Best PR acts of 2008 selected

Here's a news article from EPRA that I translated into english with my added comments:

Estonian Public Relations Association (EPRA) jury announced in Tartu at marketing conference Password 2009 the best PR acts of year 2008 that were divided into three categories - public, third and private sectors. As 2008 was the year of innovation, additional prize was given for most innovative PR campaign. In total 13 great works of PR were applied which all were seen as professional and well prepared.

2008 years best public PR act won campaign for celebrating Estonian Republic jubilee which standed out with its aforethought, coverage and project leading.

Symbol they used, the leaf’s that also visualized 90 was catchy and people loved this and many companyes wanted to put this on their products and packages. 

Teeme ära 2008 won every possible award

Best PR project in third sector was selected the nationwide cleaning campaign “Teeme ära 2008” (Let’s do it 2008) which was unprecedented and with its communication were able to involve the most volunteers in the history. 

The Let’s Do it 2008 PR campaign’s communication were mainly channeled through internet. They used internet community websites like Orkut, Facebook, bkite.com, twitter, flickr, googlemaps, ect.

In private sector were the most applied works and from the tight competition won the Corpore leaded AEG Bocouse pro-chef competition (Ordered by AEG Electrolux), where taking in mind their target group they developed a perfectly working output and message.

For innovation year prize the Loovagentuur Maailm organized the world’s first song festival held in Võru’s local language UMA PIDO. The prize was given for organizing communication for this festival ordered by Võru Institute which brought together over 10 000 people forming the cultural event no.1. Project keyword was acting together and joining the community.

Campaigns were judged by EPRA public relations experts: Mart Soonik, Aive Levandi, Tiiu Allikmäe, Aili Ohlau, Erkki Peetsalu and Janno Toots.

via EPRA

Would you be a PR genius or devil?

...well, both actually, for successful career!

„PR is manipulative weapon” – it has been said by a lot of people. 

So that’s why I wanted to write here some jokes I read about PR manipulators (that means, about us), which are confirming this statement are behind this humor there is a truth –  in nowadays world PR people often are crossing the line, because they have the power and knowledge to make things much bigger than they are. And sometimes they go too far. But on the other hand, can we say that only PR is an industry, which manipulates people? Think about it!

Well, here is the first one: 

A mathematician, an accountant and a public relations officer all applied for the same job with a large company. The interviewer called in the mathematician first and asked, "What does two plus two equal?" The mathematician replied, "Four." The interviewer asked, "Four, exactly?" The mathematician looked at the interviewer incredulously and said, "Yes, of course: four, exactly."Then the interviewer called in the accountant and asked the same question, "What does two plus two equal?" The accountant said, "On average, four - give or take 10 per cent; but on average, four."Then the interviewer called in the public relations officer and again posed the same question, "What does two plus two equal?" public relations officer got up, locked the door, closed the shade, sat down next to the interviewer and whispered, "Well, what do you want it to equal?"

I liked that, because it brings out one of the main questions in public relations: what kind of image would you like to create? -  Quite often it will be our job to create “something“ from “nothing“. Yes, maybe we can use the word “manipulative weapon“, but hey, that´s life! And we can get money for doing it.

Of course another situation is acting unethical way. This is something which any educated person shouldn´t do. But for example, in the process of creating this “something“ we should make things better than they are, otherwise we won´t succeed. A good point is that it´s hard to make your product successful, without using PR service. So let´s talk things better!

"I'm thinking of leaving my husband,” complained the wife of a well-known public relations expert."All he ever does is stand at the end of our bed and tell me how good things are going to be.

Probably we are doing the same thing in the future – telling ALL THE TIME how good things are going to be. But the truth is even if we supposed to be manipulative geniuses. Sometimes we can still make a mistake, or two, or create a total mess. It could happen to each one of us, right?

The doctor stated that God had created Eve from Adam's rib. This, of course, had been a surgical procedure. The engineer argued that, earlier, God had created order from chaos. This had clearly been an engineering feat. "But," asked the public relations consultant, "who do you think created the chaos in the first place?"

Everyone knows that PR people have to fix several problems. Well it´s their job and they have to be responsible for it. But the funny part is that if something goes wrong, still a big amount of people (also journalists) are blaming PR people for it. So I believe that through these three (or five?) years we are studying here, we should also grow a „fat skin” (as Estonians would say)

And here is the last one, which I liked:

The two young sons of a public relations professional were walking home from Sunday School when one turned to the other and asked: "What do you make of all this business about the devil that we studied today?"

The other boy replied thoughtfully, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. This is probably just Dad, too."

Jokes are taken from Public Relations: a Matter of Spin by N. E. Renton

Unethical PR in the nearby past in Estonia

When trying to recall unethical PR strategies in Estonia I remembered two incidents - Swedbank's (formerly Hansapank) youth campaign for their NPNK products and services; and the demolition of Sakala cultural centre. I'll try to explain both of them in this blog, at first about the NPNK campaign.

In april, 2005, bigger cities were flooded with rat-signs stating the letters NPNK, they covered all the bus-stops, lightposts, trash-bins and so on. You could find stickers and posters literally everywhere you looked, free t-shirts were distributed in large amounts. At first they stated nothing more than the letters, but a day later a website address appearaed, it was www.zone.ee/npnk, Zone Media provides free web space for everyone that registers. The website claimed to be a website for independent squatters ("Squatting is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting), and their goal remained unclear, yet squats are usually places for young creative people to get together. The campaign appealed to youth and they became carriers of Swedbanks message, unknowingly.

What caught my eye in the first couple of days was that the space where the posters were glued on the bus stations and trash bins, usually a place for ads, was blank beneath the posters. Also, the supplies handed out and glued all over the city must have cost at least a couple of hundred thousand kroons, where would some independent squatters take that kind of money and what what is their purpose? This smelt an awful lot like a lie. A friend of mine was distributing stickers for NPNK, he was hired by the ad agency Tank. By that time it was ofcourse clear that this is some big corporations viral marketing trick. He wasn't told any information on whats behind it, but he was said that it's okay to stick them on Hansapanks atm-s. When I queried the domain www.npnk.ee, of course it was already registered. And what a suprise, it was registered to a ltd company, whose address was Liivalaia 8... guess which companies headquarter is on the same address? Bingo.

After a week NPNK had gotten a lot of publicity - advertisement for free. They got the front cover of Estonias most read daily newspaper, Postimees covered with their logos for 0 kroons, a place that is not even available to buy for advertising. Of course, as we all know from Principles of PR, publicity is uncontrollable. As it revealed that Hansapank had lied on the campaign and claimed to be someone it's not, youth who had respect for subcultures like squatters got angry. At least one official movement was started to protest against Hansapank. They started a squat in Hansapank and demanded the following things:

1. Hansapank will apologize publicly for taking advantage of the squatters subculture, faking a grass-roots campaign, misleading the public and for betraying the trust and cincere wish to support actions like squatting.
2. Hansapank will give up the brand NPNK and campaigns like this and other unethical advertising strategies in their forthcoming economical activity.

It seemed that Hansapank itself was startled as well that their campaign met such a resistance among the very ones they were supposed to influence to become users of NPNK. Being suprised they did at least a couple of things right - they called the protest movement leaders to a meeting. Of course they did not give up on the brand where they had buried a lot of money. But the protesters at least achieved one of their goals - Hansapank apologized publicly and admitted that the campaign, done like this, was a mistake.

How to sell batteries

Lately I found myself admiring the success of one specific regular household battery and no, I'm not talking about the forever going rabbit powered by Duracell.

Namely Panasonic has introduced a new battery called EVOLTA (“EVOIA” in Europe) that lasts longer than any other and recognized by Guinness World Record as the world’s “longest lasting AA alkaline battery cell”

My first sightings about this battery evolution were in technology blog called Engadget in somewhere at the end of last year. The news itself is more than a year old. The first thoughts were that why there is a news article written about a regular battery?

Lately I noticed a package of those batteries in a store near my home village. The package design and the world EVOIA caught my eye and I recognized them: “Oh hey, aren’t those the batteries said to be world’s best?” 

I thought how well did it succeeded as a PR campaign for this simple everyday item.

Let’s imagine that you are at the beginning of the process of bring the new battery to the market. Currently in the lead is the well known Duracell with their rock climbing bunny and right after that seems to be the Energizer with the similar pink drum banging bunny. So what to do with those market leading rabbits?

Well the Panasonic got somehow the Guinness World Record for their innovative battery that outlasts the competitors by 20-30%. What a good chance to but a well known and trusted Guinness World Record logo onto the package making the batteries look professional and not comparing the performance by how high can a cute stuffed rabbit clime on the cliffs. 

So why did I chose that brand of batteries? Look at it this way: if you are at shop choosing between different products, what are the main things you decide on when buying a regular battery? For me it’s how long they last as simply there is nothing other to compare. So if Panasonic has this flashy yellow sticker on the package stating: “World’s No. 1 Long Lasting” and they have Guinness World Record to stand behind that statement then for me it’s a sale! If you ask that is the 20-30% longer lifetime also expensive, then 3-5% difference in price is still worth it. You then don’t have to change the batteries so often and by that you also keep the world a greener place as you use fewer batteries.

In my opinion, the EVOIA has a good chance on becoming the market leader in a few years or so. 

Introductory

[names, pictures and description of students here]

Tarmo Saluste
Annika Parm
Eva Berendsen
Jass Seljamaa
Marleen Roosna