Guess what I did today mum!?

I’ve been steering clear of writing anything about the global economic crisis / credit crunch – partly due to my own cynicism of how the markets work (corrupt greedy brokers short selling on inside information – hey, just my opinion) and my lack of understanding!

But a story that caught my eye this week in Hong Kong is the one concerning the Bank of East Asia as reported by the South China Morning Post. In short, several days ago a rumor started to spread that BEA bank was in serious trouble as a result of its dealing with Lehman Brothers. Text messages were sent and entries were posted on internet discussion forums confirming this. I even had a friend Instant Message me asking whether I had withdrawn my savings from my BEA account. When I questioned him about his source, this is how the conversation went:

Me: I haven’t heard anything, are you sure?
Friend: Oh my god – don’t you watch the news
Me: I work in PR, I monitor the news all day every day
Friend: Well you’re not very good at your job!

This led me to think I must have missed a howitzer of a news story and that I was not as good as my job as I thought I was (tongue firmly in cheek)!!!

Since this conversation there have been throngs of people queuing to withdraw all their savings for fear that the bank will swallow their money - Northern Rock style panic escalated quickly. I thought I had missed the most important news of the day and potentially the week! However, only days after, those throngs of people are now lining up to deposit their money again!

This was in fact a case of Chinese whispers (played by actual Chinese people) and is a fantastic example of how technology today enables rumours to spread like wildfire and wide enough to (almost) bring down a bank.

The chairman of the bank, David Li Kwok-po, has come out to say the rumours about solvency problems at his bank are “groundless” and the perpetrator has now been arrested (an 18 year old bank clerk). Authorities are now looking to make further arrests of those who helped spread the rumour – which in my eyes is every person who sent passed the message on and thus unrealistic.

The key factor of this panic was the wide diffusion of mobile phone SMS and BBS postings warning that there was trouble in the bank. Under current strained conditions, we have to be extra vigilant of messages received from friends and treat them with a lot more caution than viral emails such as the “I Love You’ virus in 2000.

Learning from Obama

I attended a conference a few weeks back and found that the speaker used the same social media slides as me - the same messages, the same visuals and the same statistics. Although this was laborious, I did take away one great nugget of information.

Obama's online campaign had key strategies to achieve its overall objective - raise money and build a community of believers in order to form the 'Obama' brand the way social networks are formed. Hilary on the other hand focused her efforts on advertising and traditional media. Below is a summary of how the two politicians spent their campaign budgets:

Not only did Hilary spend almost three times the expenditure, she also focused her efforts on a medium that Obama's advisors chose to completely ignore. In the first two months of fundraising Obama raised US$91m compared to Hillary's US$37m. The rest, as they say, is history!

This is a fascinating example of how social and digital media is affecting politics, and the wider world, and its approach to influencing people. Even now, if you search Obama on MySpace, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, you will find cleverly designed vehicles where he delivers his messages and 'wins' your heart.

This is a key lesson to be take on board when devising PR campaigns for clients.

Source: Webguild March 2008

Prime Minister's charm offensive...

Thanks to Nicknack Paddywhack for bringing this to my attention.

According to sources close to Downing Street, Gordon Brown's latest profile improving campaign involves cold-calling members of the public who have written him letters. The objective is to 'humanise' the Prime Minister as his popularity continues to fall faster than FTSE share prices.

I'd be intrigued to listen in on a conversation between Mr Brown and a Corby (for example only) resident who has been hit by the consumer recession resulting in an additonal 600 GBP deficit in the space of a few months.

"This call contains strong language and references to brutal violence that may not be suitable for most!"