Ask any PR or advertising professional about the value of having a story to bring a campaign to life and it’s recommended that you be seated comfortably, ready to listen, with a very sympathetic look on your face.

Whereas authors and journalists have the pleasure of starting with the story and then working towards a conclusion, communications professionals often find themselves with things presented the wrong way around.

The time-old tale of creating a campaign will play to something along the following lines:

Enter client, stage left.

“Here is our latest [project, product, service] and we want it to become the next best thing since… well, our last [project, product, service.]”

The goal is simple and clear-cut, elementary really: “stimulate desire!”; “amplify awareness!”; “change perceptions!!”

As the script inevitably goes, the next question is how?

• What is the compelling hook that will make people want it?
• What is the pitch that will change peoples’ minds?
• What is the story that people will tell for ages to come?

Exit agency, stage right, not to be seen again until act 3.

Fast-forward several months and, ultimately, the campaign does exactly what was intended. Measurement – key performance indicators… numbers – prove exactly how well the campaign delivered. How perceptions were changed and how it all affected the client’s bottom line.

But, what about the story? Unlike authors who can measure the “value” of their story based on book sales, the value of a PR story has only ever been indirectly measured by the global success of the campaign. If the campaign was a success, then the story must have been great.  The fact is, though, calculating the unique value of a story was simply never done before.  Until now.

Joshua Glenn, Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance, and Rob Walker, author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, have been able to measure the value of a story through a quasi-anthropological experiment, based on the hypothesis – “Narrative transforms insignificant objects into significant ones.”  The experiment is called Significant Objects and their conclusion is quite astounding:

The value of a story is 2,776%. Why percent and not Dollars or Euros? The answer is in the experiment itself:

• They bought objects considered to be of little to no value from garage sales, thrift stores and eBay.
• They then asked a selection of writers to bring each object to life create in the form of a fictional story about the object’s past.
• The object is then put back up for sale on eBay with the fictional story written out instead of a factual description.
• The lucky purchaser is shipped the object and a hard copy of the story that sold the object and the proceeds go to the author.

With a story by Susannah Breslin, the Necking Team Button went from 50 cents to $36.88

How did they reach 2,776%? SO v1 – the first batch of 100 objects – were bought by Significant Objects for $120.  Through a complex price adjustment scheme over 19 weeks to neutralise Duration Factors, the final profit on all objects sold came to $3,612… for a total mark-up of 2,776%.

As far as quasi-experimental experiments go, this is an incredibly heart-warming example. And it may also go a long way to helping communications professionals in recognising, if not calculating, the value of their own stories.

Taking a look at the evolution of social media as a communications tool over the past year, it is clear that one thing in particular has changed, businesses now take it seriously and include in their communications strategy.

Brands now automatically lose their shine with customers if they do not allow for direct communication between customer and company. This shift in expectation has lead to the growth in the number of managing directors asking where the company’s Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and YouTube channels are and why can’t we have thousands of fans tomorrow?

With a view to providing a glimpse under the hood at some of these changes over the last twelve months, we have put together our Social Media Lens. The document launches today at Marketing Week Live! For your own copy just click here, all we ask are a few details about you.

We have been very lucky to have some of the UK’s leading practitioners in the social media space support us with the production of Social Media Lens; presenting real world examples instead of last year’s theories. The collection of articles provides a unique view on what has changed, what works, what doesn’t and a variety of tips and tricks for getting social media activity up and running.

Articles in the ebook cover a whole raft of different insights, advice, trends, what is new and coming up in social media as well as some secrets from marketing professionals from major brands including: Sony, Paddy Power, Oracle, Santander and more.

Once you have had a chance to take a read do come back and let us know what you think.

Surely it can’t just be about the products. There are many other consumer electronics companies with great design and rich features. So what makes hundreds of people – probably take a day holiday from work – stand in a queue for hours just for a new phone?

I have been a vocal advocate of all things Apple for a number of years. That said, I don’t buy into this “must have day it is released” philosophy that keeps Apple on the front pages.

I think we are all still a bit in awe of the company, its products and its success. All since it simplified personal music players at a time when every other tech company was talking up more and more formats, features, memory, processor speed etc. This must be where the attraction lies, technology for the technophobe and geek alike, only in limited numbers (at least on launch).

Accessibility to the internet, to information, entertainment and the people who are important to us has never been easier. The iPad and the iPhone put this power in our pockets, or a small bag. The combination of design and simple, reliable technology that provides non-stop access to the services we now demand has been the secret sauce behind the company’s success. It is the epitome of less is more.

As a gently cynical PR person, I can’t help but also think that the introverted, highly controlled communications strategy has also been important, kind of a real world Willy Wonka for the consumer electronics market. Yet there are chinks that seem to be appearing in this particular piece of armour.

Apple needs to be careful not to get too big for its boots. It is still just one of many technology companies out there offering these types of product. The left hand gaff is a potential landmine for what has been an impenetrable tank rolling over its competitors as it sees fit, given the power of social networking platforms today.

Don’t get me wrong, iPhone 4 is just a wobble. iPad has been hugely successful and the phones will sort themselves out over the coming few months. Having said that, right now the company needs to work hard to ensure its mystique remains. Prototype products being sold to bloggers, fundamental usability issues appearing on day of launch and a change in tone to one of arrogance will leave a lingering uncertainty in the mouth of later adopters and could build to a sense that Apple rotten to the core.

In this day and age of social networking, many PRs are now beginning to rely too heavily on email and instant messenger to sell-in their stories to the media. Gone are the days of the telephone and the hour long lunch briefing. Now it seems, we are becoming guilty of broadcasting our messages through round-robin emails and Tweets.

Is there any talent involved in sending an email? Is this really PR? Surely PR is about building relationships and connecting with influencers? But, how can you build a rapport with a blogger if you only contact them via email? Aside from the dreaded ‘are they going to feature your story?’ question, what else do you really know about that person?

Email is great as a follow-on platform, but it should not be the central tool that we use to build relationships around. Phone calls and face to face meetings help us build personal connections with journalists and bloggers. It is these things that help us get to the heart of what types of stories and assets truly ‘turn journalists on.’

Remember the famous BT ad slogan ‘it’s good to talk’. Well, BT got it spot on! Picking up the phone and talking to influencers is a vital part of building long-term relationships. As an agency, we try wherever possible to pick up the phone and talk. We even developed a ‘following our call’ day, FOC for short. This went down a storm in the office and helped incentivise people to get on the old dog and bone instead of automatically using email to make media approaches. FOC has helped us nurture a whole database of influencers within technology, marketing and consumer fields.

"It's good to talk" BT advert starring Maureen Lipman

What’s more, we have even setup our very own blogger meetup group! Our first event is scheduled for 29th June at Marketing Week Live. In between serving up our delicious immediate future cupcakes and tea, we will be networking with all types of savvy bloggers, tweeters, forum owners and Facebookers to find out how we can help them.

It’s not just a one way street when it comes to communicating with influencers; we believe in giving bloggers information that they need and want. So, during our meetup we are going to be discussing the art of engagement and the online relationship between influencers and brands. The exhibition itself will also be full of seminars showcasing the latest tools and technology to help bloggers make their websites more effective.

Talking is the best information gatherer we as PRs have at our finger tips. Social media is a fantastic resource to use and one that we should all implement within our influencer relations, but it needs to be married with traditional relationship building skills. It’s good to talk and as PRs we don’t seem to be doing enough. So why don’t we all have a FOC day!

Never mix business with pleasure. That’s what they used to say. Perhaps they just meant don’t get caught in flagrante with your secretary, but let’s just say it was a belief that our corporate and social lives belonged in two separate spheres. But ‘they’ didn’t know that Web 2.0 was coming. ‘They’ didn’t have the foresight to see the two worlds were on a collision course that would form a whole new dimension: the corporate social sphere.

Business has become social. CRM – much to the Daily Mail’s horror – has become a social media interaction. Jason Lewis calls it ‘spying’ for a company to monitor and react to online sentiment. For the customer in question, it means passively receiving customer service. Rather than waiting in a call centre queue, the customer simply has a rant on Facebook and waits for a customer services representative to actively come straight to them.

Business has become personal. As recently reported by Cleveland Ohio Business News, the early days of social networking sites led to embarrassing blows for companies, when employees failed to realise that their personal social networking accounts were very much in the ‘public’ domain. We’re all a little older and wiser now. We know how to set those drug-fuelled orgy photos to private.

But in the corporate social sphere the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Social networking pages become resources for building more personal relationships with colleagues and clients. ‘Following’ industry peers on Twitter and LinkedIn becomes a constant and unlimited reach to new contacts and news.

You can look at the corporate social sphere in two ways. You can argue that the business world has invaded our personal lives and in doing so, ultimately infringed on our privacy. Or, you can look at it the other way. Our personal lives have invaded the business world. We’re not starchy, formal cogs in a machine, we’re an interwoven web of relationships – and the better those relationships are, the easier it makes it to get up on Monday morning.

Image via Wikipedia

The much anticipated iPad was finally launched, just in time for the Bank Holiday weekend. I sat in the pub the other night talking about this amazing, latest must-have-gadget with my friends. We established, as has everyone else, it’s a large iPhone, minus the calling facility; I know this is a very simplified analysis. However, no one seems to really know the function of the iPad, not to mention being able to point out any of the life enhancing benefits that come with it.

The iPad has the possibility to be great when it comes to entertaining purposes – in the space of your own home that is. Standing in a crowded tube during the rush hour, trying to watch something on an iPad is a definite faux-pas. It ranks up there with loud music lovers and equally loud conversationalists on public transport. If you haven’t played with an iPad yet, let me tell you it’s not only of an inconvenient size, but it is surprisingly heavy! Standing on a crammed tube, trying to balance an iPad, is really not for me.

The design of the iPad is, admittedly, sleek. Size has been and always will be an issue and the iPad is no different; if I can’t fit it in my bag, it’s not leaving the house with me. This, in my opinion, undermines the purpose of a latest must-have-gadget completely. What’s the point with it if it can’t be easily shared?

Everyone I know refers to the iPad as “a screen” rather than “tablet”. What does the average, non-techy consumer associate with when talking about a tablet? Probably nothing more than medication or old, I mean really old, writing boards. Oh yes, that reminds me: weren’t the 10 Commandments meant to have been written on tablets?

Copying Moses or not, Apple is definitely creating history with their latest gadget. They know their audience: whether or not there is a need for it, they have managed to offer their followers the most desirable toy, and managed to that 6 months before Christmas to ensure everyone will want one come December 25th. Yes,  I’m referring to the iPad as a toy. Toys are disposable, they are short lived, as I believe is the iPad. At least this model, or should I say prototype. Bring on a flexible screen, light in weight and shock proof frame and you might have a winner.

Having criticised the iPad before it even launched and having played with one since it was released, I still haven’t been told why I can’t live without this magical toy. What will it do to enhance my existence? If you can enlighten me, please do, as I am really starting to get pretty desperate. Am I the only one daring to ask a question everyone wants to ask?

Image via Wikipedia

Sentiment around a brand online is held up as one of the key cornerstones of any social media measurement framework. Just driving up the volume of chatter around your brand is no good – if that chatter is all about what a terrible organisation you are.

But, one of the biggest challenges facing the industry has been how to capture the full range of that positive and negative feeling. The online world is a large and sprawling place. There are 100s of comments posted every day about a company’s products, services and public image.
There are a huge number of tools out there that attempt sentiment analysis in one form or another – Radian 6 being one of the more commonly used ones. Its creators are pretty transparent about its limitations on the sentiment front (allowing you to manually override the ‘score’ given by the tool’s algorithm).

Industry experts estimate that machine analysis is right about 60% of the time (love and hate are easy, but anything in between is not). Most of us end up conducting manual analysis, sampling multiple posts, instead. However, in New Scientist’s latest edition, there’s a shining beacon of hope for all those spending hours pouring over the 500th blog post of the day. A team from Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem have created a program that achieved an 80% (give or take a few percent) success rate when it came to measuring sarcasm on Amazon and Twitter.

You can read the article in more detail here, and we’ll be following the progress of Ari Rappoport and co. with great interest over the coming months…