want a database of amazing media and political contacts, with detailed bios to help you target them? No problem. Need a distribution service that targets your network and includes special features so you are GDPR compliant? Easy. How about monitoring that keeps track of your sector, your company and your competition so you know what’s being said and by whom? Certainly. And high-level analysis, showing levels of coverage and campaign success, with beautiful reports and presentations that can be shared with a simple link? Naturally.

Vuelio has everything you need to make your life easy and takes the pressure out of the game. Whether it’s our Influencer Database, News Distribution or Canvas – Vuelio’s integrated software is in your starting XI so you know you’re guaranteed a win.

Five Things: World Cup, Influencers, Goals, Trump & Trump

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This week’s Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed immediately breaks a promise we made last week, and features stories on the World Cup, influencers, brands using goals for donations and the two Trumps.

1. Most watched TV

World Cup

Last week, Five Things promised not to cover the World Cup because it was taking place across a whole month. This week, our top story is England’s opening game becoming the most watched TV event of the year, surpassing the royal wedding. Sorry for lying.

An average audience of 13.7m tuned in to watch England thrash* Tunisia 2-1, with a peak audience of 18.3m in the closing minutes. It was the most-watched England World Cup match since the famous* 2-2 draw against Sweden in 2006, and the ninth highest viewing figure for an England World Cup match ever.

Back of the net!

 

2. Unilever tackles fake influence

Unilever

Keith Weed, CMCO at Unilever, is no stranger to hitting the headlines, having recently threatened to withdraw the company’s digital adverts from platforms that fail to deal with hate. This week, Keith has attacked influencer fraud, saying: ‘The key to improving the situation is three-fold: cleaning up the influencer ecosystem by removing misleading engagement; making brands and influencers more aware of the use of dishonest practices; and improving transparency from social platforms to help brands measure impact. We need to take urgent action now to rebuild trust before it’s gone forever.’

Keith made three pledges:

  • Unilever won’t work with influencers who buy followers
  • Unilever has promised its own brands will never buy followers
  • The business will prioritise partners who increase their transparency and work to eradicate nefarious practices throughout the digital ecosystem

As the practice of buying followers and then selling your accounts as influential is fraud – the first two shouldn’t be surprising, though they are still likely to have an effect on the market. It’s the third one, and how Unilever plans on identifying fake influencers, that will really change influencer marketing around the world. While it is very unlikely to signal the end of influencer marketing, it is likely to cause a shift in the way businesses deal with the rise of the influencers, and it should be felt at all levels. Hopefully, it’ll just get rid of the fakers, but all remains to be seen.

 

3. Goal donation

Betting

‘Not ANOTHER World Cup story?!’ Again, apologies.

Two companies have recently hit the headlines for what, on the surface, seem to be very similar campaigns, but each has provoked a very different reaction.

Mastercard announced that for every goal scored by Messi or Neymar Jr (up until 2020), the company would donate 10,000 meals for children in Latin America and the Caribbean. The announcement was criticised by people who have compared it to the Hunger Games. As reported by Campaign, comments have been broadly negative, including: ‘This is the biggest PR own goal in a long time’.

At the other end of the spectrum is Paddy Power. The famously cheeky betting company has announced that for every World Cup goal scored by host nation Russia, the company would donate £10,000 to LGBT-related football causes. This not only fits in with Paddy Power’s existing marketing style, it also takes a hit at Russia’s anti-LGBT laws and raises money for good causes. The betting company has partnered with the Attitude Magazine Foundation in order to carry out the donation, which is again a shrewd move to make sure the campaign was received in the right way.

Paddy Power’s ‘From Russia With Equal Love’ donation is currently at £80,000, and the brand has personally thanked the top scorers for contributing so much.

 

4. I really don’t care, do u?

Flotus coat

Tone deaf or genuinely heartless? Melania Trump has been photographed on her way to see a ‘migrant child detention centre’ (think of that as a venue title) wearing a coat bearing the words ‘I really don’t care, do u?’. The jacket was a surprisingly cheap (in FLOTUS terms) $39 from Zara. Her spokesman said ‘there was no hidden message’ in the coat. Donald Trump then tweeted the message was about the Fake News Media.

The BBC has put together a list of five things (that’s our concept!) the coat message could be about: it is just a jacket, it’s about the fake news media, it’s a message to her husband, she was dressing down, or she actually doesn’t care about the children at the border. What is clear is that the move is a PR disaster that’s gained a lot of attention (again, this has been suggested as another possible explanation because it’s drawing attention away from the real issue: child migrants separated from their families at the border).

 

5. The other Trump

Time Magazine

Not to be outdone by another Trump, POTUS rounds off the top five. Time magazine has once again featured the President on its front cover, though this one is unlikely to be framed on his office wall. Featuring the President standing over one of the migrant children who was assumed to be in the process of being separated from its mother (now revealed to not be the case), the caption reads: ‘Welcome to America.’

The disaster that is child migrants at America’s border is catastrophic and, from a comms perspective, it’s one of the year’s most poorly handled crises (which is saying something). Trump is due to visit the UK in July, and this latest scandal has heaped more pressure on the UK Government to act. Roll on 13 July.

 

Did we miss anything? Let us know on Twitter. 

 

*Lols

you shouldn't have missed

Five Things – Trump, Vine, SNP, McDonald’s and M&As

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This week, Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed does not include the World Cup, despite Robbie Williams sticking his middle finger up to the world, because it’s going on for a month. We might mention the final (if England win). We are covering Trump meeting Kim, Jeremy Vine’s new show, SNP MPs pulling a stunt in the House of Commons, McDonald’s joining the anti-plastic-straw brigade and two massive mergers and acquisitions.

1. Trump Kim

Summit

Donald Trump had a whirlwind week – the man who turned 72 yesterday, insulted his allies at the G7 Summit, offended Canada and met North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un. While the last of these was an historic occasion, Trump being the first sitting President to meet a North Korean leader, many have pointed out that Trump has signed an agreement with North Korea promising economic support (among other things), while all North Korea has agreed to is a plan to denuclearise. Which they’ve promised before. Twelve times. If you’re after some explanation about what’s going on and why it’s good or bad (seems to be mostly the latter), check out #BBCdad Robert E Kelly’s Twitter feed.

 

2. Through the GrapeVine?

Vine

Matthew Wright said his goodbyes this week after 18 years presenting his Channel 5 show, The Wright Stuff. All in all, it was an emotional affair. But fans of current affairs programming on weekday mornings fear not, for a new host has been revealed. Jeremy Vine, king of playing devil’s advocate on BBC Radio 2, Egghead host and election night cowboy, will take up the role from September. More details, including the title, are yet to be announced, but it has been confirmed that Vine will continue to present his lunchtime show on BBC Radio 2 (which means fans will be able to catch him for a couple of hours in the morning on Channel 5, listen to him over lunch on Radio 2 and then tune in early evening to Eggheads for their full daily Vine fix).

 

3. SNP MPs pull PR stunt at PMQs

SNP

SNP MPs this week brought Wednesday’s PMQs to more people’s attention than usual, by staging a walk out. After some disagreement with John ‘ORDER, ORDER, ORDER, ORDER, ORDER’ Bercow, Ian Blackford, the party’s Westminster leader, got kicked out (some have suggested on purpose) and was then followed by his cohort, who mockingly waved goodbye. There was a mixed reaction on Twitter as to whether it was a shrewd move (‘if you’re ignoring the Scottish people, we’ll not take part in the charade’) or a desperate act of attention seeking. Either way, as a stunt, it gave PMQs a lot of attention and the SNP MPs a voice to explain why they did what they did. Whether it makes a difference to anything, remains to be seen.

 

4. McDonald’s kills off plastic straws

Straws

McDonald’s has announced it will replace plastic straws with paper ones in all of its UK and Ireland restaurants from September. The move, which is a huge victory for Blue Planet II (and latterly Daily Mail campaigning and Michael Gove making his mark as Environment Secretary), sees the end of McDonald’s’ serious single-use plastic habit that is currently burning through 1.8m straws a day. That’s every day and only in the UK and Ireland. Paul Pomroy, chief executive of McDonald’s UK and Ireland said: ‘The Government’s ambitious plans, combined with strong customer opinion, has helped to accelerate the move away from plastic and I’m proud that we’ve been able to play our part’.

 

5. Mergers and Acquisitions

AT&T and Time Warner

American supergiant, AT&T, has had its $85.4bn takeover of American supergiant, Time Warner, approved by a judge. This is seen as a blow to Trump, whose administration is against the deal. It’s also considered a watershed moment, with the floodgates possibly about to open on giant M&As in the States.

You wait all Five Things for a mergers story and then two come along at once.

Comcast has launched its official bid for Fox, in an attempt to scupper Disney’s own efforts. It has offered $65bn, which is significantly higher than Disney’s $52.4bn offer. This will be a long, drawn-out process, which will end without a clear winner being discernible. But for now, it’s mind blowing numbers and the future of the media landscape that, one way or another, is going to change forever.

Did we miss anything? Let us know on Twitter @Vuelio. 

Webinar

How to improve your influencer relations

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Influencer relations is a vital skill for the modern PR professional. Influencers are often thought of as ‘new media’ – bloggers, vloggers and Instagrammers, but they can also be journalists, editors and broadcasters – anyone we work with who influences their audience is an ‘influencer’.

What traditional influencers have, though, is an industry and organisation behind them and their work. With established practices, and rules and codes to follow, collaborations with traditional influencers are generally straightforward. The rise of bloggers has brought new methods of collaboration to the industry and with it, uncertainty over what rules should be followed.

How to Improve Your Influencer Relations was our recent webinar that aimed to make these rules simple. With guest presenters Anne-Marie Lacey, managing director of Filament PR and Debbie Sharratt, independent PR practitioner and blogger at My Boys Club, we looked at the different rules that exist for new ‘influencers’ (from the CAP Code to Google SEO), and how to easily follow them for both bloggers AND PRs.

The webinar recording is now online, check it out here, to find out:

  • How to use the ASA guidelines, CAP code, Google rules and social media secrets
  • What paid-for content really means and when you need to disclose
  • How ethical relationships can boost your brand’s reputation and ROI
  • What to do if your influencers break the rules
Train

How integration improved Greater Anglia’s PR

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Public relations has never been an industry that relies on one skill set or a single speciality. As the PRCA’s recent census showed, PR and communications covers a vast array of disciplines from reputation management and strategy planning to writing articles, SEO and sales promotion.

Your role is increasingly diverse, so the last thing you need is lots of different platforms when you want to manage everything in one place. That’s why Vuelio is fully integrated software to cater for all your needs, whether it’s finding new influencers to build relationships with, monitoring your coverage (and automatically linking it to your distribution), creating reports and proving how awesome you are or managing relationships with the press, clients and public.

True integration takes the hard work out of PR. But don’t take our word for it – Juliette Maxam, media manager at Greater Anglia, told us how Vuelio’s integrated platform has made their PR ‘seamless’.

Find out more about integrated software

Greater Anglia

The problem
Before Vuelio, we were collating press coverage manually, reading everything individually and producing our own analysis – it was a hugely time-consuming process. Now, Vuelio has freed up our time so we can focus on the PR we want to do.

The solution
Vuelio has given us to ability to do a number of things on one platform.

We distribute press releases, which makes things much easier to send out, and the monitoring allows us to track our coverage back to the releases – it’s seamless. The distribution is also great for sending out pictures and video, and allows us to see who is opening and not opening releases, so we can better manage our follow up.

One of the best features is the media analysis and reporting – it is so flexible and allows us to drill down into so many different topic areas and analyse enquiries. Also, the charts are presented clearly in the graphic dashboard and we can customise different parts. So, with things like sentiment, we can tweak individual articles, which is much quicker than having to do each one manually (like we did before).

The reporting function is useful for a number of reasons, from when we’re internally asked how well a particular release or campaign has done, for example the new range of trains, to creating regular reports for different teams. And, because we can tag all our coverage, it allows us to easily report on different areas, like competitors.

We also use Vuelio to log press enquiries, giving us a record of what we did in the past. The media team finds it particularly useful as they can easily see what (and when) previous enquiries were made.

And we use Canvas, which we really like – it allows us to quickly and easily send a single link out with all our coverage in one place.

Joining Vuelio
With Vuelio, everything is all in one place, and everything is connected. We can see how much coverage we’re getting and for what releases, which will ultimately make planning future campaigns more successful.

The whole process of joining Vuelio, from our first point of contact, was really good. The Vuelio team worked really hard, especially as I feel like we were really demanding with what we wanted, including good value for money. The set up was also great; one of our requirements has been face-to-face customer support and that’s what’s happened – which is really important for us.

Vuelio is a really useful, efficient and smart way of distributing press releases, tracking enquiries and analysing our coverage.

Ready for integrated software? Fill in this form and we’ll be in touch.

Five Things you shouldn't have missed

Five Things: Arkady Babcenko, WWW, Madeley vs Williamson, Evening Standard and Roseanne

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This week’s Five Things includes the journalist who did(n’t) die, the world wide web, Madeley vs Williamson, accusations against the Evening Standard and the end of Roseanne.

1. Arkady Babchenko

Ukraine Russia

Arkady Babchenko is the Russian dissident journalist based in Kiev, who was in the news on Tuesday following his ‘assassination’. Less than 24 hours later, Babchenko made a shock appearance on a live TV press conference, to reveal the whole ‘murder’ had been a ruse to ‘foil a Russian assassination plot’. He was particularly apologetic to his wife, who was not in on the ploy and had believed he was dead after finding his bloodied body.

The cold war antics have jarred with modern day practices and Ukraine has been widely condemned for its part in spreading ‘fake news’. Harlem Desir, a representative from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said: ‘I deplore the decision to spread false information on the life of a journalist. It is the duty of the state to provide correct information to the public.’

Christophe Deloire, head of Reporters Without Borders, said: ‘Reporters Without Borders expresses its sharp indignation on learning of the Ukrainian secret service’s manipulation carried out as part of an information war’.

The good news is that Babchenko is still alive, Ukraine are claiming a victory having made an arrest and the journalist will now live under the country’s protection. The bad news is the continuing spread of misinformation has never been perceived as so damaging to society and this has only made that situation worse.

 

2. Half the world’s online

internet use trends

Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has released her annual report of internet trends. The presentation, made at the Recode conference, covers a vast array of internet-related stats from smartphone prices (down on average), to the importance of immigration to US tech companies. There are 294 slides to the presentation, but one of the biggest stats is that there are now more than 3.6bn internet users; for the first time ever, over half the world’s population is now online. Meeker noted that this may be a problem for internet service companies – ‘growth is harder to find after hitting 50% market penetration’ – but the graph is still showing a steady rise, with no signs of the ominous plateau.

Pew Research Center

And what are all these people doing online? Well, if it’s in the US and they’re a teenager, they’re probably on YouTube. A new survey from the Pew Research Center suggests 85% of teens use YouTube, whereas only 51% use Facebook. This huge decline in Facebook use (down from 71% in 2015), will be painful for the company although it is offset by the rise in popularity of Facebook-owned Instagram, which is used by 72% of teens, up from 52% in 2015.

The biggest problem for Facebook is probably the rise of Snapchat: it is now used by 69% of teens (up from 41% in 2015), and, perhaps more significantly, 35% of teens say they use Snapchat most often (compared with just 10% who use Facebook most often).

 

3. Gavin Williamson is shut up and sent away

Richard Madeley was applauded this week for getting fed up with Gavin Williamson, defence secretary, for not answering his question. Madeley, who was pressing Williamson on his ‘Russia should go away, it should shut up’ remarks, eventually cut Williamson off as the latter made no attempt to acknowledge the question. The next day, Madeley wrote a piece for The Guardian, ‘Cutting short Gavin Williamson was the most popular thing I’ve ever done’, which is hard to argue with.

Check out the full exchange below, and watch to the end for the elephant’s comic timing.

 

4. London Evening Standard accused of selling editorial

London evening standard

The Evening Standard has been accused by Open Democracy of selling positive editorial to a range of companies including Google and Uber. It is allegedly part of the Evening Standard’s London 2020 project, a means to bring in more money via sponsored content and events. Open Democracy says the project has gone one step further and is offering, ‘“favourable” news coverage of the firms involved, with readers unable to differentiate between “news” that is paid-for and other commercially-branded content.’

It also quotes an unnamed senior Starbucks executive who said: ‘Buying positive news coverage is PR death
something you might do in Saudi Arabia, but not here. This wasn’t right for us. We do engage in advertorial but that’s just marketing. We don’t need to buy our reputation.’

If true, this would seriously undermine the Evening Standard’s journalists’ authority and respectability.

The Evening Standard has denied the story. In a statement to The Drum, Jon O’Donnell, managing director at ESI commercial, said the idea ES was ‘selling news’ was ‘grossly inaccurate and a wildly misunderstood interpretation of the London 2020 project.’

He continued: ‘This will, as with all commercial content, be clearly identifiable as such. Under no circumstances have these clients been guaranteed news coverage for their own ends, nor would they ever be. Properly signposted commercial content within an editorial product is an accepted part of the news industry and is nothing new for publishers.’

Few publishers have run with the story and it seems like there’s little real evidence it’s true. Though eagle eyed readers will, of course, now be checking every Uber and Google story in the Evening Standard over the next few weeks to see if they’re fairly, or unfairly, praised.

 

5. Goodbye Roseanne

Roseanne barr

Roseanne Barr hit the news this week after a racist tweet, which she then seemed to defend, led to her hit sitcom ‘Roseanne’ to be cancelled. The star had made a racist comment about Valerie Jarrett, former advisor to Obama. In a victory for decisive crisis comms, ABC, the channel on which Roseanne is broadcast, announced it would not renew a second series as the tweet was ‘repugnant and inconsistent with our values’.

Roseanne, who blamed the racism on sleeping pills (no, really), begged for her job back, both on and off Twitter, but the decision stands. In her defence, the White House accused the entertainment industry of ‘hypocrisy’, suggesting ‘liberal TV stars’ suffered no consequences for saying ‘the most horrible things’ about President Trump. Roseanne is a high-profile Trump supporter and her character on the show also supported Trump.

Unfortunately, suggestions that the show could continue with a replacement for Roseanne are unfounded.

 

 

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