The role of social media in PR campaigns

Burberry social story

 

Social media impact on public relations practice has grown up rapidly and organizations started to see the importance of it.

Social media is important because:

• Improves creativity,
• Drives the media traffic, visits on company’s website, mentioning their names on social media channels helps for brand management and improves the reputation.
• Social media is forcing PRs to be more transparent and accountable. People have opinions, which are very powerful and influential. So sending the right, clear and understandable message can boost the popularity and reputation.
• Helps to build connections and improve relationships. Having contacts is a powerful tool, is about sharing knowledge and experience which can be useful in building up reputation and have a better idea how to reach people (The Drum, 2012).

The best example how social media is important and how it is beneficial to business is Burberry’s social media campaign.

Burberry introduces an innovative social media campaign which purpose was to reach their audiences and interact with them in a more personal way (Guardian, 2012). Burberry CEO, Amanda Ahrendts, says: "I grow up in the physical world and I speak English. The next generation grow up in digital world and they speak social" (Burberry social story, 2012). She explains that if the

organization wants to reach its publics, they have to speak the language their audiences speak. They chat with their customers online, they make it more personal, they gain understanding what their customers and employees want. According to Amanda "the most importantly it has been the greatest reunite of the culture of any platform we have ever put in place". Wherever the customers are in the world and if they speak about Burberry brand, they are able to hear and listen via social media. The video shown below explains Burberry social story and how social media is important for their brand development and building on stronger reputation.

Encouraging creativity in PR

“Hot brunette wanted for 2014!”

Gerald Abrahams decided to have an attention and to find a girlfriend in a completely different and creative way. On the 7^th of January, 2014 Mr Abrahams decided to fulfil his new year's resolution to find romance after he hit the streets with a sandwich board declaring: 'Hot brunette wanted for 2014'.

I saw this guy in Piccadilly Circus standing in the middle of the street with this huge sign and I thought that it is just a joke for the New Year. Later on, I found out the rest of the story. He told the Evening Standard: 'I just needed to do something different for 2014. I’ve had enough of internet dating and thought this would be something light-hearted that people might find amusing and bring a smile to their face.' In addition, Gerald told Absolute Radio that he didn’t enjoy “unproactive” internet dating, claiming “I felt I just needed to do something a bit more imaginative and get out there”. Unfortunately he didn’t reply to any of email he received. But he got a lot of attention from public, social and local media which wrote his story and spread it out.

This was one of the examples how to be creative and how to encourage people not to be alone, find their other half and be in love. This can be used by dating sites as an inspiration how to be different and creative.

As a result, his story was in Metro, Evening Standard, Daily Mail, The Telegraph. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were full of comments and pictures of the guy and the board.

First Tweet Experience Hotel in the world

 

Social media is a very important tool for all the organisations, It helps to reach their target audience, spread the news and achieve the best results by involving more and more people. Unfortunately, people cannot live without social media even on their holidays!

 

The Sol Wave House hotel in Majorca, Magaluf has been dubbed the world's first Twitter hotel.
It has Twitter-themed rooms decked out in blue and white decor, to match the social network's iconic colour scheme, and holidaymakers can check-in, find out about events, order room service and get exclusive deals using dedicated hash tags. The hotel also has Twitter-themed parties and offers Twitter-themed drinks such as a blue mojito.

It really attracts attention because it is right next to the beach in a busy city Maguluf, which is called as a capital of parties. Luckily, this year I had an opportunity to visit this amazing country and the city which never sleeps. So it happened that I have visited this eye catching hotel which provides a high class entertainment any time of the day. Sol Wave House hotel provides an innovative and unique wave machine for you to try Flowboarding.

The services and facilities at the Sol Wave House hotel has 184 contemporary guest rooms, including exclusive #PartySuites, spacious dining areas (Byron's Restaurant, Banzai Bar, Pipe's Sport Bar, Lohis Bar and Lounge Area); 2 outdoor swimming pools overlooking the Mediterranean, a spectacular 2,640 m2 sun terrace with sunbeds and Balinese beds, an exclusive VIP zone, free social WIFI, Internet corner with 6 computers, shopping mall and parking.

I did not stay in this hotel, but outside environment is fantastic. It is a good idea for people who cannot live without social media but personally holiday has to be holiday and people has to communicate more face to face not sitting in their rooms with their smart phones!

 

Social media growth and impact

Taking advantage of horse meat scandal

Some months ago there was a massive scandal that biggest supermarkets' beef burgers and meals contain horse DNA. But one offering from Tesco's Value range had 29% horse meat. As a result, supermarket lost 300m pounds off its market value and lost good reputation and image from its customers.

 

Recently, media was releasing news stories about real horse meat burgers at London pubs. Evening Standard wrote: "The Three Compasses in Hackney began grilling 100 per cent horse meat burgers on Tuesday, while the Lord Nelson in Southwark introduced the dish a fortnight ago."

Owner Lauren Johns said: “All across Europe, horse is considered a high-quality meat. We thought it’d be nice for people to try it and realise it’s really nice if prepared and sourced properly.”

 

Surprisingly, chef Michael Brown at the Three Compasses said:"50 burgers sold out in hours on Tuesday night". This just show that it caught customers attention and interest is that really burgers with real horse meat. It was quite easy to get so much attention because everyone were shocked about the scandal in supermarkets. Firstly, it might be considered as done on purpose or as a joke to taste and compare Tesco beef burgers with real horse meat burgers in the pub. Secondly, it is risky to start selling horse meat because of the attitude of people about it. From ancient time horse is like a companion who helps to work in the fields. Even people from a Borough Market said "it had not been widely advertised because customers considered horses “companions” rather than dinner".

 

Tesco. I do nott think is appropriate to sell and eat horse meat, but in today's life and food variety you cannot be surprised anymore.

 

 

Social media revolution

Coca-Cola behind the scenes

One of the biggest brands Coca-Cola looks like it is trying to position themselves as a super brand that is doing everything right for their customers. Their CSR looks incredible, helping charities and supporting events such as Olympic games. Unfortunately, it seems that the giant brand is in trouble again.

Despite the fact that they released a ridiculous advert video about anti-obesity, now they failing to meet ethical standards, joining Mars and other companies. Evening Standard announce about an issue in February raised by Oxfam. It was said that "leading global brands are failing to ensure the well being of the workers who produce their products and are continuing to profit from a broken system they should be helping to fix".

 

The charity has compiled a Behind the Brands scorecard, which rates the "big 10" food companies in seven categories - the transparency of their supply chains and operations, how they ensure the rights of workers, how they protect women's rights, the management of water and land use, their policies to reduce the impacts of climate change and how they ensure the rights of the farmers who grow their ingredients.

 

The main issues were that companies do not have their own policies how they have to communicate with their suppliers. Also, there are no regulations and rules how eliminate discrimination against women throughout their supply chains. Besides, none of them has adequate policies to protect local communities from land and water grabs despite all of them sourcing commodities plagued by land rights violations, such as palm oil, soy and sugar.

 

After the matter was raised, Coca-Cola spokeswoman said that they are aware of Oxfam activities and trying to implement practises throughout their supply chains and support and build sustainable communities.

 

"We believe in creating economic opportunities for women and smallholder farmers as well as stewarding water and other natural resources within the more than 200 countries in which we operate".

 

At the end, they reached common ground with Oxfam, Coca-Cola spokeswoman said that "As part of The Coca-Cola Company's commitment to transparent, more sustainable and responsible business practises, we welcome a continuous dialogue with Oxfam that enables us to identify and address global challenges collaboratively."

 

So even the massive company is trying to position themselves and use good PR to attract more more customers they cannot hide the truth. Even the anti-obesity video shows that they are using persuasive message to convince their customers that the drink is good. On the other hand, as the Guardian journalist, Sally Peck, said: " The world’s most valuable brand thinks that you are naive. That isn’t at all true. 100 calories’ worth of spinach is your friend. 100 calories of Coca-Cola is little more than a guilty pleasure". So should we believe in everything what this big brand is saying?

The same thing about video and promise to Oxfam to improve and support their communities, will they do something? I guess no.

Story about Lithuanians

My lovely home country in The guardian yesterday.
The front page was written in Lithuanian.
And the story was told about Lithuanian people, culture and what they looking for in Great Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/07/baltic-exchange-lithuanians-new-home-britain?INTCMP=SRCH

King of Camden awards 2012

King of  Camden awards nominates the greatest, the best shops, venues, businesses and market stalls in Camden Town. The even is runned by Wedge and Camden Town Unlimited. This year the winners list looked liked that:

1.  Best Food – Battersea Pie Station 
2. Best Night Out – KOKO 
3. Best Health & Beauty – Fred & Ginger 
4. Best Shop – Scorpion Shoes 
5. Best Staff – The Earl of Camden 
6. Best Wedge Offer – Simply Fish 
7. King of Camden – The Colonel Fawcett

Successful PR campaign: Team Give Blood

Was reading last week's PR Week and find out about the most successful PR campaign. Team Give Blood campaign achieved impressive results over the busy period this summer. Therefore, it is more impressive because it had to compete with Olympics buzz and to attract more attention than Olympic Games itself. 

The objectives were to recruit, reactivate and remind donors to donate before the Olympics. Also, to encourage people with a rare blood type to donate and to maintain media interest.

One of the reasons why campaign was successful is creativity. To get media coverage and show who they are, images of eight blood donors were published. People bodies were painted with circulatory system and shot in iconic London locations. Moreover, they used national and regional TV and radio to announce about the campaign. Celebrity endorsement and social media were very useful tools to spread the word about the campaign. For instance, the images were sent to national and online media, so the celebrities were asked to tweet to their followers. All news and updates were posted on Facebook and Twitter as well as on blood.co.uk's website.

The results were shocking:

• 958 pieces of mainstream media coverage
• 140 broadcast items including BBC Breakfast and Sky News
• National coverage included The Sun, Daily Mail, Sunday Mirror and The Guardian.
• Calls to NHSBT increased by 29%
• received more than 10,000 mentions on social media
• NHSBT hit its 30% stock build target in time for the Olympics

In my point of view, all the campaigns are successful and can stand out of the crowd, then they are creative and know how to attract as much attention as they can. Team Give Blood campaign's images were so original and unique that it definitely wake peoples' curiosity. 

M&S crises

Marks and Spencer, the UK's biggest clothing retailer, has reported an almost 10% fall in profits for the first half of this year. 

Womens' clothing is the  biggest issue to deal with. The matter is that M&S clothing is not the priority for women as there are so many competitors in a high street.

Chief executive, Marc Bolland, blamed the squeeze on shoppers incomes and unstable trading caused by the poor spring and early summer weather. Also, Queen's Jubilee and London Olympics 2012 helped to raise the country's economy but not the higher sales.

Back in 2008 Marks & Spencer was the first retailer which made more than 1 billion pounds in profit. At the moment the company is struggling to make more than 700 million pounds and miss their target. Once again, the biggest issue is the competition in the high street. In contrast, PRIMARK is showing that retail is not that hard. Producing young and fun fashion, the company is the top retailer in the high street with more than 1 billion profit. 

In addition to this, M&S thinking about their strategies how to make things work better. On of the ways is to improve the stores. To drag womens' attention they are planning to improve stores by making more attractive and more interesting displays. Also, improve on-line services and expand the business overseas. What is more, to increase womens' lingerie sales, M&S hired Victoria's Secrets model, Janie Schaffer. She will be a new director of lingerie and beauty, replacing Frances Russell. Nevertheless, new staff is hiring like former Debenhams and Jaeger boss Belinda Earl as a style director. It is expected that she will be able to make a change and raise the sales comparing with Primark and Next. Lastly, like every year new Christmas adverts will be revealed and that should attract loads of attention from women.

To save M&S name as qualify brand will not be easy. But as Bolland saying they need more time to improve their store because new team needs to do their work properly. The big changes might be seen only next July. Hopefully, all the strategies will be done and M&S will come back to his position.

Fingers crossed!

What is happening in Primrose Hill???

Evening Standard released a story about ''yummy mummies" who are the main problem why so many cafes are closing down.

It comes up the matter of posh mummies demands to have more places to sit down with a cup of coffee and have a nice chat on Sunday afternoon. But the story made a enormous switch which comes about rent money and greedy landlords. So who's fault is that so many businesses cannot afford to stay near Primrose Hill?

Apparently, Trojka, one of the oldest and greatest  Russian tea rooms, closed down a couple days ago because of 70 per cent increase in the cost of a new lease. There is nothing about " yummy mummies", it is about landlords who are trying to get the advantage of economy and get as many benefits as they can.

I live in Camden area myself and understand how the place change into a massive Starbucks empire. All over the place there are so many cafes and just couple bars or pubs. The nicest cafes are closing down because of high rent and become a very posh people meeting point. Like Amit Jain, who runs the long-established Shepherd’s cafe, estimates that one in three businesses on the street is now selling food and drink. He said: “I don’t think people realise that soon Primrose village will be cafe village.


In my opinion, the problem is the demand of people who are living near Primrose hill. If there are so many wealth people around then obviously the price of rent will go up and landlords will take as an advantage.

Big and foolish demands taking place but do people think about others? Well, I guess no.

2 Minute Silence

One of the most touching campaign I ever found. It is all about Remembrance day to commemorate those who lost their lives at war.

In 2010, The Royal British Legion wanted to amplify messaging around the work it does supporting the Iraq and Afghan generation of serving and ex-service troops and their families. The biggest aim was to reach younger audiences via modern media and receive as much support as they can.

The strategy was set by the  Burson-Marsteller (B-M) which is leading global PR and communication firm. They decided to make a completely silent track entitled “2 Minute Silence” and releasing it into the UK music charts along with a celebrity-packed “music” video for Remembrance Sunday 2010. 

  Burson-Marsteller (B-M) campaign targeted young generation via social media: creating Facebook page, Twitter account and having "2 minute silence" on the radio. It was very successful as it reach youth centers, young communities. The campaign achieved high interest of young bloggers  which were sharing the fantastic campaign all over the world.

At the end the great results were achieved:

More than 20 leading celebrities secured to appear pro bono

More than 260 pieces of media coverage

More than 35,000 Facebook likes in three weeks

More than 200,000 views of video trailer on YouTube

More than 16 million reached through celebrity social media support

The video is really touching and emotional as there is no sound accept of background noises. It catches the attention and all the people shown in the video shows how many people support the Royal British Legion. That two minutes of silence make to respect, remember and to think about those who gave up their lives in the war. 

Who cares about confidentiality?

All PR practitioners have to follow rules and restrictions about their professionalism. I was reading the Guardian article about chef Gordon Ramsay and his published personal information which was not supposed to be to public.

According to Guardian the information was sold by Phil Hall to Daily mail and had shocking results. In a court spokesman said that Hall "absolutely" did not know the provenance of the emails but the harm was done so there are no excuses.

He made a public apology and agreed with donation to Ramsay's charity. But even the apology doesn't change the fact that PR man did not follow the rules and did not care about his client's confidentiality.
Next time he has to read the rules again!

Mission completed: 100 Club saved!

100 Club is famous for its historical heritage because it has seen performances from acts as diverse as The Sex Pistols, Muddy Waters, Hugh Masekela, Lee Konitz, Oasis, Lonnie Donnegan, Jimmy McGriff and Travis to The Clash,The White Stripes, Yank Lawson, Sinead O'Conner, Nico, Chris Barber and Beverly Knight. 

Unfortunately, the venue certainly needed help. According to Guardian. co.uk, the venue Amid rising costs, higher rent and lower revenues, the venue that helped launch acts such as the Sex Pistols was on the verge of closure. I think that government has to support such venues which are important to cultural life and music history. Especially for London, it will have better image in young peoples' eyes and more people will trust the government. 

The funny fact is that punk club was saved by Converse!!! Absolutely different attitude and understanding about music. But 100 Club was really struggling so they got a great deal and the music venue was saved and not changes. 

Still there are some questions about changing the name and becoming independent. But as Horton said: "They were the first people to come and see me and ask if they could do anything to help ... The fact that the club will remain independent [is what] appeals to them so much." 

He hopes that the club is going to be opened another 68 years.

Fingers crossed!!!

Go back to the beginning!

In the beginning of my course I had a lecture about Radio 1 and the way they work by choosing which tracks to play. We got the task to choose some song from A, B and C list and to share with others.

A list songs are the most popular and are played very usually. B are on the radio not so often maybe for a spacial day or for certain period of time. And C list songs are not popular at all, so they have a very little chance to be played. 

So may Playlist A includes these songs: 

Owl City - Strawberry avalanche
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDbguzrZap4

Tracy Chapman - Cold feet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmgxyXcpfCQ

The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS9o1FAszdk

Playlist B

Whitney Huston - Wanna dance with somebody
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA

Bon Jovi - Livin' on the prayer
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk

Lanny Kravitz - Fly away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvuL5jyCHOw

Playlist C

Fun. - We are young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv6dMFF_yts

Panic! At the Disco: - New perspective
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3sA5plF6kE&feature=related

Finch - Letters to you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_I_6lZSCnU

Social Media Week London: case study

Social Media Week is one of the world's most unique global platforms, offering a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends in social and mobile media across all major industries.

In just under three years, Social Media Week has expanded to 21 cities, including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Istanbul, London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Glasgow, Berlin, Moscow, Beirut and Hong Kong. Starting in 2012, SMW is adding Tokyo, Singapore, DC and Miami.
Annually, SMW attracts more than 60,000 attendees across thousands of individually organized events, with half a million connecting to the conference on-line and through mobile.

One of the events in London was about social videos which were the most popular on the web. During the event people could enjoy free drinks and vote for the best one and share their opinions about what they saw.

The idea about making a film from the most popular videos brought a great success and received many positive feedbacks.

One of the videos was Carlsberg advert called "The date". It was one of the best adverts I have ever seen. Rude and agressive bikers really scared off people and it was not so comfortable environment for lovely couples. The challenge was not to get confused and scared of bikers and still find the seats in the middle of the audience. And those who did it received massive applauds and cheers from all bikers. The adverts touches some key point. Firstly, the image of bikers. They are the same humans but because of their bad reputation and image people are afraid to get in touch with them. 

The Carlsberg stunt below is a good example of low-risk, high-reward guerrilla marketing. Carlsberg introduced its new strap-line at the beginning of the year to promote itself as a beer that stands for tradition, quality, great taste and right choices. This idea has been a fantastic success and with this video they made really good choice.

Lithuania's name in London Olympics 2012

London impatiently waiting for a big event and started preparing for it with new campaigns and surprises for Londoners. It's couple of months left but Tfl already started to prepare. Recently they released its Underground Olympic Legends Map, which has swapped out the names of London's 361 tube stations and replaced them with the names of famous Olympic competitors. It was created by sports journalists, Alex Trickett and David Brooks. They mentioned that they faced a few misunderstandings and conflicts about the names but they are happy what they done.

The big surprise is that one of the stations has one of the most famous basketball player's name from Lithuania.Arvydas Sabonis was the best basketball player in Lithuania as well as in United States. 

So if some people will try to analyze the map they will relate this to my country and more people will get to know about it. 

Of course, sports fans know that Lithuania is good at basketball, as it is one of the best team in Europe. But this small campaign will help to promote the country.  

Homework 3: Corporate image, corporate identity and reputation

Each brand and company has their good or bad images in public eye as well as set identity and built reputation. To begin with, corporate image means what customers think about the brand. Image is formed from products and services, social responsibility, communications and also the environment of the company. If the company’s offices look nice and adorable the customer feels more confident, comfortable and it helps to make a decision. Besides good quality products can guarantee customer’s loyalty and good feedback. Also, good image helps to deal with customer demands, increase sales and go over the crisis period.  In addition, to build a good image is very hard without public relations. Public relations take a responsibility of all sectors because all sectors taking part in communication with customers. For instance, if the company launch a new product PR role is introduce it to target audiences and build an opinion about it. Basically, whatever the company is doing public relations help to communicate with customers and build the right image.

The other part is about corporate identity which means how the company sees themselves. It is about identifying who they are, what they do and how they are doing it. It also includes how they represent themselves, using logos, colours and uniforms as well. Besides, identity means what kind of values and beliefs the company wants to show and share. So if the company send the right messages about their personality by using PR it helps to create the right image and reputation.

Talking about reputation according to CIPR definition PR is all about reputation, building and maintaining goodwill and mutual understanding. So PR role in the company is to build better reputation and build transparent relationship between customers and the company. Unfortunately, PR is not that powerful. The company can lose a good reputation very easily and PR has to deal with it.

For example, o.b. is a really big brand and it had good reputation and image about its products. Unfortunately, the company received many complaints about discontinued popular Ultra item. They received some threats about destroying their reputation and it will damage it a lot. So o.b. came up with a unique idea how to apologise by making a PR campaign “Triple Sorry”. The campaign included a music video where every woman can use their name and it seems that the singer is singing for them personally. More than 100 000 women received an email which led them to their own music video. It received a really great success and the reputation was not damaged that much. PR worked on crisis management and achieved good results, more than 3 million hits only in one weekend.

As the example shows PR is very valuable for a company, to deal with crisis and make two way communications. Even PR can be affected by factors like history, environmental and sector issues it is powerful tool to use. Corporate identity, corporate image and reputation are all related and PR taking responsibility to create it, change and manage the whole process.

Homework 2: CSR

Society means group of people having the same point of view about an issue. So it can be related to finance, environment, politics and ethics. PR role in society means community involvement in solving issues. That means sponsorship, volunteering, hospitality and donations. Also it is about corporate social responsibility by company to the community. Corporate social responsibility means try to achieve success in ways that community will be involved and any of their values will not be disrespected. As I mentioned it includes issues about business, ethics, human rights and environment.

For example, Sainsbury’s, one of the biggest supermarkets in UK, showed their responsibility of the society by setting up the partnership with South Camden Community School (2011). Their aim was to develop leadership behaviours and to find better ways of working for the leaderships. They were educating and sharing ideas with six-formers about retailing and leadership. Some of school graduates were helping other students to get involved in community’s activities. Sainsbury’s team were participating in school’s careers day sharing their experiences and knowledge about wide range of job opportunities in retail industry. The results of Sainsbury’s involvement in community were incredibly amazing. The school teachers said that working with Sainsbury’s team was very beneficial to school community. It helped in organisational development, staff training and primary-secondary school transition as well as individual mentoring and work experience for students - has been extremely effectively targeted.

This example showed that the school community gave only positive feedback about Sainsbury’s participation. They received loads of valuable information and get some self-confidence and knowledge about leadership and retail industry. What is more, Sainsbury’s build their image and showed that they care about students and new opportunities for them. This campaign helped Sainsbury’s to save their reputation and attract new customers.