Clients who fall into the latter category do so because they hold the belief that the aforementioned programs are determined to create a negative spin in every story and appearing on those shows will result in disaster for their business.

Having worked in the PR industry for ten years and before this time as a researcher on A Current Affair, I would advise the more cynical and suspicious business owners out there to have an open mind.  I would suggest they way up the risks before ruling these two shows out of their publicity strategy.

All the stories that we have pitched to ACA and Today Tonight and that have been picked up by them have resulted in a fabulous plug for our clients and an immediate and dramatic increase in sales and credibility.  This is despite the fact that due to the formula of these programs they often include a ‘sceptic’ or ‘critic’ as part of the story.

For instance, a couple of years ago, ACA ran a seven minute story about a client of ours who sells a handheld therapeutic device that relieves pain. The entire story was extremely positive and three case studies were interviewed, whose lives had been improved drastically thanks to the pain relief offered by our client’s product. A sceptic was also interviewed, who said that the product was rubbish, didn’t work and was basically a waste of money.

Despite the sceptic’s opinion, many of the people who suffered from pain and happened to be watching the show at the time thought it was worth giving this product a try. Needless to say, the company’s sales experienced a steep spike along with their credibility.

Some tips when considering a pitch to a current affairs program are:

• Don’t be surprised if they also interview your competition
• Be prepared for a sceptic to be filmed who will be negative about your product/service
• Be as helpful as you can with the production team, as the more time and flexibility you can give them the more chance you will have great airtime
• Know your key messages and don’t beat around the bush when answering interview  questions
• Make sure you have enough stock in place, so that if you are flooded with orders,  they are able to be fulfilled
• Ask the producer about the angle they are using for the story

Have you appeared on a current affairs program and noticed a dramatic impact from the publicity?  I’d love to hear about it.

This might sound rather dramatic but at the end of the day, what interests readers/viewers/listeners is human interest stories. We are all human and whether you deny it or not, most of us are fairly voyeuristic and curious about what other people are doing and how they are living. This is why reality TV shows have taken off in such a big way.

One of our functions as a PR agency is to learn about our clients businesses and create interesting angles or story hooks that would be of interest to the media. Offering up interesting case studies is one great way to secure media coverage.

For instance, if you own a clinic that helps people recover from their addictions, the media would be much more interested in talking to an ex-addict who used your service rather than just you, the business owner. Through your client’s story, the journalist can explore the process of the treatment from somebody who has actually experienced it and had their life changed by it.

Case studies don’t always need to be life or death situations. If you are in the business of skin treatments, make-up, body shaping products or anything that helps people feel/look better, your customers would all be effective case studies.

If you help people to save money by providing cost effective mortgages, a journalist would be much more interested in about how your services helped your client save so that they could go on their much longed-for holiday.

I do have one word of warning about case studies however. Once they have agreed to be profiled in the media it will not work in your favour if your case study changes their mind at the last minute. Journalists hate nothing more than being offered a story idea/talent and being let down at the last moment.

Have you secured media coverage by offering up a case study?

If you are thinking about engaging in PR activity to build your brand awareness this year, I have one very important piece of advice for you.  Please keep media deadlines in mind.

I understand if you do not work in the media industry there is no reason why you would know when journalists’ deadlines are for the range of different media that is available in this country. This is why I think it’s important to enlighten you so that you make sure you begin working on your campaign early enough so that all the media opportunities can be utilised.

Journalists who write for long lead media (e.g. monthly magazines), are generally working on stories that will be published in three-to-four months’ time. Some examples of magazines that fall into this category are Vogue, Madison, Harper’s Bazaar, Notebook, FHM, Ralph and GQ.  This means that if you lock in a story tomorrow, it is likely to be published three-to-four months from now.

Importantly, each media outlet has a different lead time. Newspaper supplements and magazines range from weekly to monthly lead times (eg. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living or Sun Herald’s The Sunday Magazine), while the news team will operate on a day-to-day basis. 

Publicity on radio or television can be much more immediate, particularly if your story is linked to an event or situation that is happening at the time of pitching. If a television program such as A Current Affair produced and filmed a story around your product/service that was not particularly timely because it didn’t relate to a current situation, it may not get a run straight away.

The most immediate media exposure that can be expected to be seen in a PR campaign is online press as the story will be uploaded as soon as it’s written.

Sounds complicated?  Actually, it can be pretty confusing to the uninitiated. This is one of the reasons why you may pay good money for a PR company to handle your media relations, as timing is one of the expertise they bring to the table. When we work with clients we endeavour to find out as much as we can about what they have forecasted for the following six-to-12 months.  We then incorporate this information into a strategic timeline and ensure we do not miss out on valuable opportunities due to timing.

I cannot tell you the number of clients who called us in mid-to-late November 2009, hoping they were not too late to achieve media exposure for their products in the lead-up to Christmas.  Unfortunately, it was too late to take advantage of what would have been a great opportunity had they contacted us in July!

I attended a fantastic one day workshop for directors of PR companies on Friday, which was put on by the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA).

The  day was full of fabulous information and inspiring thoughts about pricing, measurement, human resources etc but the most interesting and entertaining session of all was by a company called Inventium – an innovation company that aims to link science to creativity in order to help organisations generate better solutions.

Anyway, the presenter passed on a few great tips for thinking more creatively that I thought small business owners could benefit from. It certainly helps us in the game of PR where creativity is a key factor in gaining recognition for the brands we represent.

The first tip was about assumptions. The presenter explained that if you are facing a problem or having a brainstorm about how to solve something, write down everything you assume about the topic and then crush the assumption. This will be the basis for a lot of out-of the box thinking.

The example given was about a business whose assumption was that the business could only make money from the hours they worked. They crushed the assumption by saying the business could make money while they slept and came up with a technology solution that allowed for a passive income.

The second idea for being more creative is also incredibly simple but extremely effective. The next time you are brainstorming to come up with a solution or an idea, how about inviting a completely objective outsider into your brainstorm? It could be your local coffee barista, your gym instructor or the local postie. It can be absolutely anybody in actual fact.

You can rest assured that an outsider will bring in ideas that you may not have thought of and have a completely fresh perspective on whatever you’re working on.

The last tip is really easy because you don’t need to rely on anybody else to do it. Simply clench your left hand into a fist for two minutes before your next brainstorm. Doing this activates a circuit on the right hand side of the brain that when activated ‘switches on’ creativity.

Give it a go and see what happens.

Happy brainstorming!

I meet with many marketing managers and business owners who are about to launch a new product or product line, online business or service and they assume, or have often been advised, that the best way to go about the launch is to throw a fabulous party.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to a fabulous bash to celebrate just about anything, but when it comes to return on investment I always recommend slamming on the party brakes and thinking of more effective ways to communicate with stakeholders, particularly those in the media.

Journalists receive more invitations to launches than they know what to do with so the chances of them showing up at all are relatively slim. If they do honour you with their presence they will enjoy the free drink, nibbles and goody bag but chances that they will actually write or report on your exciting new venture is not all that high. This is unless of course your product/business is exceptionally newsworthy in which case they are likely to report on it without attending a party.

We find that if you use a more personal approach to target media, you will receive far greater rewards for your efforts and save precious dollars while you are at it.

Let me give you an example. WordStorm PR represents an international shoe brand that recently launched a new collection and we wanted to introduce the range to fashion journalists, whilst enforcing the key message that the shoes are ideal for maintaining healthy feet.

Instead of organising a grand party we hired out a luxury spa, branded a couple of their rooms and invited a targeted list of journalists to a one hour foot pampering session. Seventy five percent of journalists who were invited agreed to attend.

Before the session they were shown the range, while key concepts of the designs were discussed. We found out which shoes they liked the best and the day after the treatment we sent them their favourite pair.

The tailored experience was extremely effective with 60 percent calling in shoes for stories they were working on within the next two weeks and 20 percent contacting us about the shoes after this time.

I can guarantee that we would have had far less impressive results had we thrown a party and it would have cost more than triple the price.

So if you want to organise a party, be my guest (or maybe I can be yours) but be clear about your objectives. If you are doing it to have fun, as an excuse to buy a new outfit or to celebrate your achievement, go for it!  If you are doing it to gain maximum media exposure, please think again.

One of the questions that we are asked often by our clients is whether we would recommend engaging a celebrity to endorse their product.

Our answer is always the same – do not hire a celebrity to boost your PR campaign as journalists will not write about something just because someone famous is plugging it. The other thing we point out is that endorsing celebrities is an extremely costly exercise so don’t even go there unless you have a budget that includes more than a few zeros.

When I try to recall celebrities and the brands they endorse a handful come to mind – Olivia Newton John raving about Nintendo’s memory game, Delta Goodrem saying she only drinks So Good and Australia’s Oarsome Foursome keeping fit and healthy by eating Gouldburn Valley Fruit.

The reason these names stick in my mind is because the brands have all invested a huge chunk of their marketing budget into both print and broadcast advertising campaigns that incorporate these celebrities raving about the product.

On the other hand if we were to send a press release to journalists saying that Olivia Newton John loves playing with her Nintendo we would most likely be asked for an interview to discuss everything but her endorsement and the release is very likely to experience a one way journey to the recycling bin!  Reason being, this is simply not a newsworthy story – it might make a lovely (and hopefully effective) advertisement that returns a good ROI for Nintendo but it is not a newsworthy angle for a journalist writing an article.

I can think of plenty of other angles about this product (Nintendo – you know where to find me) that would make a great story but the fact that they have a brand ambassador is not one of them.

There may be one exception to this rule and that is when it comes to celebrities endorsing a weight loss service or product.  Magda Szubanski has very publicily lost a quarter of her body weight with the help and sponsorship from Jenny Craig.  Not only has Magda appeared in paid advertisements for the brand, but she has had several feature length articles written about her weight loss.

We all know certain segments of the media love writing about losing weight so providing them with a high profile person to focus on, they will snap it up.  Jenny Craig obviously did very well from this high profile weight loss crusade as Dicko is now launching the Jen4Men brand.

The other thing to consider is celebrities playing up.  Drink driving, drug busts, lewd behaviour, weight that has been regained – it may get your brand publicity but not necessarily the kind you are looking for.

Have you had any positive or negative experiences with using celebrity brand ambassadors or can you recall any fabulous or disastrous examples?

When we are assessing whether a stunt is the most appropriate option for our clients we consider the all important factors such as the objective of the stunt and the budget that will be required to create the desired attention.  If these two elements are in synergy then the fun begins as we put on our creative and logistic hats and get to work.

We usually suggest to clients that the appropriate budget for a well produced stunt is $10K.  These expenses generally include promotional people, council permits, materials required (marquee, music etc) and sampling materials.

One of our clients is Sweet William who has just launched a chocolate MUD spread, (contains 60 percent less sugar than its competitors). The team at Sweet William really wanted to do some sort of stunt, however due to a limited budget weren’t keen on allocating too much money to the exercise.

So yesterday a male model (and a damn good sport) was painted in the MUD spread. He walked around the city in the early morning pedestrian traffic wearing nothing but the mud that was painted on his body, black speedos, MUD branded gumboots and hat. He attracted the curious attention of passers-by and was even licked by one woman at a bus stop.  Check out the pics on WordStorm’s facebook page.

The objective was to attract consumer’s attention (big tick there) and the attention of at least one media outlet – pics will be published in mX today. So overall the objectives were achieved and the budget was under $2K.

Some more commonly used themes for stunts include creating a Guinness World Record, creating a ‘scene’ in a public area for example using sand and other materials, or creating a branded party scene.

As you can imagine the above examples would have cost far more than $10K, but in each case the stunts received a great deal of media coverage and exposure.

Can you recall any stunts that really got your attention?  Do you think stunts are a good idea or just a waste of precious cash?

For those of you who aren’t aware, there has been a bit of a debate this week between PRs and journalists which has highlighted what can go wrong when offering a journalist an exclusive.

I have had difficult experiences with exclusives on both the journalist and PR side. In my role as a researcher on Australia’s leading current affairs program I spent countless hours setting up a story around the opening of Fox Studios in Sydney. I was promised that my program would be given the exclusive and therefore we went to a lot of effort to create an amazing story. We arranged for a group of children from the Starlight Foundation to be the very first people to experience Fox Studios and all it had to offer (which was a lot more than it offers now as the production side of the venue was in full swing.) All went well with the filming, the story was set to run for a particular night the following week and we had even promoted the exclusive segment. Much to my horror the competing current affairs program ran a story launching Fox Studios the evening before ours was going to air. I felt betrayed, confused and angry, (my boss was just plain angry) and it made me very, very wary of getting involved with exclusive arrangements in the future.

On the PR side WordStorm was hired by a successful American company to create publicity for its director and visit to Australia in January. As it was as high profile company, business journalists were very keen to interview the gentleman. One newspaper journalist requested an exclusive interview therefore we arranged for the director to contact the journalist from his airplane so that they could put the story to print before the other journalists interviewed him. At the last minute the journalist cancelled the interview and the exclusive which was extremely embarrassing for us and, as we had scheduled all the other interviews around their needs, rather inconvenient.

Because of my experiences I have a clear view about exclusives – things can and will go wrong, so accept or offer them knowing the risks and hope that both sides keep their word. Occasionally things happen that are out of the control of the individuals which is just bad luck on everyone’s side.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with sending gifts to journalists as long as it is just that – a gift.  As my fellow WordStormer Kimberly Lee responded in the Mumbrella debate, a genuine gift is one that is given without expectations of receiving anything back.

For example the editor of a certain business magazine had a birthday last week and we sent her a bunch of flowers. We did not do this to suck up, get noticed or as bribery to publish our clients’ stories. As we are business associates, we simply knew it was her birthday and wanted to recognise the occasion with flowers.

Obviously if you want a journalist to review or write about a product it makes sense to send them the product or offer the service so that they can sample it for themselves. I do not view this as sending gifts as bribery but rather letting them experience the product or service for themselves so that they have a sound base to write about it.

If you are going to send product of any kind to a journalist in my experience it is best to ‘dress it up’ in a creative concept so that it makes impact when it lands on their desk.

For instance when I was working as a researcher at A Current Affair we received a press release about an online supermarket in a miniature shopping trolley.  It was cute and quirky and this little trolley really got our attention – or mine anyway! Needless to say the online business enjoyed a good five minutes of prime time airtime and reaped the reward for months to follow.

In summary I think that everyone including journalists loves receiving presents.  If you’d like to touch another human being with a kind gesture then send away, otherwise save your money and just pitch a relevant angle to the correct person within the publication or production and enjoy a great result.

The reason for my procrastination was that I am time poor and between checking my BlackBerry constantly for emails that needed actioning, logging onto Facebook daily, running my business and looking after my young children I couldn’t see how I would possibly fit Twitter into the equation.

Well, I finally did it.  I am glad I did and I have learnt a few lessons about how to use Twitter productively and not waste too much time on it:

1.    When you join Twitter it is very tempting to follow all kinds of celebrities because you feel like you have a direct line to someone who previously seemed completely out of reach.  My recommendation is not to bother. At first it was extremely exciting to read Ben Stiller’s tweets and feel like we were long lost friends but how long can you fool yourself? The novelty wears off very quickly and you are left with lots of meaningless tweets that serve no purpose at all.

2.    It is worth following people that you’d like to create a relationship with. If you own or work for a fashion brand, it is a good idea to follow fashion journalists who have a Twitter account.

3.    Do not bombard Twitter with sales messages or you will be blocked by all and sundry. It is possible to promote your brand using Twitter but you have to be clever about it. For example Levi Jeans have been giving away jeans on various days in the last few weeks. They simply send tweets and a link to an image of where they are located and announce that you if come to this location and mention that you saw the Levi tweet you will receive a free pair of jeans.  In the lead up to the giveaway Levi sends multiple tweets with picture clues as to where they are heading.  Levi’s tweet is only a few weeks old and they’ve already got over 300 followers.

4.    The main thing to keep in mind is to have a firm idea about what you’d like to achieve from your Twitter account, and keep that objective in mind when you write tweets or opt to follow people.

5.  There are many applications such as Tweetdeck.com which can be downloaded to help you organise your Tweets and not waste precious time refreshing your page.

As a PR company we are following a range of journalists and other PR companies and from this valuable PR opportunities for our clients have reared their heads each week.

Have you had amazing opportunities appear from being active on Twitter or are you finding it’s wasting too much of your time?