SATS: Testing skills for school not for life
Today marks the start of SATS week for my son, his friends and thousands of other 11-year-olds across the UK. It’s an enormously pressured occasion for all of the children, but for my son, in particular, the tests will be particularly arduous as he is dyslexic.
Perhaps if my son wasn’t 2.5 years behind his peers already I might not worry so much about how he will make it through the week, but there are a number of other reasons why I disagree with the way schools and the government handle the Year 6 SATS.
What really bothers me is the fact my son has spent every night since September desperately trying to answer mock papers, crying when he gets the answers wrong because he can’t remember what phrases such as subordinating conjunction, synonym and adverbial mean. He’s not alone; my Facebook page went wild with parents complaining their children also couldn’t do the papers, and worse still they didn’t know how to help because the questions were utterly baffling.
Perhaps worse than that – because when he’s at home I can at least manage the tears and disappointment – is the fact his entire Year 6 curriculum has been based around the looming SATS. Day in and day out the school has been ‘preparing’ the children for these tests which, in the long run, do nothing to benefit the child and everything to benefit the school.
This means lessons aren’t fun, and rather than learning how to write creative pieces of text, they’re learning ridiculous phrases such as present progressive, relative pronoun and preposition.
And what I really, really, take insult to is that on my son’s first parent’s evening of the year we were effectively told (after a deep sigh from his teacher) that because he had no hope of passing the SATS due to his dyslexia, he was pretty much a failure. So, no SATS results means you’re no good. Never mind the fact my son is a technical whizz kid, has the inventing skills of Thomas Edison and the artistic skills of Pablo Picasso (alright that might be the proud parent talking, but you get my gist). No, because my son probably won’t pass his SATS this year, according to his teacher, and probably the government, he’s no good.
What really bugs me is that writing, learning and going to school should be FUN. And this year has not been fun. For any child, surely the most important thing is that by the time they leave school they are able to write a grammatically correct piece of text, understand when and where to use punctuation, and be able to decipher the meaning of a piece of writing? Is that not all the average adult does day to day?
Which got me thinking. I write for a living, and have done so for 17 years, so how would I do when faced with the Year 6 grammar test? I’ve been helping my son revise for the past six months, I don’t have dyslexia, and I’m pretty darn good at my job, so I should pass with flying colours – right?
Wrong!
I sourced a SATS test online and answered 10 minutes of questions similar to the following:
Q: Which sentence uses the past progressive?
- After Ali finished his homework, he went out to play
- Gemma was doing her science homework
- Jamie learnt his spellings every night
- Anna found her history homework difficult
Q: In this sentence, is the word after being used as a subordinate conjunction or as a preposition?
- I went to the cinema after I had eaten my dinner
Q: Which sentence is written in the active voice?
- The book was returned to the library yesterday
- The assembly was held in the hall
- The bad weather led to the cancellation
- The floods were caused by the heavy rain
I got 40%!
I then decided to put my colleagues to the test, surely one of us would fare better? We’re all of different ages, but between us have a collective 50 years of writing professionally – if anyone should be able to pass the SATS grammar tests, it should be us?
But no!
Only two members of the 72Point creative team (and I’m sure age is on their side) managed to get over 40%! I should find this shocking, but having seen the homework my son has endured every night this year, I don’t. I for one have never had to remember what a main clause, subordinate clause or antonym is when carrying out my day job, OR when conducting normal life admin.
To quote two teacher friends of mine, both of whom shall remain anonymous for obvious reasons:
“To think how good you are at English, just shows how completely pointless this is – plus it has only been in the curriculum for 2 years – I hate the fact I have to teach grammar just to enable children to pass this test”
“I got 50% and I’m a teacher! Good job I’m teaching Year 1 where we stop at nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prefixes and suffixes. It is so depressing seeing what the children are expected to know by the end of primary now.”
Even teachers are frustrated with the constraints of the current curriculum – my son’s school has been amazing since the day he joined but the teacher’s hands are tied and bound by the government’s obsession with testing children instead of teaching them the skills they’ll need for real life. There are so many other wonderful things which could and should be covered by the school curriculum – a bigger emphasis on science, technology, engineering, art and cooking for example.
So what does this prove? To me, it demonstrates that the Year 6 SATS tests are complete and utter nonsense which serve no purpose other than to strip young children of their childhood and ruin the last precious year of primary school.
And what will my boy take away from this experience? Well, I guess that’s very much down to our parenting, and how my husband and I handle the whole situation. We have encouraged our son to revise every night, not because we care how he does in the tests but to encourage hard work, dedication and good behaviour.
We have promised him we will NOT be looking at his results – because we firmly believe that all children should be celebrated for how hard they try and not what they achieve – and that as long as he can walk out of that exam room on Friday knowing he tried his best then we’ll be the proudest parents walking the planet.
I wish all the children sitting the SATS this week the very best of luck – each and every one is doing something this week that the majority of 72Point, and probably everyone else in our industry cannot do; however pointless this will be in the long run.
If you want to take the test, please visit http://www.sats2016.co.uk/think-youd-pass-your-sats-in-2016/
Content Umbrella: The coming together of PR, marketing, social media and SEO
SEO, PR, digital advertising, content marketing; they all seem to be doing the same thing nowadays.
As Google demands better quality content, online media consumers get turned off by display and brands look to engage rather than convert there has been an amalgamation of digital disciplines leveraged on the basic principles of creating and distributing content.
Which is why we’ve coined the term Content Umbrella.
The content umbrella represents a significant shift towards content across several industries. Our white paper, released this week, documents how the mobile and digital revolution has necessitated a mass re-think across the board and how the shift has implicated specific disciplines as well as the content industry as a whole.
To whet your appetite, here’s a wee snippet:
Display Blind: Advertising Adapts to Digital
Display advertising is at best a saturated market and at worst a marketing technique teetering on irrelevancy. As more people access content via mobile devices the marketing world has been faced with the dilemma of how to best communicate to audiences who are wise to the motive behind a display ad.
Consumers, on the one hand, do see value in content. Per-dollar content marketing produces roughly three times as many leads as display advertising according to Oracle research. Furthermore, the consumer becomes a brand champion by engaging with the content, creating a c2c ‘sharing’ relationship rather than a b2c ‘telling’ relationship. With more consumers accessing the internet via a smartphone over any other device, the tip towards content is only going to grow.
Social Media: Native Social vs Digital Display
Social media is also confronting how to communicate marketing messages to an increasingly mobile user base. On mobile’s smaller screens, the stream is the experience, which is why display has struggled to make an impression.
In-stream native ads, however, look, feel, and function seamlessly across mobile and PC, which is precisely what brands want. AdRoll analysis of Facebook’s ad exchange revealed that ads in the News Feed achieve 49-times higher click-through rates and a 54 per cent lower cost-per-click than traditional placements in the right-rail sidebar. As a result, spending on native social is set to rocket to $21 billion worldwide by 2018, and it is likely to continue to climb.
Slapped By A Panda: Google Demands Quality Content
Google’s Panda algorithm instigated a golden age for purveyors of quality content. After years of SEO ‘cheats’ – content farms, keyword advertising, link building et al – there has been a mass purge of low quality, spammy sites which have been replaced by sites that provide relevant content that is interactive and of good quality.
All organisations looking to rank well for key search terms need a strategy that is focussed on creating high quality, highly relevant content that is distributed well. With talk of Google switching backlinks to brand citations, the SEO industry will become increasingly cosy with content and publishers.
PR in the Media Mix
In marrying the brands needs with those of the publishers, PR is perhaps best placed to unify the umbrella of content. PR professionals understand how to create engaging content while at the same time making brand considerations such as marketing messages and SEO objectives.
As a genuinely multimedia business that has been supplying content to national newspapers for 40 years, SWNS / 72Point are well placed to meet the demands of the digital industries falling under the content umbrella. Not only do we know how to create great content, we can give it the reach it deserves by distributing it through established channels.
Top tips for achieving video success
Videos entertain, inform and give people access to digestible news on the go. They are also one of the best ways to achieve exposure. In fact, including them in your PR strategy is a no brainer.
There is no greater example of how influential video can be than the rise of the ‘Youtube’ stars. Ordinary, everyday folk turned into celebrities and idols (although I use that term loosely, very loosely) simply as a result of posting a video online. Whether it’s someone giving hair styling tips, baking tutorials or just playing a computer game. The potential influence of video is plain to see.
Dan Patterson of ABC News Radio said that ‘Humans are incredibly visual and powerful, moving images help us find meaning… [And] video helps capture and contextualize the world around us’. It is not surprising therefore that we extended our portfolio of services to include video.
Among our favourite campaigns we have worked on were two social media campaigns for supermarket Asda. One was a video for their Facebook page featuring magician and star of ITV’s Tricked, Ben Hanlin. We filmed Ben at an Asda store in London performing magic tricks for customers, including pulling money from items such as bread, unopened crisp packets and sealed yoghurt pots. The video achieved nearly 1 million views on Asda’s Facebook page.
The other, entitled 'Pimp my BBQ', was a fun, quirky video that unsurprisingly showcased a costumed ‘pimped’ BBQ. The BBQ featured additions such as a selfie stick, iPad stand, neon lights to name but a few. This video had pick-up all across a wide range of sites and proved especially popular with the MailOnline and Lad Bible
We’re lucky to have the services of incredible cameramen, video producers and editors from SWNS behind us to help us make the most of our video content.
If you’re looking to produce a video there are a few things to bear in mind.
1. Audience and Content
Cisco has predicted that video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic by 2017, so to truly have a place in this market we need to know what our audience want.
Not only must the video content we create chime well with the survey stories we produce, but we must keep trying to be as inventive and creative as possible. This comes not only from our own creative process but also from watching the video market and staying relevant and in line with what viewers want.
Videos don’t have to be elaborate. Yes sometimes a brief may call for a big stunt or a big name to appear in it but it doesn’t always have to. Sometimes a simple vox pop style video can be just as effective. After all, the people on the street are the people you are trying to attract so why not make them the centre of attention. Look at your brief and decide who you are trying to reach, how you’re going to do it and what style is going to have the most impact.
Watch our video showreel below to see the variation of video styles we've used for our clients:
2. Platform and Length
Only two years ago videos would be produced that could last over 5 minutes for just one story. We have learnt rapidly that most people’s engagement and time spent on a video last no more than 60 seconds, which is why as a rule at 72Point we produce nothing longer than 1 minute. This allows us to keep costs lower for the client - and crucially - we stay relevant for our publishers and help them engage with their audiences.
Videos will become even shorter as the use of mobile devices to access content continues to rocket. Evidence of this can be seen in the popularity of Vine which is based around 6 second videos, and Instagram which only allows 15 seconds. People now spend more time viewing stories on their mobiles than desktops and with that comes a shift in content presentation. This means a mobile-first approach is crucial for 72Point and its clients in 2016. Once you know who your video is aimed at, what you’re trying to say and how you’re going to share it, then everything else should slot into place. But if not here are some of our top tips for video success:
- Make it clear in your headline what the video is about
- Videos must have rich SEO within the metadata
- Be creative in how you link videos to text stories
- Always always share your video on social media
- Keep them short and snappy
- Don't try to be too clever - it can come across as false
- Make the first 8 seconds as attention-grabbing as possible. That’s all our attention span will take to lose interest.
So much is changing in the world of content and video as it continues to play a huge role in the market place. If we can utilise video and embrace the technology that comes with it, and the interactivity it gives audiences, then we and our clients are set for a bright and fun future.
Visit our video page to find out more about our video offering.Written by our video team: Issy Potts and Jessica Macdonald.
Has Paid Media Found Its Mojo?
There are two types of branded content in this World; Paid and Earned.
Earned media refers to the process of garnering publicity through media, blogger and influencer relations. Out of necessity it has high quality content at its heart, and has somewhat short-sightedly become the de facto model used by PR professionals because of that. But contrary to belief, PR is not synonymous with earned media.
Public relations is defined by the Chartered Institute as the “discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.” At no point is PR defined in terms of paid, owned or earned media. In fact, industry leaders are increasingly embracing the full PESO Model, but I’ll come on to that later. First, the paid media revolution.
Paid media is an effective means of creating brand awareness or new customer acquisition through traditional advertising, paid search, social marketing and, most recently, through content. Blogs, infographics, videos and news releases have all become wrapped up as part of the ‘paid’ arsenal as native threatens to displace display in the digital ad industry. Liberated from its conventional confines paid has found its mojo, and marketers are leading the pursuit.
The evolution has largely come about thanks to a change in media consumption habits. We know that media consumers can handle the deluge of content on the web, but what they don’t want is to consume content that is so heavily branded and full of advertising messages that it is clearly being pushed to them by an advertiser. Josh Black, CEO of GroupM Content Asia Pacific, says increasingly “the very best forms of content created by advertisers are truly becoming ‘content’ – pieces of work that consumers want to share with the friends, tweet about and like”.
“The expectations on quality are rising. The stories being told are well constructed, interesting and shot beautifully. The content these advertisers are creating and distributing are no longer pieces of ‘branded content’, they are just ‘content’. Audiences, consciously or otherwise, are not using or associating the word ‘branded’ with them.”
So does that make branded content obsolete, or just reimagined? I’d err to the latter, but what is for sure is that paid media has become a big player in the PR industry. And it doesn’t stop there. Shared and owned media are both increasingly prevalent and important media types. Combine all four, and you get the complete digital marketing strategy.
The PESO model (Paid, Earned, Social and Owned) is what the future looks like for PR professionals. Gini Dietrich, a leading voice for the PR industry and author of Spin Sucks, told Mashable that there “is a misguided perception in the PR industry that all we do is media relations. Get your boss or client on the front page of the New York Times and all of your troubles will vanish”. The current measurement of success is still stuck in the Dark Ages. We use impressions and advertising equivalences. But they will soon be irrelevant.
“If you aren’t using the PESO model for your communications work, and measuring the meaningful metrics that help an organization grow, you will not have a job in 10 years,” Dietrich says. The days when earned reigned supreme are gone. Future campaigns require an omni-approach.
Hippos, polar bears & paint: PR highlights of 2015
A good PR campaign or stunt can work wonders for a brand.
Get the timing, tone and creativity just right and not only will you see tons of national, regional, online and broadcast coverage but thanks to social media, it can also end up going viral, giving you more exposure than money could ever buy.
There is a fine line between a good stunt and a failure. They can be expensive to plan and carry out, with no guarantee of anyone talking or writing about it afterwards.
But here at 72Point, we’ve seen several stunts and campaigns this year which have not only had great results in terms of coverage, but were memorable and got us all talking.
Here are just a few of our favourites from 2015…
Polar bear
Campaign: Polar bear on the tube
Brand: Sky Atlantic/Fortitude
Agency: Taylor Herring and Sky’s in-house PR team
Last January, commuters in London were greeted with a life-sized polar bear on the tube, after it was ‘set loose’ by Sky Atlantic to promote its new crime drama Fortitude.
The huge bear, which was built by a team of Hollywood special effects experts and operated by two puppeteers from the West End production of War Horse, was seen around various places in the city including the underground and crossing the Millennium Bridge.
Fortitude was set in the Arctic, and what better symbol is there of the frozen landscape than a terrifying but beautiful polar bear?
Thanks to the amazing pictures of the bear riding the tube, walking over bridges and roaming the city’s parks, the campaign got widespread coverage but it was also great for social media. The first thing confused Londoners would have done is to Tweet, Instagram or Facebook about their unusual encounter with a polar bear that day.
It received 47 million impressions on Twitter – 30 million of which were from the UK, while the show launched with just over 700,000 viewers – the biggest audience to date for a UK originated drama on Sky Atlantic.
Fifty Shades
Campaign: Fifty Shades of Grey ‘Leaked Memo’
Brand: B&Q
Agency: Good Relations
At the start of the year, it was all about the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film, which was released in February.
B&Q ‘issued’ a memo to all staff telling them to get to know the storyline in case customers enquired about items inspired by the film, such as cable ties, rope and duct tape.
So many brands wanted to be associated with the famous movie, and all kinds of surveys, PR stories and stunts were planned to allow them to get on the Fifty Shades bandwagon.
But this was one of the best – the ‘leaked’ memo format was great and entirely believable, while still being very tongue-in-cheek, resulting in a huge amount of coverage including The Daily Telegraph, Sky News and BBC Radio Two.
They even saw a second wave of coverage after admitting the memo was, in fact, fake.
It was a great quick-win, which was quick and easy to execute, providing great talk value and standing out at a time when so many other brands were trying do stories about the same thing.
Lego
Campaign: Lego-proof slippers
Brand: Lego
Agency: Brand Station
As a parent to an almost five-year-old, Lego-mad little boy, as soon as I saw this, I thought it was a brilliant idea – stunt or not.
Anyone who has a Lego fan in their house will know the unbearable pain that comes from stepping on a discarded brick, trying hard not to swear repeatedly because your darling child (who is most likely the one responsible for leaving said brick in the middle of the floor) is nearby.
The branded slippers come with an extra thick sole, meaning parents can walk around their house freely, safe in the knowledge that more of the little bricks will no longer be a threat to their feet.
Unfortunately for millions of parents, Lego and the French agency behind the slippers, Brand Station, only made 1,500 of the slippers, but the coverage and social media activity around the stunt was a great result for the brand.
Lights
Campaign Christmas: Lights Untangler
Brand: Tesco
Christmas is a tricky time of year for PR – everyone wants to get in on the action but there is only so much Christmas PR the media can take.
Tesco came out on top with their idea to hire the first Christmas light untangler in one of their Wrexham stores after research found those in the town were found to be most frustrated by the festive job.
They took something which causes all kinds of stress in UK households at the start of December and tied it into their famous ‘Every Little Helps’ slogan with ease.
As part of the job ad, responsibilities included ‘manning and managing the Christmas lights untangling stand’, ‘checking lights and bulbs for signs of breakage’ and of course ‘successfully untangling customers’ Christmas lights neatly, quickly and efficiently and in an orderly fashion’.
The ideal candidate had to be ‘passionate about Christmas, ‘able to untangle three metres of lights in under three minutes’ and ‘be persistent and patient’.
After the first wave of coverage from the initial job ad, Tesco also saw further hits once they revealed more than 100 people had applied for the position.
NHS
Campaign: Missing Type
Brand: NHS Blood and Transport
The Missing Type campaign, in June, was designed to raise awareness about the shortage of blood donations, and saw As, Bs and Os, removed from the brands logo to highlight the different blood groups.
It started with a host of brands such as Waterstones, Odeon and even Downing Street mysteriously removing letters from their signage.
A few days later, NHS Blood and Transport revealed they were behind the missing letters with a news story revealing that 40 per cent fewer donors had come forward in that year, compared to ten years ago.
But following the reveal, as well as the brands who had already joined in, other brands took part with the public also joining in by changing their Twitter handles to replace any As, Bs and Os with a blank space. We even took part ourselves. The success of the campaign is clear in the figures – more than 30,000 people registered as blood donors during 10-day campaign and it had more than 700 pieces of coverage, which even resulted in the public website having to be taken down as a result of the unprecedented demand.
Snickers
Campaign: You aren’t you when you’re hungry
Brand: Snickers
Following news of the Jeremy Clarkson ‘fracas’ in March, Snickers jumped at the chance of some brilliant reactive PR.
As details emerged of the incident, where the Top Gear presenter was said to have assaulted one of the show’s producers because he was refused a hot meal, Snickers sent a box of the bars to the (former) BBC presenter with a note using the brand’s slogan ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.
The chocolate brand’s campaign and TV advert sees a Snickers bar given to someone who is acting diva-like due to hunger. After tucking into the chocolate treat, they return to their normal self.
The parallels with the Clarkson story were just too good to pass up and Snickers were quick to react – and tweet a picture of the box and note to their followers, which was retweeted thousands of times.
And finally, on the subject of Jeremy Clarkson, we also need to give an honourable mention to the Robox, a 3D printer created by the husband of our very own creative account director Emma Elsworthy, who created a Jeremy Clarkson version of Hungry Hippos, ‘Hungry Jeremy’.
They designed a 3D-printable version of Clarkson’s head, which can be used to replace the hippos’ heads in the classic game, which saw great coverage across print and online. It goes to show that a killer of an idea is still at the heart of a good PR campaign – you don’t need to be a big brand to generate a buzz.
PR Resolutions: The art of decent exposure in 2016
Over the last few years we have witnessed many traditional PR companies start to reinvent themselves as the digital revolution has transformed the way their own clients reach and engage with their audiences.
Here at 72Point, we very quickly realised a simple survey and news copy were no longer enough to keep media outlets happy, and so we also began to more firmly integrate visual content services with our existing USPs.
The heart of 72Point is, and always will be, national news content. The backbone of our business is South West News Service, the UK’s largest independent press agency, which has been delivering hard-hitting news on a daily basis since 1978. This means we have top-class ideas, page-ready news copy, access to the UK’s best news experts, and a channel to the powers in the press at our fingertips.
Now is the time to consider revising the way you present your content to news editors who want page ready copy without the fluff and nonsense of the traditional press release.
In recognition of the changing media landscape, which brings with it the absolute necessity for additional content such as videos, pictures and infographics, we actively encourage our clients to pursue ALL avenues when putting together a PR campaign.
This is why, although we generally dislike the idea of making New Year’s resolutions, we do have 10 tips / resolutions for getting the most out of 2016:
1. Think visually – with every story you send out, make sure you have painted a picture of what you want to say. The majority of humans are visual learners, so are likely to absorb more through watching a video, reading an infographic or looking at a picture than by any other means. Think about how you are going to deliver your news to your audience, and how they are most likely to consume it.
2. If budget will allow, make a video – the demand for online video is at all-time high, and there is nothing out there to suggest the rapid growth we witnessed in 2015 won’t continue into 2016. The potential reach of a video is endless, and almost everyone in the UK has access to some sort of device needed to watch videos. A quick 90 second film, which is to the point and not over branded, is a powerful tool which can be shared millions of times across websites and on the likes of YouTube and Facebook.
3. Always illustrate a story with a picture – we know the national news desks and online sites all have stock shots, and can randomly select any old picture to go with a story they want to publish. So why bother to send your own picture? By tailoring an image so that it clearly spells out the content of the news copy, you have more editorial control and therefore increase your chance of securing relevant coverage.
If designed with the need to re-purpose in mind, infographics can be ‘sliced up’ into smaller bite size graphics making them perfect for pulling out key stats and headlines, and sharing multiple times with your own followers across a number of social channels.
4. Help consumers absorb the stats with an easy-to-read infographic – we all know there is more demand for visual content than ever before, and people are more likely to absorb statistics which are embedded in a pretty graphic than a body of writing. By producing an infographic alongside your copy you are making your story even more visible. An infographic can also be re-used time and time again across multiple channels. It may start as a means to getting media coverage, but can also be posted on your own site, used in your own marketing collateral.
5. Look to the future with digital sell in – print will always have its place in the media landscape, but to maximise coverage and help boost a brand’s online presence a full digital sell in is a must for all campaigns in 2016. Earlier this year the Mail Online surpassed 200 million monthly browsers making it the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world, and many other publishers are looking to replicate the model to attract new audiences. Not only does this spell value for PR campaigns in terms of reach, it also delivers ROI on search engine optimisation goals and creates a ‘social’ buzz.
6. Don’t underestimate the powers of social media – many clients are understandably focussed on getting coverage in the national newspapers and websites, or subject specific websites, and don’t actually consider the power of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn etc.
People love to share visual content of any sort, and some of the biggest news stories are those which have been shared by millions of people across social media.
We produced a video featuring Ben Hanlin for a client’s national media campaign. The branded video featured on The Mirror and Yahoo among others, but most impressively it was viewed more than a million times on the client’s Facebook page.
7.Think about dropping the press release – when you open the national newspapers, do you see bullet points at the beginning of a news story? Can you see a company logo in the top right corner? Are there footnotes for us to read later? If not, you might want to consider revising the way you present your content to news editors who want page ready copy without the fluff and nonsense of the traditional press release.
8. Have a brainstorm / think outside the box / attend a thought shower – whatever you want to call it, but generate good ideas and a story that your audience can relate to, and will find themselves talking about and sharing with others. We all know news is on a loop, and there are some topics that are covered time and time again, but if you can find that gem of an idea which the whole office ends up talking about, you know you’re onto a winner.
9. Do your research – a news story which is based on consumer or market research is more likely to be read by journalists than one without. Research led stories have an extra edge – the statistics give it a quantifiable news hook and help validate the point of the story. As well as being a great tool for coverage, market research enables businesses to differentiate themselves from others and illustrate their ability to identify with their audience.
10. Choose a company who can do all of the above under one roof – alright, this ‘resolution’ might be an excuse to plug 72Point, but if you are determined to make a media success of 2016, and can’t be bothered to hire several different companies to do the work for you, you might want to consider doing all of the above with the help of our very lovely team.
How to give your story a real Christmas presence
Mention the word “Christmas” in a 72Point brainstorm session and listen for the audible whoosh of air as every single creative in the room visibly slumps into their chair and lets out a heavy sigh.
We’re in the middle of November, and while we’re not Christmas scrooges (far from it, some of us have already completed our Christmas shopping while others are signing off their emails with Mrs Santa), we have already had more than 20 briefs from PR’s wanting to capitalise on the biggest event in the calendar.
So why such a negative reaction from the team you may ask? Everyone loves Christmas, so it must have great talk value?
Well yes, everyone loves Christmas, but that doesn’t make it news.
The 25th December might be a big deal for PR’s and businesses who will benefit from the event, but for the press it really is just another day in the year.
And if the media aren’t bothered by Christmas, they’re not going to dedicate pages and pages to survey-led stories about opening presents, gobbling turkey and overspending – not unless the stories are REALLY good.
So what are our tips to achieving the most for your brand, in the lead up to Christmas Day?
Don’t send the story out in the lead up to Christmas Day
Okay so this might be an impossibility, but what we’re trying to say is that the competition for coverage at this time in the year is HUGE. So if you do need coverage in December, make sure you’re doing something that will beat all the competition.
Consider Christmas Day
Do you have to send your story out before the big day? If you want coverage in December, but don’t necessarily have a brand which needs coverage to generate sales, you might want to consider lining up a story to go out ON Christmas Day. This is a fantastic ‘open goal’ opportunity for coverage, as news desks are receptive to any light list-based material. Alternatively ‘quick win’ stories are perfect for issue on Christmas Day, so if you’re an internet business capable of monitoring sales quickly contact us. We can very quickly pull together a sales-based story to show how many people are buying holidays / gym memberships / divorces on 25th December.
Don’t send out the same old story
We all know news is on a loop and Christmas is an example of just that. Every year we see the same survey stories make – ‘XX per cent of Brits received unwanted presents’, ‘the average Christmas looks like XXX’, ‘British households look set to spend £XXX on Christmas’ – but they don’t make BIG. If you want more than a ‘nib’ or a ‘stick’, do something different.
If budget allows, make a video
So we know we can’t compete with the John Lewis Christmas advert, which has already had almost 12 million views online, but if you’ve got a little more money to spend, a video is a great way to secure coverage online and has great longevity for the brand. Stories which are cross-platform definitely have the best chance of making, and news sites are crying out for videos to support any content they publish. However make sure the idea has been well thought through - last year TGI Friday had the brilliant idea of sending drones around their restaurants with mistletoe and a ‘kisscam’ but the stunt backfired spectacularly when the drone hit a diner in the face, and the brand received more coverage for the epic fail than the original idea.
DON’T talk about Christmas
The best way to get a survey story into the press in December is to make sure you don’t mention the C-word. So if you’re thinking of a survey led story, think about the USP’s of the brand, and most importantly, why is it so cool the other 364 days of the year? This should be the focus for any story you put out.
Try not to over-brand
Actually this is the advice which we give at all times of the year, but it’s all the more important at Christmas. A great example of a story which cleverly weaves in the key messages about the brand, without being too Christmassy or ‘pluggy’ is our Competitive Mums story we ran for the launch of Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s my Donkey? which subtly makes reference to Christmas nativities without over mentioning.
Think outside the box
Sorry, it’s a cliché, we hate it, but there it is. When generating ideas for Christmas try to step away from the event itself, try to think of something which is funny; if you can imagine talking to your friends about the subject matter for hours and hours, chances are you’re onto something.
Go Negative
A no-no for every PR, and a big fat thumbs up for 72Point, and more importantly for the papers. Want to run a story about how families interact at Christmas? We guarantee you’ll have more luck trying to land a story which looks at the arguments families have on Christmas Day, or the things that went wrong with the dinner, than a story about how well everyone got on and what we love about Christmas.
Consider all avenues
A survey is a fantastic way to achieve national press coverage, but a video or infographic could be the clincher when it comes to online coverage, you might even decide that at this time of year you pay for some native advertising to guarantee you that all important ‘show’.
And lastly, phone us if you’d like a helping hand
You might get some advice you don’t want to hear, you might need to re-think your ideas, but you WILL have a better chance of achieving all you want for Christmas.
The changing media landscape
Digital media has radically altered the way we consume and interact with news. For more than 50 years, newspapers and TV have dominated news coverage almost everywhere until the internet created the low cost opportunity to go global.
Digital natives rushed to change the news, while publishers and broadcasters started to build online audiences producing video-rich news channels that are accessible across the world at the touch of a button. Let’s refer to this as “News 3.0” – the age in which companies as diverse as Bloomberg, ESPN, CNN, Daily Mail, Huffington Post , BuzzFeed and the like joined the worldwide fight for online viewers, readers and listeners.
Multi-channel, multi platform news that is distributed socially is a way of saying to the consumer “you are in control: you decide if our content is entertaining and relevant and we’ll supply it when and where you want it”. However this fusion of traditional and new media is a big challenge for many; most of all for the daily newspaper which faces the need to make a real strategic leap for survival. How can they compete in a socially enabled environment? Especially one where such a wealth of content is so readily available that we no longer have to go out of our way to access it? Where do they start?
Let’s refer to this as “News 3.0” – the age in which companies as diverse as Bloomberg, ESPN, CNN, Daily Mail, Huffington Post , BuzzFeed and the like joined the worldwide fight for online viewers, readers and listeners.
Start at the beginning. Content. Digital content is not about the traditional attention grabbing font-size and designs but reflecting the needs of online consumers. Mediocrity and repetition don’t pay anymore. Investigative, newspaper-centric journalism is what papers do best therefore they should seek to maximise the impact of genuinely exclusive coverage, while also providing links to alternative sources and ‘aggregated’ content. The value in creating the ‘best’ or ‘exclusive’ coverage is that competitors will end up linking back to you.
On the other hand, news sites should remember what so many readers have always liked about newspapers: the happy chance of coming across something they weren’t looking for and didn’t expect to find. Crowdtap research found individuals aged 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media, with the notion of “multi-channel” (merging digital, print and broadcast channels) media consumption commonplace therefore audiences have to be cultivated and ‘trained’ to become habitual users and will seek out news. This also means that element of surprise has been removed; the joy of coming across something they did not expect to find is reduced by the fact that they are actively searching for it and that their news feeds are tailored to things they want.
Video will likely become an online battle ground as audiences become more and more accustomed to consuming news through TV and digital. A key shift of resources for newspapers will be building up substantial video content to compete with TV news. Take for example the deal made between the NY Times and the US broadcaster PBS to share video journalism.
Digital media is not restricted to news sites and video. News mediums cannot afford to forget about the possibilities that social media can bring. All news organisations have to have an imprint on social media due to it being where so many of their audience regularly engage. It is a key source of content, distribution and competition. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat increasingly see themselves as platforms for news and information. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2014 found Facebook to be the most important network for news with some 42% of respondents saying they select the media they consume online from their Facebook news feed. Almost a quarter said they have friends or follow people who they regard as authorities for news and almost 1 in 5 said they trust their friends to source news. The pull of Facebook as an access point for news has been further strengthened by addition of their ‘read-in’ feature which allows people to read news without navigating away from their social feeds. The concept of contributing content to ‘public spaces’ over which they have no control represents a challenge for newspaper-centric companies. They must collaborate with social media but should consider reserving their exclusive “branded” content for their own platforms.
It is already clear that most news providers will simply not be able to depend on readership revenues. News is something that most readers now do not expect not to pay for. This is reflected by the recent decision from NME to become a free publication following their significant drop in paid over the past few years. The decision was made to hopefully push circulation from 15,000 to 300,000, a risk which seems to be paying off.
Crowdtap research found individuals aged 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media, with the notion of “multi-channel” (merging digital, print and broadcast channels) media consumption commonplace...
Most news will be funded by a combination of advertising and e-commerce therefore newspapers will need to abandon their traditional sense of ‘control’ and seek partnerships, collaborations and alliances in order to compete in the digital marketplace. Alternatively, as BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti recently suggested, perhaps the natural answer is for the printed newspaper to charge a higher price so that (perhaps) it can be viable just with its most loyal and committed readers.
Personally, I enjoy having a paper under my arm. I love the act of turning a page and the satisfaction of finishing a worn and well-loved book, so I will continue to read the Metro, occasionally buy a paper and always pick a paperback over a kindle. Surely I cannot be alone in this! So maybe this means that print will always have a place. After all you cannot fold the corner of your kindle for later. Let's hope that the feeling i get from holding that newspaper under my arm will be shared by the generations of kids who have grown up with technology available to them since birth. It’s this generation that hold the future of print media in their hands.I'm sure their love of "retro" mediums can nurture the print industry back to full health.
A holistic approach to blogger outreach
What is ‘blogger outreach’ and how do I do it?
That was the prominent undertone from a series of creative workshop sessions we recently hosted in the trendy Ace Hotel in Shoreditch. The proliferation of alternative media platforms has rendered the PR industry perplexed, and the knee-jerk reaction has been to throw money at it. But a holistic approach to blogger outreach is possible, and it is a far more attractive proposition for both brands and bloggers alike.
Marketing Land defines blogger outreach, or influencer marketing, as the process of leveraging influencers with an established and substantial following in exchange for “free access to the product or service” or a fee for publishing content. But the notion that bloggers are simply ‘reviewers with reach’ is misguided, and PR professionals are missing a trick if they define them as such.
Successful bloggers are able to reach large networks of people because they produce great content that resonates with a target audience. Talya’s blog Motherhood: The Real Deal, is a good example. The hilarious account of the “general WTF-ness” that comes with being a mother embodies the spirit of being a blogger by connecting to her audience with good content that is relevant. We landed this release not because we paid, but because we have established a relationship centred around those principles.
As a PR firm working from inside the media – the so-called Trojan horse effect – we are able to land branded content across the board because we take a media-first approach to outreach. At a blogger level, that is about supplying good content, engaging with blogger communities and using our media-base to collaborate with bloggers to ensure the content cycle is rewarding for all parties involved.
Here’s a short guide to our blogger outreach programme.
Content generation
Bloggers, like any other publishing genre, are in the business of providing engaging content to readers. Where they differ is that they have free reign over how they produce that content. Unlike mainstream media outlets there is no protocol when it comes to blogging, which breaks the mould of the holistic model applied by PR companies when outreaching to the media. Press releases are outmoded, spokespeople are redundant and branded messages can be off-putting, but that doesn’t mean that content is unwanted.
At 72Point, we take a hands-off approach to content distribution. Our own digital media hub is tailored exclusively to online publications, providing all the necessary materials in a simple-to-use format. We encourage collaborators to get creative with the content we provide them, or even engage with it. Like this.
Building communities
Communities are a focal part of the blogger ecosystem. Social media communities exist across all genres, many of which are active with meetups and conferences regularly taking place across the country. In order to have a feel for the pulse of the community, it is really important to engage with these networks.
The digital hub has a large community of more than 500 bloggers which we endeavour to engage with on a regular basis. Our Ambassador Programme gives us access to key influencers who work within blogger communities, and we regular discuss topics such as content generation and co-creation in our forum, as well as outreaching over social media.
Co-creation
We strongly believe that bloggers should be a part of the creative process, and we endeavour to involve bloggers in the work we do wherever we can. Our ambassadors have worked with us on several releases which have subsequently given them great exposure in the national press. Here’s a couple of examples:
Plus Size Bloggers Speak Out About Body Shaming
Demand for Ethically Sourced Clothes Increasing
The blogging community has been somewhat neglected by the PR industry thus far, and it is to our detriment. Alternative media outlets offer a lot of promise and arguably as much or more ROI in terms of engagement and social interaction than national press. But involving them in the outreach process should be less about throwing freebies their way and more about involving them in the creative process. It’s undoubtedly a long-term endeavour, but ultimately for a very worthy cause.
Native Advertising: What is it and why should you be doing it?
Of all the ‘Zucker’ web pioneers in the World, Ethan Zuckerman is surely the most loathed. Working for Tripod.com in the 1990s he invented the odious pop-up advertising format which has enjoyed a lucrative career assaulting the eyeballs of innocent web browsers with sponsored messages and swindling clickbait. Last year he issued a public apology for “creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit” in a paper questioning whether advertising – the “default business model on the web” – could be replaced by other possible revenue models such as subscriptions, micro-payments and crowdfunding. His argument, predicated on the notion that advertising was the internet’s “original sin”, somewhat complicates the solution in search of a face-saving digital utopia. In reality, we just need ads that are better at engaging with online audiences.
In the 72Point report on the state of the digital media industry we coined the term “Citizen Editorship” to demonstrate how we have evolved to cope with the deluge of content online. Rather than acting as spectators, we have become agents in the media cycle and more powerful as a result, which is why disruptive ad formats such as pop-ups have largely fallen into disrepute. Today, browsers demand ads that complement their journey rather than detract from it, and smart marketers, publishers and agencies are moving aggressively to adjust their core strategies to reflect this.
What is It?
Native advertising is a form of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears, or, in the words of Peter Minnium, Head of Brand Initiatives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), ads that are “so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the user experience that the viewer simply feels that it belongs.”
Sponsored search results on Google, sponsored posts on Facebook and sponsored tweets on Twitter are all examples of content that is ‘native’ to its platform, and the publishing industry is quickly following suit. Companies such as Time Inc, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today have introduced new advertising integrations that match the form and function of their editorial feeds.
Why Should You Be Doing It?
Native advertising represents a significant shift in the evolution of digital advertising. Not only does it offer a non-disruptive means of communicating brand messages, it also works seamlessly across platforms and is ideal fodder for social media channels.
Well Liked
Research shows that native ads widen the purchase funnel by 29%. Compared to traditional display advertising, there is a considerable uplift in regards to discovery (+33%), trust (+32%) and purchase (+29%). The click-through rate for native ads is 31% higher than regular ads, and in stark contrast to pop-ups and display advertising, the majority (59%) of consumers actually like native ads.
A Good Fit
Brands are spending big marketing bucks online. Digital ad spend has increased from £825 million in 2004 to £7.2 billion in 2014, an increase of 800% in the midst of a severe economic downturn. This extensive increase is thanks to new ad formats that fit around the natural browsing habits of consumers. Share through/IPG Media labs research found 25% more consumers were measured to look at in-feed, native ad placements than standard banners in a recent study that used eye-tracking technology to assess the attention of consumers. Most notably, consumers looked at native ads 2% more than editorial content and spent the same number of seconds viewing.
Changing Consumption Behaviour
One of the other big findings from our Generation Editor report was the extent to which consumers are using multiple devices as part of their browsing experience. A massive 95 per cent of the 7,500 respondents surveyed said they consume media on multiple devices, with mobile and tablet overwhelmingly popular. Content marketing and native advertising already makes up over one fifth of digital display and half of mobile display because it seamlessly fits with this change, or evolution, of consumption behaviour.
72Point Native Advertising Packages
As specialists in writing and landing branded stories within the news pages of national news sites and specialist press outlets we have always been focused on organic coverage. However the native advertising package is a great way of bolstering a campaign with guaranteed regional exposure that complements the coverage we achieve through our traditional methods.
In conjunction with Johnston Press, 72Point can offer an unrivalled native advertising package which guarantees coverage across 185 digital sites in the UK. In comparison to an industry average 0.18% CTR, our ads have been running at an average of 0.37% CTR and are as high as 1.2% thanks to its prominent position on all homepages in the Johnston Press digital portfolio.
If you would like further information on our native advertising packages, don’t hesitate to get in touch.