Gordon Brown on Piers Morgan’s show, and Alistair Campbell with Andrew Marr have both been overcome, and who can forget Peter Andre shedding tears as he spoke of how he would fight for custody of his children? While I have no doubt about the authenticity of these emotions, the appearances must have been carefully calculated, especially Gordon Brown’s appearance on a pre-recorded show, the very aim of which is to show the real face behind the celebrity mask. The Prime Minister, under fire on a number of fronts, must have decided that it wouldn’t hurt to appeal directly to the electorate. Anyone would think we’re in an election year.  

What’s interesting though is that I saw the results of a survey published in a newspaper recently, following his appearance. It showed that, while people empathised more with the PM than they might have done previously, and perhaps understood him better as a person, most didn’t feel more inclined to vote for him than they would have done before. Perhaps the Prime Minister’s PR people underestimated just how savvy and sophisticated the British public have become, and how wary people are as to what they perceive as ’spin’. Shedding tears on TV may be good for the soul, but may not result in additional support at the ballot box. Successful communication today needs to focus on substance and sustained engagement, not one-off, one-way communication - even when it tugs at the heartstrings.

This story is also dominating conversations across the land. On the train home last night a group of businessmen decided the issue had nothing whatsoever to do with Terry’s day job and should have no bearing on his captaincy of the England football team. “It’s just life” they concluded. I have to say I disagree.

More than ever, it is impossible to separate reputation from performance, on the football field, in the boardroom or in the…well, anywhere else for that matter. Both corporate and personal reputation is crucial, since key stakeholders hold everyone’s licence to operate. Lose the confidence and trust of the people who matter most, and however well you are actually performing, you will not survive for long, as it’s perception that counts. In Terry’s case, those stakeholders include his England team-mates, the FA and manager Fabio Capello. They also include every football fan in the country, and in particular young fans who look up to people like Terry as role models - another reason why his alleged transgressions should be seen as more than “just life”.

Another key element of maintaining reputation is transparency; the fact that Terry apparently attempted to cover up his transgressions through court action, only serves to batter his reputation still further. Transparency - and honesty - are more important than ever before as a result of the internet and in particular the social media outlets of our Web 2.0 age. The legal route was never ultimately going to be successful, since rumours had apparently been circulating for a while that the player had been having an affair. This just goes to show how important it is to know what’s being said about you online!

This also says something about the importance of personal responsibility, in light of recent scandals including the MPs expenses row in the UK. We all need to take responsibility for our own actions or suffer the consequences - no more so than people in the public eye such as England footballers, who carry with them national pride.

That’s my view, but what do you think? Does it matter what goes on off the football pitch or away from the boardroom table? And will John Terry still lead the England team once Capello has made his decision, or has he scored a very significant own goal?

1. Web downtime or slow response
2. Big changes in visitor numbers and page views
3. Website pages not loading
4. Fast growth or decline in inbound links (possible indicator of a successful campaign OR third party commentary around a growing issue)
5. Editing of your Wikipedia entry
6. Change of details in directories, online lists and official websites
7. Changes to wesbite registration information

Good advice.

Last week I went to the EurActiv 10^th anniversary debate and awards ceremony at the European Parliament. A theme running through the evening was how Europe can best communicate to its citizens.

It’s a constant struggle – how to interest ordinary people in the business of the Institutions when Brussels seems so remote from the ordinary citizen. The ideas discussed included the need to make communications local, decentralising information from Brussels and of course listening to the citizens. More about the debate here: http://www.euractiv.com/en/pa/national-debates-key-eu-communication/article-187316

The debate didn’t explore the new post EU President that has been created by the Lisbon Treaty. The new president will need to do a lot of things and one is to be a communicator of world standing if the EU is going to communicate itself to European citizens and the rest of the world.  Are Europeans going to take any notice of a president who they have not directly elected?

According to the UK Government, Europe needs a big hitter as President. Someone to give Europe a bit of ummph. Someone who can stop the traffic in Beijing. Someone like Tony Blair! However, Blair’s chances are looking non-existent – partly his shenanigans in Iraq and partly small countries’ concern about the big countries ganging up on them.

The latest front runner is Belgium’s own prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy (Herman who?). He’s the right man for this post – he’s a skilled coalition builder and writes hiakus. But is he the man to communicate Europe? Would Herman stop the traffic in Beijing? Would he stop the traffic in Belgium?

Here is interesting piece in last week’s UK Observer by David Mitchell on ‘Euro-apathy’

“Caring about Europe is something I feel I ought to do. I read a lot of newspapers, but I can seldom wrench my eyes on to articles about the EU. They slide rebelliously onto something more interesting, like an advert for life insurance. I strain again desperately, like Superman trying to put a kryptonite suitcase into an overhead locker: ‘Must care….about….Lisbon Treaty! Got to develop…..opinion on democratic….deficit!’ But to no avail. I know it’s very important, I just don’t feel it. When someone moans about Brussels, I nod along, thinking: ‘I bet it’s fine really. I don’t give a ****.’ Whereas when a pro-European talks about the benefits of European integration, I think: ‘I bet it’s not that great. I don’t give a ****.”

This might be a very irreverent piece but it does illustrate the scale of the problem facing EU leaders in communicating the ‘Europe Project’ to the citizens.

They interviewed nearly 400 senior congressional and parliamentarian staff in Washington, D.C., Brussels, London, Paris and Berlin and their findings revealed that social networks like Facebook are becoming an increasingly important resource for staffers.

Sixty percent said they access the social medium for personal reasons but in addition, nearly one-third use it for communicating with professional colleagues (28%), one in five (21%) to reach out to constituents and one in ten (9%) to research policy issues.  In addition, blogs are an important resource for staffers with two in five (39%) using blogs and social media sites in the past 30 days to monitor news about issues and the same percentage (39%) to monitor constituent opinion about an issue.

Some of the main conclusions are:

·         Digital media has moved from a passive resource to an active driver of public policy.

·         We are witnessing an “about face” with an increased use of Facebook to supplement face to face interaction among policymakers and constituents

·         The blogosphere has become an important channel for researching and shaping policy with nearly 40% of staffers using it to monitor news on policy issues and to secure constituent opinion

·         All media is local — traditional regional media sources are the first sought out online for policy analysis, but dedicated online sources are being tapped as well

For more information and country-specific information, visit http://www.edelman.com/Capital_Staffers_Index.pdf

The story apparently began in a New York psychiatrist’s office in 2006 when a patient drew a picture of a man who had been giving her advice in recurring dreams. Another patient who later saw the portrait claimed the same man was part of his dreams too.

According to the website, many of those recalling the dreams refer to the person as ‘this man’ and the site urges people who have ’seen’ him to get in touch, as well as suggesting a number of theories. However, it’s been revealed the website is registered to the founder of an Italian guerilla marketing company, and although the site claims there is no hidden marketing agenda, others believe it to be a hoax.

So is it ‘real’, part of a viral marketing campaign or a social experiment (of which both you and I have unwittingly become a part!)? Only time will tell. But if it does turn out to be linked to a company or product as part of an online marketing campaign, it’s worth remembering that this type of approach has been known to backfire. For example, a number of fake blogs and other social media sites have been exposed as fakes, having been engineered by companies or their PR agencies.

Transparency should be a guiding principle in today’s Web 2.0 world, and any attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes has the potential to be counter-productive. However, there are many opportunities for those organisations prepared to be up-front with their online initiatives. Take the financial comparison people at comparethemarket.com who have developed their parallel site comparethemeerkat.com, for example.

This campaign is ’fronted’ by Aleksandr Orlov, the talking meerkat who has personality as well as attitude, and whose success is demonstrated by his 604,230 (and counting) fans on Facebook! The campaign also transferred successfully to mainstream editorial the other week with the launch of a cuddly meerkat toy. Cue lots of cute photos of the toy with real meerkats, and the added incentive of benefiting London Zoo with every purchase, and you have a perfect recipe for a much sought-after Christmas gift.  A key part of this campaign’s success is because it’s up-front and transparent. It’s also fun, endearing and and personality-led, transferring well across both online and offline channels. Simples.

So is ‘this man’ really part of people’s dreams or simply part of a marketing plan? If it ends up being the latter you could say it’s a plan so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a meerkat. What do you think?

There is concern that cutbacks in investment are going to affect overcrowding which is already quite a serious problem.

The report could have illustrated this point with statistics such as – “an increase in traffic by 40% over the past 6 months”, or “70,000 more users than last year” or “there needs to be an increase in rolling stock of 15% to cope”.

But they didn’t use these types of figures – what the report said was that peak time travelling on the Underground is the equivalent of four people sharing a telephone box. Ouch!

This is a really fine example of using figures to help the audience visualize the issue. An increase in public transport traffic of 40% doesn’t mean too much to me, but I am certainly keen to avoid sharing a telephone box with four strangers every morning and evening.  

There’s a parallel with PR here. For any organisation to have a successful and sustainable reputation, it must be based on more than spin - or sparkle. It needs to have a firm foundation and be based on substance - and I’m not just talking about those involved in construction. It is essential that any organisation lives up to the claims it makes; the promises made in PR and advertising must be backed up by a great product, excellent customer service and deep sector expertise, to name just three. Essentially, the PR needs to be the product, especially in today’s Web 2.0 environment where bad news can reach your key stakeholders before you know it - sometimes, it seems, almost before it has happened.

Without those fundamentals in place, people will very quickly see through the facade. Remember, all that glisters is not necessarily gold. Or in this case, not necessarily an £11 million ruby.

Today’s news is particularly research-tastic, demonstrating that the silly season is yet to leave us for another year. In one we learn that teachers make assumptions about the behaviour of children even before they have met them, based on their names. So youngsters with names such as Callum, Connor and Jack are immediately assumed to be badly behaved. Likewise girls called Chelsea, Courtney or Chardonnay are seen to be disruptive. The survey also looked at names associated with children’s popularity in class and those likely to be high achievers.

If you take the time to consider this research a little more deeply (though I’m not convinced it deserves it),  it perhaps says something about the importance of perception; just like any other group, teachers apparently make assumptions based on their past experiences and feel that certain names come with particular behavioural traits -or reputation. One would also hope that individual children would be able to influence those perceptions, just as PR seeks to do through initiatives such as, well, surveys, and occasionally more sophisticated stakeholder engagement techniques too.

The other research-based article focused on the even less weighty subject of biscuit-related injuries. Yes, you read that right, biscuit-related injuries, which apparently include someone who managed to poke himself in the eye with one, along with people who have fallen off chairs when reaching for one.

You may never have thought our favourite tea time accompaniment could be so dangerous, but it’s true. The survey includes a Biscuit Injury Threat Evaluation (BITE, geddit?) and a list of the 10 most dangerous biscuits, which is topped by the innocent-looking custard cream, so watch out. Pure PR fluff, of course, but great fun, and just the right antidote to a dull September morning’s commute into London. You know what they say, if it’s unusual, it’s news, and this is a clever little survey that has the extra dimension of the biscuit risk rating. And what’s more, for the PRs tasked with spending their clients’ money and securing the coverage, both articles included reference to the company behind the research - so jobs well done all round!

The Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday on local councils issuing their staff with guides as to the correct use of apostrophes and other punctuation, amid growing concern in some quarters at  the increasing number of grammatical errors on road signs, street signs and the like throughout the country. The newspaper listed various horror stories such as a comma being used instead of an apostrophe when neither is actually required (”Unsuitable for HGV,s” along with various inconsistencies such as ’St James’ Park’ and ‘St James’s Park’, both of which appear on signs at the London Underground station.

Some councils have apparently given up the battle already, abandoning the use of apostrophes on new street signs, while others are fighting on, having issued the guidance notes to employees. But does it really matter? In my view it does, and it matters to Brand Britain. A country which uses punctuation correctly, particularly the use of apostrophes in its place names, is proud of its heritage and the history of its towns, villages and even tube stations. Abandoning them, on the other hand, would seem to me a sign of a nation which has stopped caring about how it’s perceived; the grammatical equivalent of people ‘letting themselves go’ once past the first flush of youth. But what do you think? Which side of the grammatical fence are you on? And does it really matter anyway?

On a lighter note, The Sunday Telegraph article suggests that all the missing apostrophes around the UK have migrated to one sign for a furniture warehouse in Northamptonshire which advertises “pine range’s, table set’s, sofa’s, bed’s”. Oh well, maybe I shouldnt care. Perhaps I should just say ‘if I cant beat them, join them’ and focus on lot’s more important things instead…