Month: August 2006

Asks Jim Horton here: Online Public Relations Thoughts.

The full post is worth reading – all PR professionals at some point will have to write a press release that includes a quote from a client. As Jim says: "My experience has been that clients don’t like directness. I favor short and sometimes, blunt quotes that make points clearly. Clients often soften these and just as often, my colleagues won’t let them out of the office. It baffles me why clarity is not desirable, but then, I have a bad ear for emotional tone. Quotations are never easy. They put clients on record when clients don’t want to be there. Quotations can define relationships when clients prefer ambiguity. They can give facts that clients might wish to avoid. No wonder so few are memorable."

How very true.

This press release from Seal Communications of Shrewsbury says they are offering "a number of bottles of wine for sampling by editorial teams for
wine reviews in high circulation consumer and regional publications.
Full copy can be provided together with high resolution images and food
matching if required."

I’m sure that wine review columns may well be springing up in IT editorial offices everywhere. Thirsty hacks who want to grab free bottles of Kumala – "South Africa’s number one UK selling wine" – should email carolfrance@sealcommunications.co.uk immediately

Call Kit Gould, Managing Director, IDG UK on +44 (0) 20 7071 3615 for more detail on why.

Or read the press release below.

INTERNATIONAL DATA GROUP ACQUIRES FAIRFAX’S UK PUBLISHING AND DATABASE BUSINESSES

LONDON – 10th August 2006 – Boston-based IT technology publisher IDG has announced that it has acquired the publishing interests of Fairfax Business Media in the UK. This includes the monthly magazine MIS; the annual MIS100 which profiles the UK’s biggest users of strategic IT; and a new quarterly, The C Magazine. The business will be integrated into IDG’s UK publishing operations based in London and represents the continuing commitment of IDG to promote a range of media solutions throughout the globe.

"This acquisition further extends IDG’s development into the enterprise IT sector. MIS magazine is a strong publication that gives us the ability to offer advertisers a range of advertising and marketing solutions to address the needs of the most senior buyers of IT in the UK. By joining the other 24 publications in the CIO product line, MIS will benefit from the capabilities of IDG’s global sales force, IGS," said IDG UK’s Managing Director, Kit Gould.

Fairfax’s business in the UK consists of three publishing properties and a research and database division. With a circulation of 23,052 (BPA audit), MIS is a leading monthly magazine read by CIOs and other senior IT professionals in the UK’s largest companies who need to understand and explain technology investments from a purely business perspective.

MIS100 is an annual publication profiling the UK’s 100 largest users of IT within the private and public sectors. It is regarded as the industry bible. The C Magazine, launched in July, is a quarterly magazine for the C suite – from CEOs through to CFOs, COOs and CMOs.  It looks at strategic business and management issues from the C level perspective and the launch issue included profiles of Starbucks’ CEO,  plus Martin Sorrell of WPP and Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC.

MarketBase is the database arm of Fairfax UK and the most comprehensive source of senior decision makers in IT and the technologies employed by all UK companies of over 200 employees.

MIS will become part of the IDG global network of titles totalling over 300 magazines and more than 400 websites in 85 different countries around the world. IDG in the UK publishes PC Advisor, Macworld and Digit and produces Techworld.com, a dedicated online news and reviews site for networking and infrastructure professionals.

"MIS is a highly respected magazine that is held in regard by the UK’s CIO community. Being part of the IDG global network will allow us to plug into the considerable power of IDG’s editorial network of over 1,200 technology journalists around the globe and significantly enhance the editorial offering" said MIS editor, Janice McGinn.

The integration of MIS into IDG UK will compliment the existing B2B offering, Techworld.com, to include a more senior, business focused IT audience. IDG’s extensive online experience and expertise will enable the development of MIS’ web capabilities, while IDG Events will bring into focus issues of interest to the more senior end of the IT hierarchy. All staff currently employed by Fairfax Business in the UK will transfer across to IDG, with no redundancies envisaged.
-end-

About International Data Group (IDG)
International Data Group (IDG) is the world’s leading technology media, events, and research company. IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers in 85 countries including CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Macworld, Network World, and PC World. IDG’s online network includes more than 400 Web sites spanning business technology, consumer technology, digital entertainment and gaming worldwide.   IDG is a leading producer of more than 170 technology-related events including LinuxWorld Conference  Expo, Macworld Conference  Expo, DEMO, and IDC Directions.

IDC, a subsidiary of IDG, is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events.  Over 850 IDC analysts in 50 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends.

Additional information about IDG, a privately-held company, is available at http://www.idg.com.

Contact details:

Kit Gould, Managing Director, IDG UK
+44 (0) 20 7071 3615

Link: USATODAY.com – Study: Emotion rules the brain’s decisions.

According to this USA Today piece: "The evidence has been piling up throughout history, and now neuroscientists have proved it’s true: The brain’s wiring emphatically relies on emotion over intellect in decision-making."

It goes on to discuss "framing: " a hot topic among psychologists, economists and political hucksters." And, presumably, PR and marketing folk.

The piece continues: "Framing studies have shown that how a question is posed — think negative ads, for instance — skews decision-making. But no one showed exactly how this effect worked in the human brain until the brain-imaging study led by Benedetto De Martino of University College London." Read the full piece for the detail on the experiment. But according to De Martino: "The brain stores emotional memories of past decisions, and those are what drive people’s choices in life."

In other words, we all have an emotional database that we search and query every time we make a decision. Perhaps that explains why most PRs rely on "gut feel" when deciding who to send a press release to.

More seriously, the field of neuroeconomics (as it is apparently dubbed) is a burgeoning one. And easy to see how it could be applied in the realm of PR. I’m sure some enterprising academic will be able to fund a study into the emotional decision making of journalists – such as which PRs they prefer to deal with.

ZDNet reports on Gartner’s latest hype cycle – Web 2.0, mash ups and IPv6 at the peak of inflated expectations. Wikis nearly at the bottom of the trough of disillusionment.

According to PR Week US, Text 100 is set to launch a permanent presence in online social network Second Life by opening an office on its private island, the first global PR agency to officially do so.

Here’s the full story with my own comments – as you will see, there are some intriguing possibilities here.

The Text 100 office in Second Life includes three stories*: a welcome center, an information center, and an amphitheater, where Text plans to hold various internal and external events. The office will feature an avatar of Hynes, which will give an overview of the agency.

As the old line went, on the Internet, no one knows you are a dog. Here’s a great way for busy PR CEOs to be in several places at once – having someone "man" your avatar in a virtual world could provide more bandwidth to time-strapped PR supremos.

There will not be any sort of mandatory scheduling for Text 100 representatives to occupy the office, said Hynes, but she envisions the potential of having a global company meeting there, rather than dispensing information through a conference call or e-mail.

But will they get paid in real dollars or Linden dollars for their time in Second Life?

Better still, why not hire Second Life avatars to man the office? I’m sure Text’s Linden dollars might go a lot further here than in the real world.

Hynes added that the firm’s inroads in Second Life would better enable clients to take advantage of opportunities there and, potentially, lead to new revenue streams for the firm. It plans to launch a campaign with an undisclosed client soon.

Just wait till real world client’s start pitching up in Second Life – you could have a whole parallel world with virtual PR agencies pitching for virtual client business. Better still, could have the pitch process as a shoot em up – my avatar against your avatar – outside (virtually), now!

Hynes declined to discuss the agency’s Second Life budget, but said that the expense will be treated as an ‘innovation and research’ cost, rather than under the category of a new office, which comes with correlative revenue expectations.

There is a rich vein of creative accounting to be had here – rather than have an offshore tax haven, why not have a cyber-shore haven? ie incorporate a business in Second Life and then just transfer all your profits and assets into the virtual world? I’m sure those clever guys at Enron would have considered such a wheeze if Second Life had been around at the time.

*Typo alert

From the Bad Pitch blog. The following two tips in particular have always been relevant to good media relations – but judging by recent journalist comments, they also appear to be two things PR folk do the least.

Step Away From the Computer: Give your mouse a rest and step
out to Barnes & Noble and buy the damn publication. Sometimes
sidebars, graphics, freelancers and editorial coverage cannot be found
online. It’s also a lot more fun. We feel there’s nothing like a sea of
mastheads and cover shots to get your media relations adrenaline
pumping.

Be a Source: Take source filing a step further.
Being a source means making good use of all the industry reading you’re
supposed to be doing and coming up with story ideas. Some of them won’t
involve your client. Send these to the reporter.

This is good
karma and makes it about more than just "you, you, you." That may work
on dates but heck, sometimes it’s nice to just say "Hey I saw something
you might like." How cool is that? Your self-importance goes out the
window and you’ve helped someone with knowledge.