Escherman

Daivd Maister’s blog has been sparking some good questions and comments of late.

Worth a look.

I leave it to you gentle reader to decide if Charlie Hoult  is making us an offer 😉

Fighting talk from well known ad man John Hegarty, chairman of BBH, in today’s Marketing Week.

He basically slams brand owners for failing to grasp the opportunity of the Internet.

Among his spikier comments are: "Agencies get kicked a lot – we’re behind the curve according to clients. We’re not. It’s the clients who are behind the curve. They’ve got to understand this is a medium where you’ve got to let go and they don’t want to."

So its all the client’s fault. But surely we on the agency side haven’t yet demonstrated clearly to client’s why and how they can and should let go?

More good stuff from The World’s Leading – this time some comment on the results of the sixth annual 2006 PRWeek/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey.

Among other things, TWL points out that the headline finding is interesting – namely that the majority (62%) of CEOs
“indicate that gut feelings are highly influential in guiding their
business strategies, while only four in 10 cite internal metrics and
financial information.”

This is not only interesting but downright bizarre.  TWL examines this in the light of recent discussion about the increasing reporting overhead in PR. But this clearly extends to other areas of business. For example, the Narrative Reporting Provisions of the Companies Bill 2007.  Gary Simon from FSN.co.uk has just published a whitepaper on the subject. Even though the OFR never got out of the starting blocks, a Business Review is still a current legal
obligation introduced into the Companies Act 1985 to implement the EU
Accounts Modernisation Directive.

As Gary says: "In the case of a quoted company the Business Review must, to the extent
necessary for an understanding of the development, performance or
position of the company’s business, include –
            
            
             
               

                  

                  

               

               

                  

                  

               

               

                  

                  

               

               

                  

                  

               

               

                

(a)	the main trends and factors likely to affect the future development, performance and position of the company’s business; and
(b)	information about –
(i)	environmental matters (including the impact of the company’s business on the environment),
(ii)	the company’s employees, and
(iii)	social and community issues," Not sure gut instinct will hold much sway in providing answers to any of the above. Also, in the context of PR and marketing, CEOs surely need to take into account the impact of their activity in these areas that are likely to affect the future development, performance and position of the company’s business?

 

According to Latitude (Europe’s leading Search Engine Marketing agency – TWL take note) online searching in the UK financial sector rose by an average of
almost 7% on bad weather days between 7 July and 5 August 2006, but
fell by an average of 11% on good weather days in the same period.

In other words, they are claiming a direct correlation between temperature and search volumes. (And not just any old search volumes mind, but only those in the UK financial sector). May I suggest they go and read Freakonomics which will perhaps enlighten them as to the difference between direct and indirect correlations.

But it was the following quote that had me choking on my coffee:

Andrew Redfern, Director of Innovation at Latitude and author of the
White Paper, commented: “Companies should be using this type of
information to optimize their online marketing campaigns. Data from the
past can be used to predict the future and by knowing when search
traffic volumes are likely to be high and when they’re likely to dip,
companies can adjust their online advertising and use of paid search
listings accordingly.”

Er, even if they could show a correlation between search volumes and weather, that’s still predicated on having accurate weather forecasts – which as we all know, are 100pc spot on every time, right?

Says Rupert G.

According to the dictionary:

maven |ˈmāvən| noun [often with adj. ] informal an expert or connoisseur : fashion mavens.
ORIGIN 1960s: Yiddish.

Masel Tov!

Those delightful folk at World’s Leading (see what I did there TWL?) picked up on my earlier post on the PR Week feature about how PR agencies spend their time.

The full post is worth a read – I’m sure it sums up how many working in PR agencies really feel.

Also, the first time in my life I’ve been described as "Very lovely".

Robert Gray’s feature analyses 12 months worth of research into staff at 50 UK PR agencies to see exactly how they spend their time.

The results are somewhat surprising.

First, if you thought (as most journalists and clients do) that media relations was the prime activity of a PR company, you’d be wrong. The average agency apparently only spends around 15pc of its time on this.

And tracking relevant features? A measly 0.9pc.

What about business development? Nope. 1.5pc

Perhaps we are furiously strategising on behalf of clients? Er, sorry. 0.6pc

Admin? 6.3pc

Reporting? Now we are getting somewhere – 17.8pc.

But no. Far and away the most time is spent on account management(*) – a whopping 44.9pc.

The feature does point out that smaller agencies don’t tend to reflect this average ie they spend more time on actually doing things like media relations.

But it will be interesting to see general PR industry reaction to this – and to clients who appear to spend nearly 45p in every PR pound on having their account managed.

As Robert Gray says: "The findings suggest that agencies are – for want of a better word – ‘wasting’ much of their time."

* What the article doesn’t do is define exactly what account management is – however, it is easy to see what it isn’t – namely actually doing things that add value for the client.