Archive for category: Look Who’s Talking

Yara Hamarneh, Digital Strategist at Cheil MENA talks about how brands can boost their credentials with collaborations…

“Commercial success demands having a product for people to buy on top of an idea for them to buy in to, and one of the most powerful ways of facilitating this in our industry today is through collaboration”

Advertisers are often criticised for forgetting the fact that growing a brand is about selling products, as well as educating consumers. Commercial success demands having a product for people to buy on top of an idea for them to buy in to, and one of the most powerful ways of facilitating this in our industry today is through collaboration.

A collaboration may take many forms, including unique products and content, special editions and events, and it does not always have to involve big names or players.

In our region, celebrity endorsement is a popular form of collaboration widely used by big brands. L’Azurde and Elissa, Western Union and Amr Diab, Splash Fashion and Nicole Saba are simply a few examples. Another successful example of collaboration is Batelco’s gaming league partnership with Vortex gaming centers in Bahrain, which is targeting youth through a major passion point. Globally, we find examples of collaborations that can create deeper business value; Puma signing with Rihanna as Puma’s creative director for women’s products is an excellent example of collaboration done well. Adidas has also worked on a range of footwear with Pharrell Williams and the ubiquitous singer/producer is collaborating again on his ‘Bee Line’ collection with Timberland. Such collaborations can create value from a very early stage and this is carried out all the way from product creation to endorsement.

But what’s becoming increasingly important is the symbol that defines the collaboration – the symbol ‘X’.  This is a mathematical symbol that we all grew up calling ‘times’. More powerful than + (plus), it is the multiplier and when sales targets are subject to pressure, there is value in multiplying the equity in partnerships. It’s a symbol of collaboration that is becoming easily recognisable to consumers and to shoppers.

X signifies something new and worth looking out for to consumers. It is a form of syntax that could become as important to retailers as ‘new’, ‘free’ or ‘sale’.  It also enables a retailer to engage with shoppers, drive footfall and sales, and simultaneously strengthen relationships with customers through equity borrowed from collaborators.

The birth of digital & social media has boosted the number of brands’ collaborating with people, leading to crowd-sourced products, and ideas; all forms of collaborations with the power of X. We all still remember the Lay’s new chips flavor created as a result of collaboration with people on social media. Today, however, we see brands tend to follow the easier, safer, (and probably more expensive) collaborations on a digital front, which are all represented in a few endorsement posts by influencers that are, most of the time, irrelevant to the brand.

Collaborating with influencers can create much greater value to brands if they apply the same crowdsourcing formula that had been followed previously. Creating a deeper collaboration based on involvement will result in stories and positive personal experiences rather than promotional posts, thus allowing people to fully buy into your brand’s idea.

Rachel McArthur, Managing Editor of Digital Ink offers her thoughts on the pitfalls that many PRs fall into in the UAE, and how to overcome them…

“It’s that age-old battle of Editors vs. PRs, and vice-versa. We’re the Tom & Jerry of media, constantly provoking each other.”

PR: you can’t live with it; you can’t live without it. At least that’s what the majority of us journalists say. If you’re a Twitter user – or Facebook friends with media folk – chances are you have come across posts complaining about the state of PR, or journalism – or both. Yup, it’s that age-old battle of Editors vs. PRs, and vice-versa. We’re the Tom & Jerry of media, constantly provoking each other.

In all seriousness, neither is that bad and I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of annoying someone in the past. But when it comes to the most regular PR mistakes, myself – along with some close journo friends – thought we would highlight the most common sins:

1) Calls, Calls, Calls
This is number one on the list for the majority of journalists. Let me set the scene for you – you’re hard at work trying to meet client deadlines, but you keep getting distracted thanks to friends calling you up every 15 minutes about plans for the weekend. If you took every single call, you will have achieved next to nothing by the end of the day.

And that’s what it is like for us. For example, today my phone went off at least twice every hour for things that were not urgent. If you have sent me an email release and it is interesting/relevant, chances are I’ll probably use it. Maybe today, or later on in the month. But please don’t call me to check that I have received it.

Personally, I am also not a fan of phone pitches as I have the memory of a goldfish, and so if it is not on email, I will have forgotten about it by the end of the day. The only time calls are okay is when something is urgent.

2) Know Your Audience
A little research goes a long way in establishing good relationships with Editors. A release that is not relevant to my publication is like junk email – totally useless. If I am a celebrity writer, chances are I won’t be interested in covering the Dubai Business Forum. The opposite also happens – when a PR doesn’t approach the right people. Only last week somebody was telling me about a car launch event where the UAE’s top three motoring Journalists were not invited as the newly-appointed PR agency had no idea who they were. Oops…

3) Not responding to queries
A good PR professional is someone who is happy to talk at all times – not just when they have an event or press release etc. I have lost count of the times I have reached out with a query, only to have my email(s) not even responded to. Granted, a lot of times it is down to the client themselves, but clients need to understand that it’s just like customer service: they can’t just acknowledge good feedback and ignore complaints… people won’t respect your position in the market if you’re weak.

4) Images & WeTransfer
Why do some PRs send out a release without at a single decent image? An image resolution that will work for web might not necessarily work for print, therefore, always prepare high-resolution photos. But even worse than bad images are images sent via WeTransfer, and here’s why:

a) If it’s not a breaking news story, chances are we won’t need the images straightaway (e.g. product images, restaurants etc.), so we’ll label the email and refer to it later. Unfortunately, by the time we get back to it, the WeTransfer link has expired! Why not use Dropbox or Google Drive? Make it easy for the journalist to refer back to your releases and you’ll increase your chances of coverage.

b) WeTransfer takes ages to download, especially when the file is over 500MB in size. Dropbox allows us to browse/choose the images we download, as opposed to downloading a massive file just to use one image.

5) No, I am not a blogger
Yes, there are some massively influential bloggers out there, but there are also quite a few who have bought their way to the top (you know who you are). Don’t mix Journalists with Bloggers… we’ve spent years in this industry, we work hard, and we have crazy deadlines. So when organising interviews, for example, it goes a long way if you prioritise journalists who have to go back to the office asap and file copy. A friend of mine – who works with one of the UAE’s leading radio stations – was made to wait for two hours at a recent celeb event because some bloggers were given interview slots before her. This is despite the fact she had to go on air later on that afternoon, while chances are the bloggers posted their stories later on in the week.

6) Missing important info
Got listings/info for shopping pages? Send me product names, images, prices and stockists, and I will love you forever and ever. You’ve just saved me an email requesting missing info.

7) Being told I will get something for free
And finally… a Journalist will cover a story, because it is interesting and/or it is of interest to their readers, NOT because they will get something in return. Please don’t send me an email inviting me to an event with a note at the bottom saying: “If you attend, you will receive X, Y or Z.” If your event/story is strong enough, you won’t need to bribe people to come. Right?

Now, I know this doesn’t apply to everyone and I’m sure our PR friends have lots to say about Journalists/Editors as well… so I’m looking forward to reading that post! Who’s brave enough?

 “A company without a communication strategy is like a ship without a compass”

In an age where demonstrating results of PR campaigns and the ROI of communication spend is increasingly important, I am still amazed when I come across an organisation that is running full-speed with little or no communication strategy, project plan or activity calendar in place. Inside such organisations, panic sets in whenever the C-Suite demands a press release (often the demand is not newsworthy), when a journalist requests an interview, or product managers demand an awareness campaign.

A company without a communication strategy is like a ship without a compass – meaning that the communication will only ever be ad-hoc, a waste of time AND resources, and at best reactive. Reporting on the success of the communication programme without a proper strategy is impossible, and at best can only deliver a coverage report stacked full of clippings.

Fortunately for those who have yet to put a communication strategy in place, the fundamentals of strategy are the same regardless of what industry, type of communication (PR, investor relations, employee communication), or the medium you think you should be using. In a nutshell, communication strategy must cover at a minimum: research, objectives, approach, tools/tactics, resources/budgets and evaluation.

The real power of a communication strategy is identifying how it fits into the bigger organisational picture – how it supports the overall objectives, such as reputational, business growth etc. This is the big picture question that asks ‘what is the point?’.

When building a communication strategy, the first step is to completely understand the reason communication is needed. Is it to support a business plan, an individual project, or activity? You need to ask ‘what is the point?’ before going down the road of building your strategy.

Strategy is more than the glue that holds tactics together; it provides direction and rationale for everything that we do in communications. Without it, we would stumble aimlessly through a darkened business forest and can be successfully challenged and undermined at every step by one simple question: why?

Brandon Ancier, Head of Growth at TINT offers his thoughts on the ever prevalent #hashtag and how this has not only influenced the personal and professional sphere, but changed it…

Hashtags escaped Twitter and spread, like a plague, to Facebook, to Instagram, to everyday speech.

The hashtag arose in 2007 as a way to categorise and ‘tag’ tweets. It slowly gained traction, until 2009 or 2010 when suddenly hashtags (and their users) went rogue. These errant tweeters took hashtags from their good and purposeful tagging function, and changed them into something terrible – a form of parenthical commentary on the rest of the tweet.

Hashtags escaped Twitter and spread, like a plague, to Facebook, to Instagram, to everyday speech, where it is now acceptable to say things like ‘I love you guys! Hashtag blessed!’

Yup. The hashtag is a linguistic tumour. But do I think hashtags are destroying the English language? No. However, if they’re not destructive, what are they? Here’s what I found:

• Hashtags are ‘ Paralanguage’ – Paralanguage is something you already use, every day. It’s the non-verbal cues that accompany speech and help us express meaning and tone – shoulder shrugs, intonation, facial expressions. But in the world of text, it is difficult to communicate these non-verbal ideas, such as sarcasm or self-mockery. Hashtags have expanded that ability drastically. When we now complain about tangled headphones and append #firstworldproblems, it shows we know our own complaints are ridiculous. Hashtags are not a tumour – they help us add a much-needed tonal layer to our communications.

• Hashtags are our Greek Chorus – In 2012, when spoken hashtags were first causin’ a ruckus, New Republic published an article that claimed hashtags were a sign of our modern times – part of a recent trend to see ourselves in the third person. Saying “Hashtag happy” elicits a mental picture of the speaker viewed from a distance, labeled with the word happy. In this framework, hashtags are a way of distancing ourselves from our own words as a commentary on what we’ve just said or experienced, a shift in viewpoint from first person to third person, similar to the narrator of a book or a chorus in a Greek play. Hashtags are serving as a very ancient literary device.

• Hashtags were always meant to mimic speech – The written word and the spoken word have always influenced each other in their formality. In the past we spoke more formally because of how formally we wrote. In the present, we write less formally because of how informally we speak. Speech and writing influence each other, and always have. The way language trends develop and words become popular IRL (in real life) is mimicked on Twitter. We really are writing how we talk.

What does this mean for language? Well, linguists are pretty much divided. Some say verbal hashtags are a passing fad. Others don’t. But in a recent Mashable article, Linguist Gerard Van Herk argues that Internet speak has made us smarter: “Today’s youth are much more aware of the social and stylistic uses and meanings of different genres and language types, and are able to discuss them using metalinguistic terms like meme,” he writes. Yeah. That’s right. We’re the generation that uses METALINGUISTIC TERMS in everyday speech. Feel brilliant yet? Good.

So, if you’re trying to create a hashtag that will stick, there is at least one lesson we can take from the linguistics: Hashtags that straddle multiple uses (tagging and paralanguage, narrative and the informality of speech) are most likely to be successful.

But a common failure with hashtags? They often only use the tagging function of hashtags – not the metacommentary function, or the paralanguage function. There is an easy litmus test to avoid creating the #corporatehashtagthatnoonewilluseever. Ask yourself: Would you say it in daily speech? Would Justin Timberlake?

The answer should be yes.