Month: June 2002

The industry analyst conundrum…
Let me state up front (and this IS important) that 98% of industry analysts I deal with and meet are highly knowedgable and professional individuals who have a very valuable insight into technology trends and market movement.

But what about the 2%? One of PR’s perennial problems was that all you traditionally needed to call yourself a PR consultant was a phone and a fax (now it’s a phone and a computer). Increasingly there are small boutique analyst firms opening up, and some of these firms are bringing the industry analyst market into disrepute.

Last week an ‘analyst’ from one of these firms told me “we don’t take vendor briefings unless the vendor is a subscriber”. Whoa! Hold on there. How can an “analyst” have a view of the market, more importantly how can they judge trends or proffer advice if they only talk with their clients?

It seems to me these tiny firms’ business plan reads something like: “Our goal is to write nice things about company’s who pay us money and to ignore, diss and bad-mouth their competitiors (unless they pay us money too)”

Is it time to blow the whistle on these people? [Comments ]

A PR blogger……..
Last Friday I happened onto a fellow PR blogger. Phil Gomes has a well written PR blog that’s definetly worth a visit and has been added to the links on the left.

I read much of his blog with a lot of interest, the only entry that bristled somewhat was his April 11 2002 piece (no permalinks) on why every company needs external PR counsel….I’ll return to that at a later date. However if you’re interested in PR definetely visit Phil’s blog regularly.

My daddy is bigger than yours…
I have held off writing this piece for quite some time, but now is as good a time as any. In a variety of online PR publications recently there have been a series of Big Agency versus Small Agency opinion pieces. These ‘articles’ aim to position smaller or larger (depending on the author) PR agencies as the best choice for companies for a range of spurious reasons.

The only clear take-away for me from these articles, is that any agency who participates will never get my business. Why? Well if a PR professional positions themselves so blatantly, supporting their argument with unsubstantiated generalizations they can’t be relied upon to promote my business intelligently. If this is their idea of thought-leadership be afriad…be very afraid.

So does size matter? Here’s my take. PR is at its core about people. Although agency elders often forget it, a PR firm lives and dies by its people. That’s it. When you extrapolate that out, whether you go with a large or small agency should at the end of the day come down to the people in the firm you’ll be working with. And that argument holds for international PR programs as well.

Over the past decade I have worked on the agency and in-house sides. In both capacities I have worked with single agency networks and a mix of different agencies. It’s clear that the most effective campaigns were not driven by the type of agency but by the people involved. Good people = Good campaigns….size doesn’t matter a jot, whether its big or small.

Flash Hall of Fame #7… Publicis….check out the most appalling navigation known to personkind..

Internet Wire Needs to clean up its act..
In August 2000, a hoax press release was sent over Internet Wire about a publicly traded company called Emulex. The press release, which was sent out by a disgruntled Internet Wire employee, caused a 62% drop in the Emulex share price in one day – costing investors $110 million.

Now Internet Wire have replicated the trick, a hoax press release purportedly from small cap biopharmaceuticals firm, Cel-Sci was sent out June 10 announcing an non-existent partnership in Japan. The result? Trading volume five times the average and a significant share price gain.

It’s time Internet Wire took hold of the situation, it’s not good enough to simply say that staff didn’t follow procedures. The fact that this has happened twice in as many years isn’t good enough.

UK PR Firms in Financial Danger…It seems the continued slow economic recovery is hitting UK PR firms. In a study by Plimsoll Publishing to be released next month one in five UK PR agencies are in danger of closing (based on sales growth, trading stability, profitability, working capital and liquidity) The survey covers 400 UK PR firms and 163 have a financial rating of ‘caution’. More at PR Week.

Regis McKenna: CIO as a Marketeer…Interesting piece from Regis McKenna in Optimize magazine on the CIO’s importance in delivering technology that assists the marketing effort with customers across all departments.

What does your boss think is key to reputation?

Hill & Knowlton along with Chief Executive Magazine and Harris Interactive have produced a report that looks at what CEO’s believe affects their organization’s reputation.

In a survey of 557 executives, the report found that:
42% believe unethical behaviour adversely affects reputation
49% believe negative print and broadcast affect reputation
13% quote rumors on the Internet
36% say disasters
and 35% litigation

Read more on the report here.

Flash Hall of Shame #6.. …..Hill & Knowlton

Update: When PR people let down their industry

Bivings Group have an interesting op-ed on blogging on their web-site. Now that’s interesting…