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1 The Observer - Liverpool shooting puts pressure back on YouTube
2. The Times - YouTube introduces in-video advertising
3. Andrew Smith - Is UK Tech PR dead? and TWL
4. Mashable - LG to launch YouTube phone in Europe
5. BBC Tech - Hacker unlocks the iPhone
That’s it from me for a few days as I go in search of some summer sun, behave yourselves and have a great 4-day week!
Intriguing rumours and news flying about today regarding the potential future direction and ownership of Brands2Life. I have been doing some quick back of a fag packet calculations. Whether using the old formula of the average of the previous three years revenues with a multiple of 3 to 4 or the Loewy method of 5 or 6 times pre-tax profit (assuming a healthy 25% margin) the agency would be worth around the £10m mark on available figures. Now Brands2Life has just hired Livingstone Partners who apparently specialise in company sales, acquisitions and private equity transactions with deals ranging from…. £10m to £100m plus’. Giles Fraser is remaining tight-lipped claiming, ‘We’re a hot company. Sometimes we’re looking for buyers, and sometimes we’re looking to buy.’ Interesting he used the word ‘Hot’.
Having passed the seven year mark it wouldn’t be unusual for Fraser and Scales to look at their options and consider the sale of a strong fast growing agency with an excellent reputation and enviable client list. What I’m debating is whether such a move if it does happen, is a signal similar to the recent sale of Foxtons that like the housing market the tech pr bubble could be about to burst. Or, as with Loewy’s acquisition of Mantra, that the prospects for the sector are in fact broadly positive?
PR Week is reporting that a number of UK PR agencies have been found to be flouting Wikipedia’s rules banning agencies from editing entries. The WikiScanner has detected that Financial Dynamics, Freuds, Finsbury and H&K have changed entries for clients ranging from Anne Diamond to Pizza Hut.
We will have to wait and see if Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes through with the threat he issued earlier this year to ban offending PR agencies from using the site. I still believe it’s unfair to impose a blanket ban on PR agencies from making edits whereas the CIA and the Vatican face no restrictions at all. Surely the point of the Wikipedia is that anything untrue/biased will simply be edited out by somebody else until a consensus is reached? If so why persist with this pointless ban?
Web 2.0 technologies are of course a double edged sword. When it comes to corporate communication the speed and reach of these new mediums can be harnessed just as easily to spread truth as misinformation. However, the growing adoption of social media channels is apparently leading to resurgence in Black PR. For those unfamiliar with the term it refers to individuals and companies with malicious intent using various techniques to attack or attempt to destroy an adversary’s reputation.
At Monday’s CIPR summer party I met Ivana Kalay a PR security expert who filled me in on the new dangers and vulnerabilities that many businesses face. Now Black PR is nothing new and the techniques it deploys are a standard part of the arsenal employed by political hactivists, whether trying to defend animal rights or battling the oil and pharmaceutical industries. What’s changed is that Web 2.0 apps make the implementation of these techniques so much easier and their implications more far reaching.
In her chilling but compelling article for Strumpette, Kalay sets out the main weak points of PR 2.0 - a perfect storm of hacking websites, hijacking news feeds and harnessing the power of search engines. The potential for RSS feeds to be subverted and false messages to be inserted is particularly worrying along with the use of splogging (spam blogging) to rapidly embed Black PR messages in millions of popular blogs. The power behind these attacks is their permanence with the false information virtually impossible to remove from search engines.
So what does this all mean, and how much of a threat does Black PR actually present? Well responsibility for prevention I would argue rests mainly with IT departments ensuring that corporate information channels are secure. However, this potential new threat also underlines the importance of blog and web monitoring - increasingly a PR function. Early detection of attacks will be critical in attempts to reduce their scope and impact. Thankfully attacks of this kind so far have been very rare so no need to panic (yet), but it would be naive to think that the PR implications will not be serious when the first big brand almost inevitably becomes a Black PR victim.
Over half of UK PR professionals believe that their colleagues are incapable of running effective online PR campaigns. That’s the alarming finding of a study conducted by Webitpr the results of which have been released today. The reasons for this vital skills gap are cited as a lack of understanding of online techniques followed by people being too busy with day to day PR work. Both these explanations are arguably related to the issue of staff training or rather the lack thereof. Now other blogs have started a debate on the lack of investment by some agencies in even basic PR training. Ensuring consultants have the skills needed to implement the New PR should surely be the top staff development priority for every decent agency in the tech space today?
The old model of having a ‘Blogging Unit’ or ‘Social Media Team’ that can be wheeled in and out of pitches was fine a few years back when this area was niche, but today this ‘low cost’ approach is outdated. Expertise shouldn’t exist in silos and all consultants and teams need to be equipped with the skills to allow them to implement and offer counsel to clients on effective online PR. What is needed is a longer term view of the bottom line and a belief by agency owners that freeing up staff time for training and collaboration on social media will actually be in the long term financial interests of the agency. Hopefully this message will get through and when Webitpr repeat this research in a years time the results won’t be such an embarrassment.
Well it’s been an exhausting start to the week with yesterday spent judging some amazing and inspiring PR award entries followed by the summer party of the CIPR’s Greater London Group (of which I’m Secretary). Always the best and most eclectic networking opportunity of the year, last night’s event on board the luxurious Silver Sturgeon didn’t disappoint. If you’re looking for that millionaire’s yacht atmosphere for a client event I would recommend getting in touch with the chaps at Woods River Cruises. The food and champagne were amazing. A big hello to everyone I met last night and thanks for all the lovely comments about this blog – made me blush it did.
1. BBC - Fake goods flood Second Life
2. Mashable - American Airlines sues Google over Adwords
3. FT - The Government is set to launch a blog monitoring unit
4. Guardian - Mobile operators see potential of social networking
5. Comscore - Bebo overtakes Facebook in the UK
6. Tech PR War Stories - Surviving a blog swarm
7. BBC - Wikipedia CIA editing controversy
The backlash against price comparison sites in recent weeks is proof if any was needed of their growing power and influence in the online economy. Moneysupermarket.com’s IPO at the end of July was one of the largest for an internet firm this year, valuing the company at a cool £840 million. Its success with 55% of the UK market according to Hitwise has led to a spate of new and well funded competitors who are spending millions on advertising to attract shoppers - Comparethemarket and Gocompare.com to name but two. Established brands are also trying to get a piece of the action with Thomson Local this week launching its own financial product site ThomsonLocalMoney.com.
When your middle aged uncle starts eulogising Kelkoo when you mention you’re looking to by a new TV you know that price comparison sites have become an integral part of the modern shopping experience. Their growing power has prompted the likes of Direct Line to attempt to strike back with campaigns urging people to shun the ‘middlemen’ and buy direct. The question of impartiality is one the sector is going to need to develop an answer to as it comes under further attacks from major brands and greater scrutiny from consumer groups. I suspect few people realise that Confused.com is actually owned by Admiral Insurance for instance.
Research this week from online cash-back site Quidco goes further. It claims that one in three British consumers has stopped using price comparison sites, while 47 per cent said they would not use them again after finding out the results can be biased according to which listed company is paying the most. Figures suggest that the use of price comparison sites is still increasing so whether these results are a case of wishful thinking remains to be seen. If true, they are a timely warning to the new imitators looking to make millions from their own lucrative IPOs in the coming months.
The results of Silicon.com’s latest reader survey shows that half the respondents do not believe that blogs are a good way for companies to communicate with customers. Not surprising since the UK B2B tech readership of Silicon have been slower than many other sectors in effectively engaging in blogging. The shocking stat was that just 12 months ago 14% of readers didn’t even know what a blog was. Thankfully this has now fallen to 2%, phew!
Following last week’s advertising crisis, Facebook has been forced to introduce a new opt-out system for advertisers. The new feature will allow advertisers to block their ads appearing on the pages of some of the 6 million user groups on the site. It appears the UK advertising industry is leading the way in the evolution of the brand/social media relationship with advertisers in the US having to wait until later in the year to be able to exercise the same choice. The opt-out system is apparently the first of a number of new initiatives in development to give advertisers the control they are demanding. It will be interesting to see whether Facebook’s competitors introduce similar reforms in the coming weeks.
A survey by the Lib Dems has surprisingly found that the Lib Dems are the most prolific users of good old Facebook. 40% of Liberal Democrat MPs have Facebook profiles, compared with just 12% of Tory MPs and 13% of Labour MPs. In real terms if my parliamentary arithmetic is correct that’s 25 Lib Dem MPs vs. 24 Tory MPs, a stunning lead indeed. The research was conducted but Steve Webb, MP for Northavon who claims to have over 1000 Facebook mates. The results shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise, as Mark Oaten would attest the party has always been at the forefront of taking advantage of the Internet to reach new audiences.
I’ve just finished reading an article in the Sunday Times on how a “virtual jihad” has hit the Second Life website. Global intelligence services believe the site could be being used by extremists for recruitment, training and money laundering.
There have been a number of attacks in the virtual world over the past six months - known as “griefings” they have typically been blamed on ‘geeky’ Second Lifers (is there any other sort?). In May an island created by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was destroyed in what is now being termed a ‘virtual nuclear attack’ (see above). A McDonald’s has also been hit by a car bomb and a helicopter was flown into a Nissan building. These attacks are now being viewed by some as virtual terrorist attacks on Western interests.
Even with more time on my hands than I know what to do with, the attractions of Second Life still escape me. For a while I thought it was a conspiracy by a conglomerate of second-rate PR agencies looking for a source of cheap and easy coverage for their clients. Allegations about the site being used for tax-evasion and money laundering are nothing new, but a suspected link to terrorism will be extremely worrying to the creators at Linden Lab.
Reading the article there seems to be little concrete proof of any identifiable terrorist or extremist organisation using the site as alleged, so this could be classic ‘silly season’ fodder. However, it appears that it is being taken very seriously by some security services, with Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian government’s High Tech Crime Centre, claiming, “We need to start thinking about living, working and protecting two worlds and two realities.” Dramatic stuff. It will be interesting to see how Linden’s PR agency Lewis attempts to limit the damage.
Well, the impact of this week’s Panorama seems to be gathering pace with Vodafone, Virgin Media, and First Direct (so far today) announcing that they are suspending all advertising on Facebook after skyscrapers appeared on a page promoting the far-right British National Party. The growing crisis of confidence has resulted in advertising industry bodies the IPA, ISBA, IASH and the IAB rushing out new guidelines this morning for agencies using online advertising networks. The key recommendations include:
1. Advertising agencies that purchase media space through intermediary online networks should require, in their contracts, specific warranties and obligations that the company’s advertisements will not be associated with any objectionable content.
2. When these are breached by mistake or human error, every effort should be made to withdraw the advertising immediately and no fee should be paid to the media owner.
3. Additional measures can also be considered by an agency:
- Reconsideration of trading relationship with network
- Legal action against the network
Other brands seem to have taken the decision that the benefits of advertising on social networks at the moment out weight the disadvantages. According to New Media Age, eBay are refusing to retract their advertising with an Orange spokesperson claiming that they will be working with Facebook to resolve any issues,“There are so many other benefits to advertising on social network sites. We closely monitor customer feedback and if they are offended, we will take that into account”.
Call me naive but something tells me that Orange is likely to be facing a number of calls today from offended customers and that anti-BNP political groups are likely to put a lot of PR pressure on those brands who have so far taken no action. In terms of the new guidelines the question is not if they are too little too late but whether like some previous pronouncements they will simply be ignored by the social networks themselves. Interesting times.
Update 5.09pm: The AA, Halifax and Prudential have also pulled their advertising…
