The problem with acronyms

My Google alerts for MIPAA reveals one of the problems with acronyms - they are rarely exclusive.  Despite celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2008, “my” MIPAA (motor industry public affairs association) is not organising the 9th Global Conference on Ageing. 

This has been organised by the International Federation on Ageing to reflect the priorities set out in the UN’s Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing aka MIPAA. 

Fortunately for those looking to develop their careers in motor industry PR, we have top spot in a Google search. 

We have considered changing the name to MIPRA given that public affairs is largely considered a subset of public relations today.  In fact, the organisation was once called Motoring Public Relations Association, but public affairs was considered to be more strategic by a former committee.

Given the extensive debate about the value of the term “public relations” (see PR Conversations for various opinions), some might feel we should not make the switch back.

Should we opt for the popular corporate communications phrase - MICCA (motor industry corporate communications association)?  Or what about reflecting PR’s link to reputation management?  I fear MIRMA (motor industry reputation management association) sounds like an onerous responsibility.

Personally, I like public relations - the function manages (or at least facilitates the management of) relations with an organisation’s publics.  That includes listening or two-way communications, as well as other strategic aspects, rather than just one-way transmission of corporate messages or media relations.

I appreciate PR has a lot of baggage, and as Ivan noted on a recent post:

A study of the use of the term Public Relations in the news media in 1998 by Julie Henderson showed that less than 5 percent of the citings were judged to use the term correctly; 37 percent were negative, and only 17 percent were positive.

A new name for PR is unlikely to remove the negative (mis)perceptions as with seeking to rebrand anything controversial (Sellafield/Windscale anyone?).  Much better that we stand up for what real PR means and challenge those who use the term incorrectly. 

We should use “media relations” for this sub-set activity (interestingly that doesn’t seem to carry the negative connotations, despite being the main area of criticism of PR professionals).

Let’s use publicity and publicists when that is what we actually mean for those who are seeking to generate media coverage, word of mouth, or other outputs for marketing purposes.

Similarly, spin and propaganda need to be seen as distinct to, rather than synonymous with, public relations.  I’d like to say we should dissociate from these terms also, but one person’s community relations activity is another’s propaganda (see Scotsman article and discussion - registration required). 

Another benefit of switching to MIPRA would be that it is clearer to spell - we generally say mipper and, not surprisingly, find even our members often type MIPPA, which isn’t helpful.

Some members have suggested we need a grander name which would carry weight when they mention the organisation to their bosses and colleagues.  But what could such a title be?  Originally, the body was affectionately called “Spoke ‘n’ Wheel” - which definitely sounds very casual. 

Today we are officially viewed as a “learned society”, so maybe we need to reflect that purpose.  Our remit is currently defined as helping communicators within the motor industry work more effectively by providing training, workshops, events and opportunities for networking.

If you’ve any suggestions or thoughts on a name change - or the problems caused by acronyms, please let me know.

Heather Yaxley FCIPR

I’ve just been awarded fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in recognition of my “outstanding contribution” to the profession.  I understand that fewer than 3% of the Institute’s membership are fellows - and I’ve joined an illustrious group.

Looking within MIPAA alone, there are ten existing CIPR fellows, each of whom I respect for their contributions to public relations in the motor industry.  It is an honour to follow in their footsteps with this recognition.

Wondering exactly what might be expected of a “fellow”, I decided to look up a few quotations.  

Ronald Reagan said: “You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.”  (His patronage was great PR for the Jelly Belly company he favoured.)

Or what about the US journalist Kin Hubbard’s view that: “Nothing is as irritating as the fellow who chats pleasantly while he’s overcharging you.” - surely he didn’t mean a PR consultant?

I could opt for the paranoid quote from philosophical Viking, Hagar the Horrible: “As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.”

But my favourite find is by Albert Schweitzer, who won a much more prestigious award, the Noble Peace Prize.  This seems to me to be the essence of what fellowship should mean:

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others - something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

Advertisers don’t understand crisis management

Sports journalist, Sid Lowe presents an interesting defence of the Guardian’s publication of a publicity shot of the Spanish Olympic basketball team showing players “making slit-eyed gestures”.

As a result of a global reaction, the Globe and Mail quotes Toronto Raptors guard and Spanish team member, Jose Calderon:

“We didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” he said. “We apologize to Asian people if they were offended. Spain is one of the most multicultural countries in the world. Maybe some people in Spain come through like that, but in England or the U.S. they have the same problem. We don’t feel we did something bad. It’s wrong to interpret it as racist.”

Yet another example of a non-apology.  Not only is that phrase “if they were offended” used, but those who interpret the gesture as racism are said to be wrong, ie blame is shifted to them. 

Calderon is reported as saying the idea for the shot “came from a photographer” - which is no excuse for players to concur if they felt uncomfortable (which some claim).

The image was used in a good luck advert from the team’s sponsor Seur, a Madrid-based courier company, which not commented.  Reuters cites another player, Paul Gasol, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, as blaming Seur

“…The sponsor insisted and insisted. They pushed because they’re the people that pay the money. It was just a bad idea to do that. It was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody…”

The team was apparently wearing uniforms sponsored by Chinese sportswear company, Li Ning.  So, I accept there was probably no implication of a sense of superiority or hatred in relation to Chinese people with the posed photograph.  But their PR advisors - and those at Seur - should be aware of cultural issues and recognise that parodying any other nationality could lead to negative reporting.

Even if they didn’t, there seems to have been a total lack of subsequent crisis management.  Interestingly, AdAge believes the uproar is a non-issue and will work to Li Ning’s benefit as it may be seen as cool in Spain for not making a fuss about the adverts. 

Like the first comment on the AdAge post, I wouldn’t take crisis management advice from an advertising publication.  Issues and crisis are defined by others, not ourselves, with publics deciding if they will be active against your organisation. 

Seur, Li Ning and the Spanish basketball team might find this issue is short-lived, but it leaves an online stain on their reputations that won’t be so easily dismissed.  This is a global world - and we need the cultural sensitivity to recognise that, regardless of our own sense of humour.

Quadruplets outrank twins in education PR

A friend of mine works in PR in the further education sector and this time of year she gets creative to announce A-level results.  I was amused to see the Guardian report: A-level results are being hit by sibling inflation.  Finding photogenic twins apparently is no longer enough to maximise coverage as St Francis Xavier sixth form college in Clapham, south-west London is able to offer up an “awesome foursome” 18-year-old quadruplets. 

Communication consumption changes

Research from Ofcom show a change in media habits.   

The 365 page report shows that in 2007 we spent an average of 7 hours and 9 minutes a day using an array of communications services - up by 6 minutes from 2002. This includes watching television, surfing the net, using our mobiles, talking on a landline phone and listening to the radio.

Our mobile and internet use has increased by the greatest amount. Between 2002 and 2007 the time we spent talking and texting on our mobiles doubled, up from 5 minutes to 10 minutes each day. Meanwhile, time spent on PCs and lap-tops has grown fourfold between 2002 and 2007 - from 6 minutes to 24 minutes per person every day.

Further evidence of how people are actively seeking information rather than being passive receivers of whatever may come their way.  Although the data shows an increase in advertising spend online - the fact that people are ignoring television ads implies they will be equally discriminating of promotional messages online.

Greater convergence also makes the physical medium by which someone receives information is less and less important.   

As PR practitioners, we need to recognise the implications of such changes in communication consumption.  Ensuring people can find information is vital, but this must be credible and address the needs of the active publics who can go elsewhere for alternative views instantly.

Scobleizer qualifies his PR likes and dislikes

Great to see that Robert Scoble has qualified his initial rant with a helpful follow-up post at Scobleizer, which includes advice on targeting bloggers (plus more PR reflection in the comments). 

The bottom line is that all communications (whether with bloggers, mainstream media, politicians, customers, etc, etc) should avoid the mass mailing, junk/spam approach.  The megaphone of transmit only - otherwise known as advertising - increasingly fails to interest or engage. 

Taking a receiver-oriented perspective simply reminds us that the what, why, how, when, etc of communications needs to relate to the other person more than to ourselves.  PR practitioners might argue they are too busy to personalise information - but most people are too busy to sort through everything they receive just in case it is of interest. 

Not only will they hit delete - but probably block future emails.  That’s always been the case as mainstream media used to throw releases into the wastebin on the basis of franking stamps or from spotting the letterhead of time-wasters. 

The best way to persuade most people is to allow them to persuade themselves.  That means getting to know someone - in the case of online or offline journalists this means reading their work and deciding when to leave someone off a mailing list. 

Good PR has always been a case of less is more.

When winningest Olympic isn’t the best

Media claims that Michael Phelps is the winningest olympic athlete ever sound like appalling English; but thousands of journalists are using the word according to a Google News search.

There are plenty of alternatives, such as stating Phelps is the most successful olympic athelete of all time or that he has won more olympic gold medals than any other athlete in history.

Winningest may well be a real word (or at least in the US), as in “winning most often” but is a very ugly expression. 

There are times when using a single word is the most appropriate way to communicate something, but if the words chosen are distracting they affect the ability of the receiver to concentrate on the message.

Here, I found myself wondering whether or not winningest is a real word, as did the BBC commentators after showing clips of how Phelps’ record-breaking was reported “back home”.  As such, it took the focus away from the achievement - and good language should never get in the way of what is being communicated.

Please do not release me… applying Darwin to PR

Another lesson in why PR practitioners should not spam journalists with press releases from Matthew Gwyther writing the Editor’s blog at Management Today.

Back from hols and 1,024 emails in the inbox. Bet you can’t beat that. It’s always the same after a period away and it takes me a good couple of hours to shift through what is, if I’m perfectly honest, 95% dross. You may think it’s great being so popular but you’d be wrong. And they’re not all spam offering me four gross of Cialis for $129.99, or a chance-of-a-lifetime opportunity to help some West African whose father has sadly passed away and who needs help getting his secret stash out of the country. No - they’re mostly no-hope press releases from desperate PRs.

I really fail to see why this junk mail approach to media relations continues - there is clearly no process of natural selection in the profession.  If Darwin’s theories applied to PR, we might see such behaviour become less common in successive generations.  Those who annoy journalists by their bad behaviour should wither away and the reproduction of puff and spam releases should decline as we adapt to our environment, with only the optimum practices surviving.

PR has opportunity to extend sponsorship online

Interesting to see how Mazda used its sponsorship of the London Triathlon event with CoverCars reporting its journalists’ participation in the event and some company directors competing rather than just enjoying corporate hospitality.

A Heroes gallery and mocked-up magazine covers provided a personal souvenir for each competitor.  But apart from CoverCars, there seems to be little blog reporting or engagement.

I found one competitor had uploaded some photos online and there are a few user-generated videos on YouTube.  This appears to have been a missed opportunity for Mazda to have developed the Heroes gallery concept further using new/social media.

From a PR perspective, typically maximising sponsorship has involved branding in photographs, corporate hospitality, competitions and editorial coverage (where the sponsor is often lucky to get a mere mention). 

Social media offers a new opportunity, but it means engaging with participants, spectators and others to bring an event to life.  Behind the scenes footage and reporting can be offered to those with the self-publishing means to reach online audiences.

Providing places online where such materials can be published is another approach, as well as supporting real user-generated content rather than simply producing corporate offerings.  After all, if you’ve been there, social media is a great way of recording the memories.  It would be good to see Mazda pick up on this in future.

I wish techies would stop stereotyping PR

I’m so tired of reading Robert Scoble criticise PR people en masse - here’s his latest: PR-less launch kicks off a stack overflow of praise. 

I totally agree with his viewpoint that  should should build “PR by building a great service and turn your users into your PR agent” and there’s an element of truth in his claim:

Believe me, we all will hear about your product if it really does rock. There’s no reason to go crazy with a PR firm if you build something that people want.

However, the cited organisation has just demonstrated effective public relations by enabling positive, active publics to be formed through relationship building strategies. 

Robert seems to have only ever experienced the press agentry side of PR that is all about pitching and spamming influencers.  This has given him a one-sided view of what PR is all about, and unfortunately that enables constant sniping though his blog to perpetuate the idea that PR is all about spin and control. 

There is a role for PR in supporting marketing initiatives (which seems to be the main aspect of PR that Scobleizer berates ie in relation to new companies, products and services in the tech sector).  This includes helping organisations understand how to ensure key influencers, innovators and early adopters hear about initiatives, especially if they rock. 

PR plays many roles in organisations, for example, in facilitating communications for those who are best served to engage with influencers.  That is commonly engineers and designers in the case of motor industry PR and specialist magazine journalists.  The PR people can get out of the way in such discussions, but most organisations benefit from expert counsel and appropriate materials, as well as the wider perspective that good PR people can offer.

Also, if a designer or engineer spends all his/her time engaging with external influencers, there comes a point when they cease to focus on the day job and actually become a full-time communicator.  Hence, why many PR practitioners may have such backgrounds.

Just because PR isn’t overtly seen working in this more sophisticated way, the likes of Scoble equate the practice entirely with pushy PR agencies.  I wouldn’t stereotype all techies or geeks by their most extreme behaviour or bad habits, so why can’t they give PR a break and realise there is more to the profession than what Scoble writes?