Ultimate Power to Shaving-Foam Pies – the good, the bad and the ugly…

Rupert Murdoch
- listed three times in the Time 100 as among the most influential people in the world
- ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes' The World's Most Powerful People list.
- net worth of US$7.6 billion,
- ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011

- ohh, and now part of a media crisis situation and getting shaving-foam pies thrown in his face.

And just incase you missed the news, the news you should be reading, is probably owned by Rup. From the recently closed News of the World and other ‘salubrious’ UK media such as The Sun, to the Wall Street Journal and into broadcasting - Fox Broadcasting Company to DirecTV.

In July of 2011 Murdoch became a prominent figure in the media after widespread allegations that the now defunct tabloid News of the World, owned by Murdoch's NewsCorps, had been regularly hacking the phones of private citizens.

Here’s the warning – even if you own a majority of the media, you can find yourself in a crisis communication situation.

What should be done?

We know the most effective cause of action in a crisis situation is:
Concern – Relief – Reassurance

Well, Rup did show concern & reassurance - On the 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologized for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns. On the 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns.

What did he do wrong?

Another basic lesson in crisis communications is:
Tell it all – tell it soon – tell it truthfully

Well Rup doesn’t get full points on this scale – in fact it took a summons (after a polite request) to get him to appear before parliament in the UK.

But the biggest sin is credibility. Rup just doesn’t have any:
1 – Rups response to a Member of Parliament’s question: “Do you accept that ultimately, you are responsible for this whole fiasco?” Without equivocation, Murdoch replied “No.” He, instead, pointed a finger at subordinates.
2 – He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid.
3 – news already out that the phone hacking scandal is the subject of a new book by Guardian reporter Nick Davies and publishers Faber and Faber.
4 – his son is the CEO...

Oh, you interrupt, but wasn’t it great how he expressed it was his most humbling day of his life?

But it takes the HuffPost to really put this in context:

Following several days of coaching by lawyers and PR experts, it must have been really rattling for Rupert and James Murdoch when showtime arrived to learn that the parliamentary committee questioning them would not permit opening statements. Framing, after all, is the name of the game.

To control the package that the narrative comes in is to control the meaning of the story.

No wonder Rupert Murdoch felt compelled to interrupt his son at the top of his first answer to say, "This is the most humble day of my life." That was the frame his team had planned, not some "what did you know, and when did you know it?" storyline that the committee wanted to pursue.

So today we learn to take one of the best examples of ‘framing’ to our next crisis communication scenario.

How marketing messages change post revolution - lessons from Egypt

As the Wall Street Journal recently covered, there has been an increase in ad spending in certain sectors in Egypt, but perhaps more interesting is the anecdotal evidence in the change of messages that are resonating with consumers.

In the weeks since Egypt's uprising, the television airwaves and Cairo's streets have been filled with revolutionary slogans.

"Build your country!" shout billboards hovering over the city's congested roads. "Develop your country!" urges another over smaller text demanding that Egyptians "Don't stop!"

But the signs aren't the work of revolutionaries. They are advertisements for Snicker's, the candy brand owned by Mars Inc., the U.S.-based confectioner.

Since thousands of protesters ousted former President Hosni Mubarak in a nearly three-week revolt, the enthusiasm for revolution has been redirected and repackaged for television ads, billboards and jingles selling products including hair gel, soft drinks and candy.

A television spot for Coca-Cola Co.'s Coke, which looks similar to a Latin American commercial called "Sky," shows hundreds of kids dressed in trendy clothes climbing to the tops of buildings in downtown Cairo. There, they lasso the sun, pull it out from behind menacing storm clouds and bask in the radiant glory that is the new Egypt. "Make tomorrow better!" the slogan beseeches.

A Pepsi ad urges: 'Think, Participate, Dream, Express who you are.'

Local brands are not to be left behind. A restaurateur renamed his cafe "January 25 Cafe," after the starting date of the uprising. In the middle-class Cairo suburb of Agouza, a billboard for Mink brand hair gel shows a young man with a spiky hairdo. The background of the billboard is an Egyptian flag next to a slogan that reads, "I am Egyptian."

This re-messaging for the Egyptian market has helped to lift ad spending in Egypt for consumer products.

Ad spending in Egypt actually increased to about $329 million in May from $310 million in February, according to data from Ipsos, a regional advertising and marketing research firm.

The revolution was hard on high-end products and large investments. Expenditures on household appliances and real estate between February and May of this year were down 46% and 44%, respectively, from a year earlier.

But in the category of fast-moving consumer goods, Egyptian advertising has increased in 2011. Advertising of soft drinks and snacks and appetizers surged 30% over the same period.

How will the more subtle art of public relations re-package messages in Egypt? We think the answer is obvious.

Why does public relations exist?

Hear it from NettResults' official spokes person:



What do you think?

How today’s media is changing Public Relations

The Huffington Post built a media empire from the digital zeitgeist.

The Huff’s genius involved a nose for water-cooler conversation and an eye for resultant keyword searches. Its unreal ability to dominate the search by re-serving the public what it was already discussing allowed HuffPo to exit for a very real $300 million.

For the sake of comparison, Newsweek sold for $1.

Is Newsweek 300 million times worse than The Huffington Post?

Of course not.

But Newsweek never decoded that hidden strand of The Huffington Post’s DNA: Today’s winners no longer try to make news; they instead try to be nearby when news is made.

And here is the bedrock of where media is changing PR. For PR folks to be successful they shouldn’t try to be the news; they should try to participate in news.

Easy to understand, so how does that happen? We’ve represented many different types of client at NettResults – some have experienced spokespeople and some do not. Here’s what we have learned:

1 – if a company does not have a spokesperson then there needs to be a lot of news around new unique features or advanced product development that the user actually cares about.

2 – better (and less expensive for the company) to have a spokes person.

Next up – how do we get that spokes person to participate in the news?

Back to traditional PR – the ability of an agency to position that spokesperson with the media through introductions, interview and good old-fashioned face-to-face interaction. Through this process, the spokes person gains the ‘credibility’ of the media. Yes, vital – credibility. It doesn’t happen overnight and it is a distinct and almost contradictory PR action than the daily KPI of gaining publicity.

Once credibility has been obtained, it is the job of the agency to keep the media informed on what subject matter the spokes person has preferential insight to – most probably because of their corporate experience. This is how the spokesperson becomes an ‘expert’ in their area of business.

Then, later on in time, when the news is looking like it is approaching the subject that the spokesperson has claimed insight and credibility, it is the job of the agency to showcase that spokesperson. This could be as simple as a one-to-one contact (picking up the phone) or it may be more appropriate to showcase the spokesperson in a one-to-many communication (for example a press release).

Before the spokesperson is ready to reach out to the media and fulfill their spokesperson duty, it is the agency that has to create and curate timely content around the news.

It’s not rocket science, but it does take some medium term planning to achieve success.

Births, deaths and marrages...

My late grandmother used to have me read the births, deaths and marriages section of The Times every day after lunch (this was before I was old enough to go to school or too young to look after myself in school holidays).

I never really understood why she was so interested... but it turns out (yet again) my grandmother was more in touch with the mass media than I knew and understood exactly what the consumers of media are interested in.

The world's news reads very much like the announcements section of one of those old fashioned paper newspapers... all birth certificates, weddings and obituaries.

The long-form of Obama's birth certificate was all news worthy and took much of the press space until...
The Wedding took over. Whether it was the kiss, Pippa's dress or the Aston Martin, it was all we could talk about until...
The death of the century took over.

So I guess the question is - who's birth, death or marriage is coming next?

Top 10 most common myths about public relations

When it comes to teaching about Public Relations I often get students asking me questions that I think are really obvious. And then when I go to clients whom have not previously conducted public relations outreach, the questions and prior assumptions move the straight out strange.

So, with a little help from our friends at About.com, it is time to dispel some of these myths in hopes of helping students, business owners and others - avoid serious PR problems.

• Myth 1: Any Press is Good Press
• Myth 2: PR is All about Press Releases and Press Conferences
• Myth 3: Once You Break Through with Publicity, You're Golden
• Myth 4: Myth: Publicity is Free and Easy
• Myth 5: You Need to Hire an Expensive PR Firm
• Myth 6: Good Products Don't Need Publicity - - Only Bad Products Do
• Myth 7: Public Relations Can't be Measured and is Therefore Worthless
• Myth 8: PR Means Schmoozing and Controlling the Press
• Myth 9: Only Ex-Reporters Can Do It
• Myth 10: Public Relations is Spin, Slogans and Propaganda

There are many myths and misconceptions about PR that are not only wrong, but it many cases dangerously wrong. What else would you consider to be a PR myth?

Last month, PR strategist Adam Sherk took 25 of the most overused buzzwords in marketing and PR—he compiled a list of the top 100 and ran them through PRFilter, a website from RealWire that aggregates press releases.

The results: “Solution” led the pack with 243 appearances.

Shortly after he published the post, PRFilter set the record straight: “Solution” did not appear in press releases 243 times; it appeared 622 times—and it was the second most common buzzword.

The most common word is “leading,” which showed its face 776 times—in one 24-hour stretch.

Here’s the full list—compliments of Adam Sherk and PRFilter:

1. leading (776)
2. solution (622)
3. best (473)
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)
5. leader (410)
6. top (370)
7. unique (282)
8. great (245)
9. extensive (215)
10. leading provider (153)
11. exclusive (143)
12. premier (136)
13. flexible (119)
14. award winning / winner (106)
15. dynamic (95)
16. fastest (70)
17. smart (69)
18. state of the art (65)
19. cutting edge (54)
20. biggest (54)
21. easy to use (51)
22. largest (34)
23. real time (8)

What's the word you use the most?