Floater in the memepool

PR snakeoil anyone?

2007-01-10T13:31:00.000Z

Nutrionalist shyster + PR = wikipedia snakeoil. Read about it for yourself in the Guardian.

Fuel PR has obviously been to the Edelman school of online relations.

PR snakeoil Fuel PR

Spot the difference

2006-12-19T10:06:00.000Z

One's the managing editor of Time, the other lives in Little Britain.

Hap tip to AM.

PR Walliams Stengel

Google investment going down the u-tube?

2006-12-19T10:00:00.000Z

Further sign that Google might as well have flushed its cash down the toilet with news that Metacafe is the UK's 4th most popular search. Goodbye GooTube, hello Metacafe.

TOP 10 GOOGLE SEARCHES 2006
1. Bebo
2. MySpace
3. World Cup
4. Metacafe
5. Radioblog
6. Wikipedia
7. Video
8. Rebelde
9. Mininova
10. Wiki

PR Google Metacafe

Genius

2006-11-10T15:24:00.000Z

Blogosphere is full of s**t

2006-10-26T09:28:00.000+01:00

Nice to see that 'Arseblog' and 'clagnut' make Stephen Davies' top 100 most influential UK blogs.

Proper floaters in the memepool.

PR blognames

A big bag of monkey nuts...

2006-10-25T17:30:00.000+01:00

...to Getting Ink for its concern over the furry funkmeister of PR's wellbeing.

Rest assured, normal service will resume shortly. More floaters in the memepool coming your way.

PR Nuts Floaters

Cohn & Wolfe staff blow out clients

2006-09-15T15:25:00.000+01:00

According to the ad on the back of this week's PR Weak, 56% of Cohn & Wolfe staff would blow-out a hot date to deliver on a client project.

By inference, that means 44% would say "fck it, I'm going out to get shagged and I'll take the beastings from my client and my line manager like a man".

Nice to see they're such a committed bunch at C&W towers.

PR Cohn & Wolfe beasting

MySpace mishaps

2006-07-19T18:32:00.000+01:00

If you're going abroad on a booze-fuelled mission, and plan to blog the juiciest details, probably best not to let your Dad get hold of your MySpace address, as The Times' Richard Morrison wryly points out:

My daughter is somewhere in Thailand. At least I think she is. She got back from uni one Sunday in early June, jammed the washing machine with a term’s accumulated laundry, raided my piggy bank to the tune of several hundred quid on the understanding that the money will be repaid from some unspecified holiday job undertaken at some uncertain date in the future, spent 36 hours in telephonic discussion with various like-minded free spirits on the ominous subject (I couldn’t help overhearing) of the rave scene in Bangkok and Koh Samui — and then hoosh! By Tuesday evening she was on a plane to the Far East, having acquired a suspiciously cheap ticket on an obscure Indian airline from a bucket-shop in Willesden.

Since then I have been able to follow her progress in one of two ways. It depends on whether I crave a false sense of reassurance, or feel strong enough to cope with the hideously unexpurgated truth. If it’s the former, I consult her intermittent e-mails to us, which are crafted with quite brilliant cunning (a career as a spin-doctor surely awaits) to suggest that her Thai sojourn is crammed with visits to old temples, detailed study of local flora, and discussions about the Buddhist path to enlightenment.

Unfortunately for her, my older son let slip the information that if I logged onto a website called MySpace.com and typed in my daughter’s name, I would be able to read her Thai “blog”. This gives a rather more colourful account of her trip:

June 10: “Woohoooo! went out on the razz last night — strange but wikid all the same!” June 12: “Got REALLY cool tattoo. My name in thai letters init. Paha!” June 16: “Keep getting really drunk at night, coming back to beach and going skiny dipping. Soooo much fun!” June 19: “Rented moped, soooo cool! Fell off coz i got confused! Proper blonde moment.” June 24: “Had bad accident on moped... cant walk properly but the show must go on...” June 28: “Lying on beach nursing hangover whilst eating rat on a stick. Let the good times roll... hahaha.” July 3: “Out on the town. It was MESSY. We were all trashed and ended up at this weird place...” July 13: “Best party ever! the most INSANE 24hrs of my life. Wooooo!”

PR MySpace

Statistics, lies and damned Rubel

2006-07-19T15:04:00.000+01:00

The Rubloid has just written a post on the findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Reuters via Yahoo).

It's yet another great example of a blogger (with a particular Me2 axe to grind) blindly seizing on stats to substantiate a particular evangelical POV.

What Rubel fails to point out (which the Reuters article does - albeit burried at the bottom of the story), is that Pew surveyed "233 self-identified bloggers " by telephone. Hardly a representative sample size and a pretty crucial piece of information for readers to guide them on how to interpret the voracity of the findings.

Whether Rubel is correct or not in his analysis of the future of the blogosphere (his crystal balls would explain why he walks gingerly), it underscores the lack of 'depth' of most bloggers.

To use one of his favourite blog bullsh*t bingo buzzwords, as the social media landscape 'flattens', so the critical use of sources gets squeezed out at the edges.

It's left the PR Monkey scratching his hairy behind in ponder, wondering whether this form of evangelical 'the message is more important than the true representation of the facts' type posting only serves to undermine the value and credibility of the post and the blogger.

Rubel has had a considerable amount of flack about his verging-on-the-arrogant dismissal of Dell's new blog. So perhaps the halo of this self-styled champion of Me2 is starting to tarnish under the weight of critical scrutiny - something he perhaps lacks in his own postings.

PR stats

So close you can almost smell his little bunny balls

2006-07-18T12:09:00.000+01:00

The PR Monkey has been a whisker away from snaring the Spin Bunny for one last JLC-esque celebrity post. However, the Monkey's middleman chickened out at the last minute.

It may still turnaround, but if you're out there Bunny, get in contact direct - or send us that one last post.

PS: Anymore tip-off email addresses for the World of High Tech PR would be muchly appreciated (thanks for those already passed on).

PR Spin Bunny JLC World of Hi-Tech PR

Life 2.0

2006-07-17T11:22:00.000+01:00

The PR Monkey has been tagged by Stephen Davies for this top five social media tools malarkey thingy.

But what interested the Monkey the most was the fact that SD's post was timed at 8:58pm on Saturday evening. Drew B then left a comment at 10:10pm, probably dressed in his smoking jacket and slippers.

So in honour of these two blog-a-holics, here's my top five social tools for Saturday Night 2.0:

Pub 2.0 - essential Saturday night venue for extended conversations (usually about complete b*****cks). Lubricated by drink, conversations can often be controversial and break vital news (Dave's just yacked). Often populated by Drunk 2.0

Beer.a.licious - a great tool for extending and upgrading Pub 2.0 conversations from reasonable and decorous to shambolic and shouty

Curry 2.0 - losing market share to Kebablines, but still a favourite amongst old skool social conversationalists. Content can be difficult to differentiate and most users remain unsure of the type / origins of the 'meat'. Can also cause Pophurls (see below)

Pophurls - a common outcome of Pub 2.0 conversations. Can lead to colourful pavement decorations and upset girlfriends / wives

Day after analytics - a handy tool for Sunday lunchtime pub gatherings. Allows users to analyse preceeding night's fun and frolics, and identify the most embarrassing shenanigans including Moose 2.0 and Pophurls. Also keeps an (unrealiable) track on the amount of unique Beer.a.licious consumed.

PR tagging

Bring Back campaign gathers momentum

2006-07-14T15:51:00.000+01:00

The PR Monkey's Justin Lee Collins campaign to bring back Spin Bunny and the World of High Tech PR is rocking.

Thanks to everyone who has sent messages of support and Mr Guest who posted the story on Crispy News. Traffic on this site has gone up by close to 1,000 per cent showing the wistful fondness for these two colossi of PR blogging.

The Monkey is currently pursuing several lines of communication and is gaining in confidence that this herculean task can be pulled off.

More updates next week. Until then, keep spreading the word.

PR Spin Bunny JLC World of Hi-Tech PR

Monkey JLC in full swing

2006-07-13T16:49:00.000+01:00

Flush with his (dubious) success in bringing back badhack, the PR monkey has upped the stakes and is aiming to bring back both Spin Bunny and The World of Hi-Tech PR for one last celebrity blog posting.

So if you know the whereabouts of these ex-bloggers, or have any tip-offs, then contact monkey central.

Bring it on!

PR Spin Bunny JLC World of Hi-Tech PR

Monkey JLC scores big time

2006-07-13T16:32:00.000+01:00

The PR monkey has weaved his JLC magic.

This just in from Mr Badhack:
Thanks for the support, Mr Monkey. You're right, it has been a bit quiet on the BadHack front...in fact all I've had into the email is a steady stream of spam.

I can't go making things up now, can I, so unless the great and the good of the UK PR and media industry send me their stories, I'm afraid it'll see me six foot under. Which is a pity.

There's been a couple of recent BadHack-like stories over at Getting Ink, the: 101's blog (www.gettingink.typepad.com) - maybe Gary and Sally are in a better position to spill the beans?
Get in there!

Badhack needs your support, let's get this baby back on the road.

PR badhack JLC

Bring back badhack

2006-07-13T14:48:00.000+01:00

Where for art thou badhack?

Cribbing from Justin Lee Collins, the PR Monkey is starting a campaign to bring back badhack. It's been two months now since the last post, and the monkey is upset that his weekly dose of hack humour has disappeared from his RSS reader.

So bring back badhack and email him at mrbadhack@googlemail.com , you know you want to.

PR badhack JLC

Visual gag-fest

2006-07-12T14:48:00.001+01:00

Different takes on the Zidane incident: http://gifdump.com/search/Zidane/

PR Zidane Headbutt

PR what-o-sphere?

2006-07-12T10:05:00.000+01:00

We like Stephen Davies and his blog at PR monkey towers. His fresh-faced enthusiasm for the PR industry and blogging is charming and, somethimes, infectious.

His latest post on the state of the PR blogosphere reveals some interesting stats.

According to Stephen's sources, there are only 19 UK PR practitioner blogs and 6 self-styled UK blog consultant blogs.

And this information is from Edelman's latest Me2Revolution recruit.

But clearly it isn't Me2, is it. Not with only 25 professionals bothering to blog.

With 44,000 professionals in the industry, only 0.0005% blog. It's phenomena, I tell ya. A 2,000% year-on-year increase in numbers could result in a staggering 1% blogging! Woohoo!

It makes the PR monkey feel priveleged to be one of the few.

PR Blogs

Something doesn't add up here

2006-07-12T09:20:00.000+01:00

There's been some chat in the PR blogosphere about the analysis Hitwise has done on influence of blogger Iain Dale on the Prescott Affair.

See Drew B and Mr Mayfield, amongst others.

But something doesn't seem to add up.

Say there was 100 million internet searches done on the day Heather says that the 'blogosphere was alight' with the John Prescott story. Then a peak 0.00088% share of searches on 'Iain Dale' amounts to 880 searches.

A tiny drop in the search ocean.

And if search accounted for 24% of traffic to Iain Dale's site, and blogs 19% - then less than 700 people come via other blogs. An impressive total for the blogosphere, given, but not exactly setting the world on fire.

And a company like Hitwise wouldn't have any vested interest in drumming up business by trying to convince PR budget holders to splash out on monitoring and reporting would it?!?

The point of this ramble, if there is one, is that bloggers are always tempted to trumpet the latest stats that seem to herald their cause without hardly pause for second thought. That's only natural, and good for encouraging debate, but a healthy degree of scepticism wouldn't go amiss.

Selective representation of stats can often belie common sense experience. After all, the Sun can claim the highest ABC readership in the UK, but you wouldn't tell your clients that you're going to prioritise the red tops over the broadsheets for CEO press interviews, would you?

But then again, I don't think I've met a flack that hasn't bent the truth at some stage in his or her career. Seems to go with the territory.

PR Hitwise Iain Dale

Dib dib dob, have I got rubbish news for you

2006-07-11T10:52:00.000+01:00

Is nothing sacred from agencies trying to make a quick PR buck? Check out the latest agency 'stunt' attempting to hijack news about Scouts being awarded PR badges.

From conversations with fellow flacks, it seems that these stunts only tend to have a negative impact on the perception of a PR brand. Cobblers shoes and all that, even if it is tongue-in-cheek.

Still, it'll take some to beat the strapline on GCI's ad on the back page of PR Week - "We say it best when we say nothing at all". Too right.

PR stunt

Recruitment agencies

2006-07-07T10:18:00.000+01:00

The PR monkey was having a conversation with a recruitment agency yesterday about making an offer to a candidate, and the agent made an off-the-cuff remark that she couldn't remember that last time she got an inbound job-hunting call from the monkey's agency.

Encouraging stuff - and exactly what you want to hear as an employer.

The recruitment agent also said that some of the other PR agencies the candidate was interviewing with were, on the other hand, rich pickings for unsettled and disgruntled employees.

This got the PR monkey thinking that if he were a junior candidate on the market looking for his first move and trying to sort the good agencies from the bad and the ugly, then there's no better place to start than with recruitment agencies. A quick straw poll of different agents would probably give some interesting insight based on the annecdotal evidence given by hundreds or thousands of previous candidates.

Some recuitment agencies refuse to work with certain agencies, and many have 'black lists' of the worst sweat shops and down right horrific places to work.

So why not? As a junior, your first move is often a springboard for your career, so any information you can get that goes beyond the shiny facade that PR shops put up would be invaluable.

PR recruitment sweatshops

Will the real ...the world's leading... please stand up

2006-07-07T10:06:00.000+01:00

The PR monkey has been tipped off as to the identity of the occupant of ...the world's leading... towers.

And with having made a few scurrilous comments about some of the more fragile agency egos in the PR industry, the PR monkey wonders just how long it will be before the cat gets out of the bag and one of the big, bad agencies tries to shut the blog down.

PR ...the world's leading...

Bloggers bite back

2006-06-29T13:32:00.000+01:00

Some Scottish tennis chump made some comments about supporting 'anyone other than England' which have come back to haunt him.

Reminds me of the comments left on Gabriel Bastituta's personal site after the 2002 World Cup.

PR World Cup

World Cup TV schedules

2006-06-27T17:31:00.000+01:00

Is it just me or is Ronaldo getting fatter in each match? A pair of specs, longer hair and he could star as Rolly in Grange Hill: The Feature Film (check it out, it's on the cards - unbelievably).

Anyway, just in from the beeb:

The BBC and ITV have agreed the division of games for the quarter finals. The
games will be shown on TV in the UK as follows:
Friday 30 June

Germany v Argentina 1600 BST ko. ITV

Italy v Ukraine 2000 BST ko. BBC
Saturday 1 July

England v Portugal 1600 BST ko BBC

Brazil or Ghana v Spain or France 2000 BST ko ITV
The BBC games will also be streamed on broadband (UK only).

If England reach the semi-final stage, both BBC and ITV will show the game live,
with ITV showing the remaining semi-final exclusively.

If England do not reach the semi-final stage, ITV will have first pick of the semi-final games, with BBC broadcasting the other match.

Both broadcasters will show the World Cup final live.

All games will be on Five Live, with the commentary streamed on this website (UK only)

Thank god the BBC got the quarters as ITV's coverage has been worse than a long chat on the porcelain telephone after a heavy night on lager and vindaloo.

PR World Cup Porcelain Telephone

Google Analytics

2006-06-27T13:29:00.000+01:00

After reading a post by the PR Blogger, I've subscribed to Google Analytics. And I have to say, it's the mutts nuts.

Really fascinating to see who has been reading what, especially with the URL tracking feature.

By far and away the best tool Google has published to-date. Though I do have to say that it took a few weeks for the account to be set up and when you apply you get that usual automated arrogant response from Google along the lines 'Look, we're busy, you insignificant pimple on the blogosphere. We may, at some point, be arsed to get back to you. But don't hold your breath.'

Nice to know you're a valued user.

So here's something for Google to chew on while they proccess accounts.

Hell hath no fury like a PR monkey scorned (or, indeed, just mildly miffed).

PR Google

Congrats

2006-06-27T13:08:00.000+01:00

Congratulations to the CIPR Science, Engineering and Technology Sectoral Group for winning the CIPR Group of the Year award.

Well done Bob, Sam, Gary, Duncan and Andrew - a small, but highly talented executive committee!

And for all UK tech PR flacks out there - come and join in. This group does some great stuff and would welcome more committee members and people to get involved in activities and developing educational material & best practice tools.

PR CIPR

Genius

2006-06-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

You've just got to love this. It's a beauty!

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~kritip/managers%20job.htm

PR football

PR Weak Tech Top 50 table now out

2006-06-08T15:29:00.000+01:00

***UPDATE***

Call me mystic monkey, ...the world's leading... has now covered the tech league table story in its own inimitable style...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing too interesting - most agencies reporting healthy growth (apart from Bite who took an 11% bath).

Shame the SoX lot aren't in there, but ho-hum.

Oh, and a disingenious quote from Lewis that will undoubtedly fuel speculation in some of the more scurrilous quarters of the PR blogging community (cue ...the world's leading...) about fee dips.

I remember Lewis talking about an IPO back in '98 [disclosure: the PR monkey used to work there back in the day, for his sins], so it'll be one of the longest IPO run ups in corporate history (if it happens).

The table in its full glory can be found here [subscription required].

PR Tech PR

For the inner geek

2006-06-07T17:54:00.000+01:00

Dear Technical Support,

18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from Drinking Mates4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble. However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off.

To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as Boys Night Out 3.1, Football 4.5,and Playboy 6.9. Successive versions of Girlfriend proved no better. I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks.

Eventually, I tried to run Girlfriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other, they caused severe damage to my hardware. I eventually upgraded to Fiancée 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0.

While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with FreeSexPlus and Cleanhouse2003.

Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted. They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them.

Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail Filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Whinge. These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is. Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring ShoeShop Browser for new attachments and HairstyleExpress which needs to be reinstalled every other week.

Wife 1.0 also spawns unwelcome child processes that drain my resources. These conflicts with some of the new games I wanted to try out, warning me that they are an illegal operation. Also, when Wife 1.0 attaches itself to my Audi TT hard drive, it often crashes.

Wife 1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called Mother-In-Law, which can't be turned off.

Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2003, but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2003; it tends to delete all of your Money before installing itself.

Any ideas?

PR Inner Geek

Where did it all go wrong?

2006-05-17T12:09:00.000+01:00

At the PRCA conference last week, Jackie Elliot reminded everyone that in the 80s and 90s PR was the number one career choice for graduates. Quite where it sits today in the league table of preferred choices I don't know - but needless to say it isn't number one, and almost definitely isn't in the top 10.

I'm sure someone out there has compiled the relevant info, but I thought I'd let Google Trends do the work:

Green= 'chav', red= 'accountancy', orange= 'civil service', blue= 'public relations'

PR's stock really has fallen to a new low (interestingly though, it's still more popular than 'fisherman' (by a thin margin), so at least no-one needs lose any sleep if Captain Birdseye sets up his own agency).

What does all this mean? It means that those obnoxious self-obsessed PRs you occassionally bump into who think that they ARE making a difference and secretly believe that their friends are jealous of the power they wield, are in fact full of s**t - Google Trends says so. Just remind them that people are more interested in the civil service than his/her industry, and that becoming a chavved-up accountant is an almost cast-iron guarantee of minor celebrity-hood.

It also means that those agencies hell bent on turning the industry into nothing more than a purveyor of low-margin commidity services based on a sweatshop production model should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Graduates want to be consultants, not glorified call centre agents.

There are already too many McPR 2.0 agencies out there doing a 'Wal-Mart' to PR.

PR career

Mourinho can't buy it...

2006-05-15T09:49:00.000+01:00

Chelski may be fuelled by Russian oil dollars, but even Mourinho's bottomless pit of cash couldn't buy an audience of 11.3 million - the number of people tuning in to see Liverpool lift the cup on Saturday.

According to un-official figures from the BBC, the game was the most-watched sporting event of the year.

PR Liverpool FC

Same old tune

2006-05-11T10:56:00.000+01:00

Change must be the most overworked word in the PR industry's lexicon.

It was the theme of yesterday's PRCA conference, where speaker after speaker regailed the audience with near cataclysmic visions of the future if we didn't start 'changing' now.

But why couldn't anyone actually be specific about what actually had to change, how and with what impact?

New / social media was positioned as a catalyst for change (though some of the comms directors on the panel seemed underwhelmed by PR 2.0 - and clearly looked like they would vomit the next time they heard an agency use the words 'blog', 'differentiated' and 'service').

In the end, however, it was the same old stuff about services becoming commoditised, not being able to recruit and retain talent, and the threat to agencies of growing ranks of in-house PROs. Blah, blah, blah.

Tell us something we don't know.

It did make the PR monkey smile when Peter Jones, head of comms at BUPA, shared his recollections of reading a book about the end of the 'gin & tonic man', and it's message about the need to respond to change in the PR industry - written some 25 years' ago!!!

It was also refreshing to hear BT's Peter Morgan tell it like it is. He gave some interesting insight as to how most PR agencies pitch in completely the wrong way and don't understand how to sell themselves. He also shot Crispin Manners down when the silver fox misquoted him when asking an accusatory question. Seemed a bit of faux pas considering Peter's business must be a fairly significant chunk of Kaizo's fee income...

PR PRCA

"Christ Alive!...

2006-05-09T17:01:00.000+01:00

...He's a right c**t".

Genius.

If you've never watched The Thick Of It, then go out and buy the DVD. Otherwise you'll never know "what it's like to clean up my mum's piss".

A huge (if belated) congratulations to my neighbour Simon Blackwell (2nd from left) for winning a Bafta for Best Sitcom. Even if you did steal all the best gags of me... ;)

PR BAFTA Sweary woman

Name game

2006-05-05T12:20:00.000+01:00

About this time last year Burston-Marsteller came up with a classic term to describe influential groups of online opinion makers - e-fluentials. Brilliant. (The PR monkey had its own case of the effluentials on holiday after eating a dodgy goat curry).

Since then, the world has gone crazy with Jargon 2.0 - which has given birth to some interestingly named 'new meedja' PR service offerings:

Me2Revolution - jumping on your bandwagon
PR+ - good, could do better, with a little extra effort could have been PS-
PR 2.0 - still in beta

There must be more of these out there? Surely? And tip-offs welcome.

This is old, but Light Reading's take on 50 classic tech company names is a treat.

PR PR2.0

Trusting times

2006-05-04T12:01:00.000+01:00

The BBC has just published the results of a global trust survey (commissioned by the BBC, Reuters and US think tank The Media Center, and carried out by Globescan).

The findings reveal that blogs, unsurprisingly, aren't regarded as highly trusted sources of information (just as much as its difficult to know if Tracey Temple's claim in her diary that Two Shags' manhood is the size of a cocktail sausage can be taken as gospel).

According to the Globescan research, a majority of punters in the US actively distrust blogs, despite it being the promised blogland according to some of the more vociferous blogistas. Whereas South Korea, which is arguably the most advanced networked society in the world, believes in the word of the blog. But then again, this is the nation that brought you Moonies.

These survey results are perhaps a little more interesting than Edleman's Annual Trust Barometer, as they detail the levels of distrust in each country. The findings of both reports vary, but they do agree on one thing - Brazilians really distrust blogs and you're much more likely to successfully deliver your corporate message in Brazil by hiring an entertainer/athelete (only Edleman could lump these categories together - and it begs the question: could Pele become the virtual voice of god if he ticked both boxes by hosting Brazil's equivalent of Family Fortunes?).

The trouble is, bloggers are generally unaccountable and difficult to sue (as the Rubloid discusses here). Whereas MSM can be held financially accountable through the capital of trust - whether that's subscriptions, adverstising or libel.

In my mind, no amount of self-aggrandized blogging ethics will evert compete with cold hard cash as a way of engendering trust. Just ask any MSM publisher how important reader/viewer/listener trust is to their business.

For blogs to be trusted, they need to be financially accountable - and that means more than just the odd paid-listing click thru.

So if anyone would like to send a small donation to the PR monkey to keep him honest, you're more than welcome... :)

PR trust blogging

The old ones...

2006-05-02T14:10:00.000+01:00

...aren't always the best.

Remember the terminally annoying Ariston... and on.... and on... German electro-punk adverts in the early 1990s brought to you by Giuliano Gnagnati, the then UK MD?

Well, Intel and HP have decided to resurrect this jaunty little catchphrase in a joint marketing venture for Itanium and Integrity.

Not so much a Phoenix from the flames as a recycled turd from the sewage treatment plant.

PR Electropunk

Google bashing

2006-04-11T10:28:00.000+01:00

The saying that revenge is a dish best solved cold is rubbish. It's best served burning hot and preferably via a national media outlet.

Step forward Ben Cohen and his amazing rant about the failure of Google Adsense in this Times piece.

You can't buy negative PR like this.

Genius.

PR Google Click Fraud Adsense

2006-04-11T09:07:00.000+01:00

Coming soon... El Jefe...

Holiday monkey

2006-04-10T18:14:00.000+01:00

The PR Monkey is going on holiday later this week, so there will be a few less floaters in the pool over the next fortnight. Though he'll try and squeeze a couple more out beforehand, if he can

Trust me

2006-04-10T09:47:00.000+01:00

Flipping through Edelman's 2006 Annual Trust Barometer report, which came with last week's PR Weak, I was struck by a few things:

1. Europe = UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

An interesting shortlist given that Eastern Europe has some of the continent's fastest growing economies and will increasingly be a vital market for companies struggling to sustain revenue growth in Western Europe's saturated, mature markets. For example, mobile subscriber growth in Eastern Europe will be roughly 2-3 times AsiaPac's over the next couple of years (according to the GSMA). It would therefore have been nice to have had Edleman's thoughts on 'trust' strategies for Western brands entering new Eastern markets.

2. Gary Grates (pictured on pg 18) has a classic moustache. It's a shame that he's in a straight-on pose as it looks like he could be sporting a mullet to complete his folicle exuberance

3. In Europe, PR people are fractionally more trusttworthy than bloggers (who are the least trusted source of opinion)

4. Entertainers / atheletes are the least trusted source in the US, Asia and Canada. Whereas in Brazil, these chaps come higher than lawyers and unions

PR trust moustache

The Law of Mobility, but not as we know it

2006-04-07T11:25:00.000+01:00

Reading this blog this morning reminded me of McGuire's Law of Mobility.

Ross McGuire is director of business strategy at Sprint. Back in December of last year he published a whitepaper on the Law of Mobility (well worth a read - and not too tech).

McGuire's argument is essentially that the mobility of the 'product experience' significantly increases its (the product's) value.

For example, a 2inch TV screen is virtually worthless - until you embed it into a device that everyone carriers in their pocket, i.e. the mobile phone. Crackberrys are another great example where people are willing to pay for being able to manage email on the move, even though the device experience is worse than using Outlook on your desktop.

But reading TrailerParkRave sparked a thought that McGuire's Law of Mobility should be extended to include the 'service experience'. Mobilising a service signficantly increases its value - whether mobility means the service is network bearer agnostic (i.e. a user session can be seamlessly handed off between fixed and wireless networks without any service interruption or degredation), or that the service can be consumed in your-time (a la video iPod) and on any device (content adaption). A truly mobilised service can be accessed and consumed whenever, wherever and on whatever you like.

And, over time, the 'product experience' will become subserviant to service mobility through device convergence.

There are some signficant technology hurdles to overcome, one of the hardest being user session mobility, but service mobility will probably become a reality towards the end of the decade when operators have rolled out IMS and we all have cheap, universal access to wireless broadband.

And you thought that all that went through monkey minds was bananas, trees and humping.

Oooh, ooh.

PR mobility convergence

Comments are now on...

2006-04-06T16:28:00.000+01:00

...for all those kind enough to have dropped your floaters off at the pool. (And for those who haven't yet, there's plenty of room - but no stinkers or sloppy ones please).

Sorry for not having this turned on earlier - bit of a mess up at monkey central.

Oooh, ooh, ooh.

Is this lame? Part Deux

2006-04-06T10:34:00.000+01:00

Just had to share another corker from the BBC.

Stop the press: JK Rowling ran out of paper for 45 minutes when writing her latest book.

Rowling bemoans paper 'shortage'

Author JK Rowling has encountered a problem while writing her seventh and final Harry Potter book - a shortage of paper in her home city of Edinburgh.

When she finished her last pad during one recent writing session, it took her 45 minutes to find a shop in the Scottish capital selling a replacement.

Does this qualify as a whinge? Oooops, I think that might be linkbait. Oh b****cks. ;)

PR BBC Harry Potter

Is this lame?

2006-04-05T19:47:00.000+01:00

BBC reports on the French 'Blogger of the Year 2005' launching a new blog aimed at reaching out to an American audience.

Is this just me or is this a really banal story?

No doubt the blogistas will marvel at the fact that a MSM outlet is reporting on a blog, but is this really newsworthy?

Or perhaps the BBC has introduced a quota-based system for reporting on Web 2.0?

And would the BBC report if the UK equivalent started blogging for a French audience?

Too many questions, still at work and suffering from beer withdrawal symptoms. I'll get 'me coat.

PR France corporate slavery

PR 2.0

2006-04-03T17:40:00.000+01:00

Just stumbled across an agency using 'PR 2.0' in anger:

'Results not Activity' is the philosophy Agency x lives by. We deliver this through our unique approach to PR, which we have termed Agency x PR 2.0. Agency x PR2.0 is a new version of PR, which we developed to counter some of the negative factors pertaining to the industry - namely: too expensive; too intangible; too slow to deliver.

Do clients get ROI 2.0?

PR PR2.0

Genius

2006-04-03T15:16:00.000+01:00

Check this out as a great example of media subervision.

A warning of what happens when you go Web 2.0 crazy.

Woooaah there cowboy (hat tip to UK Press).

PR web2.0 chevy

PR 'will it stay in' Business

2006-04-03T09:03:00.000+01:00

How bad was the first copy of PR Business? PR Weak has nothing to fear if this first issue is the editorial tone of things to come.

Fellow PR monkey Stephen gets all excited about the burgeoning amounts of Tech PR coverage, but makes no comment about quality of the editorial. And it's no wonder PR Weak hasn't dedciated a page to Tech PR before if this is the poop that gets printed.

Perhaps both mags could fight over the services of fellow flack Adrian L who reveals the new low trade media has reached with this gem from UK Press:

Only this week I wrote a news story that appeared word for word in a publication as its page 3 lead. This was a result of pitching a client and then being asked to write the story up. I actually had to ring several of my client's rivals to get quotes from them which I had to present in a completely impartial way (in fact I led the story off about one of them, not my own client!).

In the words of Vince Noir, 'genius'.

PR

Friday fun

2006-03-31T15:04:00.000+01:00

***Disclaimer: More than happy to publish the bloke version if anyone cares to write it**

If women were teams............

Fulham - Charlotte Church: Proof that money can't buy you class. But could look more attractive if the Welsh bloke was given the elbow.

Birmingham - Pamela Anderson: Used to look good in the cups but now a declining force. Plus millions of people watched them get a good seeing to.

Wigan - Davina McCall: Poor attendances confirm they've been promoted above their ability.

Portsmouth - Girls Aloud: Only one real class act among the hastily assembled line-up. You shouldn't like them but admit it, you've sneaked the occasional admiring glance.

Sunderland - Kerry Katona: Once the people's favourite but now an embarrassment. Fun while it lasted - now disappear from where you came, please.

Spurs - Keira Knightley: Undeniably easy on the eye with an attractive English spine. And proof that two little ones up front needn't be a drawback.

Everton - Dannii Minogue: The poor relation to the more glamorous sibling. Can anyone remember when it was they were supposed to be any good?

Arsenal - Jordan: Were more likeable when they weren't packed out with expensive foreign implants.

Newcastle - Jodie Marsh: Impressive front two but embarrassing at the back. Had surgery but need a lot more work to compete at a higher level.

Aston Villa - Dido: Bland, boring and still trading off the one big hit they had years ago.

Liverpool - Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Individually all the components look great but stick them together and it just doesn't work.

Chelsea - Rachel Stevens: You'd rather just watch them than listen to all that painful whining.

West Ham - Vicky Pollard: Nothing more needs saying as a teams fans speak for themselves - Chav's in Chav's clothing

Bolton - Clare Balding: You wouldn't. Not even if they were the last team on earth

PR footy

Google AdWords league table

2006-03-30T10:51:00.000+01:00

Interesting but pointless experiment: type in "UK public relations agency" and select UK pages.

Below is the corresponding 'league table' of agency sponsored links:-

1. Beattie
2. Berkeley PR
3. Couchman
4. Red Kite PR
5. 72point
6. Punch Comms

So where are the big boys? Where are all those agencies spouting on about PR 2.0?

By the looks of it, there are no agency sponors of 'PR 2.0' yet. Wonder who will be the first?

PR google adwords

Lunatics running the asylum

2006-03-29T13:34:00.000+01:00

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following statistics?

29 have been accused of spouse abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year

Which organization is this?

It's the 635 members of the House of Commons.

Nice. No wonder reporting on political scandal is like shooting fish in a barrel.

PR politics

Ring of fire

2006-03-23T09:22:00.000Z

I'd have bet my house on it, and I wouldn't have been disappointed.

News yesterday that the England cricket team was inspired to victory by a rousing rendition of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire surely was a gift from the gods for the punsters at The Sun?

And there it was - a refence to burning hot curries in today's sports write up. No punster headline, but nonetheless a reference to the corrosive power of the UK's favourite meal.

Still, I was half expecting a reference to another cause of 'ring of fire' which various members of the team had fallen foul to during the tour. What was commonly referred to as Aztec Two-Step by the England 1986 World Cup team (held in Mexico - for those to young to remember, bless).

Delicious irony - ring of fire almost destroys the tour, and then inspires victory.

Still, if you play with curry...

PR cricket Aztec

Sound-bite-tastic

2006-03-22T14:51:00.000Z

They might have been months in development, but there's a couple of corkers in response to today's budget.

"Billions raised, billions spent. No idea where the money has gone. With a record like that the chancellor should be running for treasurer of the Labour Party"

"In a carbon conscious world, we got a fossil fuel chancellor"

PR budget

PR heal thyself

2006-03-22T09:29:00.000Z

One of our chaps from the 'pool came back from a briefing with a section editor of the one UK's top technology weeklies, and dropped a small bombshell.

During a pause in proceedings, the client was making small talk with said journo. It came up in conversation that the client had just appointed us and was really excited about starting to take the company's story out to the media. The journo, curious about things PR, asked who else had been on the pitch list. The client mentioned one of the UK's top tech PR firms (who shall remain anonymous - monkeys aren't like bunnys). On hearing the name of the PR shop, the journalist told the client exactly what he and all his colleagues think of this agency, the fact they delete incoming emails without looking at them, won't return calls, etc, etc.

I'm not sure what I find more shocking: the fact that this agency has been blacklisted by one of the top trade titles; or the fact that they clearly haven't realised yet.

An agency that can't build and maintain relationships with the media shouldn't be in business. PR agency, heal thyself like your little monkey nuts depend on it.

PR media relations

Rumbled

2006-03-21T21:12:00.000Z

77% of reports saying that surveys are PR flim-flam are wrong.

As long as we all agree that it's the truth, that's all that counts, right?

(Minus points for commenting on the obvious about bloggers being un-official, un-paid fact checkers).

PR surveys

Join the troupe

2006-03-21T11:20:00.000Z

Are you hairy enough? Do you like swinging? Want to work for peanuts?

Then join our monkey troupe and leave your floaters in the meme pool.

Just drop us an email if you'd like to sign up (only PR primates need apply).

Tags: jobs monkeys PR

Web 2.0 will eat itself

2006-03-21T10:36:00.000Z

I came across the following stats doing some new biz research yesterday. The list below shows search engines and their estimated coverage of the web (i.e. the percentage actually indexed):

Google - 69.6%
Yahoo! - 57.4%
Ask - 46.1%
MSN - 44.3%

It prompts the question: if we're all going to be myspace blogging joga junkies (as Web 2.0 sycophants would have us believe), exponentially increasing the amount of info out there, then will there be a point at which the percentage of the web indexed by Google et al actually decrease as we hit saturation point? Will the inane droppings of a PR monkey floating in the meme pool fall on deaf ears as no-one can acutally find anything? Will this floater push us over the edge?

Or will we need aggregators who go out there and distill what's interesting / important? Who become our mediators in this virtual dung heap of endless pap?

What would we call such a strange beast?

A journalist?

You use the MSM abbreviation, I say nuts. It's all the same, just different format.

Don't believe me? Ask Charles.

Tags: PR Web 2.0 monkey droppings

Joga

2006-03-20T17:38:00.000Z

Nike & Google are teaming up to create a footy social networking site. By the looks of it it's trying to do for 'soccer' what Myspace is to music.

But are footy fans up to it?

Can you imagine the knuckle-dragger on Match of Day 2 last night, whose main concern was that the club had run out of mince, oinion and gravy pies, being able to switch on a PC let alone converse in English with the pimply faced youths out there?

Nike probably won't care too much, however, if Google pumps loads of PR and marketing $$$$ into the project and it gets great brand exposure.

Real footy fans should get behind sites like this instead.

2006-03-17T16:20:00.000Z

Priceless

2006-03-17T15:59:00.000Z

From this week's Silicon.com Round-Up, to be sure:

Many of you will of course be aware that today is St Patrick's Day, so it's likely theatres and cinemas will be surrendering more customers than ever to the pubs and bars this evening as we all become parched Guinness drinkers for the evening.

However, one party invite for a St Patrick's Day bash thrown by technology PR agency 'Prodigy PR' last night for journalists and their client Creative caused a few raised eyebrows on the silicon.com editorial desk this week.

Getting into the spirit of things the company decided, as is customary, to go to town on the St Patrick's theme - including a drinks list of Irish-sounding cocktails. But there was none of the usual shamrocks and shenanigans for these folk.

Clearly these drinks were the result of a flawed brainstorming session.
Cutting to the chase, the brains behind the event decided it was appropriate to name a cocktail 'The Irish Car Bomb'.

It appears the thing they thought of when conjuring with the concept of Irishness was the brutal terror campaign of the IRA during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Nice. Pats on the back all round for everybody involved in that one.

Of course, today of all days, many Irish families tire of the usual, all-too-easily-wheeled-out stereotypes.

But the Round-Up isn't convinced that offering to replace these with the imagery of terrorist atrocities is really any more of a positive step forward.

Tags: PR