iTunes celebrates 10 years of effective consumer technology PR

This week, Apple celebrated the 10^th birthday of iTunes, marking a decade since the tech giant changed the face of the music industry forever. As comfortably the largest music retailer in the world, iTunes has more than 435million users, who’ve downloaded over 25billion songs. It is easy to point the finger in Apple’s direction for destroying the UK’s high street music retailer. However, consumers made their own decision in the masses to buy music on iTunes, as opposed to spending their money on the ailing high street. Was it all down to clever consumer technology PR?

Entering the new millennium, Limewire, Napster and other illegal downloading sites were emerging as a major threat to the music industry, allowing consumers to download to their hearts’ content without paying a penny. Then iTunes entered the frame with a concept so simple, it would have been easy not to realise it didn’t exist already. Allowing people to buy music online, for 99p per song, to be put straight onto their already compatible iPod? Genius. Apple played what has become its signature game, hitting its consumer with a concept they had no idea was a crucial element to their lives until that very moment.

Following the birth of iTunes, Apple quickly learnt how to keep its simplistic PR ship afloat. The company kept attention-grabbing PR activity to a minimum, choosing to go all out for their very special milestones, rather than little and often. For example, to celebrate the online store receiving its one billionth download, Apple engaged with their loyal customer base by rewarding the lucky downloader with a 20” iMac, 10 60GB iPods and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card; a trick they continued to use for subsequent landmark downloads. The company recognised the strength of the world’s everlasting love affair with The Beatles, and leveraged it heavily after finally managing to secure the rights to sell their entire catalogue on iTunes. So much so, that did anyone even notice it had taken seven years to get there?

The key elements of iTunes’ success can be applied to any consumer technology PR campaign. Firstly, convince the consumer you have something they now cannot live without. Secondly, deliver that experience.  Thirdly, reward faithful customers and keep communications simple. Bring on the next ten years.

How Food and Drink PR Can Inspire

I’m pretty lucky as a PR professional when it comes to food and drink PR experience and I’ve worked with some huge household brands which inspired me. Food and drink PR is so versatile it can be used to tap into all kinds of audiences, whether for educational purposes, events, adults, sustainability and more. In fact, I don’t think there are many areas that food and drink PR can’t reach. We all eat, we all drink, and there is a huge variety of ways in which it can affect our lives.

Some of the drinks brands I’ve worked with encouraged kids to improve their physical skills, like keepy-uppy, and sponsored UK wide pantomimes featuring celebrities and local children who auditioned for a part. I’ve also had the great fortune to work with a cereal brand with a famous face (not human) on the box. It fit perfectly with wrestling and, in fact, sponsored a very well known touring global wrestling event which inspired kids and adults alike. That’s not to say I haven’t had my fair share of more adult-focussed food and drink PR projects which are also tremendous fun.

My blog this week is all about how food and drinks brands can inspire, so I thought I would share a fantastic example from a global drinks brand which touched me (not in the literal sense). Boiled down, it’s a cash machine that tells people they can get 100 Euros with no card and asks them to share it with others, giving several options such as hiring a storyteller for local kids, buying nappies for women etc. under no obligation. It’s had almost half a million views and, though no one actually had to share the money, there’s been a lot of lovely feedback videos of people actually sharing their find. Thanks to PR Examples for pointing out this inspirational idea.

Telecoms PR: What a good PR needs to know about the telecoms industry

This week the attention of anyone in the tech PR industry was focused on the telecoms market. And indeed, the news from Mobile World Congress abounded with stories about technology innovation and thought leadership. With new developments happening on a daily basis the telecoms sector is a fast-paced environment that needs to be carefully watched. We wondered how these new trends and technologies are affecting telecoms PR and what are the key skills required to deliver successful PR campaigns in this space?

The complexity conundrum: The telecoms industry is a very complex market. With plenty of players across the hardware, software, and service provisioning space, it is no wonder that people are often finding it difficult to understand who is doing what in the telecoms world. From companies offering video broadcasting satellites and telephone handsets , to internet and network service providers, to software vendors delivering data and equipment management tools, the telecoms industry offers a diverse range of issues and technical challenges that need to be taken into account when devising a PR campaign. Therefore PR agencies need to have a broad understanding of a wide range of industry and technology issues across multiple sectors to keep up with the fast pace of this complex and demanding market.

The convergence issue: The increasing convergence in the telecoms space is blurring the boundaries between consumer electronics, computer hardware, and telecom services, with technology vendors increasingly finding themselves competing with CSPs and internet service providers for a lucrative share of the telecoms market. For instance, today’s telco organisations are partnering with media companies to offer video-on-demand for mobile devices and other content-based services that were previously considered outside their domain. PR consultants need to understand the intrinsic relationships between the key players in the telecoms market and be able to effectively communicate their client’s messaging to different market segments and audiences.

Understand new trends: As a fast moving market, the telecoms sector ushers in innovative technologies almost on a daily basis. Understanding the key trends behind these technological developments will play a key role in creating and executing creative issues-led telecoms PR campaigns. The role of 4G, for instance, will enable a whole new set of services for consumers and businesses within the telcoms space. This will impact the tariffs and data sharing plans offered by telco providers and the access to data-heavy mobile applications. Another significant trend in this space is the evolution of M2M services and the role of telco providers in provisioning connectivity to enable communication between M2M devices.

Broader reach across vertical markets: The growth of M2M will enable CSPs to partner with electronic and equipment manufacturers as well as network management and wireless solutions providers to deliver new services to consumers across a range of vertical markets. The automotive industry is a good example of how this trend is going to affect the telecoms space. Car infotainment systems will enable drivers to interact on social media sites, get live updates about traffic jams on their route, find the nearest gas station and benefit from many other new services that were not possible before. The opportunities for all players in the market seem to be very promising. For PR agencies this means broadening the scope of telecoms PR campaigns to reach different vertical markets and establishing strong relationships with key media across all vertical sectors relevant to their clients. Therefore leveraging sound industry knowledge and deep understanding of key market issues across vertical sectors will be key to ensuring a telecoms PR campaign is a success.

European PR campaigns: Mind the Cultural Gap

In our recent blog about running EMEA PR campaigns, we provided a few tips on how to manage the communication process for Pan-European PR projects. This post is going to focus a bit more on how cultural differences across Europe affect PR campaigns and what are the essential things we need to consider when planning a large scale campaign that spans different countries:

• Mind the cultural gap: While it might seem pretty obvious, ignoring the cultural differences between countries can have disastrous consequences for your PR campaign. If you are planning a media outreach campaign around Valentine’s day, for example, have in mind that many European countries do not regarded it as an important holiday and your idea may not deliver the expected results. Therefore involving all local agencies at the very start of the PR planning process is essential for the success of your campaign.

• Make sure the timing is right: Different cultures have different lifestyles and different daily routines. Consider local countries cultures for breakfast and lunch briefings as we all have different timings for these at local level. Same thing applies to evening events such as vision dinners or product launches where the right timing is essential for reducing the number of last minute drop-outs.

• Different cultures, different holidays: If you consider organising a European PR campaign around Easter or Mother’s Day, don’t automatically assume that all holidays fall on the same day. Some Eastern European countries celebrate Easter a week later than the UK and the Spanish Mother’s Day is in May, not in March as you would normally expect.

• Cultural differences are reflected in the media: Handling media relations across different countries is a tricky game. While talking to or meeting with UK media usually requires a more relaxed and informal approach, in Germany you will be expected to adopt a more ‘formal’ behaviour. So downing a few pints after work with a UK journalist might be a great thing to do, but it may not do you any good in Germany.

• Beware of the language barrier: While it’s quite tempting to assume that all journalists in Europe speak English, the reality is that they don’t. Therefore speaking the local language is essential when pitching stories across Europe.

• Think about the right type of content: German IT journalists are quite technical and are more likely to be interested in pitches or spokespeople that can provide a lot of technical detail. This may not be true for the UK or French media, for example, and the list of differences can go on and on.