They are the lifeblood of our industry. What is a survey release after all except a glorified list?

And PRmoment has its fair share too. The difference is, when PR people create their own lists on these pages, we seem to glorify in their use to beat ourselves up. We scream “10 things at which PR people are rubbish”?

So, as the New Year looms, how about a counterpoint? Ten reasons why PR is really valuable.

1. PR is the most effective way to build a brand
2. PR influences every aspect of a company’s activities and way of working
3. Every employee plays a part in delivering or derailing the company’s PR strategy
4. PR punctures self-importance – it makes sure leaders are never cut off from what people are really saying about them
5. PR helps turn great ideas into commercial successes
6. PR builds mutually beneficial relationships
7. PR explains
8. PR aims to generate genuine understanding between each business and those impacted by its activities
9. PR people embody the conscience of the organisation
10. PR people are passionate about their work

Ten reasons to be proud you work in this profession, reasons to encourage bright young people to join us, to believe there is more to their career than plugging the latest overpriced consumer item.

So let’s be positive about our industry in 2012.

(This blog was also featured as a guest blog on prmoment.com)

Getting the prospectus, website, advertising, parental communications and open day presentations right is an issue with which many schools struggle using their own resources. 360° brings that strategic overview to communications issues, laying the ground rules by which all the agencies, designers, printers and staff can operate. Holding the ring between competing priorities and agendas is a skill which does not come naturally to many agencies – the ‘no good if not made here’ thought process runs deep. 360° looks beyond selfish need to draw the best out of everyone.

One area that schools can miss, however, is the opportunities presented through media relations. The very concept of dealing with journalists brings many head teachers and their bursars out in a cold sweat. Yet, schools offer precisely the stream of ‘people stories’ that the media love. Yes, you need to be careful of child protection, but the vast majority of stories can be brought to media attention if handled sensitively and where the client is building the strong relationship with parents that is core to any good school’s success.

If you know any head teacher or school development director seeking to improve your communications through the stories you generate, contact 360° for a free consultation on the way ahead.

“O-I’s extensive research shows a strong demand for glass among consumers, but the marketplace does not adequately reflect this interest. We aim to influence the food and beverage industry’s packaging decisions by showing the power of glass,” said Al Stroucken, Chairman and CEO of O-I. “As the leading maker of the purest and most sustainable packaging, O-I is excited to spearhead a movement that demonstrates the unique attributes of glass packaging and brings brands back into glass.”

Voices for glass

Running across print, online and social media channels, Glass is Life™ is being launched in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific simultaneously. It features individuals around the world – CEOs, brand managers, chefs, environmentalists, designers and other opinion leaders – explaining in their own words why glass packaging is so important to them.

 These voices for glass include:

Sanpellegrino S.p.A. Chairman and CEO Stefano Agostini, who says glass showcases the quality of the S. Pellegrino brand.

• Monini CEO Zefferino Monini, who chooses glass because it best preserves the flavour of his extra virgin olive oil.
• Environmentalist Celine Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques Cousteau, who prefers glass because it is natural, healthy and sustainable.
• true fruits Co-Founder Nic Lecloux, who says glass demonstrates the quality and sophistication of his premium product.
• Chef Geir Skeie, who likes glass because it doesn’t transfer any flavour to his ingredients or to the finished dish.

We’re promoting this through UK trade and consumer media, so look out for articles, features and news items on glass and its fabulous properties. Who’d really want to eat or drink out of anything else?

You can join us in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/GlassIsLife).

Environmentalist and documentary-maker, Celine Cousteau is one of the ambassadors supporting glass in the global O-I campaign.

When I was starting out in business to business PR, I was handed an article by my boss entitled “12 good stories a year”. It was a case study about how a company had transformed its fortunes through unspectacular, but well-planned media relations.

In essence, it said that a business, any business, should look to create one story a month, which it can place in the media to build its profile. It could be a case study, an investment, a new product, a piece of Corporate Social Responsibility (charity involvement, training). Whatever the story, the chances are that there would be at least one relevant publication which would be interested in publishing the results. Slowly, they build a reputation in their chosen marketplace.

Nowadays, with Facebook, Twitter, 24 hour rolling news and the like, you are more likely to hear calls for the need for constantly updated information, rapid response, consumer engagement. And that is all true; the opportunities to communicate with your target audiences are greater than ever. However …

I recently read an interview in PR Week with the head of communications at BAA, talking about the snow disruption at Heathrow. He explained how all their communications plans and processes worked smoothly, call centres swung into action, Tweets and Facebook statuses were pumped out and links with government and the media activated. So why did they face so much criticism for failing to tell passengers what was going on?

He said, “The key we’ve learned from that crisis is that we need to get quality information out there, not just information. We need to emphasise to our operational colleagues that we need to provide better information to passengers.”

In other words, the pressures they were under to communicate something took over from the drive to make sure that what they were communicating was actually of any use to people.

It’s the same with all our communications. If your PR people are hassling you for stories, comments, things to put on your blog (and we do), just occasionally step back and ask yourself – “Is all this activity actually telling people anything of value?”

We are getting past the stage of being bamboozled by the new technological ways of communicating. Customers do not want information overload or spam. Perhaps we are entering an age of quality over quantity.

So maybe the advice from that old article isn’t as out of date as it first sounds. Look into your own organisation – I bet you can all find one story a month to help your business grow.

Yes, celebrities can bring value to your communications; yes, they can help you access different media and levels of coverage which might otherwise be blocked off. But before you sign that, often buttock-clenchingly expensive, contract make sure you have satisfied yourself about these questions.

1. Is a celebrity really necessary?

Sounds obvious, but it’s all too easy to get carried away with the idea that you need a celebrity to make your product launch, showroom opening, technical innovation ‘sexy’ (hateful word). What will a celebrity really bring to the event? Is it really an added value option, or frankly, an admission that you can’t think of a more creative solution yourself?

2. Does the chosen celebrity match the values of your brand and will he or she strike a chord with your target market?

All too often, it seems the celebrity is chosen because he or she is the chair’s favourite weather person. Or because someone knows someone who knows someone quite well known and they might do it cheaply.

Pick your celebrity with care. You’d write a person specification if you were interviewing a new employee, so use the same logic when picking a celebrity.

And remember (no names, no lawsuits), a celebrity’s value can go down as well as up. This is especially important if you are seeking a long term relationship with the celebrity as a brand ambassador.

3. Can they deliver your message articulately?

We’ve all know the drill – someone who’s beautiful, charming and engaging right up to the moment they open their mouth.

If you want your celebrity to talk to people about your business, do your research. Can they take a brief, get the message right and tell your story fluently? A decent celebrity broker should discuss this element with you and give you a straight answer – after all, they want you to be a return customer. If possible, find who else has used that celebrity in the past and ask them how successful it had been.

4. Have you thought of something for the celebrity to do?

You want media coverage for this, right? Then for goodness sake, come up with a better picture idea than a line of suits with a vaguely famous person standing in the middle.

5. Are they too famous?

Seems daft, but a big budget is no guarantee of success. The celebrity is there to amplify you story, not to become the story themselves. It can be helpful if the celebrity is in the news already, but not if their story will completely overshadow yours. Olympic sportspeople are popular at present precisely because the media does want access to ask them about the 2012 games, but it is not such a hot topic that you will not be able to get your message across at the same time.

So, use celebrities wisely and you’ll enjoy your PR.

One of our new projects is to bring precisely that point to the forefront of discussion in the construction and maintenance industry.

We have been appointed to handle PR and marketing communications at underground mapping expert, Subscan Technology.

The Rugby-based company is the UK’s largest specialist surveyor of what is going on under the ground and celebrates its 20^th anniversary in 2011. 360° has been given the task of leading the education of builders and engineers as to the benefits of underground mapping, for which a ‘subscan’ has become the generic term.

As the construction sector begins to move forward again after the recession, people want to do things differently. Value is all important now, so knowing accurately what is under your feet before you dig has never been so crucial. Not only does a subscan greatly reduce the likelihood of accidents, it also minimises the chances of incurring hefty financial penalties from cutting a vital service.

The campaign will focus on media relations (building on the acknowledged expertise of Subscan Technology personnel) plus a greatly enhanced online presence and digital marketing.

The article makes one point which warrants careful consideration however; the danger that the ‘precautionary principle’ becomes a political weapon which drives a whole industry from a product with known risks and an accepted TDI (tolerable daily intake) to fast track the development of less well-evaluated alternatives.

One problem for the plastics industry is that we are still in the first generation exposed to the long term effects of BPA on the body, so you could argue that it is too early to state a TDI confidently even for this material.

Certainly research needs to continue in this area. However, political realities may mean the BPA debate is already lost. Levels of concern from governments in several countries and, particularly, mothers worried about the impact of BPA on their children (a very emotive area) are immense and will not go away.

While the research continues, it is easy to see why consumers and brand owners may opt for packaging materials like glass which require no liners at all and have been proven inert over hundreds of years.

Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco may describe the new code as a means to create ‘a mass movement in green consumption” but the detail reveals something different. At its heart is the conundrum of how retailers can lead us into a world of lower consumption.

One commentator (Dee Moloney of LRS Consultancy) writes in MRW that there is no contradiction: ‘sustainable consumption is not necessarily about encouraging customers to consume less but enabling them to consume more responsibly’. But more energy is used in raw material extraction, processing and transportation of the product than is ever inherent in post-consumer waste. Therefore, consuming less is the most sustainable option – notwithstanding the help it would give rainforests in the developing world or our own NHS in terms of reduced obesity. Plus there’s all that wasted food – WRAP’s ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ campaign was precisely aimed at getting us to buy less, so we chuck less of it away.

The recession may play a useful role here. A survey in Food Manufacture magazine speaks of a ‘new normal’, where consumers are permanently changing behaviour as a result of the recession. If this means cutting overconsumption and waste, long may it continue. However, the downside is that consumers may continue to buy the same amount, but of lower quality, cheaper, unbranded goods. Brand owners have a vested interest in making sustainability a key part of the brand reputation; own label and discounters less so. We need to be careful therefore that the ‘new normal’ does not include choosing ‘value’ items where corners are cut in terms of product or packaging sustainability.

And this, of course, is where the argument that the ‘retailer can lead the way with consumer communication’ falls down. No retailer is going to run a communications programme with discourages customers from buying the stuff they have for sale in their store. The oft-repeated mantra that it’s all about giving the customers information so they can make a choice is just so much hot air: there are certain types of packaging and even certain ranges of products that meet no sustainability, healthy lifestyle or functional goals at all. Yet, the retailers continue to sell them under the banner of choice. And who, let’s face it, worked hardest to eliminate the returnable bottle system – whether used for beer, soft drinks or even milk on the doorstep? It was the people who sell us the stuff.

I am not trying to institute a hair shirt, Puritanical view of the world; of course we should have our luxuries and indulgences. Consumer behaviour is highly complex and we oversimplify it at our peril. For instance, the joint WRAP/British Retail Consortium ‘on pack recycling label’ is a laudable ambition, which unfortunately fails to distinguish between aspiration and reality. Yes, my PET bottle be ‘widely recyclable’ but that’s not much use of I do not have access to those facilities. And recyclable into what? The same is true of my glass beer bottle. Does that mean I take it to a bottle bank from where it is made into a new container, or does the council collect it in mixed colours, commingled and contaminated with other waste, so it is fit merely for use in aggregates, crushed for the limited kitchen worktop market or even landfilled?

The Government review, announced by Caroline Spelman, has a vital role to play in taking a step back from all the vested interests and asking “what’s best for the environment’ then constructing policy with that alone at its heart.

This is the first scientific study of the long-term impacts of storing wine in different packaging materials and contains some significant conclusions regarding the suitability of some common and not-so-common wine packages. Following the news this week that Marks & Spencer is moving its range of 25cl wine bottles from glass to PET the results of this study are particularly relevant.

If you think the results of the study will be of interest to you or your readers then please contact Lisa Twidell to discuss your attendance.  Please click on the invite below for full details. 

Email lisa@360integrated.com or telephone + 44 (0) 1252 401375.