Today’s BBC coverage of the Ofcom study into how Britons now consume media features some perhaps obvious but nonetheless stark highlights. On average, we now spend, according to the study, half of our waking lives consuming media. Moreover, a lot of that time is spent consuming multiple types of media at the same time.
So we’re exposed to more media – good for those of us who work to influence reputation. But our eyes and ears are everywhere, meaning we undoubtedly have smaller attention spans and influence may be battering us from all angles – potentially bad for reputation efforts.
Or is it?
Rory Cellan-Jones’ latest blog post talks of the moral panic created by the realistation that we spend so much time staring at gadgets or listening to broadcasts. The ‘too much telly’ decry has long been a feature of applicable social analysis, but the rapid digitisation and socialisation of media makes this a whole different issue. So we’re spending a lot of time consuming information and communicating? Good. We’re on Facebook, Twitter and commenting on blogs while watching TV? Better than just slumped in front of the telly vegetating.
But the moral implications aren’t my point here. With multi-tasking firmly established in our media habits, with so many types of media that we actively engage with daily, and with media changing rapidly, the potential for influence reputation is increasing. It’s just that there are so many more options and planning how content is disseminated is now a far more intricate process. Early communication that created influence – the sermon on the mount, the town crier, Houdini’s publicity stunts that got ink – has been replaced with a fragmented media landscape and real difficulty in working out which publicity will have the greatest impact.
Which means effective PR needs to be a lot more sophisticated, and PRs must invest a lot more thought and expertise in doing things right. Which means this is no place for slackers or airheads.
PR planning must be upgraded to meet the needs of changing media and the public’s rabid appetite for it. We need to go and ask the target audience what media they consume and ask them the right kinds of questions about how how they perceive brands as a result. Equally, asking everyone will mean prohibitive costs, and even then they may not tell us the whole truth.
So the opportunity to create greater influence with more media, that people are consuming more of, is there. We just need to gain proper insight and do a lot of hard work to be effective.
