GOODLINX: The downturn is killing planning; The rude Q&A; Why PRs and journos hate each other; Google gets out of radio, Ads are not branded content
The downturn is killing comms planning says Nathan Bush, but even if it’s frustrating, you can make the most out of it for your career:
“Watching the yearly plans “put on hold” while the economic world crumbled frustrated me endlessly. Instead of rolling out insightful and interesting campaigns I was organising short term campaigns with short term goals for short term results. It was merely survival. All my plans for world domination, early retirement and an award named in my honour were going to crumble as well! I kicked, I screamed and I got escorted by police. In the end though, I surrended. But now I am seeing the light, and the opportunity, that exists.”
The secret of fronting the press: ask yourself the awkward questions beforehand, says PR practitioner Alex McNabb:
“A rude Q&A can make the difference between taking and managing the most probing query in your stride or standing around looking like a slightly surprised goldfish while you try and think up some off-the-cuff response to that bolt from the blue. It also avoids the awful situation where more than one spokesperson is in that situation and they both give completely different responses in their panic.”
And from the same part of the world, you thought journos and PRs had a hostile relationship in Australia? Check out how they feel about each other in Dubai.
Thought that Google was going to gobble up the world? They’ve lost interest in selling print ads; now radio has gone the same way.
Branded content = advertising, right? No, argues Stickywood’s Kate Richardson:
“Yesterday a creative director said to me ‘an ad is really branded content, in this case it just happens to be 3 minutes long’. Um no. It’s not.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Never heard it called a Rude Q&A before, but it’s not a bad name.
One other tip – whatever you do, don’t put it in writing. If you do, you can guarantee the client will leave it soemwhere that the journalists can find it. For the same reason, never, NEVER write a memo about what the individual journalists are like. That can go well and truly wrong.
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