Trevor Cook on public relations, social media and politics

Category Archives: Advertising & marketing

NEWSFLASH: Bernard Salt discovers new acronym

September 9, 2009 – 6:46 am

Bernard Salt is no doubt a wonderful demographer, but he is also great at getting publicity.
Salt knows the value of a bright new social trend, be it tree changing, sea changing or now Nettels.
Yes, folks, Salt has interrogated the data (generously provided by taxpayers) and discovered (drumroll please) that many people are time poor.
Of [...]

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Rugby League discovers that all publicity can be good publicity

June 18, 2009 – 7:41 am

Think the NRL is fading under a welter of controversy? Think again:
The NRL is trumpeting an increase in crowds and television ratings for 2009.
The league says crowds are up five per cent on the same time last year and have totalled 1,688,948 so far in 2009.
It says game one of the State of Origin series [...]

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Media response: Wahhhh! I want a recession

June 4, 2009 – 8:14 am

After all, everyone else has got one mummy.
The media is at its rancid worst this morning bemoaning the technical absence of a recession when everyone reeaalllly knows the whole place is f#cked.
Ross Gittins defends his right to call it a recession no matter what the data say. Interestingly, a week ago he was writing on [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Business & economics, Federal politics, Media, Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Simpsons and smoking; public health research sinks to a new low

June 1, 2009 – 7:36 am

From the ‘who funds this nonsense’ file comes this  ludicrous  quote:
The researchers noted that even “in instances of smoking being reflected in a negative way, particularly among younger characters, could have an impact on prompting children to smoke cigarettes.”
If anyone really believed this then surely we would immediately cancel all those anti-smoking ads?
The research found that [...]

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Give me your frugal, your thrifty, your wealthy multitudes yearning to save pennies

May 21, 2009 – 7:11 am

As we all know, the media are herd animals and as befits these ‘hard’ times the Columbia Journalism Review has been tracking what it calls the ‘frugality beat’. 
We’ve seen a bit of this stuff locally too. For instance, the Gladstone Observer has a useful piece, “Tackle recession blues with books“, the fairfax media recently had [...]

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How to pitch bloggers – PR gives social marketing advice

May 18, 2009 – 7:51 pm
By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Business & economics, Public Relations, Social Media | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Personality, rather than demographics, predict media consumption

May 5, 2009 – 8:15 pm

Dynamic optimists read newspapers according to a US study:
Optimists spend more time with newspapers than any other medium, and they probably recycle it, too. They’re 51% more likely to go out of their way to purchase recycled goods, 34% more likely to drive a luxury car and 30% more likely to have bought four or [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Media, Newspapers | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Is PR part of the media’s problem?

May 5, 2009 – 3:44 am

The PR industry provides a large and, apparently, growing share of media content:
Macnamara said the data showed 30-80 per cent of media content was sourced from, or significantly influenced by, PR practitioners, depending on the outlet, with estimates of 40-75 per cent common.
The definition of PR material included all information released to the media by [...]

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Cluetrain stalled at the platform

April 29, 2009 – 7:23 pm

So it’s been ten years. For a few years, I was like a latter day Karl Marx scouring the newspapers looking for evidence that the revolution was underway. Now, I don’t bother anymore. There’s lots of marginal stuff, many organisations that are dipping their toes in the water. But for the most part, like say [...]

By Trevor Cook | Also posted in Business & economics, Enterprise 2.0, Public Relations, Social Media | Tagged | Comments (1)

London to its banks: thanks for the memories

April 24, 2009 – 8:36 am

It can be a ruthless world when it comes to protecting your brand, the Times reports:
Bankers, London’s favoured sons during the boom years, are now far more likely to be associated with greed and ineptitude than success. Their diminished standing is to be underscored by a rebranding campaign for the capital aimed at diverting the [...]

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