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?

Our pitches and media releases were based around individual media releases centered around those key selling points, but what appealed most to news outlets and had the biggest cut-through was surprising.

News media were sold on the fickle retail environment and Managing Director Rod Duke’s strategy in saving the company from financial ruin, and turning the business around into a retail giant.

With the business angle the most appealing, I got in direct contact with TV3’s Business Correspondent. 3 News were given the television exclusive, a day ahead of the 150th birthday

Rod Duke also appeared on the morning business shows at TVNZ (Business Breakfast) and TV3 (Firstline) the following morning with both interviews focussed on staying on top of the game in a cut-throat retail environment.

Business publications also gave significant coverage, with articles in The National Business Review and NZ Business magazine.

This example highlights an important lesson in PR strategy, showing that business leaders who embrace communications and media opportunities can reap the benefits and gain a competitive advantage in business.

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.

However, the fact that PCI DSS is important doesn’t mean it is easy to explain. Compliance with data security standards is a necessarily complex and intricate part of business that is taking a long time for financial institutions globally to understand and implement.

Our challenge was to create a context where our client could speak directly to those in the New Zealand business community who needed to know about the requirements of PCI DSS compliance, and engage with them personally to help simplify the complex issues involved.

Our solution was to organize a multi-speaker forum event in association with the American Chamber of Commerce, where Bullet PR and Debitsuccess hosted around 50 representatives from Kiwi businesses with an interest in payment data security.

Speakers from Debitsuccess, SecurityAssessment.com and Westpac bank gave a concise overview of the landscape of PCI DSS compliance in New Zealand, along with some practical guidance of how business can sort their compliance locally.

As the attendees asked clarifying questions of the panel at the end of the event, the gathering illustrated again to me the benefit of communicating with clients and stakeholders face to face in a B2B context.

Simplifying complex issues is a vital skill for any PR practitioner, yet we can be as guilty as any CFO of getting lost in jargon and detail in our efforts to communicate a client’s core business to others.

More often than not, the key to making complex issues simple in B2B public relations is to step back from the ‘business’ and think about the ‘relations’ aspect.

Be it events, forums, roundtable discussions, simply getting a group of likeminded people into a room together to focus on a complex B2B product can achieve more for growing understanding of it than any number of written communications.

• 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

As a marketer or product manager you want to know what is being said about your product amongst peers online. If you can’t answer these questions then you need to consider dialing up your social media listening:

• Are people talking more or less about your brand online?

• What is your online share of voice in the conversations you would like to dominate?

• Are people more positive about your brand or your competitor online?

• On which social platform does your target market spend its time?

• What aspects of your product or service are driving customers away?

• What else are your customers talking about?

Last year a sobering Nielsen statistic showed that 89 percent of New Zealanders have decided not to make a purchase based on negative online feedback. This statistic alone indicates just how crucial it is to have a listening programme in place. After all, if you don’t know what is happening, you can’t fix it. And that’s what I would call radio silence.

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.

Generally it comes down to a question of labour vs licencing, meaning: what is important to the company and where does the company want to spend its money? A purely manual approach to social media listening can be far more expensive, and I would argue, less consistent and reliable.

Additionally, many businesses, especially those with head offices in Australia or the U.S. are becoming aware of the need for a clear ‘audit trail’ in their online communication as companies are increasingly being made responsible for content published on their online platforms. This increasing burden of reporting is difficult without access to a comprehensive tool.

What you’re still going to have to do yourself (sorry!):

Sadly, social media listening software is not a silver bullet. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, which you’ll need to measure against your own company’s objectives. Here are some things it won’t do for you:

Set up – It’s not very difficult, but as with any new software, ensuring you’re getting all the conversations you want, or rather excluding those you don’t want, takes an investment of time and a little training. If your brand name is generic, you’re liable to start out with quite a few false positives. Once you’ve got your profiles in place it requires calibration and maintenance to ensure you’re not missing new developments around your products or brands.

Nobody can give you everything – Some are more comprehensive than others, however no solution will help you listen to private Facebook profiles. In New Zealand, the TradeMe API is not accessible either. This won’t worry you if you’re a B2B cloud vendor, but if you’re in the consumer space, or have a public affairs issue or dodgy product, you’ll have to trawl the forums manually like any good consumer rights journo.

Automated sentiment – yeah right!
Sentiment is where the c-suite tend to lean forward and get interested because they want to know whether the public likes them or not. Most paid tools have a sentiment function built in, but our experience is that it is less than 60% accurate. Just imagine a computer trying to interpret a Tui billboard and you’ll understand why we choose never to rely on automated sentiment and mark it manually for accuracy instead. Sentiment marking is improving all the time, but it’s not there yet, and it certainly doesn’t allow for Kiwi humour, or just plain sarcasm.

Ya still gotta do the work
A tool such as Radian6 will pull the data together and allow you to monitor, slice and dice it, and present it with ease with ease. But until you bring your superior understanding of the business to bear on that data, or pay someone else to do so, it remains just data. The real challenge, and the fun of it really, is to generate intelligence and insights which will help make better business decisions, meeting more of your customers needs where, when, and how they want them met.

Your choice:

There is a ton of free tools around which might give you insight into one or more social platforms. But to get a good consistent, timely and comprehensive overview with manageable reporting you’re generally looking at a paid tool backed up by manual monitoring. Additionally as increased compliance and reporting becomes non-optional for many businesses, we may find we don’t have a choice. To keep abreast of social media developments affecting your brand you’re going to have to pay one way or another. The real question is where do you want to spend your money?

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.

Most would like to have the following functionalities, and haven’t found these to exist in the suite of free tools available (and if you’ve found one which does, please do let me know pronto):
• Real time reporting – crucial in a crisis
• All in one dashboard to cover owned platforms and open web
• Comprehensiveness across the web
• Consistency over time
• Convenient ‘management friendly’ reporting
• Engagement console
• Tracking/audit trail
• The ability to customise to the New Zealand social environment
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Which tool? In larger companies the decision is often driven by global alignment, but those who have the opportunity to choose will find a dynamic and competitive landscape, with new competitors emerging regularly. In my next post I will expand on some of these options.

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.

So when the New Zealand Herald led with a front-page story about a small German town’s sexist parking ploy. The town’s mayor proposed the introduction of gender-specific parking spaces that were larger for women to help them maneuver into the park. The spaces designed for men were much tighter.

The story was such a talking point with TVNZ’s Breakfast show presenters Rawdon Christie and Toni Street, and sparked a debate about the parking ability of the two hosts. This presented a golden opportunity.

What we proposed to the Breakfast producer was to pit male host against female host in a car parking challenge using one of the new Ford vehicles and the APA technology.

This is largely a case of being at the right place, at the right time and gave Ford lengthy exposure on New Zealand’s most watched morning news programme. It also shows that PR practitioners who know what is going on in the media can use this to their maximum advantage.

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.

In social, just as on talkback radio, a one-off comment or blip in traffic may not mean much. But a good listening programme arms us with the ability to discern the blip from the trend, respond appropriately to an established pattern and back up our decision.

This ability puts us in a better position to drive positive word of mouth around our brand and mitigate risk to our business. It also prepares us to deal constructively with the over-reacting C-Suite exec brandishing a flaming post on Facebook.

Many brands have a tight overview of their most visible owned platforms, such as their Facebook page or Twitter feed (i.e. the ones the chief executive can see). However, most are unable to form an accurate picture of the way their brand is regarded and discussed on the open web.

Our experience is that brand sentiment and conversation differ wildly when a brand is not being directly addressed, which means brands that do not use a comprehensive listening tool are not developing a representative or holistic picture of their real competitive position online.

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.

While the VGo robot was on-screen for less than five minutes, it took a lot of planning to get it there. Here are some key learnings.

1. Make it as easy as possible for your client/product/story to be covered.
Producers are inundated with PR pitches every day and therefore have numerous choices when deciding what to cover. Once they decide to cover whatever it is you are pitching, it is vital to be prompt, efficient and helpful in your communication. Be sure to give them all the information they require in a timely manner. TV works to tight deadlines and at a quick pace – if you cannot get them what they need quickly enough, they will ask somebody who can, which could mean your client misses out.

2. Accept it might not all go to plan.
Just as boy scouts are ‘always prepared’, a PR pro should always have a back up plan. In our case, the expectation of a ‘live’ product demonstration was, for various reasons, not an option on the day. Luckily we already had some great footage of the VGo robot in action and were still able to show off everything viewers would have seen in a live demo. Sometimes you’ll find that nothing goes to plan, so be ready to think fast and find solutions.

3. Be flexible.
You need to be aware of the requirements and constraints of television. Don’t be too difficult or demanding. Producers understand that your job is to put forth your client in the best light, but it is important that you are also sympathetic to their obligation to make television engaging. Listen to the suggestions made to you by the producer – they know what does and does not work on-screen. Pitch your ideas and angles by all means, but understand that you cannot control exactly what happens on air. Focus your energy on preparing your client, if they will be appearing on camera.

4. Build relationships.
As in all areas of PR, cementing good relationships with those who have influence or control over the program content is a very effective way to gain future media coverage. Just by talking to the producer in the studio, I was able to find out about upcoming features, which may be suitable for our clients. It also gave me the chance to tell the producer more about the clients we work with.

Check out the VGo Robot’s debut on TV One’s Breakfast here.

See ‘The Gadget Guy’ blog where John Buckley talks about VGo here.

2011 saw social media in New Zealand move from being part of most marketers agendas to central to almost every marketing conversation. Here is our best and worst of the year.

McDonald’s embraced check-in rewards at store level, which was a great initiative and showed they now take social media seriously. They also had great success with the ‘Flick Rugby’ game, which was an app that sat on the Facebook page and let people to flick a coin across a counter full of McDonald’s food to win points. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but it was a nice tie-in with the Rugby World Cup. It was also simple, very addictive and had strong engagement numbers.

The Pedigree adoption campaign ‘Doggelganger’ was a real social media success. Doggelganger allowed people to find which dog they should adopt by uploading a pic of themselves to see which canine they looked most similar to. The idea was fun, very sharable and had a good truth (people often buy dogs that look like themselves).

Westpac’s ‘Gen W’ – a Facebook page specifically for the next generation of customers where they could win cash and a financial mentor – is a favourite of ours. Again, it taps into a core human emotion, in this case that everyone loves sharing their baby photos. Plus, it gets potential customers at an underused customer lifecycle point.

I also love the NZ Airforce ‘Step Up’ interactive YouTube channel. This is a cool way of connecting people with as real an experience as is possible. I like the fact it’s taking online video to a different place than just playing engaging content.

In terms of the worst, nothing comes close to sending a gamer to Iraq for the launch of a new computer game. Turtle Beach’s idea for a ‘real’ gaming experience was awful as it didn’t represent why people should buy the product and just felt wrong and insensitive to the families of those who died in battle. And I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like it as they pulled the content after lots of criticism:

Finally, Pump’s ‘Make like water’ campaign. I really like the overarching idea and the tagline, but think the eventual social media execution is weak because the idea stops at the line and the online videos aren’t funny or interesting enough to be sharable.

Image credit to Racheal King.

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.

2. Set the scene: To create an Old Hollywood feel, guests were welcomed into the cocktail area along a red carpet and were greeted by old-school paparazzi as well as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn lookalikes. Guest photos with the Old Hollywood stars were extremely popular and framed photos were presented to guests on their departure.

3. Entertainment: Dinner entertainment must add to the atmosphere rather than dominate the entire evening. For this evening, we incorporated three very different performances. As this was an international event, our client felt it was important to reflect an element of local culture. So we organised the Museum’s world-class Maori culture group to welcome everyone and introduce them to New Zealand. The audience was delighted by Tim Beveridge’s sophisticated live act, featuring show time band and retro showgirl dancers. Candy Lane topped off the evening with her Chicago themed burlesque act.

4. Make sure it all fits together: This event was extremely successful because it combined entertaining pieces, wonderful food in an elegant and fun ambience. Key to the success, is maintaining an uninterrupted flow. This requires detailed planning to achieve.

5. You can never be too prepared: When planning an event on this scale, anything can go wrong. This is why it is vital to take everything into account during the planning stages. As Event Manager, you need to consider how something is going to get there, who is going to set it up, how it will be managed, and who is going to pack it away.

6. Create Lists: As a highly organised Event Manager, lists are your BFF. Make a list for each step of the planning process. Keep them up-to-date, and make sure to highlight when something is urgent or has been completed. A ‘Supplier’ list is essential, yet often overlooked. Make sure to list down all of your suppliers, what they are supplying, their contact details, and any other key points to remember (e.g. how they are getting the item to and from the venue). Then, keep a hard copy with you at all times – you never know when it will come in handy!

7. Manage your client’s expectations: It is always important to remember, a happy client is a prepared client. You want to keep the client in the loop as much as possible, especially if changes to the original plan need to be made.

8. Visual aids: In this instance, our point of contact from Huawei was based in Malaysia. So it was vital to the success of this event, that we created a clear visual aid in PowerPoint so that they could successfully envisage the atmosphere and flow of the event.

9. On the day of the event: My biggest tip for Event Managers is to make sure that on the actual day of the event, you delegate all tasks to your helpers rather than taking them on yourself. This way, you can oversee everything that is going on rather than being caught up doing one thing. Also, if anything does begin to turn pear-shaped, you are there to sort it out and ensure that everything, and everyone, performs.

10. Avoid post-event bill shock: No one likes bill shock. So to avoid this happening, make sure you are very open with your client whenever a cost changes. If something does change, re-edit the budget and send it on to the client for sign-off. This way, they are always aware of the amount they are spending.