Chief Constable Peter Fahy
Greater Manchester Police have pulled off a brilliant PR coup by publishing on Twitter a minute-by-minute account of one day’s operations. Media interest has been phenomenal, and overwhelmingly positive. Why has it worked so well for them?
It’s new: the best ideas are often the simplest ones. It chimes with the public’s view of policing: the tv series ‘24’ is a massive hit because it follows 24 hours in real time. As does Manchester’s twittering. It’s open: the public and the media will always respond favourably to something that is demonstrably open and honest, and they will attach anything that smacks of defensiveness from a public body that is publicly accountable.
And they have a real media star in Chief Constable Peter Fahy. He talks like a human being. You will not hear him refer to “a motor vehicle with doors four in number progressing in a northerly direction”. You will hear him dismiss the desperate attempts by the Today programme’s Sarah Montague to find a critical question “It costs money to do this doesn’t it?” with the language we all use: “It’s done by two guys in our press office, who would be there anyway.” What would Gene Hunt make of it all??
The nominations for the CIPR PRide Awards are just published – and Axis Media Group are thrilled to be nominated once again for Outstanding Small Consultancy for the third year in a row – one of only two consultancies nominated in this category. Director of PR Sabina Kadic is nominated for Outstanding Young Communicator: not the only award she’s tipped to win in 2010! With one thousand two hundred entries received from hopeful PR agencies Axis Media Group’s twin triumph is quite an achievement. Results will be announced in November.
Jo-Anne Hamilton and Sabina Kadic with their award!
For once, a blog about us – congratulations to Axis Media Group’s Director of PR Sabina Kadic and PR Manager Jo-Anne Hamilton on a brilliant win at last night’s Scottish Events Awards! We won, for the second year in a row, Best Awards Programme for the Go Group’s John Logie Baird Awards. Our red-hot PR practitioners steered the JLB Awards through yet another headline-grabbing year to beat off one of the strongest fields of entries from dozens of Scotland’s event management companies and PR organisations. Not only did they scoop a top award they were first on the dance floor and last out of the ballroom! This morning, swathed in blankets and hiding behind enormous dark glasses, they flinch when anyone so much as whispers in their direction. (whisper…well done.)
Sabina and Jeff from The Go Group enjoying the evening.
Something happens to footballers when they get on the pitch. They become almost human. By that I mean that they can become focussed, purposeful, freed of the mess of their other life as grotesquely overpaid and under-motivated playboys. That is the only explanation for Wayne Rooney’s first international goal in a year when he put England ahead against Switzerland in the first ten minutes of last night’s game.
Humans have the ability to walk into a different arena and become a different person. When the media rightly attack Rooney for cheating on his wife they make a mistake if they, like BBC commentator Mark Lawrenson, bring the controversy into sports coverage with a dig about his being the first to score.
The dilemma is best summed up in the Mirror’s photo caption today “The morals of an alley cat perhaps, but the ability of a genius”. The question is, as with many astonishingly talented men (and they’re usually men) at the top of the tree in sport, business and politics – can you get one without the other?
History shows that rarely happens.
So, one of Scotland’s biggest quangos, Scottish Enterprise, has become rather too enterprising in its media relations. Sniffing the air, the communications gurus at the organisation’s glass and aluminium temple which dominates the city’s newly renovated riverside “International Finance District” detect the acrid smell of burnt ash floating their way from the coalition Government’s bonfire of the quangos.
Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Tweedy is out and about again. Hurrah. Don’t misunderstand, she seems like a perfectly lovely woman but I wonder if she will soon fall foul of committing publicity overkill in the highest degree. Her face is everywhere. Guest appearances, hosting, singing you name it she’s done it. The public are smitten, but can it last forever?
Her recent unfortunate bout of Malaria incited national coverage of not only her but follow up features on the disease itself, the risks and stats, and of course, commentary on the issue of Malaria from many a health source, keen to bask in the Tweedy limelight.
The Times’ paywall has sparked fierce debate into the very fundamentals of what it means to be a newspaper. It all feels so aggressive. Newspapers are supposed to be for the people, sharing information that matters and is in the public interest, accessible to all!
Forgive me for playing devil’s advocate here, but what’s the big problem with paying for a product? Are we so used to free online content at the cost of being bombarded with advertisements? And anyway, we’ve all been paying for BBC content for years!
There is a certain guilty pleasure in reading about the exploits of high profile individuals, and mud flinging between the big characters at Ryanair and Easyjet are no different.
Take the advertising space purchased by Sir Stelios of Easyjet in this weekend’s papers. That doesn’t come cheap, but instead of using it wisely, the public were treated to cartoons depicting Ryanair’s chief exec, O’Leary, at confession captioned “arrogant” and “the ugly face of capitalism”. Yet another in a long line of digs between the pair.
O’Leary and Stelios as the faces of their respective brands clearly don’t have company image at the forefront of their minds. Slanderous retorts and jibes do nothing to protect, enhance or strengthen the image of their respective companies – which leads us to believe this is nothing more than a case of media narcissism…
Raol Moat’s final weeks have been played out on a public stage and now, with its morbid conclusion, it has to be said that the support he has been shown is mind boggling.
Facebook pages entitled ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend’, thousands of followers branding him a hero and shrines flooded with sympathetic messages of support for his ‘plight’ suggest something just isn’t right with the public’s perception. It simply must be a case of misinformation. Read the rest of this entry »
Despite thousands of fans descending upon Leicester Square for the premier of the latest in the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, the organisers ended up a few people short – the film’s three biggest cast members no less.
The Twilight Saga has developed a rabid global fan base and an audience which, quite rightly, may not be forgiving of such neglect. Note to celebrities; if your fans turn up to see the premier of your film, you probably should too.
Reports of fans protesting and cold-shouldering the film, is the obvious result of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner not giving enough back to their fan base.
Read the rest of this entry »
