Visit speed website Earlin' PR abuse home
February 1st, 2012 by Steve

Video thrilled the racy PR

It’s strange. There is so much talk in PR circles these days about the value of videos for developing reputation, yet only a relatively small number of PRs know how to make them well and make them part of their ongoing work for clients.

Videos have had valuable since their infancy, but in the past couple of years agencies really seemed to have cottoned on to their value in explaining things, relaying stories, interesting the audience and stirring word-of-mouth.

Yet most agencies don’t really understand how to do videos well. Some agencies have restructured to develop expertise in content creation, which might help them but doesn’t always help clients looking for PR people to counsel them about more than content. That’s another discussion altogether though.

We’ve done lots of videos at Speed, but thought we can always improve skills throughout the team in applying a brand’s narrative to video, ensuring clarity of communication and apply understanding to make the content really potent. There are also lots of practical tips to consider too.

So we’re doing a Speed Video training morning today and have set two teams of all-rounder PRs a challenge: make the best video you can by lunchtime. The one that is clearest, most compelling and best tells the story of where Speed is heading as a business wins a prize. A very PR-ish prize. Being racy might help too, but let’s keep it decent.

The teams are hard at it at the moment. One video will be on the planning of editorial content for SEO, the other one best practice in using videos in PR campaigns. They’ve done their homework. Some people have brought props. Creative process PR rooted in audience nous has clearly been undertaken, rather than just one of those wafty PR brains storms that start with “what shall we do then?”

 Quite what they’re doing though, no-one is sure. Overheard in one plotting meeting:

“Sarah is going to roll, I’m going to sprinkle and then we need to work out what to do with the flour.”

And in another, awash for fluorescent sticky notes: “As cheesy as it is, it does make for a good link. I’ll just have to gaze into your eyes as I talk about rich media.”

Stay tuned for the results later.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
1 Comment »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 26th, 2012 by Steve

Belief is in the i(Pad) of the beholder

The latest Edelman Trust Barometer (which is itself, no doubt, utterly trustworthy) has been doing the rounds this week. Amongst its highlights is the statistic that the UK public’s trust in politicians is pretty much at rock bottom – and trust in business leaders fares little better.

There were other points about us not trusting the media very much, which given the obvious commercially-sensitive slants most media have put on the information - Huff Post says lack of trust in established media is a social media opening, The Guardian says trust in the media has increased - were surely a foregone conclusion anyway. When the media (new and old) spins something about apparent lack of trust in media, my eyeballs roll. 

Edelman has clearly long been onto a good thing with the Trust Barometer, but behind the headlines squats the whole issue of not just the fact (well, the fact according to a representative sample of people asked to give their opinions) that trust in business leaders and politicians is at a low ebb, but what can be done to improve it.

Of course the obvious points, mostly already made in coverage of the survey, are that transparency must reign and social media engagement to forge direct relationships with the public is something to cling to. But there are deeper issues to probe here.

Trust may be at the forefront of the story, but trust can’t begained without belief. And while the statistics have editorial appeal given the current state of the country and its economy, they do beg the question of whether Britons have ever trusted business leaders and politicians. We may need them, we may favour them over other alternatives, but we don’t necessarily trust them because we (probably) won’t ever really believe them - because they have a personal and commercial/governmental agenda to pursue. Their intentions are not typically seen as pure, so what comes out of their mouths and the way in which they behave will always be perceived with that in mind.

Sometimes I don’t completely trust my friends or those around me. That’s not a character flaw per se, but a consequence of me knowing that the thinly-veiled reason for their question, comment or behaviour may be something like giving me the ‘opportunity’ of some more work to do, or convincing me that it really is my round at the pub.

I doubt whether merchants in medieval times or past kings were trusted much by the public, and many may have been despised. We didn’t know about trust levels back then because we didn’t try to measure them scientifically, but I doubt a survey of the Holy Land about whether the local populace thought Herod was a nice chap would have given us fascinating and hitherto unknown insight. 

My point here is that while the powers that be do appear to be doing a worsening job of engendering trust in their audiences, that in itself is nothing new. Scepticism has always existed, and nowhere has it been more at home than in Britain. What communciators should be focussing on is how to make the truth believed.

A changed media landscape means the truth will out. So spinning it and trying to control media agendas won’t work anymore, and the public probably didn’t trust you any more even when you could do that.

These days your work to build trust must centre on a communications strategy that seeks to build reputation in layers over time, believably. To use Alastair Campbell’s analogy from the event Speed ran last week, it’s about landing dots on a blank page.

The difference is that – providing you tell the truth – the immediacy and transparency of digital media can be combined with the reach and calibre of conventional media to join those dots faster. No one media type will create belief, it needs to be built over time, using all appropriate media outlets in the right combination, with the right content, rooted in an intimate understanding of the audience. That’s how PR can best help to improve overall levels of trust.

It’s PR’s (public relations, not media relations) central challenge in modernising, and it will take time, trust me.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
No Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 24th, 2012 by Steve

Tomorrow’s comms teams: stand up natural narrators

We’re not just PR people, we’re communicators. No longer just ‘the press people’.

That’s something which has been drilled into everyone in this line of work for years now. Yet being a communicator is a pretty broad remit isn’t it? Anyone with a mouth and a pair of ears has the potential. Which might be why the people who work in comms teams typically find themselves doing all manner of things in the course of their jobs.

On paper at least, such a broad take on what comms is might be a good thing, given fragmented and more accessible media is stretching the boundaries in so many directions.

In the future though, the role of comms teams, and in particular that of the communications director, is going to have to be clarified, focused and ‘upgraded’ if brands are to use the potential of communications to increase their value.

Live, breathe and champion

In short, brands are going to need to sustain joined-up, empathetic, collaborative and near-instantaneous communication if they’re going to defend and build their reputations through content that really influences. And this is going to mean comms teams have to live, breathe and persistently champion the cause of communications.

Communications itself needs a PR job doing, and rightly so. And who better (who else?) to do that than the communicators?

At Speed’s Control in the Age of Anarchy event last week (yes, I’ve mentioned it before, but hey that’s anarchy for you), Alastair Campbell talked about why communicators are going to have to “land dots on a blank page” through sustained communications strategies that build reputation long-term. One campaign doth not a reputation make.

What struck me is that the change that’s coming for communications teams, and has already started to take effect actually, is that communications is becoming a long-term game rather than something overly caught up with shot-term wins. Tomorrow’s comms teams are going to have to both mastermind the brand’s story and tell each of its chapters – and pages – in the most compelling way to hook readers in. They must both sustain their interest and build their belief.

It’s storytime

To succeed with this, brands will need storytellers, not just good orators, curators, conductors or stuntmasters. Those storytellers will need to know the beginning of the story, its intended end (of that instalment) and how they’ll get there. And most of all, who they’re writing for.

The 10 primary skills and traits they’ll doubtless need, given what Campbell and others said last week and the digging I did in researching for the book Brand Anarchy (due out by Bloomsbury on 29 March), are:

  1. Leadership: not just of a comms team, but to lead the evolution of a communications function that is central to the organisation, with a clear remit from the person at its summit
  2. Ambassadorial: the ability to speak eloquently, appropriately and convincingly on behalf of the organisation across all forms of media and with all audiences
  3. Diplomacy: in ensuring that the communications function becomes sacrosanct within the business and is seen as part of its oxygen rather than something that can be cut detrimentally with little notice
  4. Confidence: not just on a personal level, but true strength of conviction in what they’re doing to employ more progressive and valued  communications – they must devise delectably potent strategies and stick to them no matter what
  5. Decisiveness: they must determine what to communicate, how and when, and why, in challenging circumstances and with little time to think. They cannot shirk this responsibility
  6. Analytical: an intimate understanding of the audience, and how the beliefs and interests it holds dear are changing, interpreting the myriad of data now available shrewdly. And a close observer of media change too
  7. Commercial: a detailed understanding of how the organisation makes money or fulfils its duties, and how those fortunes may change as market forces do
  8. Educational: the ability to teach others what they know to the point where stronger communicators across the organisation fuel the development of the brand’s reputation internally and externally
  9. Marketing: understanding where modern communications fits into – or leads, or usurps – other areas of marketing and accordingly utterly refusing to operate in silos
  10. Narrative: per the rest of this post, they must be natural’ storytellers, and always looking to develop those inherent skills further with new techniques

Today’s better communications directors and their colleagues have probably made swift progress with amassing many of these skills. As communications techniques and media continue to change, the trick will be keeping pace with that while maintaining the skills requirements in sharp focus.

Perhaps there’s a story in that.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
No Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 23rd, 2012 by Steve

Time’s up for PR’s big fat lie

As instantaneous, utterly transparent media forces PRs to focus on truthful storytelling, isn’t it a bit ironic that a big fat lie remains right at the heart of what we do?

When we talk about results, we have tended to concentrate on the volume of publicity achieved. Yes fragmenting media is changing that and increasingly campaigns are being engineered to target commercial outcomes, but fundamentally a lot of targets that agencies work to are to get high quality and quantity of media exposure.

Chance and best guesses

So the flimsy fib upon which PR is based is that getting stuff about you in the papers, on radio and on TV will actually make a difference to you or your business. Because we have, ultimately, no way of knowing whether anyone is going to read it, see it or believe it. We don’t know whether it’ll be of influence and what they’ll think.

PR has always been a game of chance and best guesses.

But before I get my coat having completely done myself out of a job, let me qualify those brash statements a little. Of course publicity can have an enormously positive effect on brands and their reputations otherwise PR firms wouldn’t exist. And of course PR agencies can’t be taken to task when publicity campaigns don’t have the desired commercial effect because these things can’t be guaranteed.

Indeed I have successful argued that last point in court on more than one occasion.

Fantasy footfall

Yet the PR game has always been over reliant on its supposed ability to influence people. We talk about it being more effective than advertising because of the power of third party endorsement, and that is probably true. We have even dreamed up daft ‘industry standard advertising value equivalent ratios for measuring PR output. Because we had nothing better and had to do something to justify ourselves.

The lie, then, is that we’ve been planning PR activity and telling people that the topics or content we pursue will be effective ‘because that’s what will convince people’ or ‘because that’s what will inspire the audience. Guff like that. When we have no real way of knowing that, or didn’t until relatively recently, beyond a smattering of largely unrepresentative focus groups.

And yet PRs and those paying for their services were always happy (or mostly happy) to pursue the illusion, knowing that their competitors were all doing the same thing and they had to do what they could to influence the market through the established media.

Now though the lie is being undermined by the very thing that lies get brought down by: the truth. Because the transparency of two-way digital media – not just social media, but conventional media publishing online, and branded media assets too – means the audience can actually tell us what they think of the content they’re presented with.

They can answer back

When we undertake a campaign, carry out sustained communication or even answer a question posed by a customer or critic, we can actually see what that person thinks. It’s direct, visible feedback, and it’s typically provided because they really care about the topic. For better or worse, as we heard at Speed’s Control in the Age of Anarchy event last week. Providing they’re being truthful of course.

What’s more, this level of engagement enables brands to actually learn from their audiences over time – not just about what might influence them better, not just about their purchasing habits and views on issues that might impact them, but about how to better tailor products and services to what customers actually want. Over time, we can even get them to participate in the brand’s story.

So why haven’t more PRs woken up and realised that, while it may be imperfect at the moment, the possibilities for finally measuring what we do more accurately, using direct feedback from the audience we want to reach, is obvious and we should start to change the way we plan and deliver our work accordingly?

We could start to put an end to the intangible nature of PR, start to think about how we could offer consultancy that has a more clinical commercial outcome, and stop coming up with daft, unsubstantiated statements about why the results we achieved were really good. We could fill our boots with this.

Growing up time

Instead, while more progressive agencies are investing time, money but most of all energy in enhancing how they measure their work, a lot of firms seem to be burying their heads in the sand.

PR’s days of being a game of chance are numbered. It’s a really good thing for us. We can devise clever long-term communication strategies and deliver on them. We can be braver in pushing the boundaries of how brands can plan and create influence, because it’s no longer built on foundations of fudge.

Let’s man up, grow up and say goodbye to guesswork.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
No Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 16th, 2012 by Steve

Speed, spin, Alastair Campbell and proper PR

Speed doesn’t tend to do things by halves.

We launched with a bang, we’ve always aimed to set the bar higher with our campaigns, our approach to working with clients and the work environment we create for our people.

Tomorrow we’re aiming to mark the beginning of the next stage with an enviable sales event featuring former Government communications head Alastair Campbell, former Virgin PR mastermind Will Whitehorn and Speed’s Stephen Waddington, who co-wrote the new book Brand Anarchy with me.

Yes it’s a sales event, but only in the contact-making sense, with no hard sell (not even a copy of the book). In the course of compiling research for Brand Anarchy, Stephen and I undertook many interviews with experienced, expert and infamous communicators who’ve been at the sharp end of the media and its changing times over the past few decades.

Alastair is one of many people quoted in Brand Anarchy, and agreed to come and talk tomorrow about the end of the age of spin and the need for a more authentic style of communication in the future. It’s something that many brands will say they’re already doing, yet most are being challenged by the dizzying pace of media change and requirements to overhaul how they plan reputation management.

One of the reasons Brand Anarchy took 18 months to write, besides the fact that both of us lead really busy lives and did the copy in the evenings, and on trains and planes, was that some of the chapters had to be updated twice because they were out of date by the time they’d been written.

It’s symptomatic of how fast media is changing, and how fast PR is having to change too. Which is why Speed’s next stage is going to be about taking the PR programmes we run beyond audience engagement with clients’ brands, so that the audience has sustained participation in the brand story. It’s a long way from just broadcasting a message at people via conventional media outlets.

What do we mean by that? Well we’re not giving it all away yet, but suffice to say the expertise we’ve gathered and been exposed to in writing the book has given us some insight into how to push the frontiers of PR a little further.

In many ways, what we’ll be doing is getting back to some of the true principles of PR – proper public relations, not just media relations.

Stay tuned. We’d like you to participate in our story too.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
4 Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 12th, 2012 by Steve

It’s over: American English has won

And not because it’s better.

But because in Britain – or at least in England, which of course gave rise to it – we have abandoned the very thing that binds us as a people, that stiffens the backbone of our culture, and that marks us out as the country which did most to kick-start the formation of the modern world.

Not that we should be proud of all of that, but we should at least be proud of the thing I’m talking about here: our language. English. British English. Or, as it really is (cue patriotic drumroll), English English.

But that pride has gone now, torn to pieces and abandoned to pick its path slowly along a miserable gutter to the darkest of sewers. Because we have succumbed to the utterly morose. We’re beyond caring. We’d rather be idle, dim, cheap – we want the easy way out. We want convenience, and to get it we’re prepared to tolerate the banal. We’re prepared to gaze lazily upon centuries of history and scoff slovenly.

And the reason I say this, the reason that the tipping point of the true English language’s fall from grace is now behind us, is that Waterstone’s has dropped its apostrophe. Which is incorrect. One of the country’s foremost providers of books (yes, books, full of the supposed English language, source of intellect, where we expect our language to be beyond reproach) thinks apostrophes have no point any more because too few people understand them these days and digital media doesn’t register them as well as it does words without them.

So ’people’ need to learn their own language and digital media needs to grow a brain.

I don’t care if Mr Waterstone hasn’t worked there for years. An apostrophe is an apostrophe. English is English. Wrong is wrong.

Anyone who has read Bill Bryson’s excellent Mother Tongue (probably available at Waterstone’s, but beware the crowds of punctuation-hating moronic shoppers if you elect to visit and buy a copy) may have considered that American English is ‘purer’ than British English these days anyway.

Yes American English may be a little laughable to us Brits, but our own language has been subject to whims and fashion for generations, so we can hadly criticise. It’s just different.

And now, given the irreperable rot that has set in with the original, I think the only thing I can do to preserve my sanity is to cross the pond, linguistically speaking. American English may be a bit sloppy in places, but at least punctuation and grammar hold firm, even if the sentence structure is somewhat ‘out to lunch’. From now on, I may as well just use (shudder, horror, the turning of souls in their graves) American English.

So, Waterstone’s, let this sorry episode be a lesson to you. And if the apostrophe has truly gone, and it’s not set to later return to raise suspicions of a planned PR exercise, at least update your web site rather than commiting brand inconsistency too.

No good can come of this.

Although for Daily Telegraph readers, as least it has provided an opportunity for another picture of Cheryl Cole. 

And if this is all a PR stunt, should I undertake my own, visiting branches across the country to put the poor little blighters back?

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
2 Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 6th, 2012 by Steve

Heart-warming tale to end the week

This is an email I received from another PR (name removed to conceal identity and avoid blushes):

“Hi Steve

I hope this email finds you well.  I am emailing you about your blog on the 19th December in PR Week ‘PR’s New Years Resolution Should Be Labour Honesty’, and due to it being a subject of great relevance to me at the moment I felt compelled to email you.  I am one of those would be Account Execs that you mention in the blog, not being paid to do what seems like a great deal and while I cannot deny that gaining coverage worth a good deal of money but not getting any in return is unfair, my issue is not so much with internships themselves but the myths surrounding them.  I have applied and had many interviews for Graduate Entry Roles, where it appears that my experience and achievements (although modest) have counted for very little or alternatively have not been enough, which does give off a somewhat confusing message.  It seems to me the real issue with internships is not then internships themselves but the fact that they either not important and ‘unnecessary’ for entry level roles or I am expected to have had at least 6 month intern experience, that to me seems completely absurd.  On one level PR wannabe’s are expected to work for nothing as otherwise they have no hope of a job but on another certain agencies advertise as ‘experience not mandatory’, begging the question what is the point?  In our current society, expecting any sort of ethical behaviour in the work place only serves to leave you disappointed and I am aware that the Managing Partners of my agency do not bat an eyelid at exploiting me, however i feel that I am left with very little choice, what are my realistic alternatives when the current job market is so tough?  The reality is I, like many others of my circumstance have a passion for PR but are struggling to find a job, and the truth is I would rather do my unpaid internship than not be involved in PR at all and if I make a stand there will be another hopeful to fill my place.  Graduates desiring a career in PR are stuck between a rock and a hard place, with no guarantee of your sacrifice resulting in a job. 

While I agree with the principles of your blog, I do not think it is realistic to expect companies to stop using unpaid internships, what I believe could improve the situation is companies being clearer about what experience you need for a job and the likelihood of obtaining a job out of their internship or even better if companies would be prepared to take a risk on young graduates, who if nurtured and guided might show they are worthy of a pay cheque at the end.

I on behalf of all graduates in my position, also want to say how refreshing it is to see a successful PR professional standing up for interns, and addressing how much they do contribute, you are it seems in a minority but I still felt the urge to thank you for at least suggesting we should be treated differently.

Best Wishes

<NAME>”

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
No Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
January 4th, 2012 by Steve

Superintern seeks superinternship

All PR agencies are deluged with job and internship applications at the moment.

But here’s one to pay attention to – because it concerns not an intern, but a superintern. And you, the PR industry at large, have just 48 hours to save him from returning to a life of whippets and gravy.

James Roche has been doing a two-month internship at Speed but it comes to an end this Friday, 6 January. Which is a shame, because has proven himself to be excellent at everything we’ve thrown at him.

As well as getting involved with client work, he has taken the lead on the social media side of a pro-bono campaign we’re doing to publicise the inspirational fundraising efforts of Phil Packer MBE, the former solider seriously wounded in Iraq who later became the slowest man to complete the London Marathon.

So James hasn’t just been dipping in here and there, but running a big project from the off, involving high-profile people, complex deadlines, dynamic content and a need to target a nationwide audience segmented into several specific groups. He took to it all like a duck to water.

Which is no doubt down to his no-nonsense Yorkshire attitude. When James called me and asked about vacancies several months ago, he struck me as the sort of confident, pragmatic bloke who really wants to build a career in PR and can take most things in his stride. Parted from his beloved northern gravy and doubtless dozens of whippets for these two months, he fitted into the Speed team like he was one of us, able to turn his hand to anything and never seeming phased by the tasks he was set, no matter how strange. And yes, we have been paying him. And yes, abandoning real northern gravy for so long and having to contend with inferior southern gravy instead shoes his sheer commitment to the PR cause.

Now James is looking for another internship with a PR agency in London, and is able to start next Monday. He’s not looking for any old internship though a superintern needs a superinternship.

Are there any agencies out there listening who could be his superhero and offer him some time with them? Leave a comment below or email james.roche@speedcommunications.com.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , ,
1 Comment »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
December 21st, 2011 by Steve

Freddie Starr ate my headline

Headline writing is an art, they say.

But it’s partly a science too. And as headline writing becomes a more important part of PR, it’s a skill that we could do with brushing up on. If we’re honest, many of us are a bit cack at it (I speak, of course, not of myself) and when we’re put on the spot and asked what a good headline for a story would be, we trundle through a lengthy, flaccid sentence that would make a sub-editor’s eyes roll.

Headlines are meant to entice the reader to read or view the rest of the content. They’re one of the main reasons why people click on links to stories, to blog posts or to content touted using social media. The problem most PRs have with them is that they try to make the headline a single-sentence summary of the story. Which it isn’t.

So what makes a good headline? Well some, particularly those dripping with puns, are simply brilliant because they’re so brilliantly simple. Others draw in readers with ambiguity or the promise of dirt. Some make brash claims, some go large on intrigue, some on smut. Some are just wierd.

Some I remember from my days in journalism are just a bit bonkers and speak for themselves.

Pub that used to be a funeral home may be haunted? ‘Bier, whines and spirits’.

WPC who used to be a PC pursues an unfair dismissal claim? ‘No-nobby bobby loses jobby’

And a favourite from the Currant Bun some years ago, for a story that HM The Queen and her husband had apparently taken to speaking in Liverpudlian accents to each other over the breakfast table: ‘Scouse of Windsor’.

Headline writing cannot be taught as such, it’s a skill that must be learned on the job from others who’re good at it. Here are some top tips for PRs wanting to perk theirs up:

  1. ‘Keep it tight, bright and right’ (courtesy of a picture editor I used to work with, applied to pics too
  2. Always use it to flirt with the reader so they’re left wanting more (i.e. the main body of the story)
  3. Use short words
  4. Headlines do not have to be written in good English nor, necessarily, make sense. That is not their purpose
  5. More than 10 words is always too long.
  6. Do not be subtle or obscure. And if you have a pun, use it, providing it’s not so overused that it will be a turn-off. Flaunt thy copy, baby
  7. Use the present tense: you’re touting news, as in an actuality, not a history lesson or some fanciful future-gazing
  8. Avoid ‘bad breaks’ between the first and second line, so for example is the last word of the first line and first word of the second line as the crux of the headline/story. It must not just read well, it must look good too
  9. Use at least one emotive word, providing you back up that fact or contention in the main copy
  10. The inverted comma is an ally: use it to bolster the editorial value of the main copy – it is window dressing, it is the equivalent of showing a little too much leg, but go for it

And finally, a question I get asked a lot: is there any difference between headlines for newspapers, magazines, online stories, blog posts and other forms of editorial copy?

No. Apart from too many online news headlines are crap, driven by search desires rather than editorial potency ones.

Actually, one more question: are British headline writers the very best in the entire world bar none?

Yes.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
November 23rd, 2011 by Steve

Speed’s steamy Battle of the Sexes

We’ve done some innovative training in our time. At Speed we like to get people to roll up their sleeves, apply what they’re learning about immediately and challenge themselves to do things in new ways.

Our Digital Apprentice saw all our staff challenged to do public relations differently using only digital media, enabling us to apply techniques that hadn’t previously been possible. The Speed Creative Apprentice took things further by applying brainpower to creating influence through all the media at our disposal: conventional, social and branded.

This Friday we’re going much further. Across the Channel and the mighty Alps to eastern Europe. In our trunks and cossies.

Speed’s annual company planning meeting will take place on Friday in Budapest, Hungary. After that all our staff will take part in our Battle of the Sexes Challenge – a one-day bid to test our search planning capabilities in delivering influence through public relations.

The brief is simple: there are two teams – the girls and the boys. During the day they must create blog content in such a way that it appears as high up the rankings for Google searches for ‘Speed Budapest’ as possible. Whichever team has the highest-ranked content by 6pm wins.

It’s clearly an unrealistic challenge given that it’s a brief we’re highly unlikely to ever receive from a client. But it will get people to show their mettle in understanding how search works, how to factor it into the planning of editorial content, how to publicise that content and how to achieve the best possible results against the clock.

It will take detailed planning, precise execution, close teamworking and intricate project management.

Which is why there is only one rule: each team must hold a (separate) project planning meeting on Friday morning in one of Budapest’s many thermal spas. We did say we do training differently.

Follow our progress on this blog or other Speed blogs. Or better still, just search for it. Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest, Speed Budapest…

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,
4 Comments »
Share this:Stumble It!Digg This!Add to del.icio.usBookmark to TechnoratiShare on FacebookSend to Reddit
« Older Entries