British Airways are adopting a proactive online presence in advance of cabin crew strike action planned for later this month.

From a comprehensive strike information section on their website (including a video message from CEO Willie Walsh), to an active twitter account advising customers of the latest strike news, they appear to be going all-out to use the online environment to inform and reassure customers.

From the other side, trade union Unite has a section of its own website dedicated to latest news, complete with video and link to their dedicated twitter feed.  There is also an aggregator site that ranks high on google, carrying strike-friendly news, while remaining rather coy about its affiliation.

It’s going to be interesting watching both sides slug it out online over the next couple of weeks.

posted by gemmaT

It looks likely that the Advertising Standards Authority (who ensure that ads in the UK are ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’ by applying their Advertising Codes) will be extending their non-broadcast advertising code in late 2010.  The Code already covers search marketing and online display advertising, but will soon be expanded to company’s marketing communications on their own websites and other non-paid for space online such as facebook and twitter.

With the Digital Economy Bill also likely to hit the UK this year, the online environment is becoming increasingly regulated – while also increasingly complex and fragmented.  So in addition to visibility and conversation, the role for online PR and reputation management specialists looks like it will increasingly encompass guiding clients through a legal quagmire.

Online PR specialists with backgrounds in digital media, offline advertising or promotional activity are going to be best placed to advise on this as they will be used to complying with ASA Codes.  Which is another reason why having a well rounded team responsible for managing your reputation online is so important.

posted by gemmaT

The trend of fundraising through social media has been evident within the last couple of months, with ordinary people the world over sharing the fundraising message within thousands of networks on the online community. Of course, the most  impressive effort to-date was the ‘Helping Haiti’ response, but it seems to be  happening all over again with the likes of Sport Relief. Using the simple combination of Facebook applications, celebrity Tweets, throw in a few funny you-tube teasers videos and even the simplest of blogs and you’re well on your way to a winning formula for a fundraising campaign.

Using social media is helping to fundraise in ways that traditional media has previously  been less effective at doing, by skipping the ‘middle man’ and adopting a more engaging approach. Social media proves that anyone who is willing to – even a seven year old with a bike who raised £55k in three days - can campaign to raise funds on a level that hasn’t been possible before –without rattling a single bucket.

One thing’s for certain - it’s fast becoming clear that the importance of social media in 2010 could overtake traditional media within almost any successful campaign – and not just in times of fundraising. It’s changed the way we think so it’s now expected by many that there will be a social media source for all campaigns, and all brands for that matter.

Posted by Claire Pace

After picking up the newly redesigned Observer at the weekend, I was surprised to find that the much anticipated new look had actually done away with my favourite thing about the paper – my beloved sections!

Failing to Observe the beauty of a Sunday paper, the sections, which couples and mates alike love to share, have all been condensed into four robust bulks of content – News, Sport, New Review (a whopping 56-pages) and the Observer Magazine. Unfortunately, if I now want to keep my vociferous housemate quiet with a paper on a Sunday morning, she has to sing off the same hymn sheet as me, so to speak. Not exactly conducive to domestic bliss!

Firm favourites such as horoscopes and travel have been cruelly axed, causing heated debate amongst die-hards with several Observer reviews being posted online, concluding that the paper is now all style and no substance – and yet the substance might not be so much of an issue in the Observer Magazine, as most readers think the new font size too small to decipher anyway.

Others think the new-look Observer’s move to a new bolder format points to a confidence and focus which perhaps has been lacking before, and the in-depth coverage helps to cement the newspaper’s reputation as an analytical heavyweight.

You might ask why I’m so preoccupied with the newspaper in this digital age? Unfortunately The Observer’s website is as disappointing as its printed counterpart, being merely a sub-section of sister paper The Guardian’s well-established online news site.

One thing is clear – the purpose of the redesign is about as clear as mud, and has left its readers feeling cross and confused, rather than informed and inspired. The paper is clearly out of sync with what its readers want. If it doesn’t tune in soon, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper may struggle to survive.

Posted by Holly Oldroyd

The Winter Olympics have quickly become the Social Media Games, with the media, sponsoring brands and even competitors themselves all sharing the experience online.

But athletes were warned by the IOC that their uploads must avoid damaging the privacy of others, carrying commercial messaging, publishing interviews with fellow athletes or Olympic staff or publishing any audio or video footage of Olympic events. 

Basically, athletes can only broadcast about their own personal (i.e. first person) Olympic experience and must not mention their sponsors unless they are also Olympic sponsors.

Of course, the principle income streams for the IOC are selling media rights and sponsorship, so it’s understandable that they would want to ensure exclusivity for their media and corporate partners.  But they appear to have been a bit heavy handed and have, in essence, throttled the athletes’ own buzz machines for the duration.

posted by gemmaT

In February’s Admap magazine, Molly Flatt writes about how social media is forcing marketers to change the way they work:

Businesses are used to time on their terms: time as a method of control – a clearly compartmentalised commodity measured out in the ping of Outlook meeting alerts.  They’re not used to other people’s timescales dictating their schedules, especially when these people refuse to confine their conversations to nine to five on weekdays.

For businesses, slowness means safety: time to plan; time to check legal red tape, facts and logistics; time to cover up the mistakes before they spread.  Social media demands qualities of flexibility, spontaneity and speed that are alien and risky to image-makers versed in composition, rather than conversation.

So slow equals safe, but social media insists on fast.  You can start to see why the traditional Monday-Friday for both clients and marketing agencies is fast becoming a thing of the past in a two-way society where dealing with the latest fallout on twitter just won’t wait ‘til Monday morning.  

The traditional crisis PR approach of taking home with you the ‘in the event of a client emergency dial…’ mobile phone isn’t really going to cut it anymore.  I can see a lot of shift working, two full time people covering one role and weekends in the office in the future for online PR professionals – and their clients.

posted by gemmaT

As reported in the Times Online, a Harvard law student is not only suing Google for breaching email privacy with its social network, Buzz, but is effectively damaging the online giant’s reputation in the process. Uh-oh Google!

Annoyed users of the email service have been posting (and ranting) on Google’s forum, so much so that Google employees are having to intervene, one of which stated ‘we welcome your feedback, but the tone of this thread has gotten completely out of line’ with angry threads popping up frequently, such as ‘Breach of trust and privacy. Get rid of it Google’.

I can imagine it’s been a tough call for Google on how to react to this – on one hand they can’t really boot people off for being annoyed about this issue when it was their fault in the first place. Looks like a bit of a catch 22 for them on how to respond and social media bloggers around the world (including me!) are keen to see how Google will bounce back from this.

However, it does seem that Google have moved quickly to rectify the problem with an apologetic blog post appearing by the product manager, Todd Jackson, for Gmail and Google Buzz, along with a promise to change one of the social network’s features. He said “We’re very sorry for the concern we’ve caused and have been working hard ever since to improve things based on your feedback.” Good approach in my opinion. But, is this enough to restore our faith in Google once more? Time will tell.

Posted by Charlotte Brophy

It’s going to be a very interesting few months.  A general election is galloping over the horizon in the UK and it looks like the fight for hearts and minds is going to take place online.

The 2008 US presidential election was probably the first high profile political event to really utilise online, with 1.5 million volunteers registered online and $600m raised from 3 million people.  Obama’s campaign utilised facebook, YouTube, myspace, flickr and twitter to mobilise supporters and communities.  By the time the campaign was over, volunteers had created more than 3.2 million Facebook profiles on the site, planned 200,000 offline events, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blogs and generated 14.5 million television viewing hours on YouTube.

Of course, in the UK we have 650 local candidates, rather than just a single figurehead that everyone can really rally behind and smaller digital budgets, making grassroots online campaigning more problematic.

However, online is undoubtedly going to play a role in driving the UK political news agenda for the next few months and is far less controllable than the traditional offline media tools that the parties are used to electioneering with.  The Conservatives seem to be ahead of Labour in the digital race at the moment with their collaborative myconservatives.com versus Labour’s more direct Labourspace, but the spoof Cameron posters popping up all over the internet aren’t exactly helping the Conservatives’ cause. 

That’s the problem with the online world.  It puts the people, not politicians, in the driving seat.  On the other hand, that’s why it’s so brilliant.

posted by gemmaT

I saw a story on GMTV this morning about how we apparently all hate our colleagues. A new report says millions of us get annoyed by our pesky work ‘mates’ – bad news when you’re having to sit in a room with them for the majority of your life!

The list of annoyances include using other people’s possessions, pulling a sickie, talking loudly and leaving desks in a mess. I’m guilty of at least two – I have unfortunately become renowned for my stapler steals and my fog horn voice gossiping about last night’s TV across the office. But messy desks really do grate on me.

I’ve just done a quick poll in our office and the main gripes are loud desk eaters and people who don’t make brews (guilty as charged on the latter, in fact Big Chris recently nicknamed me ‘Nina No Brews’). What are yours? Mine is definitely people who moan, who, according to the report, are lost causes and you should just do your best to avoid them.

Have to say it made me feel quite lucky as I like all my work mates at Brahm – in fact most of them are friends outside the office. There’s a lot of love in this room (got to stop nicking their staplers though).

Stapler: property of Chris Hughes, not Nina Hands!

 Posted by Lady Nina Hands

When Tangerine Confectionery asked us to support their new TV ad campaign for Butterkist using our PR expertise, we simply couldn’t resist!

The ad, which features the catchy ‘I Can’t Resist Butterkist’ theme tune, showcases the daily situations in which we find ourselves eating popcorn, such as when we watch films, travel on the bus, or even when we’re relaxing in the bath!

The running theme was that ’Butterkist is irresistible’, so to give the campaign a human angle, we surveyed 4,000 Brits to reveal what they find irresistible about each other. This gave our media relations activity a fun news hook which was strongly aligned with the campaign’s focus.

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), we found a definite gender divide. It seems that women go for a dashing smile and a good sense of humour, whereas men find a good body and great ‘assets’ irresistible.

The story captured the imagination of the national media as we secured fantastic coverage in the Daily Express and Metro Online, as well as getting Eamon Holmes and Ruth Langsford chatting about it on ITV1’s This Morning (Fri 5^th Feb). Hoorah!

To keep the momentum going, Butterkist is offering its web visitors the chance to win a whole bathtub of ‘the nation’s number one popcorn’ in exchange for posts about what they find irresistible. So, if you fancy adding to our campaign’s success and sharing what makes you weak at the knees, then by all means join the conversation. Come on, we know you won’t be able to resist!

Posted by Gemma W