Suddenly everyone’s going to Iceland, following the company’s immensely successful sponsorship of the latest series of I’m A Celebrity..Get Me Out Of Here! What the public don’t know is that, very wisely, Iceland’s marketing team asked Media Mentor to put them through a journalistic version of their own bushtucker trial in advance of the series so that they’d be ready, willing and very able to handle the avalanche of press interest generated by the top-rating programme.
At Iceland’s headquarters in North Wales senior trainer Paul Murricane took the team through every possible angle that could be thrown at them by newspaper and magazine journalists hungry for juicy gossip about the goings on in the depths of the jungle – and no doubt investigating whether Kerry Catona’s Christmas really is anything like the images we see on telly.
Now a regular client with two series of media training courses from Media Mentor under their belts, Iceland have become great friends. And their cheque is delivered to the door!
Yes it is possible for media mentor clients to spend a day in a fully equipped broadcast news studio, immersing themselves in the whirlwind world of live television news – and it needn’t cost the earth. The only stipulation – we have to leave the studio at eleven am, one thirty and five o’clock while the actual television news is broadcast!
That’s the deal at STV’s brand new TV complex in Glasgow’s Pacific Quay. The fabulous waterfront location houses a stunning new building, and in the Boardroom with its panoramic views down the River Clyde, vast plasma screen and surround sound for TV and Radio interview playback and analysis we deliver our Intermediate and Advanced courses. Most of the day is spent in the “Scotland Today” news studio. Experience the way floor managers, lighting and sound staff deal with you in a live studio.
Experience interviews in the fully lit set. Watch a news programme broadcast live from the production gallery and speak to the people who make it all happen. All this for only £3,500 for a group of up to six people? Yes, that’s the very good news.
Media Mentor prides itself on turning nervous spokespeople into fearless, skilful interviewees, more than a match for any journalist It’s rare for us to train journalists – but when we got the call from IPC’s leading lad mag NUTS to train their editorial team in London we were on to BBC studio bookings before they’d put the phone down! Why NUTS? Think of the X Factor, Big Brother, Britain’s Next Top Model. Becoming famous is an ambition in itself for many young people – and to get their break into mainstream entertainment they have to get noticed.
Newspapers, Radio and TV news programmes could learn a lot about what’s really happening in the world of entertainment, football, events and celebrity by getting the inside information and provocative opinions of the hard working (and hard playing we suspect) editorial team of the magazine with its finger on the er…pulse. NUTS!
It’s official – 2006 was the best year ever for Media Mentor. It was the year we:-
. .and kept our existing, highly valued clients, and our familiar surroundings at Radio 2 studios at BBC Manchester, BBC Birmingham studios.
Said goodbye to UCL Images studio in Central London. The lease ran out on the dear old studios, used by most media training companies in London at one time or another, and we’re all moving to different homes.
Which will bring us to new TV studios in Westminster in 2007 (details still to be confirmed but very exciting) and a new partnership with one of London’s most hard-working (they tell us) PR companies to spread the word that, if you’re facing the Media, you’d better get a Mentor. From all of us at Media Mentor, have a wonderful Christmas, and an equally exciting and rewarding 2007.
Click here to view a PDF with more information on the studios.
The new STV studios at Glasgow’s Pacific Quay are quite simply the most exciting and sophisticated television studio complex in Scotland.
Media Mentor clients can spend the entire day at STV practicing, recording and viewing their interviews in the Scotland Today and Scotsport studios, seeing at first hand the operation of the state-of-the-art digital newsroom, and watching news programmes broadcast live from the STV’s control gallery nerve centre.
Walk on to the set of Scotland Today, and experience live interviews in the 3-camera robotised studio.
Experience for yourself live ‘down the line’ interviews through a simulated satellite link-up with a remote studio. Learn at first hand what it is like to take part in a fast-moving up-to-the-minute live news programme. STV’s studios are the most up to date in the UK.
And they are available for several hours every weekday for Media Mentor clients. We look forward to welcoming you soon.
Try reading this aloud:“Each specialist library will be the product of a community of practice of all those interested in knowledge mobilisation and localisation of their domain”.
What does it mean? It means the writer needs help – and fast. This is just one example – from a press release sent to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme – that Media Mentor uses in its new “Clear Written English” courses, ideal for anybody who writes letters or communicates with the public.
The good news is that many local councils have signed up their public-facing employees to take our course. When they have to calm down furious tenants complaining about housing problems, when they have to find a way to extract council tax from reluctant householders, they need the ability to communicate clearly, pleasantly, and efficiently.
In half a day our ‘Clear Written English’ course transforms bureaucrats into masters of the written word. Do you know someone who could benefit? Write them a short note – particularly if they’re interested in knowledge mobilisation and localisation of their domain.
The Midlands town of West Bromwich is associated with everything from football to building societies. Yet most people aren’t aware that it is home to Britain’s biggest supplier of oxygen to the NHS.Linde Gas UK has just taken over BOC (formerly known as the British Oxygen Corporation) as part of a massive re-organisation of the way in which the NHS handles supply and delivery of oxygen and canisters of other vital gases. Cue press outrage about privatisation of an essential part of the health service. Cue vigorous defence by Linde Gas directors of the superb service they provide, of which they are justly proud.
A day’s training in interview skills, hosted by Media Mentor at the BBC’s new and state-of-the-art studios in Birmingham, ensured that dedicated, hard-working gas company Directors were able to handle tough questioning from journalists to get the message out that the lives of patients who need oxygen are in safe, caring hands.
Think a crisis is unlikely to happen to you? That’s what they thought in the sleepy Scottish Borders town of Melrose. Until a smart scientist at Health Protection Scotland spotted something unusual about a blood sample from a patient who arrived at hospital with flu-like symptoms, and unaccountably died two days later. He checked and re-checked the sample slide until he was sure – he was looking at Britain’s first fatal case of Anthrax in 30 years.Borders NHS isn’t used to being the focus of international media attention. But as Axis Media Group are Health Protection Scotland’s retained media advisors they took the heat, produced a crisis action plan, coached HPS spokespeople, and generated public confidence that this rare, but frightening, situation was being safely and skilfully handled.
Over a hundred and fifty print and broadcast news organisations were in frequent contact with Axis Media Group’s news team in the days following the Anthrax announcement this month, and according to the Daily Mail, the service was ‘highly professional’.
Think a crisis is unlikely to happen to you? If you hear a badger cough near you, think again. Then call Paul at Axis Media Group on 0800 032 1127.
Several clients have recently come to us because they’ve found it next to impossible to find a media training course which offers individual placeBooking in just one person on an open course is more difficult than you might think. But Media Mentor can often offer you a place in a small group of two or three individual clients at a similar level. With prices from only £650 for a full day in a TV studio in Central London this offers our very best value – well worth the juggling of diaries that always goes into agreeing a suitable date!
Call us free at any time on 0800 032 1127 and see what we can offer, if you’re ready to tackle the media and don’t want a Table For One.
Two months ago Cadbury’s was one of the best-liked and trusted brands in the world. Nobody would have believed that in the space of a week it would become so untrusted that ITV would want to see it removed from the nation’s favourite, Coronation Street.But it happened. The reason? Lack of clarity in its statements to the media. Lack of full information when a possible link with E. coli poisoning was identified. First, the reassurance that the amount was almost immeasurably miniscule. Then the information that such amounts were not likely to cause illness.
All very clear and confident. But then came the undisclosed information. The FSA had not been told until months after Cadbury’s knew. Tiny amounts of E. coli are more dangerous in chocolate because the fat content prevents it from being destroyed in the cooking process. The impression being given, right or wrong, was that Cadbury’s were not telling us everything.
How would you cope? Media Mentor crisis trains its clients with simple, powerful and vital techniques that avoid these problems. It’s worked for many of our clients. Unfortunately for Cadbury’s, they’re not one of them.
