No Such Thing as Bad PR!

I don’t suppose acclaimed journalist AA Gill will be hurrying back to Norfolk anytime soon, judging by his rant this week’s Sunday Times.

Food writers are often criticised for their apparent unwillingness to travel outside of central London – and AA Gill clearly wants to make the point that, well, it just isn’t worth the trouble.

Not content with reviewing his meal, he turned the piece into an all-out, no-holds-barred attack on Norfolk:

…Norfolk lives up to its stereotype with wall-eyed, tongue-tied, spittle-flecked indignation. As you cross the border from Cambridgeshire, there’s a proud sign saying, “Norfolk, twinned with Narnia… This has always been a place apart. The hernia on the end of England. A flat, fertile, damp, dank land out of which has grown all manner of revelation and dour certainty. It’s a place of witches and heretics, of revisionists and canting contrarians…

Given the hot water the BBC Top Gear team found themselves in following their remarks about the Mexicans, AA Gill had better watch out.

There are whole armies of marketing and PR folks here in Norfolk who dedicate themselves to promoting the wonders of the county – and articles such as this certainly do not help.

The tourism and hospitality industries are tough places to make a living and an awful lot of people in Norfolk are doing the very best they can.

From a PR point of view I hope the .….does hit the fan and that Norfolk gets its chance to fight back and laugh in his face. After all - there’s no such thing as bad PR!

When PR is simply not enough....

Breaking news: Britain’s top banks are poised to hire a PR agency to rehabilitate the industry’s reputation among small businesses.

Oh, and it’s believed that there’s about £200,000 in the pot for the first six months.

From where I’m sitting, it’ll take more than PR to reposition banks as business’ best friend!

Off-shore call centres, lack of access to ‘business managers’, incredibly slow processing times for loan applications, hefty bank charges (for paying money in as well as taking it out), miserly interest rates, blatant disregard for their own ‘service promises’…..

What’s amusing – and alarming – is that someone, somewhere clearly thought that all it would take to sort the banking crisis out was a bit of PR.

And it’s not even April 1st.

Making PR Count - On the Bottom Line

The fascinating thing about helping businesses with their PR is that you get to find out what makes them tick.

In these tough economic times marketing and PR are easy targets – something that’s nice to have when there’s plenty in the pot, but easy to cut overheads when things get tough. Why? Well unless your marketing and PR can really be seen to be adding value then of course they’ll be considered ‘non essentials’.

Which is why you have to start at the beginning. Before the talk moves onto headline grabbing stuff, any PR professional worth their salt will want to understand what your business is all about.

For a start what are your goals, challenges, strengths – and weaknesses? What’s the competition like? how do they market themselves? and so on. It’s only then that a PR programme can be devised that is genuinely in tune with your business – one that is totally geared towards business objectives. Importantly, one that really adds value.

So if you’re serious about PR then be prepared to share (what might be sensitive information) and to be challenged. Don’t be impatient at the beginning – proper planning will ensure your PR is built on solid foundations. After all, who wants to live in a house built on sand?