(No) Thanks for the memoires
Posted Colin Byrne on May 12th, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Personal, Politics, The Media | 2 Comments »
The only - most definitely the only - sympathetic nod I can muster reading Lord Levy’s interview in The Guardian today is when he is tackled on the question of how a rich music industry mogul with the famous marble bathrooms could fit in with a Labour PM and Labour values.
Levy, who comes from a poor East London background flashes anger and states; “The fact that I had drive and ambition and therefore I have a nice home didn’t mean that I’m not Labour.”
(Apart from that, his whining that Blair didn’t want him in the media spotlight etc etc as he piles on the pressure on a beleaguered Government for the sake of his own sheer vanity is vaguely repulsive. At least Prescott is nakedly doing it for the money.)
Elsewhere in the paper Max Hastings opines that the liberal-left’s obsession with what posh drinking club David Cameron and Boris Johnson belonged to at university has no echo in a country that largely could not give a stuff, as the recent election results suggest.
What people want is leadership, ambition for themselves and their country, aspiration and ability to get on. The school a politician went to or country they were born in is less relevant than ever. Particularly to the new generation of voters and young families who were not even born when Thatcher upset the social class applecart in the late seventies by representing the home-owning hopes of many working class voters (like my father) more than the liberal-left intelligentsia that ran Labour - nearly into the ground.
It is always tempting for rival political leaders to give a wry smile at another’s misfortunes. But the current swirl of memoires taking a poke at Brown, motivated either by personal pique or hard cash or both, could happen to any of them in office.
In politics, the equation money + power + fear of loss of both + ego and the desperate fight for the oxygen of publicity = a pretty noxious brew that throws a poison cloud over the whole of politics, not just the poor sap in the hot seat at the time.
No comment
Posted Colin Byrne on May 7th, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Politics, The Media | 4 Comments »
To dinner last night at The Groucho Club to toast the launch of “The Power of the Commentariat”, the new report from Editorial Intelligence and The Reuters Institute, which Weber Shandwick and The City of London Corporation have co-sponsored. Tonight sees the formal publication I guess, with a big discussion and a host of key commentators at the RSA in London.
This is a really important report, the first serious contemporary analysis of the power and influence of the estimated 300 UK media commentators on politics, business and society. Small in number, big in impact. I would strongly recommend it as a read for anyone in or studying communications, the media or politics.
Its publication is also very timely. Over the past week political news for example has developed so fast that by the time you bought the morning paper, the story had moved on. The real insights and value came from the commentators.
The report also looks at the new media landscape, where the 300 operating mainly in the national print media meets the blogosphere.
Talk at my table turned to how the press in particular were coming to terms with the commoditisation of news and falling readerships, why Gordon Brown spends so much time worrying what The Daily Mail’s editor thinks about cannabis when its readers are never going to vote Labour, and what Roger Alton will do with The Independent. Given the said commoditisation of news, the rise of the commentariat and the need for media brands to differentiate themselves and reach out to new readers, The Indie - which leads on views rather than news - should be well placed. However, over the years the format has got a bit tired; the views, to some, a bit shouty and predictable. It will be fascinating therefore to see what Roger, who did a pretty good job reinvigorating The Observer’s appeal, does with his new paper.
Decided to see what life was life in financial PR (!) so got up at the crack and walked into work (actually, when I got there at six thirty there was not a financial PR in sight in my office, I think these guys wind me up about their early starts). Striding through a deserted Covent Garden, sun glinting of the shiny London buildings, Barber’s Violin Concerto on the iPod, I felt like an actor in the opening scene of my own personal movie.
I spot an interesting looking children’s book in a shop window. Called ‘Oh Boris!‘, by Carrie Weston, it’s about a cuddly looking but ‘hairy scary’ teddy bear who wants to make new friends but is worried about being accepted: “Boris doesn’t mean to be scary, he only wants to make new friends. But he spends a lonely, miserable first day at school…it seems to none of them want to be his friend…..”
I somehow think our Boris had much more fun on his first day, and has made lots of friends.
In praise of a global brand that breaks the rules
Posted Colin Byrne on May 2nd, 2008 | Filed under Personal, The Media | 2 Comments »
After a late concall last evening, I spent the night helping my wife look after a frequently vomiting 17 month old and a growth spurt one month old. Ended up getting an hours sleep before getting up at 530am, so if this post makes even less sense than usual, give me a break.
Co-hosted a lunch for a senior editor from The Economist this week, and while our media lunches are under Chatham House rules, so I would have to shoot myself rather than say what was said, it did make me reflect on The Economist as a global brand. One which, as our guest pointed out, broke the rules.
The Economist was started back in 1843, not by a bunch of City high rollers but rather a group of North of England businessmen, to campaign on The Corn Laws.
It is now a premier global business brand. It sells three quarters of a million copies in the US where circulation is growing 12% a year, and growth in Asia is fast also.
So how does this global megabrand buck the trends?
Firstly, in an age where the rule for global brands has been ‘think global, act local’, the magazine does not produce regional editions. It moves the odd feature around to reflect the local readership, but otherwise it is the same Economist in Singapore and Sydney as it is in London and New York.
Secondly, in a media now obsessed with personality and celebrity, its coverage is virtually personality- free, and it doesn’t go in much for photography either.
Thirdly, with some celebrity journalists and commentators now key to a newspaper or magazine’s success (news itself now instantaneous and difficult to differentiate) the journalism in The Economist is largely anonymous, as it was in the newspapers of the 19th century when it began life.
Finally, apparently, there is little hierarchy and no subs desk. The journalists and the editor work together directly. As our speaker said, The Economist’s unique success is as a global brand with ‘no local’ which sees the world as ‘a unity’ and its readers interested in that world, not just their own back yard.
Cant think of a witty title for this post
Posted Colin Byrne on April 29th, 2008 | Filed under Celebrities, Current Affairs, Politics | Comment now »
Listening to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s official spokesman being interviewed on the BBC this morning reminded me that in that political hothouse at the moment is a fellow senior UK PR consultancy head, Kevin Bell of Fleishman Hillard. I wish him and his client’s mission well and safe. One stark fact came out of the interview, as we ponder the effect of rising food prices on the UK domestic economy - if inflation in Zimbabwe continues at its current rate, within a month 85% of the population will not be able to afford a loaf of bread.
A journalist contacted me yesterday for an opinion on a story breaking online that The Cabinet Office are going to relax the rules on civil servants blogging. Will this lead to a new rash of Government leaks? I didn’t think so. Leaks from Government have in the past been most intense when there was an atmosphere of fear and distrust in Government. As far sighted companies like Microsoft have demonstrated, allowing employees space to think out loud and share ideas, without pressure or control from their bosses, can result in a more human face for an organisation and even in spontaneous advocacy.
Love this quote from the late great Frank Sinatra - “you gotta dig living, because dying is a pain in the ass”.
Best of British/Semi-connected?
Posted Colin Byrne on April 22nd, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Personal, Politics, Technology, The Media | 2 Comments »
Earlier this week over lunch three of us, a journalist, a colleague and myself, discussed Britishness in the light of St George’s Day. We were all the kids of immigrants. The only difference was I was white, and the debate in the past has been stereotyped about being about race rather than culture. My lunch guest was Sunny Hundall, one of the UK’s most innovative political and cultural bloggers. Sunny blogs and writes (The Guardian etc) on race, culture, technology and politics and is leading the way in political blogging breaking out of party political strictures.
On Britishness, we agreed that the US had a better approach to bringing together a seemingly disparate national community around common values – though they are enshrined in a constitution, a bill of commonly held rights rather than institutions like the Royal Family, which many see as heritage symbols rather than daily life, today and tomorrow.
Reading Billy Bragg’s interview in The Evening Standard last night (which the paper’s clunky site won’t let me link to yet, despiute it being a day old), with rising star columnist Johann Hari of The Independent, Billy recalled holding up a Union Jack on stage and his audience hissing. The flag had in the past been hijacked by extremists. He wanted to reclaim it for the multi-ethnic working class.
I remember in a past job persuading the Labour Party high command that it was a good idea to proudly display a Union Jack at an election press conference. Some felt uneasy. And when we told them we planned to play ‘Jerusalem’ as the rousing close of the Party conference, otherwise sensible politicians told me the anthem was ‘reactionary’ and ‘smacked of public schools’. Blake, reactionary???
Back to the lunch. We talked about this week’s piece on politics and new media in The Economist, which unfavourably compares blogging on the Left with the early adopter success of the Right, and argued that, compared to the more vibrant US political blogging and online fundraising scene, UK politics was missing a trick.
As the article points out, Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale and Conservative Home all rank way higher than left wing equivalents in terms of followers. Guido and Iain have become influential media names in their own right, moving easily across print and broadcast as well as new media. Sunny’s contention is that, beyond the few household names and David Cameron’s ‘Webcameron’ initiative, there is little evidence that the Right are better utilisers of new media.
We discussed several possible reasons for the seeming Right-of-Centre leadership in the blogging in the UK:
- Guido broke a mega news story which was followed up by the mainstream press
- Iain makes no secret of his blog being a platform for a wider media/comment career and he does it very well
In Opposition you have less communications resource outside of election time, so you embrace cheaper or free media more wholeheartedly
- The Conservatives are in Opposition. In Opposition your job is to kick seven bells out of the Government. Therefore the goalmouth is wider. It’s about attack rather than defence. Labour bloggers are nervous of being seen as disloyal, so their content is less interesting, in some cases timid.
Sunny’s Liberal Conspiracy group blog avoids this by working outside of party political structures. It brings people of all politics and none together to campaign on specific issues rather than in support of one party or another. It is a model more akin to some of the hugely influential political blogs in the USA.
On this theme, how the Internet and blogging opens up ‘the power of organising without organisations’, I am enjoying the new book ‘Here Comes Everybody’ by the wonderfully named Clay Shirky, an NYU professor (published by Allen Lane/Penguin). I thought it was going to be another ‘me to’ book following on from ‘The Tipping Point’, The Long Tale’, ‘Microtrends’ etc (confusingly the cover is very similar to Mark Penn’s book) but it is an interesting read, told through good stories, and as much about organisational psychology as blogging. Quote: “Most of the barriers to group action have collapsed, and without those barriers, we are free to explore new ways of getting together and getting things done.”
Sunny and others are showing how this can be done here as well as in the USA.
Communicating the tax issue
Posted Colin Byrne on April 22nd, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Politics, Public Relations, The Media | Comment now »
Listening to different interviews and reading the varied commentary in the media on the 10p tax rate debate, it is clear to me that this - the debate, not the issue at the heart of it which is very real for many people - is essentially about two things; confusion and communication.
The former always creates a communications vacuum into which fear, suspicion, misinformation and conflict pour. Two low paid households in five will benefit, one in five will lose reads one authoritative briefing. The problem for the Government is lots of people thinking the one in five might be just be them.
A Labour MP reports conversations with constituents where, for every six who think they are going to lose out, only one actually will.
It’s a tough one for Government communicators. The media are more interested in the row, and building it to a knife edge for the PM, than analysing the facts affecting their readers. And in the confusion, which and whose “facts” should they use.
But as Adam Boulton’s blog points out - it really is about the need for clear communications, and the challenge for Government communicators is that this will largely have to be over the heads of the media and their interest in reporting, and in some cases stoking, a great big fat row.
Rise and Fall
Posted Colin Byrne on April 21st, 2008 | Filed under Consumer, Personal, Politics, The Media, Weber Shandwick | Comment now »
In his excellent weekly column in Media Guardian, Jeff Jarvis picks up the theme commentators like my colleague, brand guru Richard Moss have blogged about recently – the rise of companies using their websites, not just to ‘have conversations’ with customers, but to engage their ideas in the products and services they provide. Dell’s Ideastorm and MyStarbucksIdea.com are two well reviewed examples.
This kind of engagement is one of the spokes on the ‘Advocacy wheel’ Richard and his colleagues in the WS ‘ideas lab’ have developed, along with other ways of bringing customers inside your organisation (webcams giving a view into the production process etc.)
The LSE’s Dr Paul Marsden told an audience at a recent Weber Shandwick event that 50% of ‘badvocacy’ (usually negative online comment) is caused through frustration at a company not listening to its customers, so this is an important strategy for reducing negative responses from customers as well as building positive and lasting relationships.
Another colleague tells me: ‘it is a very simple demonstration of the participative culture we now live in, a ‘read/write’ culture rather than ‘read only’ .”
Jeff extends the logic to politics. Actually politics was probably ahead of business – exactly 20 years ago Labour rolled out its ‘Labour Listens’ roadshow around Britain, where citizens and community and business groups were invited to live – and often nerve-racking for us spinners – interactions with senior Shadow Cabinet Members to tell them where Labour was going wrong and what it should be doing.
As ever with these initiatives it is important not to over-egg expectations. You have to really listen and be seen to respond rather than just make a show of it.
Elsewhere in Byrneworld I am increasingly depressed reading the weekly best seller lists in The Sunday Times, at the number of clearly ghost written autobiographies of so-called celebs that dominate them. Full marks then to The Guardian for serialising the new autobiography of The Fall’s veteran frontman Mark E Smith – though do they have to backslap themselves so thoroughly in today’s editorial?
Despite the Mancunian new wave roots, The Fall have never been my favourite band, and Mark comes on like a weird mashup of Andy Capp and a Hobbit, but they (or rather he, as he is about the only fixed feature in the constantly changing line up on countless albums over three decades) remain what Velvet Underground would have sounded like if they cut their teeth on Chester’s Mild in Prestwich rather than Greenwich Village.
The great lines are too many to mention. Buy the book as the bloke has probably not put by for a pension.
Questions, questions, questions
Posted Colin Byrne on April 18th, 2008 | Filed under Corporate Communications, Current Affairs, Personal, Politics, The Media | Comment now »
A friend from overseas, in all innocence, asks me “is Gordon Brown really useless or is the press making it all up”. Of course neither is true and as The Times’ report on his US trip (”success for Brown”) shows, certain sections of the press are prepared to give credit where it is due. (Though No10 need to be spending a bit more time with ‘the commentariat’ who are overwhelmingly negative at the moment – Alice Miles rather unfairly seems to blame GB for the fact that we want to own our own homes?!?). But the space given over to a stupid comment by an obscure Labour peer - no doubt it sounded clever over a glass of claret - reflects more on the complacency of the good Lord who made it (who does not have to face an election for his plush seat) than the editors who splashed it. We all have to suffer badvocates occasionally from within our own organisations and no doubt ask the same questions - “who do they think they are helping?” and “why don’t they shut the @!+# up?”.
Yazoo are reforming. Why exactly?
Fascinating piece in the latest edition of the excellent CorpComms magazine about A-Space, the new social networking site for American spies. “How would you like to be poked by James Bond?”
Is Twittering a good thing for No10 to be doing? (Yes even though The Guardian are a bit sarky about it today.)
Is socialist celebrity salmon fisher Charlie Whelan a big boy for bragging about his table at the British Press Awards booing David Cameron’s speech? (No.)
Finally, as we ponder the horror of a kid barely out of childhood in a Liverpool court facing charges of gunning down a child with his whole life ahead of him, and the fact that today 30,000 children will die from extreme poverty and curable diseases in the developing world, I was struck (as I drove to the station having spent a valuable half hour earlier with my two beautiful baby boys) by this quote from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs: a civilisation that cherishes its young will stay young.
Spinning around
Posted Colin Byrne on April 16th, 2008 | Filed under Current Affairs, Politics, Public Relations | Comment now »
With a week to go to the Pennsylvania primary it will be interesting to see if Hillary Clinton changes her - previously negative - approach to Barack Obama post the departure of Mark Penn.
In my old New Labour days we enthusiastically studied and copied aspects of the Bill Clinton campaign, developing rapid rebuttal techniques etc. But for me one of Bill C’s main appeals was positive, change - “The Boy from Hope.” Hillary’s campaign to date has lacked this. The odds are against Obama winning the primary, but even if he gets within five points of her it will be another question mark over her campaign, and previous negative attack strategies.
We PRs often get, often unfairly, knocked as “spin doctors”. But if you want to hear a masterclass in naked spin, check out the interview with Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN on Today this morning. Unbelievable - in every sense of the word.
Channel-hopping
Posted Colin Byrne on April 15th, 2008 | Filed under The Media | 1 Comment »
Some interesting new research on declining brand loyalty – which we have seen in everything from politics to fizzy pop. This time it is TV channels. A new report by Accenture conducted in eight countries including the UK and USA shows that we are more loyal to programmes, to content, than to a TV channel. We are also looking for new ways to get TV content, with one in three respondents saying they access programmes on a device other than a traditional TV. As ever, declining brand loyalty and increased demand for content on-the-go is amongst the young. In the US, half of 18-24 year olds accessed TV content on mobile devices.
Four in five respondents expressed discontent with watching favourite programmes on traditional TV channels. When you look at declining broadcast brands – ITV currently for example – and the way some channels screw around with their prized content (Channel 4 airing the last ever episode of The Sopranos in the graveyard shift springs to mind), this should come as no surprise. But there are strong brands out there – the BBC, Virgin, etc.
The research concludes, in a statement of the obvious, that the under 35’s are more familiar with on-demand services. But they are also more willing to pay for content.
I am currently watching the second season of ‘Life on Mars’ on my iPod. I have no idea which channel brought it to TV. Those under 35’s won’t stay under 35 for ever.