A Media Person's Musings

Slating and Baiting

In this week's Media Week there is a double page spread of advertising that has been placed by ThisIsLondon exposing The London Paper (one of the many free daily papers handed out at tube and train stations) as being "the free paper they can't even give away". The spread is designed like a photo-story and contains pictures of the London Paper's distributors dumping stacks of papers rather than handing them out.

Interestingly the ThisIsLondon website is owned by Associated Newspapers which owns, yes you've guessed it, Metro and London Lite - two other free daily newspapers! Obviously the London dailies are fighting for ad revenues but an exposé such as this one leaves rather a bad taste in the mouth. To take out a big advert in one of the media industry's trade magazines to accuse your biggest competitors of imcompetence at best and fraud at worst is a bad move on Associated's part.

If they really did think such bad practice was going on why did they not just pitch the story to the editor of Media Week and get an independent investigation? I think they know full well that ALL of London's daily newspapers, including their own, are dumped at some time or another by rogue distributors.

With this low and distasteful advertisement Associated have scored an own goal as they have most probably reinforced the cynicism that everyone has about the value of ALL the free London dailies as campaign vehicles.

Media Value

Until Newsnight came on TV tonight I was starting to despair. The horrific slaughter of over 30 students and staff in a college in the US has dominated our headlines for the past few days. Today we hear that over 200 people have been murdered in Iraq through terrorist actions and yet the news has not headlined on this slaughter like it has on the one in the US.

What does this mean? Are the Iraqi dead less important than US citizens? It appears so by the attention that is given by Western media and that is abhorrent. To be honest the drama of the circumstance, the entertainment value (if we view it in its sickest terms) is what networks are looking for. As we see the vultures that are network broadcast 'anchors' descend upon the college in question I am happy to make a bet that if the hundreds of Iraquis that were killed today had died in a plane crash, instead of being victims of a car bombing, then they would have made our front pages.

Changing the Mix

The PR industry is contstantly challenged on how it measures results. Because what we do, building reputations, is hard to measure we are constantly asked to quantify our clients' return on their investment. This is at the forefront of my mind when proposing any campaign for a client - how can we measure our success?

So this weekend I was invited by a friend of mine, a hugely respected business leader in the creative services industry, to join him on a trip to Aintree for the Grand National on the Orient Express. Of course I jumped at the chance not only because it would be a great day out but also because it would be an excellent chance to network.

On the way back I was curious to know what sort of business return Mark thought he would get out of such an exercise. He simply said that in this case he wasn't looking for a direct return - "I just thought I would bring a few interesting people together and see what comes out of the mix".

This got me thinking how clever that was. All the people that he brought together may well end up doing some sort of business together and at least network a little further and that will come back full circle to Mark's company. A bit like a master chef by changing the mix, bringing together a different group of people, he was creating another recipe. That recipe may or may not be successful but its creation was itself a success to Mark.

Sometimes we have to challenge our beliefs on what is the measure of success. Certainly a lot of the work I have done with clients you couldn't quantify in terms of coverage or click throughs and has often been slow-burning.

A Royal Lesson

The newspapers this weekend have been full of pages of coverage about Prince William's split with his beautiful (now ex) girlfriend Kate Middleton. Agony Aunts and 'Relationship Counsellors' have populated morning TV and chat shows speculating that this could be history repeating itself as just like his father young William could be sacrificing his true love so that he can become a 'man about town' for a few more years. It has been a phenomenal hullabaloo that certainly doesn't warrant the extent of coverage it has received.

What is interesting to me is how Kate Middleton has conducted herself through all of this and also how she dealt with intrusive media attention and paparazzi for the duration of their relationship. She is a normal middle class English girl who was thrown into a media scrum and she has behaved impeccably, with dignity and good grace. You won't find any pictures of her scowling and you won't find any interviews either. Indeed, she has dealt with highly pressurised situatiions much better than some expensively-advised CEOs and celebrities which is remarkable for a 25 year old working woman.

I hope she maintains this. It is going to be very hard for her over the coming months. She will be offered millions to tell her story and I can see the phones rininging off the hook to get the highest bid in. I am sure there are a lot of oily publicists hammering down her door offering their services. Will she be tempted by the offers? I dare say. But I have a funny feeling and a definite hope that she realises that her reputation - gleaming and untarnished - is worth far more than a grubby income from a 'kiss and tell' feature and she will profit far more in the long term by continuing to act with silent  grace and dignity.

Tell it to the marines...

The group of British marines taken hostage by Iran were freed and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief as one more 'pressure point' in the Middle East seemed to have been momentarily relieved.

There is so so much I could talk about on the way the media has handled this hot potato. I was horrified to see all the broadcast news reports showing booze-ups in local pubs as families revelled at the news of their loved ones' release: a very nice (and crude) representation of our Western culture and customs to the Muslim regime that had made an Easter 'gift' of the marines return to us.

When the release happened our media were up in arms and revolted by the pictures of the marines, particularly Faye Turney (the only female) being paraded in front of Iranian TV and shaking hands with the Iranian premier. All were speculating on the horrors 'our boys' (and girl) must have had to endure.

So when they get back and the MOD gives them permission to 'sell' their stories to national newspapers the whole nation is up in arms. Quotes like "We pay their wages to defend our country" and "What about the dead soldiers? They or their families haven't had a chance to sell their stories or made a penny". "How dare they?"

All of this is in response to a couple of the marines in question giving very candid accounts of their very frightening experiences.

Now the MOD has done a complete about face and responding, very hastily, red-faced and stupidly by putting a curb on any other stories being sold. Lost in the high dudgeon were the facts that the marines in question made very little money and had donated some of what they had earned. But also lost in the clamour was a healthy dose of realism. These men and women fight for our freedom (the validity of this war I can't go into but our troops are there to fight for us).

Freedom gives us not only freedom of speech but freedom to make choices as basic as to whether to buy or to sell. Out of any individual I know I can't think of anyone more entitled to make a few bob out of selling their story. While I feel intense and great pity for everyone who has lost a loved one in this conflict I am sure that they know, in their heart of hearts, that you must do what you can to survive and provide for your family while you are there. These poor people came back from a horrific experience, got offered the chance to make a little money to see them through and now they are pillioried for it.

Shame on all of those lofty moralists who say members of the armed forces can't sell their stories and then turn a blind eye to the baser and lower members of society who get hundreds of thousands of pounds for kiss and tells and salacious exposes.

On my regular walk to work with Norbert my dog an old fellow came up to me and said "you shouldn't take dogs to work with you - it's cruel". When I got in I told my colleagues who were as flummoxed as I was. How can it be cruel to take your dog to work with you? In fact we all concluded that it would be far more cruel to leave him at home, bored and deprived of company.

I have been accused in the past of being rather eccentric in my attitude to having dogs in the office (we have had up to three in at a time). It is, I agree, unusal and some might say it is (at worst) unprofessional.

Obviously it is down to how you 'manage' this situation. I think it is important to say now that my dog doesn't rampage around the office - in fact you would hardly notice his presence (unless you were a courier!). We always check that visitors are comfortable with dogs and make other arrangements if they are. Norbert is very much part of our environment, one of the team, and in many ways an arbiter of the general mood levels of the office. If there are outbursts of frustration Norbert will be the one to jump to his feet looking worried which makes the person in question immdiately calm down and peace is restored! In fact when new people join us they see it as a very unique workplace as a result of the dog being there and then after a few months they feel as if it the most natural thing in the world.

All our clients love Norbert, the postman loves Norbert, people in the nearby offices love Norbert and I would go as far as to say he is the power-networker in our organisation because through him we have met many people we would not have normally engaged with. Finally he gives us as a group a little more personality. Peppercom is a firm with bags of personality and is actually named after the founder's dog Pepper so we think it is very appropriate that Norbert is well and truly part of our team.