It must be true...

...'twas in the paper.

Oh dear. It seems the chaps at Johnson King have been believing what they read in the newspapers again...and more than that, believing what they read in The People.

After high-quality tabloid The People ran a story last weekend about how a laptop containing jug-eared royal Prince Charles's bank account details had been stolen from a Moorepay accountant's car, Johnson King couldn't wait to jump all over it on behalf of data security client PGP.

According to Mike Simons at ComputerworldUK, Johnson King's press release re-hashed the story, stating that...

“A laptop containing the Prince's private bank details - including account number, sort code and national insurance number - was earlier this month stolen from the car of an employee of Mooreplay, the payroll company that handles wages for the Prince's Duchy of Cornwall estate.”

Problem being, of course, that the Johnson King team had missed those tell-tale phrases in The People's story, such as, "it was feared last night" and "believed to have been" and "apparent security blunder" all of which point to a potential economy with the truth.

And so it proved to be, when Moorepay quickly issued a statement saying that Prince Charles was not a client of the company and therefore his bank account details were presumably safely tucked up somewhere else...but not before, Simons claims: "At least one IT publication ran the story before hastily pulling it down."

There's no sign of the offending press release on the PGP website now...so perhaps it was just a bad dream..? A nightmare indeed.

WARNING: Promotional post...kind of...

I can't quite believe I'm doing this...but I'm afraid that if I don't the guy will never leave me alone.

It's Matthew Ravden. The name might ring a bell as we've mentioned him a couple of times...the most recent being when he played keyboard for a band made up of ageing PR pros. Ravden was in the Text 100 team in the early 90s and one of the founding team of Bite. He's still involved in the Next Fifteen group somehow...we're not sure what he does exactly.

Whatever it is, it's given him enough time to write a book. He's banging on about it at the moment because the paperback version will be on the shelves of your local discount bookshop by September, given it'll be available in proper bookshops on the 5th of July.

It's called BlokeMiles. Westcott blogged about it recently so have a look at his post for a brief outline of the plot, or the Amazon description for a fuller synopsis. It's a work of fiction...though anyone who knows Ravden (and his other half) will claim that it's actually autobiographical. A fact which makes the blow job passage rather uncomfortable reading...

It's available for £6.99 (or £5.59 on Amazon) and Ravden would love you all to buy a copy. We're not sure why though...according to its last annual report, Ravden owns 3,839,294 shares in the Next Fifteen group (OK, so his wife owns 116,126 of those). At today's closing price of 85.250 pence that represents a handy little nest egg of £3,272,998.

Well we'd all have time to write a fucking book with three million quid's worth of shares hanging around, wouldn't we..?

So if you're off for a bit of summer sun and need an easy read for the beach then it might be worth picking up. But only as the third one in a 3 for 2.

Richard and Judy, eat your hearts out...

We’re very green, as in, naïve….

Imagine. You’re an IT company pushing the green benefits of your new super-duper carbon footprint friendly data centres. You have a particularly cool example, in Nice.

As you’ve run out of strategically shaved monkeys, you bring in H&K to work out how to ‘leverage’ this amazing opportunity.

The PR alchemy process concludes:

Target environmentally conscious IT journalists
Invite them to view the data centre first hand
And offer a face-to-face interview with a senior (US based) HP executive

That’s a lot of plane trips to celebrate something that’s billed as eco-friendly. An irony that more than one journo picked up on.

Would love to be a fly on the wall during the "how do we build awareness around HP video conferencing technology" brainstorm….

A little bit of Sheffield in Hammersmith….

News reaches us that Text 100’s London office is flooded and employees have been sent home.

Seeing how a tech PR agency copes with enforced ‘flexible working’ and ‘disaster recovery’ should prove to be an interesting “cobblers’ kids” case study.

Must have been a bloody big flood. Surely most PR agencies have more than enough hot air to evaporate a few gallons of water….

Client agency relationship....

Very much enjoyed this cartoon from today's Times.

Strangely, it also worked for me as an illustration of the client/agency relationship (a strange quirk of timing, given the previous post).

I've held umbrellas over clients while I get wet. I've queued for coffee, while my client has been sat down all comfortable.

I've taken clients out for a bloody expensive meal with lashings of top quality wine, to not even be offered a cup of coffee when visiting their office the next day.

I've flown with clients, with me in economy and them - on the same plane - in business class. And arrived to find they are in a five star hotel on the seafront, while I'm in a hostel without hot water.

And I've had some lovely clients too. Ones that have sent birthday presents. Ones that have sent members of the agency team notes of congratulation when they've been promoted. Ones that have suggested I fly out on a Friday for a Monday meeting, so I can enjoy some sightseeing.

I work harder for those clients. I care more about the results. I'd suggest doing a 'Sunday for Monday' for those clients; I use up personal favours with journos for them. The same goes for the rest of the agency team.

To the anonymous comment in the previous post, yes, it is a business transaction and you do get a pay cheque. That is what counter-balances the crap clients.

The good clients - the ones that demand great results, but also listen to advice, the ones that are fair, the ones that are nice, civil human beings - they get better service.

In just about any knowledge-based job there is a need for positive working relationships. Good agencies thrive as a result of good leadership. Likewise, an agency-side team will always perform better with the client taking on a positive leadership role.

Agencies are very into 360 feedback. It wouldn't hurt if in-house PRs were appraised the same way....

Who's important in the beauty parade..?

I met a bloke the other day from a company pitching its PR account (as a fair few are right now). Having been through the pitch process...and as a man who's worked with PR agencies previously...he was musing about the member of the pitch team upon which you should focus most attention.

Oddly, it's not the one with the biggest knockers. And he certainly didn't think it should be the cocky board director arriving hot-foot it from the last pitch...nor the associate director given the job of talking through the strategic approach. He didn't even think it was the account director. He reckoned that the best bet was to test the mettle of the account manager. If the account manager was decent, the client would be able to whip the executives along and pick and choose the more senior resource he needed, if any.

I don't think it's quite that simplistic. I do agree that in a pitch situation you can generally ignore the input of a board director (likely to be fairly generic in any case) and, if there's one in the room, the associate director too. The likelihood of seeing either after the pitch is slim and, if you do, they'll be that expensive that you won't want to see them again...

For me, the key thing to test is the tightness of the AD/AM/AE team, rather than any one individual within it. Do they have a good dynamic..? Do they seem to like each other...is there some chemistry? Is it obvious that they've worked together for a while and complement each other..?

In my experience, a team with these attributes is much more likely to work for each other...and working for each other comes before working for the client. If the client then does its job...being inclusive, tough but fair, celebrating success, saying 'thanks' once in a while...then it'll find itself a team that will give it all the attention it wants and which is also likely to stay together as a unit longer than the average. Controversial as it might be to say (but it's human nature...) agency teams work harder for clients that they like.

Remember people, there's no 'i' in team. But there is a 'me'...and 'tea' and 'meat'.

I think we can all learn something from that.

Surely, they cannot be serious..?

Wimbledon starts today. I see Andrew Murray's done the sensible thing and ruled himself out before it even kicks off.

No doubt they'll be shipping in all the strawberries and cream and gallons of bubbly to keep all those corporate hospitality guests full to bursting. Have any of you got clients taking people along? A few hacks maybe?

We've heard that IBM traditionally has a gathering at the All England Club...hosting a smattering of hand-picked luminaries from the world of tech media. Well, it would, wouldn't it, as sponsor of the official website?

Not this year though. Well, not for all of the press at least.

One hack tells us that...whether it's budget cutbacks, the crap weather we're having or simply that tennis is very, very dull these days...Big Blue has decided that an event in its "hideous grey bunker on South Bank" would be a better idea than one in SW19.

It's not a complete loss though. There will, our contact thinks, be a "Wimbledon theme" along with a presentation by some fella from IBM.

Game, set and match then.

Meaningless tripe...

I was reading the Economist last night. I don't normally give the advertisements more than a cursory glance, but one for Unisys caught my eye. It was very orange. It didn't contain a lot of copy so I'm going to reproduce it all for you here:

UPGRADE YOUR BEST-CASE SCENARIO.
UNLEARN OUTSOURCING.

Even outsourcing's benefits have benefits. The best way to realize them is to unlearn your misconceptions about outsourcing. Unisys Outsourcing Solutions offer the proven processes, unique methodologies, and the innovation you need to manage risk, adapt to change and accelerate the benefits of your best-case transformation scenario. Our Solutions for Secure Business Operations can optimize your business performance and your competitive advantage. For maximizing your full business potential, outsourcing is a win-win scenario. Unlearning is just the beginning.

What?! It's like they put all the tech industry bullshit in a bag, threw it on the table and copied it verbatim.

"Upgrade your best-case scenario, processes, methodologies, innovation, manage risk, adapt to change, transformation, win-win" ...and surely having to "unlearn your misconceptions" is some sort of double negative?

What I'd love is for a copywriter to come over here - maybe The Friendly Ghost or Matthew Stibbe - and explain where there's any merit in that piece of copy whatsoever.

"Mobiles not very important"...says Carphone Warehouse...

...sort of.

I've just been reading this story on The Reg...the headline of "Teenagers prefer mobiles to sex" attracted my attention.

It's about the Carphone Warehouse's Mobile Life survey, announced today. The full press release can be seen here.

If I'm reading it right, while The Reg's headline is kind of accurate - in that in the 16-24 year old age group (so not entirely made up of teenagers), the majority of respondents stated that they'd least like to give up their mobiles over sex, chocolate, alcohol or tea and coffee - it doesn't quite tell the whole story.

In fact, much to the disappointment of the Carphone Warehouse, I'm sure, in every other age group surveyed (up to the age of 64, 'cause people older than that can't use mobiles of course...) respondents said they would rather give up their mobile phone than any other the other items! Well, that's not strictly true, as 25-34 year olds said that they'd sooner give up alcohol than their mobile...by 1%. Everything else was more important though.

So, for the vast majority of the UK population, tea, coffee, alcohol, sex and chocolate are more important than their mobile phones.

Nice job, Carphone Warehouse! I wonder how much that cost..?

A Eureka moment….

Having studied various academic tomes, it is a pleasure to at last reveal the difficulties faced by a typical PR person.

The red circle represents ‘time available,’ or what is otherwise known by senior management as ‘fee.’

The blue box represents ‘work to be done,’ or what is otherwise known by the client as ‘stuff that I’m paying for to get done.’

The image below represents how these two values relate to each other.

In this diagram, the blue area also represents what the typical PR person used to know as ‘evenings and weekends....’

Tits or face(book)..?

Sorry about the headline here, it's just I've been reading "Inside Little Britain" (very interesting, by the way, even if you're not a big fan of the show itself).

There's a brilliant passage towards the end when Matt Lucas and David Walliams are laughing about the fact that they've just heard that David's sister had to explain the concept of a pearl necklace to David's mum (it having been mentioned in their live show and David's mum not understanding the reference).

The two of them are trying to imagine the conversation that took place...

"Well, Mum," says Matt, embarking upon an impersonation of a slightly proper, middle-class woman in an attempt to sound roughly like David's sister, "you know when...er..."

"...when Dad spunks up..." says David, picking up the impression and running with it, "and says "face or tits" and he sort of misses both...well, it ends up on your neck, doesn't it?"

"And you sort of slightly enjoy that sense of humiliation and degredation confirming your role as the woman and his as the man..." says Matt. "Well...That. Is. A. Pearl. Necklace!" Matt is guffawing now, almost uncontrollably. And David is laughing with him.

And you wonder where these two get their characters from?

Crikey, this is a roundabout way of telling you all that we're on Facebook. Slightly behind the curve, granted, but we've never been the types to leap over the chasm. You can see our profile here and become our friend. If you want.

The Flackenhack Awards 2007...brand unveiled...

You'll be interested to hear that the Flackenhack Awards 2007 now benefits from a stylish logo. Here it is.

I think you'll agree that it reflects a desire to establish a forward-looking vision for the future of all PR - indeed all business - awards programmes moving forwards from today. It strikes a delicate - though robust - balance between a genuine respect for the history and integrity of our industry, while signposting the bright, though winding, road that lies ahead of us all in the future from tomorrow.

Either that or it looks a bit like a knob. You decide.

And don't forget to get those entries in! We've had some crackers so far...but need more if we're going to give our esteemed (and soon to be announced) judging panel some difficult decisions to make. Categories are here...it ain't a lot of work.

Lewis meltdown...updated...

So you'll have all read in last week's PRWeak that Lewis is having a bit of a meltdown at the moment, with four 'senior' staff leaving (OK, three senior and one account director from Octane which they threw in there to beef things up a bit).

You'll have also noticed this little line at the bottom of the story...

"At the same time Lewis is on the verge of hiring two associate directors (one leading sector journalist and a corporate specialist from a rival agency)."

We understand that the hack in question is Will Sturgeon, editor-at-large of silicon.com.

Can anyone confirm?

UPDATE: Indeed they can...Will himself has posted a comment giving the details.

Look at this pair of cobbler's shoes...rubbish, aren't they..?

I've just seen my favourite press release of the month so far...and the beauty is that it's a release about a PR agency.

It caught my eye as the subject is Judy Wilks, one of the founding team of Bite and, for the past few years, a member of Bite's senior management team in the US. She's joining Atomic Public Relations as senior president of vice (or something).

Check out the headline:

Atomic Public Relations Announces Strategic Decision to Do More of What It Has Been Doing

The first line of the release reiterates the point:

"Atomic Public Relations, an alternative PR energy source for technology-related companies, today announced plans to carry on doing exactly what it has been doing – only more of it."

Oh my good Lord. It continues...

"As part of its ongoing commitment, Atomic will continue to apply science to the communications process in order to sharpen strategy, enhance creative thinking and deliver better results. It will also continue to push the boundaries of PR and challenge accepted wisdom."

There's really nothing to say here, is there?

According to David Allen Ibsen, "founder and principal of marketing consultancy 5 Meetings Before Lunch, and Webby Award-winning marketing blogger," Wilks will be:

“a great horizontal addition to Atomic’s senior executive team."

"Horizontal"? Sounds a bit dodgy to us. Judy herself says:

"There’s a fair bit of mystique around Atomic Public Relations...I was immediately attracted by the agency’s mix of strategic-ness, clever creative instincts and real IT smarts, not to mention its uncompromising pursuit of ‘better.’”

"Strategic-ness"? "Uncompromising pursuit of 'better'"?

Andy Getsey, co-founder and managing director of Atomic Public Relations, sums it up for us:

“Atomic is an agency unusually devoted to change, but only change for the better. Judy’s a kindred spirit [and will help] maintain our own particular cultural mojo."

Far out.

Join me….

Aren’t social networks popular? Decide on something that you have in common with people, start a group and wait for them to join.

In a moment of rose-tinted nostalgia, Charles Welsh created a social network for all those folk that fondly remember their days at Novell.

See how many ex-Novell people you know….

http://www.novellalumni.org/

A year's a long time in telecoms...

2006 at the World Communication Awards:

"BT was delighted to win 2006 Best New Service award for BT Fusion. BT Fusion is the world's first truly converged service that offers customers a host of new benefits and great value calls. But what's even more important is that consumers and the industry are also starting to realise the benefits fixed mobile convergence can bring," said Steve Andrews, Chief of Mobility and Convergence, BT Group

2007 in The Times:

BT conceded yesterday that it had made mistakes with a flagship mobile service, as it emerged that the product has amassed just 40,000 customers in two years.

BT Fusion – a combined fixed and mobile phone – was supposed to reinvigorate BT’s mobile offering and contribute to BT’s growth. However, just 40,000 people have signed up.

Steve Andrews, head of BT Mobility, admitted that take-up of the product, which uses wi-fi technology, had been set back by the timing of the launch.

“There was a lack of wi-fi devices as early as we would have liked them,” he said.

The advertising for the product could also have been clearer, Mr Andews added. Overall, Mr Andrews insisted that he was “happy” with the 40,000 take-up.

Analysts said that the figure was weak. James Barford, of Enders Analysis, said: “This is clearly not a large number in the context of a UK mobile market which has around 70 million mobile subscribers.”

From gong, to going, going, gone...

Where’s the challenge in Burberry..?

If anyone thinks that Leslie Dance faces a challenge in turning around the perception of Burberry in Wales, it is child’s play compared with what Donna Black has to do.

Donna is the PR person for Visit Scotland. For the three days a year when it’s sunny, Scotland can be quite a nice place to go for a long weekend (the rural bits, obviously, not the towns).

Other than that, Scotland only really finds itself in the news when there are rankings of some kind. Invariably, it seems, Scotland is at the bottom.

A couple of days ago Scotland won the not-at-all coveted title of ‘worst small country.’ It’s all the funnier that the research was commissioned by the Scottish arm of the Federation of Small Business. Surely the PR person’s counsel should have been “burn it” as opposed to “send it to the BBC”?

And before TWL is accused of simplistic Jock-bashing, pop ‘Scotland’ and ‘worst’ into Google and see the results. Here are some of our favourites:

Worst for life expectancy
Worst for asthma
Worst for sexual health
Worst for attacks on police
Worst teeth
Worst for post office closures

Crikey, the country even produced a fella called William Topaz McGonagall, revered as 'The World's Worst Poet...'

Find out why Scotland is so horribly bad, by downloading the official report…



PS - In the interests of balance, we did put 'England' and 'worst' into Google...inevitably the top result was a book about England's worst footballers. I say 'book'...rather more a sixteen volume encyclopedia, I suspect...

Anonymous bloggers...tsk...

Couple of new(ish) blogs have come to my attention of late - both anonymous...naughty people - and they look quite promising.

Well, I say that. The Friendly Ghost was looking good until he published an entirely flawed league table of PR blogs that only sees TWL languishing down in 39th position..!

Have a look at your stats, my spooky buddy, and tell me that TWL's only the 39th best blog in the PR world. Go on, go on.

That load of old tosh aside, I'm quite liking the blog.

The other one is called The Spud Gun (with the lovely strapline..."It's a gun that fires spuds")and I'm liking it 'cause it's mentioned us a few times. Nice work.

Given this mention...

"…The World’s Leading… has provided a fine service to all of us in tech PR in the UK over the years - in fact TWL has been there all the while that I’ve been in UK PR - and looks set to move up a gear or two in the not too distant…"

...it's obviously written by someone new to the industry. Equally obviously, they've got a decent brain in that pretty little head of theirs (I'm making an assumption).

Welcome one and all. Don't fuck up.

Come on, it’s only 200 miles from Britain…

Is it just me, or is the comms team down at Burberry failing to spot the 900lb football hooligan in the room?

The fashion house has hired Leslie Dance, formerly of Motorola, to counteract the negative publicity the company is receiving following its decision to close down a factory in Wales (and the associated job losses).

Sure, in an ideal world, I wouldn’t want Burberry to close down its Welsh factory…more Taffs on the streets with time on their hands is bad news for everyone…but I understand the pressures placed on business these days. In an ever more competitive global market, the drive to reduce production costs to the minimum is inexorable. Inevitably, Burberry plans to move its production to China, where it’ll cost, like, 95% less than it does in Wales (probably).

The factory closure, while clearly tough for those involved, is unlikely (in my view) to have huge consequences in terms of lost sales. Far more significant, surely, is that Burberry as a brand has become synonymous with football thugs and chavs? I’m no more likely than you (I’m assuming) to buy something that features the hugely distinctive beige check.

But maybe I’m missing the point? I’m sure that in pure commercial terms, Burberry has done very well out of its products becoming popular amongst a much wider public, sales must be far greater today than a decade ago. So perhaps it doesn’t care that I’m no longer part of the target market? It’s a bit like Bentley. OK, so in going a bit downmarket, it might have lost a few old school(tie) Bentley customers…and let’s face it, they’d have been dead soon anyway…but it’s more than made up for them with any number of footballers and their wives.

To be honest though, I reckon a bunch of chavs are going to be even less bothered (sorry, "bovvered") about some Welsh people losing their jobs than I am.

To quote Ali G once again, “when you hear the world Wales, you probably think about the fish with the biggest dick in the ocean. But it is also the name of a country that is only about 200 miles from Britain.”

Doppelganger...

Here's a picture of the actor Michael French alongside one of PRWeak editor Danny Rogers.

Can you tell the difference?



Here's a clue...one has played a central role in a long-running but largely depressing London-based soap opera.

The other one was David Wicks in Eastenders.