I'm a PC and I don't care!

I’ve just seen Micorosft’s counterstrike against Apple’s ‘PC vs Mac’ campaign, which carries the theme Life without walls. And I have to say I like it…



The ad attempts to dispel the ‘PC stereotype’ by using celebrities such as Eva Longoria, Pharell Williams as well as everyday people who have an interesting story to tell. I like this type of head on approach by companies in which they directly address a previous competitor campaign.

Too often, large corporate are too afraid to address their competitors directly. As a PR consultant I often advise my clients not to reference their competitors by name when speaking to media – but sometimes I think ‘why not’. It’s obvious to the journalist and to most of the general public so why not address the competitor directly (obviously there are times when discretion is advised).

I think this is a good follow up to the Seinfeld / Gates ad, which took heavy (and unfair) criticism.

Facebook Facelift

I've been trying out the new look Facebook over the past fortnight and have found myself reverting back to the old one.

The beauty of the old Facebook was that it was simple to navigate - the new look was too cluttered and I couldn't find the information I wanted in its usual place. I thought I was alone! However, it seems that many others are in the same boat. According to this BBC article almost 10 million out of 40 million prefer the old style.

What I also found interesting is that Facebook has kind of become a victim of its own success - the Petition against the new Facebook seems to have generated a rather large following. It now remains to be seen whether this group has any influence on the platform that raised it and made it successful in so many other petitions. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

Unfortunately, it looks like I'll have to go back to the new look style soon with the compulsory switch over.

PR Gaff

The story about the mens and womens Spanish basketball team stretching their eyes to simulate Chinese facial features has been doing the rounds in mainstream and social media recently.

The newspaper ad, for a Spanish courier company called Seur, was approved by the Spanish sporting authorities. This is yet another faux pas by the Spanish (used generally as a stereotype), who have not had the best track record in the fight against racism. People still remember Luis Aragones and his comments towards Thierry Henry and the horrible gorilla chants to the English black football players. This does not put the Spanish in a very good light at all.

I wasn't going to touch on this subject as I thought it wasn't worth while discussing, we all know what the Spanish are like - right? Well, after much consideration, I personally wouldn't go as far as to say the Spanish (again in general) are racist. I've been to Spain many times and met some very friendly people. I think this is more a case of naivety and misunderstanding of what does and what doesn't cause offence rather than an outright attack at a race of people.
All in all though, Spain could really do with fewer negative stories about its racial standpoint.

Thanks for reminding me I have 'slitty eyes' though, as Prince Phillip (1986) would put it!!

Cultural Differences

I liked this post on China Rises, by Tim Johnson a Beijing Buereau news chief, about cultural differences between Western and Eastern cultures (using Germans and Chinese as examples in this case).

The examples are very true. I find it amusing that many dual nationality citizens like myself (Born in Hong Kong, raised in UK) find ourselves balancing these cultural nuances on a daily bases without even realising it. By osmosis we learn the differences in the cultures and seem to be able to switch depending on the company we are with - the question is, which culture do we prefer?!

Here are some of the examples, depicted by Liu Yang (German in Blue / China in Red)

Status of the boss:


Attitudes towards children:

A party:

Noise levels in a restaurant:

Problem solving:

Preferences towards transport:

Mood towards weather:

Time keeping:

Networking:

Queing mentality:

Ego:

High streets at the weekend:

Community:

Dealing with a complaint:

Power to the people

I saw news this week that chocolate giant Cadbury is bringing back the 'Wispa' bar, BBC news reports about it here.

According to the BBC, Cadbury's has "…bowed to public pressure after a popular campaign on the Facebook and MySpace websites."It seems the British public has decided to pressure Cadbury's to bring back a product that has not been seen on shelves since about 2003 due to public disinterest.

But it seems that this was no spontaneous movement by the general public to genuinely bring back something that was forgotten. According to Will Sturgeon's blog, this is the work of Borkowski PR.

Needless to say the campaign has been shortlisted in the PR Week Awards - good luck to them.

Daily mantra: We're in PR not ER!

When talking to family and friends about a day in the office, they often comment about how much fun working in PR sounds. This could be down to my genuine love for what I do or maybe because I'm a natural salesperson (tongue firmly in cheek)!

'Outsiders' don't seem to understand why I constantly feel frustrated, infuriated and stressed out. To all of those people this video captures just one aspect of my head against brick wall frustrations!

A wise man once told me - we are in PR not ER! I must remind myself of this and be grateful...

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