Leveraging the PR savvy CEO

This year iconic Kiwi retailer Briscoes celebrates its 150th birthday. To commemorate the milestone, a book was launched to document the company’s journey through New Zealand history.

Bullet PR’s job was to get mainstream media coverage and our first task was to identify which were the most mediable assets, and there were several options. Was it the launch of a new book? The colourful and often surprising history of one of our well-known retail brands? Or how a business remains on top of its game not withstanding the current, tough retail climate? Continue reading →

Moving from complexity to simplicity in B2B public relations, case study: PCI DSS

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) might not be one of the hottest topics of conversation you’ll see and hear about in the daily media cycle; but – realise it or not – this small but significant element of business compliance affects every single person in the world that uses a credit card.

Created in 2004 with the collaboration of five major international credit card companies, the PCI DSS aims to improve controls around cardholder data for the purposes of reducing credit card fraud.

This month, Bullet PR client Debitsuccess – which specialises in customer billing solutions for businesses – achieved Level One compliance with the PCI DSS, following a review process with SecurityAssessment.com. This rating makes Debitsuccess one of the most secure financial services companies in the country. Continue reading →

Business benefits of social media monitoring

A well-structured, real-time listening programme will put you in a much better position to achieve any or all of the following:

  • Respond to prospects and customers according to their expectations
  •  View and resolve operational issues in a timely manner
  •  Identify and manage emerging risk
  •  Support campaigns
  •  Benchmark your brand health online against competitors

Continue reading →

Using paid tools in social media monitoring

In New Zealand Radian6 is probably the most recognised brand at C-suite level, with the referral advantage of being used by many major corporates and its backing by owners Salesforce. In our social media monitoring for clients at Social@Ogilvy, we use a range of tools, with Radian6 as our principal paid tool. Nielsen’s social media monitoring and research tool Buzzmetrics is certainly making the most of established relationships with most major brands and research creds, but lacks engagement console functionality. Sentia (formerly Media Monitors) made a big push with Brandtology last year. No doubt you’ve got your favourite, for others, see here.

Labour or licensing?

No surprise, in New Zealand the number one objection is always price. And this is usually substantial, especially for anaemic Kiwi budgets. For example, Radian6 will cost you around a grand per month plus additional user charges, and it’s certainly not the most expensive. Continue reading →

Social media listening – When it doesn’t pay to DIY

DIY is in our Kiwi DNA and for many it’s a matter of geekish self respect to reinvent the wheel. Certainly there is enough cost pressure on most of us to ensure that we don’t incur unnecessary expense for our organisations.

Even in quite large NZ companies with a high volume of consumer conversation online, the person responsible for social media is frequently to be found cobbling together a range of free tools, such as the lovely Hootsuite, plus any number of alerts and analytics dashboards.

Usually they’re holding it all together with considerable skill and Kiwi ingenuity, which can take you a long way for sure. However, what I also hear, is that they’re working pretty hard to stay on top. They’re conscious of a need for more consistency and structure, as greater demands are made on them to interpret and respond to consumer generated content. Continue reading →

To get in the news, you have to be into the news

It is quite surprising how many public relations consultants don’t watch daily news programmes or read the paper – but being an avid consumer of news can be hugely beneficial to a PR consultant’s pitch process.

Being familiar with the news headlines and having a healthy interest in current events can help create opportunities from the most unexpected places.

A recent example of how effective this is and how it worked for one of our clients, Ford New Zealand is outlined on the Bullet PR site.

Part of Ford’s consumer brief to Bullet PR is to highlight the new technological innovations – one in particular is their Active Park Assist (APA) feature, which is a semi-automatic system designed to make parallel parking a breeze. Continue reading →

Why social media is like talkback radio

Think back to your last major purchase of an appliance or holiday. Did online reviews and feedback play a part in your decision on where to place your hard earned cash? The sources we rely on to make spending decisions are changing fundamentally. Along with friends and family, we are increasingly influenced by a new category: ‘strangers with expertise’, or trusted online connections.

Social media conversations about brands provide a rich fire hose of data, chock full of unprompted observations and recommendatory behaviour amongst peers and influencers online. With a robust social media listening programme in place, the internet effectively becomes your independent focus group.

Recently a senior telco executive asked me: ‘Why should I listen to social media – it’s just like talkback radio isn’t it.’  However, just like talkback radio, closer analysis of what might look like a mass of inconsequential conversation reveals trends and patterns, insights that should inform strategy, product, content and channel decisions. Continue reading →

Top four media relations’ tips for live TV

An insiders look into Live TVI’ve always found live television a little mystifying.

The inviting set, complete with cushy furniture and a pleasant background, presents to the nation just one frame of what is otherwise a chaotic studio.

The wire cobwebs of tech equipment are almost always out of camera shot on live TV. A mess of tangled cords would look out of place on a ‘perfect set’ – besides it would ruin the magical illusion that is television.

Recently, I had the experience of watching TV One’s Breakfast from a front row position inside the TVNZ studios. A conversation with the presenter of the weekly gadget segment, led to one of our clients, Asnet Technologies, debuting their clever new VGo ‘telepresence’ robot on national television. Continue reading →

10 Top Tips for Successful Event Management

Huawei Event

Recently, Bullet PR was asked to organise an ‘Old Hollywood’ themed cocktail and dinner event for multi-national telecommunications giant, Huawei, for their Asia-Pacific CTO Forum at Auckland Museum’s Event Centre.

The purpose of this occasion was to provide Huawei’s 150 international guests with a sophisticated welcoming taste of our local Kiwi culture, along with a few other treats. Because this event was such a success, we thought we would share some of our Event Management secrets:

1. Decide on a theme: Choosing a clear theme always makes your job easier. In this instance, we recommended Old Hollywood because it was elegant, glamorous, and easily understood by different cultures. When choosing the theme for your event, you should never feel limited to picking something like ‘Old Hollywood’. A theme could be anything from an era in time, to a chosen colour scheme. Both of which can be just as effective if done well. Continue reading →

The growing role of apps for PR

Auckland, NZ

The recent Nielsen Real Estate Market Report, based on a survey sponsored by our client Realestate.co.nz, has revealed how New Zealanders search for property online. It’s also highlighted a trend in the real estate market that holds a lesson for the PR industry.

The survey report found nearly a third of New Zealanders with Internet-enabled mobile devices who research property online have accessed property information websites from their device. It also discovered that real estate researchers online were much more likely than the national population to own an Internet-enabled phone or device, with 48 percent compared to 34 percent of the overall population. Continue reading →

Great PR ideas often come from making connections

steve

As this blog post attests, Steve Jobs has come up with some great quotes in his time. This one particularly stands out for me:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” Continue reading →

Public Relations and Voyeurism 2.0

voyeuristic zebra

The PR ideas that get the most award-winning attention tend to be experiential/ambient/stunt related. There is, of course, plenty of great PR work that intentionally flies under the radar, but that’s for another discussion. Continue reading →

Social media for retailers

Google Wallet

I recently spoke to the Dominion Post for an article about social media for retailers. The full article is here, but my expanded comments are below.

In New Zealand, social media has enabled retailers ranging from House of Travel to Hell Pizza to local coffee shops to demonstrate a point of difference and stand out from the crowd. Do retailers have to be on social media? Well, they’d be missing a trick if they didn’t. But, in addition to being properly resourced, it has to be relevant to the target audience. If you’re looking to talk to the business community, it might be wise to set up a blog where the senior management can lay out its strategic point of view about the industry it operates in – like national retail chain dtr has done with talkingshop.dtr.co.nz. If you’re simply wanting to stay in the minds of your customers then Facebook activity and competitions like those of House of Travel are good options. Like any marketing, getting it wrong happens sometimes; just make sure you learn from it and never lie as this has a way of magnifying itself online. Continue reading →

Defending your brand online: why fruit trees need social media

New Zealand fruit growers are branching out into social media

I had the opportunity this week to travel to Napier to do a presentation to the Summerfruit NZ conference about social media. The question I was asked to address was whether their business could survive without it.

Questions of survival are particularly to the forefront of the minds of this industry, especially when you realise that they live with the potential of crop disease affecting their harvests every day. Consider the attention that the Kiwifruit vine-killing PSA bacteria has received in the media over the past year and you’ll understand the concern is justified. Continue reading →

When any PR is good PR

Double Down

Following last week’s media storm over KFC’s new Double Down “bunless burger”, one thing resonates: sometimes the old adage is true; all PR is good PR.

We all know that not all PR is good PR, but sometimes it doesn’t matter if everyone is slating a product as people just can’t help the temptation to give something new a try. Fast food is probably one of those sectors – either you know it’s bad for you and don’t care, or you just don’t think about health risks when you decide what you are going to eat. I’m not sure which group my flatmate falls into, but he has already eaten five Double Downs, three of which he queued over half an hour for! Continue reading →

PR, advertising and marketing: what’s the difference and why does it matter?

man-and-woman-at-bar

Prior to the interview that got me my first job in PR, I remember researching why PR was different from marketing and advertising.

I did a few hours of my own reading and thinking to get a grip on the comparisons, but it was when I was in the interview itself that the interviewer told me this old analogy: “Imagine you’re in a bar and see someone you like the look of … Advertising is you telling her you’re great in bed; marketing is getting your friend to tell her you’re great in bed; PR is getting her friend to tell her you’re great in bed.” Continue reading →

What PR agencies can learn from the problems caused by freedom of information

Noise

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can set up a Twitter account or blog and start spouting off. The difference between what’s interesting to others and not just to the author is insights. It’s all about content, as we all should know by now.

But that’s not what I want to spout about. What I want to discuss is why so many people these days have such a limited general knowledge and what this means for marketers, PR people and advertisers. We are in a rapidly spiraling decline in terms of our abilities to process and disseminate information and this is of huge importance to anyone selling a product or service. Continue reading →

The Future of Social Networking is Smaller. But what does this mean for PR?

Trust

There is a growing realisation that smaller groups are the future of social networking. Sure, Facebook is a behemoth and isn’t going anywhere in the short-term. But, working on the social media principle that you are trust/are interested in what your friends say, surely there is a place for smaller social network groups where conversation flows more freely.

This seems like it will be the theme of this year’s SXSW. Companies like GroupMe are banking on us wanting to be part of these ‘private chat rooms’ and it could be the differentiator in terms of location-based services genuinely hitting the global mainstream. ‘Acts of Sharing’ is a different beast in that it’s more about sustainability and not purchasing stuff that someone else can lend you, but it still supports the notion that online sharing is changing. Continue reading →

Culture Vultures and the PR Agency Hygiene Factor

Culture Vulture

To begin with, colleagues are the culture and vice versa. It surely all starts with the senior management and how they interact with each other and those below them. It’s also got a lot to do with what being inspired by people around you who possess complimentary talents. The more I work with designers, for example, the more I’m amazed by what they do. It gives me a buzz to see someone do something I never could. I grew up being told to try and be good at everything (why did we have to learn Pythagoras’ theorem?) and not focusing on my strengths. I now believe that once you realise what you’re good at, you should stop everything else and focus on being the best at whatever that is. Continue reading →

Lessons from the PR frontline – what I’ve learnt so far

Lion

With the recent rise in social and digital work, it has been easy to forget the fundamentals of modern PR. As this blog post from social media monitoring tool Sysomos says, some brands don’t lend themselves to being social. But every brand needs PR because they all have a public, be it the traditional kind of mass market or something more niche like a group of investors. Every company is looking to influence/engage (choose which word you prefer; they both mean the same thing) with a group – that’s the fundamental bridge of making business work. It’s why the old phrase ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ still rings so true. And it’s why PR is still at the core of every business, whether they call it by that or another name. Here’s a recent example of how a PR disaster can decimate a business almost over night – in this case, social bookmarking service, Delicious. Continue reading →

Will Facebook enter banking and why is it important for PR?

facebook-money

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of geo-location services like Facebook Places and Foursquare. I can see the value, but it’s not great enough for me to be bothered about doing it for myself. I enjoyed the novelty factor of it all when it first came on to the scene, yet I struggled to stay interested in it as people started to spam each other with their irrelevant location.

Anyway, there is a buzz on the interwebs at the moment that could change the way we all see location. In very broad and sweeping terms, Facebook could be on its way to becoming the world’s biggest bank. It makes total sense when you think about it. As ‘The Next Web’ informs us, savvy brands are already facilitating some purchases through their Facebook pages. However, this is still pretty limited in its scope. It would be relatively simple for Facebook to allow its 600 million or so users to start buying all kinds of products and services directly on Facebook. It would go from being the facilitator to the transactor and suddenly start making infinitely more money. Continue reading →

Alistair Helm, Realestate.co.nz talks iPhones and homebuying

As a frequent scouter of open homes, I have found the new Realestate.co.nz iPhone app absolutely invaluable. I love the fact that I can go for a walk around the neighbourhood on a Saturday or Sunday morning and see all the open homes in my area on my iPhone. It makes sticky-beaking through other people’s houses an absolute doddle! And I’m not just saying this because Realestate.co.nz are our clients.

iPhone apps are about making life easier for people, and this one delivers this for homebuyers (or nosy people like myself) in spades.

I thought I’d share this little clip from Alistair Helm, CEO, Realestate.co.nz as he talks to Newstalk ZB about this awesome new Real Estate app.

#markchat Summary: Personal Authenticity vs Professional Brand – Where Do They Meet & Diverge?

Crossroads

This week’s #markchat was all about the blur between personal authenticity and professional brand. How do you ‘keep it real’ online while at the same time not losing professionalism?

I personally tend to steer clear of talking about my personal life online, especially on Twitter, LinkedIn and on blogs like this that are to do with work. This isn’t because I am worried that a client will sack me if they knew I was hungover from too many mojitos last night. It’s more to do with whether people in my overlapping yet different networks would be interested in what I’m saying. For example, I assume most people following me on Twitter do so because I discuss marketing, PR, social media and media in general. They mainly have shared interests to me, in some way, shape or form. This is why I re-tweet stories I find useful about media stuff or ask questions I think have relevance to my community. Continue reading →

#markchat : Personal Authenticity vs Professional Brand – Where Do They Meet & Diverge?

I want you!

We all have perceptions about ourselves that aren’t necessarily what we would want them to be. Think you’re known for being really creative? Maybe you are. Or maybe you’re known for being really resourceful, but lacking the spark that generates relevant ideas.

Either way, how others perceive you is, ultimately, very important when it comes to your business life. Whether you like it or not, your personal brand impacts heavily on your business brand, whatever sector you’re operating in. This is especially true for those of us who operate at least part of the time in the online marketing world.

So, have you ever gone back and re-read your personal tweets, Facebook or LinkedIn updates from the last month? And, if you blog, have you taken a look at what the content of the few months of blog posts has been like? No? I hadn’t either so I thought it wise to take a look and see whether it gave the impression I would want to project.

To use the example of Twitter, I separated my updates into the following categories:

· @’s where I was asking or answering questions to people in my network

· Re-tweets

· Independent updates where I wasn’t asking or answering questions (this consisted mainly of my own, self-absorbed musings)

· Sharing personal links (i.e. those related to Bullet PR or other associations I’m involved with like Social Media Club)

· Sharing other links to sites on the web with which I have no relationship

NB – I excluded #markchat updates as there were so many and I felt this would skew the results Continue reading →

Two Ears, One Mouth: Social Media and Continuous Dialogue

cocktail party

I’ve heard or read that many marketing types believe that one of the themes of social media next year will be continuous dialogue with customers. For a while I thought this sounded great; ongoing dialogue means more opportunities for marketing. And this is all synonymous with social media, or so they have us believe…

Having mulled it over, I’m not convinced that ongoing dialogue is the right way forward for most brands. Let me quickly clarify something. I feel that, broadly speaking, there are two types of brands when it comes to social media and online marketing: those that I call ‘utility brands’ and those that aren’t. Utility brands are those in the utility sectors themselves, along with pseudo-utility brands like telcos, banks and public sector organisations. Utility brands are those where we have few opportunities to switch (think long term contracts with electricity companies or telcos). Non-utility brands are those that we can pick up and discard easily. If a restaurant is rubbish, we just won’t go back, for instance. Continue reading →

Brothers in marketing: does collaboration between creative agencies work? #markchat

First things first, it would be wise to list what I deem to be ‘creative agencies’. The following fields are what I am principally referring to:

PR; advertising; marketing; design; web development.

So, in the broad modern world there are lots of creative entities ready and willing to promote a brand. But can marketing agencies really work collaboratively with design agencies and can media agencies work in blissful unison with advertising agencies? And what happens when a PR agency has to work alongside a web agency to deliver a project? From experience, this is sometimes a very rewarding process as you get input from people with different skill sets. That said, it can also be a frustrating process when the other party doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, how your contribution fits in. Continue reading →

Does a smaller budget increase creativity? #Markchat tomorrow at 12.30pm

I’ve often heard people say that a smaller budget increases creativity. They argue that because you have less money and fewer resources, you have to think harder. The brain working on overtime produces better results because you don’t have the option of throwing cash at marketing without much forethought. I certainly agree that massive budgets often breed lazy marketing; however, I’m not sure the opposite is a truth that can be confidently stated.

Sometime it’s true that a smaller budget increases creativity, but smaller budgets just as often deliver rubbish ideas. For me, it’s a bit like the kids at university who claimed that doing their papers on the night before they needed to be handed in was preferable as they ‘performed better under pressure’. I didn’t buy that line then and I don’t now. How can necking copious amounts of Red Bull and coffee and staying up for longer than anyone should be awake deliver your optimum effort?

Anyway, we digress. Tomorrow, at 12.30pm NZ time, we are doing #markchat and we want to hear your opinions on the topic above.

To kick-start your thinking, I had a look for great examples of small budgets delivering great creativity. I didn’t come up with a huge selection; partly because I wasn’t sure what people would define as a ‘small’ budget (I would guess it is relative to the competition). That said, this guy has done some very cost-effective marketing over the years, despite a large personal fortune. And these guys have long driven an idea/campaign I love, which hasn’t been expensive compared to others in the market.

On the other end of the spectrum, here is one terrible piece of marketing that would have cost a fair wedge of budget and here is another, more recent example that has received a fair amount of criticism. Oh, and here’s another for those of you who want more.

Does NZ ‘ness’ matter for brands? #markchat

nz_fern_flag

Is there a New Zealand quality to New Zealand brands? Does it truly come through and is it useful? Should we express New Zealand ‘values’ to brands?

These are the questions we kicked off today’s #markchat with and it stirred lots of useful debates.

The general feeling seemed to be that a Kiwi flavor to the brand is useful and relevant so long as it isn’t forced. The brand is partly responsible for fostering this ‘NZ-ness’, but the consumer will ultimately decide whether it feels right and whether it sticks. Speaking of brand perceptions, the consensus was that people have long memories. Both Bullet PR’s Jennifer Duval-Smith and Gen-i’s Chris Quin had interesting points and questions on this subject. Continue reading →

PR talking point: Size does matter, just not in the way you think

Rousseau

Excuse me while I get slightly philosophical. 18th century Swiss philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, said that true democracy couldn’t survive in states of more than 50,000 people. I would argue that effective social media, and by that I mean social media that holds real value and meaning for both the consumer and the client, cannot be achieved in communities bigger than 50,000 people.

Hell, I’m not sure that, for most brands, it can be achieved in communities bigger than 40,000 people. If you are one of those brands that appeals to just about everybody, like a telco or a retailer that sells all and sundry, then it’s probably a little different. But how can you communicate with a group any bigger than 40,000? How can you possibly expect to have the kind of conversations that social media is meant to facilitate? Continue reading →

Does branding enable B2B business? #markchat

Does branding enable B2B business?

This is the subject for tomorrow’s #markchat. And here are a few questions and points to get you thinking in advance.

Perhaps senior decision makers choose partners and suppliers based on existing relationships. But these relationships could also have started due to intelligent B2B branding. There may have been a moment in time, perhaps before the decision maker was senior or even in the position to make these choices, when a brand got the message right and established the connection. Or maybe not. Sometimes these business to business agreements are a case of circumstance, such as when two offices are located near each other, for example. This could be the main reason why a business uses a printing company. It may have nothing to do with their logo.

Speaking of logo, to what degree does design of a logo contribute to the credibility of the business? I’d wager that it’s quite influential, although it’s up for debate how much of a factor this is. It’s been suggested, for instance, that the new BNZ logo was a result of a need for a more serious symbol in the corporate side of the banking operation.

And when it comes to the differences between consumer focused and B2B branding, what about websites? How does the choice of what information we share contribute to branding? Taking it one step further, in this amalgamated world of information we all live in, how much of a difference is there between consumer and B2B branding these days?

Please join us at 12.30pm tomorrow for #markchat; we’d love to hear your opinions.

Bullet PR speaks on ‘Social Media for Professional Networking’ at Social Media Club

Networking

We were part of an interesting Social Media Club on Tuesday night. The topic was ‘Social Media for Social Networking’, an important topic for us all.

Our speakers were:

Linda Coles, trainer and speaker on building and maintaining relationships online (www.bluebanana.co.nz; @bluebanana20)

Jane Kennelly, Company Director of frog recruitment, industry veteran and innovator (www.frogrecruitment.co.nz; @frogrecruitment)

And me, Alex Erasmus of Bullet PR (www.bulletpr.co.nz; @AlexErasmus)

Linda mainly discussed LinkedIn and we can all use it for establishing and strengthening business relationships. I think her talk reminded everyone of the points of difference that LinkedIn has over the likes of Facebook. The most pertinent point for me was that it only takes a few minutes a day to keep your online profile looking good. In many ways, it’s simply a ‘hygiene factor’ for when you’re looking for work, but it’s a good habit to get into.

Jane Kennelly of frog recruitment showed she is one of the few in her sector who is embracing social media. There is certainly a sea change in recruitment, where employers are now often looking at LinkedIn profiles and not CV’s. This is especially true for those working in media, but will surely be true of many more jobs in future. This is, like a lot of social media related subjects, heavily tied in to faster broadband, free wi-fi zones and smart phone adoption. Jane gave the example of MOTAT, who produced a great recruitment video, which beats traditional methods.

I finished the evening with a quick run-through my take on online networking. My opinion is that you should start by being interested in what others are saying and listen to their responses. It also pays to have a clear understanding of what you are looking for from the relationship. Networking for networking’s sake doesn’t do any of us any favours. Moreover, are you actually adding value online? Rather than trying to connect with as many people as you can, why not try and do something different from others in your field so that people want to connect with you? This is a much better way of approaching it. Continue reading →

#Markchat: social media engagement is fine, but how do you evaluate and define ROI?

twitter

To those who are new to this #markchat business, it’s a weekly Twitter conversation at 12.30pm (NZ time) every Thursday. Each week we have a different topic and encourage new people to join us. We started it as a way for people to have a conversation around a relevant topic amidst all the clutter we see online. We co-host it with one of our clients, Michael Holt, CEO of gardyneHOLT design. To follow the conversation, simply search for the hashtag #markchat using TweetDeck, Seesmic or a similar tool. Alternatively, you can go to www.wthashtag.com/markchat

This week we will be talking about how you take social media beyond engagement to the point of evaluating ROI. This is also the over-arching topic of the conference we are hosting - Social Media Junction – on November 16th and 17th. This time, we will look to focus more on B2B brands, rather than the typical consumer brands people reference in these conversations (Apple, Coca-Cola etc.) Continue reading →

Do we need Twitter as a Mini-Facebook? What PR Consultants need to be aware of

New Twitter

What with the launch of the #NewTwitter, it seems apt to speak about what the changes are going to mean for the social space in terms of PR. Twitter’s changes are all with a view to making it more responsive so that you work less for more information. The increased functionality could herald some worrying times ahead for the various applications like TweetDeck, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this pans out. In terms of looks, it’s moving towards an iPad feel. Read more about it here and here. Continue reading →