Sydney PR agency publishes bloggers charter
Sydney-based agency Network PR has become the first in Australia to publish a manifesto of how it plans to deal with bloggers.
In a posting on the agency’s blog on Friday, the company says it will treat online outlets in the same way as traditional media, including giving bloggers embargoed press releases and access to review material. It says it will also champion transparency including not paying for positive press.
Network PR’s stance was inspired by a furore over bloggers being paid to promote the TV show Lie To Me, many of who did not declare it.
In the posting, Lesley White, Network PR’s head of digital, says:
“We will treat online commentators with as much respect as traditional media warrant. What does that mean? Well where the budgets and our access to information and materials allows we will: Provide newsworthy insights that have not yet been made public; Give online media and commentators access to ‘talent’ whether it be in the form of written or verbal interviews, or simply ensuring that their questions are answered in a timely manner; Make sure they have access to the products, services or information we thought they’d be interested in speaking to their viewers or readers about, similarly to a journalist review program.”
She adds: “In short, the online media commentator will be treated as well as but not better than a traditional journalist or reporter. That means, a reasonable level of spend for them to be able to form an independent opinion on that product or service in line with whatever that industry does to educate, inform or advise the traditional media and reporters in that sphere.”
While Network PR has gone further than many agencies in formalising its approach, it is not the first one to refocus its team. Upstream PR switched to digital “views releases” at the end of last year.
But not every PR agency has made the switch. Earlier this month Duncan Riley highlighted on Inquistr that an agency offered him $10 to write about a new Australian online bank account. He said:
“Now besides the paid for post argument which can be left for another day, apparently $10 in the eyes of that PR firm at least is fair game for a blog with 1.5-2.5 million page views a month. Question is: would the same PR agency offer $10 for a post/ article on a Fairfax property? Obviously the answer is no. So why treat all blogs and bloggers as if they were backyard operations with small traffic?”
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Newsflash – agency to treat bloggers with appropriate respect. What next? PR through Twitter? How groundbreaking. Please, this should be a common understanding that requires no clarification. Payment for comment should always be disclosed and should be a “no go” zone for any reputable PR agency doing the best by its clients (and just quietly, fully agree with Duncan Riley – how insulting is an offer of $10 for favourable coverage? Can you imagine offering Alan Jones $10?).
Nat Bradford
Group Director Technology, PPR
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Agree completely with Nat. There is an etiquette for blogger outreach.
Yes, you are trying to communicate a message through a gatekeeper and at the end of the day no business wants bloggers posting about how they offered them dismal $, or couldn’t even communicate with them openly.
This is not a new phenomena, there just seems to be a lot of companies crossing the hurdle for the first time. And sadly too many tripping up.
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Well said Nat.
We actually take the view that bloggers rarely really want to hear from PRs but rather develop direct relationships with key people from the organisation, so this is where we spend our energy.
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A little bit of respect goes a long way – for bloggers, for media even (dare I say it) for consumers. Probably an appropriate yardstick in whatever approach you take!
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Should be “bloggers'”, ie. with an apostrophe. Unless you mean “Sydney PR agency publishes, bloggers charter”. Need a subbie?
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Yes, agree with you all. It should go without saying.
However, in an industry in which so many agencies just don’t get it, what is common practice to some is seen as groundbreaking by many
While ideally clients would engage directly with online influencers, not all have the resources to do that anymore than they are able to make calls to traditional media outlets. That’s where specialist online agencies come into their own.
fyi, This was not issued as a newsflash (we’ve used these guidelines for almost 3 years afterall) but as a blog post.
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isnt “paid for comment” advertorial??? i love how PR agencies scream “cash for comment” – when their entire job is trying to get media to do stuff so THEY get paid…
ditch PR, and just buy marketing in titles, both print and online – you will find the titles will WANT to work with you if you are supporting them!
you can get a much bigger return from a small marketing campaign with an editorial inclusion than just PR alone….
pr companies use that “cash for comment” thing to fill their own pockets!
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@Sean
Yeah, the AFR always run my editorial when my client buys a 1/4 page ad.
WTF?
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You have a point Sean.
I have been tracking requests for our media kits this year. PR enquiries are double the number of genuine advertiser enquiries.
And it’s all so the PR’s can demonstrate their worth by tracking the editorial space they receive and valuing it. Blatantly (or subliminaly) it is telling marketers that PR is better value than advertising.
Much to our financial detriment we give no priority to advertisers in terms of editorial. But you can see why some publishers do it. It makes sense.
In many ways, the seperation between church and state in this regard is being structurally corrupted.
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“And it’s all so the PR’s can demonstrate their worth by tracking the editorial space they receive and valuing it. Blatantly (or subliminaly) it is telling marketers that PR is better value than advertising.”
How dare the PR industry try and demonstrate it’s worth! Clearly we’re all a bunch of freeloading losers and we should start selling ads for a living.
PR (editorial) IS FAR MORE VALUABLE than advertising. Consumers buy/consume media for the editorial, not for the ads.
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As a new media producer and having worked with Lesley and Network PR, I think there is a lot the industry can learn from what they have done.
The big issue for online publications such as us is that we want to looked at seriously and given the some type of access that “heritage” media has. This is important not just credibility but also revenue generation. PR companies should realize that for most bloggers and new media types out there, this is a second job normally and should see that building their profile up with opportunities is the long road to having a successful outlet for future PR and isn’t tied down the the issue of “cash for comment” or any physical cost. Sure bloggers are also wanting to make money and make it their primary job, and PR companies should look at advertising deals related to their online outlets to help them step it up separate to the articles.
The cost of giving opportunities and including advertising plus getting community feedback is a lot less overall with us than traditional media, plus we can be a niche market and get the information to the people who really care about it. The up-shoot is that we are not going away and PR firms that workout a way to treat us equally will benefit from future-proofing their own brand and help bring their clients to the 21st century.
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You seem a bit hot under the collar there Scott.
All I am saying is that publishers need advertisers for their businesses to work. You need publishers to have audiences so you can get your messages across. If publishers have no business – you have no one to get the message to.
That’s all I am saying.
As for the PR industry demonstrating their worth. Perhaps you can use a metric that’s not advertising based? And while I am at it. Why claim credit for articles that had basically nothing to do with your PR firm?
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“If publishers have no business – you have no one to get the message to.”
I beg to differ. There are plenty of people to get the message to. It’s just that these days you don’t necessarily have to argue with some snotty ad sales exec that doesn’t understand that editorial and advertising should not, at any price, be linked.
The reader simply finds another outlet. Like online. Where information is travelling faster and where there are, actually, no ‘gatekeepers’. You wanna talk to your customer? You just go RIGHT ahead.
Spend the money directly on your customer, not advertising to buy your way into the debased currency of a publication where the gatekeeper is the ad sales team.
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@carrob
You first parra I agree with. However, publishers should focus on building an audience by delivering quality, compelling content to their readers, not by kow-towing to advertisers with free editorial. Your editorial independence is to be applauded as there are many straying from this path.
Most PR companies use many metrics to determine the effectiveness of their campaigns, one of which may be Equivalent Advertising Value – albeit a bit old skool and becoming increasingly irrelevant.
As for your final question, I dunno, why claim credit for articles that had noting to do with ‘your’ PR firm? Anyway, surely the client would know if they were getting handed a freebie by the publication. I’m sure the Ad Manager would make them WELL aware of it!
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Carrob makes an interesting point.
I have come across PR agencies who describe the result derived from a particular PR campaign as $Xm dollars of media value, based on column inches generated.
Is this now a discredited metric? For instance, it strikes me that one brand mention in a spurious survey of say, a questionnaire about whether we’re a nation of choclate lovers (you can have that one for free, PR folk…), is not the same as a full page ad.
But what is an effective measure of ROI from PR in any medium?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
@ alexander. You are absolutely correct. You can always go direct to the consumer. In fact, I think that large companies have to actually start becoming (or at least thinking) just like publishers. Although I am not sure what organisations have “snotty ad sales execs” managing the editorial process?
@Scott: I am not really blaming anyone. I think that the paradigms of what the media is and how it works is just changing so profoundly that there is no black and no white. The only constant (in my opinion) is that the key to success is editorial independence. Whether you be a blogger or the SMH. And creates it’s own set of problems specifically around the business model. becuase, at the end of the day THEY ALL rely on advertising.
@Tim: I think it is in many ways discredited. The weighting of how much promimenence a PR client receives in an article tends to be overlooked. As does the relative positivitey or (otherwise). Using ad rates as a metric is in many ways irrelevant. The true measure is the increased engagement with the brand. If an article 9that was positive) increased visitation to the website or generated inbound calls to the client. That could be measured. And interestingly, compared to the results from advertising.
The REALLY interesting thing would be if PR companies could somehow “deduct” bad publicity from this virtual ledger and end up with a net result.
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Just chiming in on pr metrics
The AVEs or advertising value equivalent methodology was discredited back in the early 1990’s.
Savvy pr companies started using media content analysis to look at both the qual and quant metrics.
For example, was it an important publication, did the key messages get a mention etc. Simple AVEs dont take into account negativity as Carrob mentioned – who wants to pay for frontpage SMH negative publicity?
Finally as social media is now part of the pr landscape the metrics once again are being assessed and adjusted. Today ‘engagement’ metrics rather than simple social media AVE (ie how many blog mentions -quant)are critical in understanding not only how a campaign is measured but using the insight for future strategy.
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Again very late but here comes my two cents.
PR and Advertising are not in conflict but should be treated on a business case by business case basis. They are not a do one at the expense of the other and most credible media practioners all appreciate this.
The two serve very different masters and therefore purposes. PR is serving the editorial needs of a media through access to or information from the client and the advertising serves as the direct communication from client to customer using the media as a platform.
Now we can argue around the circumstances where this is not necessarily the case but generally we should be very aware of this and respct it.
It’s not that big a deal till one tries to knife the other.
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@Jenni: Nice summation.
Somewhere this discussion got side-tracked in to PR vs AD industry debate – the point I was making initially was a fundamental understanding of your target audiences is what your PR company should be offering you.
For some of our clients, bloggers are actually the lead influencers. And given 99% of journalists are also bloggers in their own right, treating them differently is lunacy. Also bear in mind anyone with access to a computer is capable of blogging… let’s see magazine “x” match that kind of market reach.
Although it will not work for everyone, we’ve had global coverage generated for clients big and small in the consumer tech space by seeding information with the right bloggers.
Now, the payoff – how do you measure PR success?
Not to throw the baby out with the bath water, positive media hits are still a valuable metric provided they are assessed properly and not by sheer volume alone. The best results, in my opinion, come when the client ONLY uses PR as its chosen marketing tool and sells out of whatever box it happens to be shifting and drives unprecedented enquiries, traffic to website etc. ROI for clients doesn’t come any easier to measure than that.
@Scott – keep fighting the good fight.
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@Nat
Wow. You really don’t like advertising do you? I guess the ideal result for a PR company is when an organisation spends it’s entire marketing budget on PR. It’s a dog eat dog world and as someone in the PR industry I commend your honesty.
So the “Good fight” is attracting PR dollars at the expense of advertising dollars? I am assuming then that mainstream media is not on your radar for the future! And that too is a reasonable strategy to employ. I was simply wondering out loud what the future for mainstream media is if it relies on ad dollars to sustain it’s future viability.
The fact that you see this as a “fight” actually frightens me a little.
Lucky I am professional enough that I won’t hold it against the next person from PPR who calls me asking to review a trinket or go to the press conference for the latest Mastercard product!
Blogs are the future and mainstream media is dead.
Word. From the good people at PPR.
I am not being flippant here Nat. I am simply following your rationale to its logical conclusion.
PS – Does anyone here know if there are bloggers in Australia that make a living from their blogs directly?
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Hi Carrob,
The classic example of an Australian blogger making a nice living is Darren Rowse at Problogger. He’s Melbourne-based but has a global audience.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
@Carrob Your idea of a pr ‘ledger’ is intriguing. I will ponder on that some more.
However, as even my Nanna used to say, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear!”.
Many effective PRs liaise with journalists and commentators who start with a scathing story in mind, and the story ends up being only slightly negative or neutral.
Not because of spin or advertising spend in that publication, but because the journalist determined that the spokesperson who provided the information was 1. worth listening to and 2. that the information they provided was credible and worthy of considering or reporting.
.. hmm, ledger. Interesting.
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@carrob
The fact that you even feel the need to state you’ll be “professional enough that (you) won’t hold it against the next person from PPR who calls” is what is frightening.
BTW – Scott is an old colleague and that comment was intended in good humour, something you seem to lack.
Ever delivered the kind of results I described on a AUD$5,000 budget or less? Tried to buy half a page in in the SMH, AFR or Oz lately? 30 secs on commercial TV in prime time? A package from mainstream commercial radio?
But this whole discussion was about should bloggers be treated differently.
I work heavily in the consumer tech space with some of it’s largest brands – their ad spends are in the millions across all mediums, including TV , print, radio and online.
But when a client comes to us with a very limited budget and says what can you achieve, then that’s where the challenge lies.
Bloggers, the right ones, treated with appropriate respect and professionalism have delivered editorial results for some of our clients on a global scale, something mainstream advertising will never be able to match for the spend.
Importantly, the blogs have also allowed them have an open discussion with their audience (ie their customers), and be responsive to their demands, criticisms and, hopefully, praise.
Now, let me finish how I started, (with apologies to Lesley for the ironic use of the word “Newsflash”) – Newsflash: PR is not the only form of marketing.
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And I’m horrified at myself for apostrophising “it’s” incorrectly … I am going to burn in PR hell…
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@Nat No apologies necessary, truly. It’s all good discussion. Seems we need a whole other thread on metrics though.
btw, I’ve called the Apostrophe Police. They’ll be calling into your house very soon 😉
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Lesley,
Let’s chat by email about you writing a metrics guest posting for us…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
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what an interesting discussion!
however, most blogs in australia are pretty boring
sorry, had to be said….
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Witness new Forrester report citing ‘sponsored conversations’ as a legitimate blog marketing initiative:
http://www.forrester.com/Resea.....98,00.html
Personally, I don’t buy it for a second. If a marketer is paying for something, then surely the suggestion is they are going to get something positive in return? This is always going to skew the bloggers ‘reporting’. I wonder how many bloggers are currently engaging is ‘sponsored conversations’? And what does this do for their cred?
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