Oliver Postgate - creator of some of the greatest UK children’s television – has passed.
His work which included Bagpuss, The Clangers and Noggin the Nog, delighted – and continues to delight – children everywhere. His collaborator, Sandra Kerr – the voice of Madeleine and the mice in Bagpuss (see pic above) speaks of an eccentric whose cottage industry approach to programme making simply struck a chord with kids.
Who, growing up with such great telly, could ever forget the closing words of every Bagpuss episode: “Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep, was just a saggy old cloth cat; baggy and a bit loose at the seams, but Emily loved him.”
STOP PRESS: Charlie Brooker’s “Screenburn” – normally a place where X Factor contestants or Big Brother housemates are lacerated in print – is the source of the most heart-felt tribute to Oliver Postgate.
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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'Jon Clements'
As a – primarily – “social media for business” resource, PR Media Blog was transported to a parallel universe at last night’s Social Media Cafe Manchester (#smc_mcr).
The brave new online worlds of artistic endeavour shared by Heather Corcoran, curator of Liverpool’s media arts centre, FACT, seemed a heady mix of Heath Robinson and the crazy cartoon inventor, Clunk, in “Dastardly and Mutley”.
The collection of “innovation communities” included artists’ collective, Dorkbot describing itself, worryingly, as ”people doing strange things with electricity”, while Node London - an “independent net art collective, exploring new creative territories that straddle between the virtual and the real” was an experiment in open working where nobody was in charge and the result was, according to Corcoran (pictured below), a “crazy nightmare that happened only once”.
But behind the art-for-art’s-sake lunacy was an interesting concept of loosely associated groups of people working together – and blending online and offline activity – to share knowledge and create something new. An example of this is the School of Everything where those wanting to learn and those wanting to teach can find one another.
So, an interesting and unexpected tangent for the #smc_mcr. But does this mean that it’s now “sexy to be a geek”, as somebody mused? Think “Bill Gates” before you answer that one.
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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'Jon Clements'
The “word of mouth” concept has been thoroughly appropriated by social media as its own, and rightly so. But it’s still going on off-line and in the most unlikely places.
With no national advertising campaigns, how else would AB demographic shoppers be helping to push up the profits of the discounter to end them all, Poundland? It’s probably not on their usual shopping route and they might be snobbish about their purchasing, but when you hear that everything costs no more than a quid a 20%-off deal at John Lewis or House of Fraser just doesn’t cut it.
And when did you last read a full-page of good business news in a national newspaper? Saturday’s piece on Poundland was exactly that.
Poundland has built a reputation by defying all the sophistication of modern retailing by simply doing what it says on the tin – selling at the same consistently, iconically cheap price.
It’s when you don’t fufil your “brand promise” that you come unstuck. Take the Christmas theme parks currently choosing to prefix themselves “Lapland”. It’s a risky strategy, especially if you’re located in Milton Keynes. None of them are, but could they be any less like the destination whose spirit of Christmas they’re aspiring to capture?
As a parish councillor commented on one of the Lapland-themed days out: “Does it look like Lapland to you? It doesn’t to me.” The Lapland New Forest facility is now closed; but maybe it could have survived by scrapping the impossibly aspirational association with Lapland and achieving true authenticity by calling itself “Christmas in the Mud”.
The Guardian’s chief iconoclast, Charlie Booker, feels the failed Lapland attractions could have flourished with a wave of ironic visitors on a macabre pilgrimage as a result of the bad press. But kids and Christmas don’t do irony well and Santa is a brand you don’t mess with, as Lapland UK owner, Mike Battle says: “If you get it right people will love you. If you get it wrong, they’ll want your head.”
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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'Jon Clements'
Before I go any further fairness dictates that if you really want to know whether it will be a white Christmas this year you might want to go to Metcheck, the Weather Channel or BBC Weather.
This weekend The Guardian ran a fascinating spread. ‘The Most Popular Story in the World’ tackled the subject of search engines and editorial. Not long ago Charlie Brooker wrote a piece debunking the various 9/11 conspiracy theories. The Guardian web-site was overun by the masses. The following week Brooker decided to open his column with the line…Miley Cyrus, Angelina, Israel vs Palestine, iPhone, 9/11 conspiracy, Facebook, MySpace and Britney Spears nude. The effect on traffic was unspectacular.
Search engine optimization (SEO) and that is essentially what all this is about, depends on using more than just lots of popular keywords. They might have some impact on hits but visitors will ‘bounce’ (leave the site) as quickly as they entered. Here at PRMediaBlog towers we’ve had several articles that have resulted in spikes in visitor numbers so we know at first hand what many of the drivers are. You don’t just need keywords, you need inbound links too – if you have a blog by the way and you are interested in SEO feel free to link to this article!
The content shouldn’t just be link-bait either. It needs to be engaging in its own right, plus Google and other search engines rank sites so track record is very important too.
So why is White Christmas in the headline? Well headlines are important and it is just over two weeks to Christmas. That’s about when long range weather forecasts start to get accurate so that’s when the searches should gather pace. PR has always used the calendar to provide hooks for stories so why should digital PR be any different? I’ll keep you posted in the comment section on how this blog post does for visits. I might even let you know if they all bugger off to the weather sites.
Rob Brown has worked in PR for over 20 years and for over fifteen years held senior PR positions within three major global advertising networks; Euro RSCG, McCann Erickson and TBWA. He launched his own business ‘Rule 5’ in MediaCityUK, Manchester in November 2012. Rob is the author of ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ (2009), blogs for The Huffington Post and is joint editor of the forthcoming 'Share This Too' (2013).
There was a Manchester based sports reporter for The Mirror who wrote Grand Prix reviews when he hadn’t even been at the races. He watched them on the TV and filed the copy from the comfort of his living room. Legend has it he was rumbled when after a major crash the editor dispatched him to conduct an interview with the injured driver at his hospital bed some several hundred miles from where, let’s call him Ted, was sitting.
I feel a little bit like that reporter, writing a piece on the Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media seminar in Manchester today when I didn’t go to it and at the time of writing this piece the conference hasn’t even finished. It’s not live TV material so what’s the sketch? Well it is a social media event so it is live tweet material. There are at least six people posting micro blogs right now on Twitter with observations and snippets from the event. The list includes @robin1966, @michaelcooper, @Sarah_Hartley, @craigmcginty, @stuartbruce, and @stedavies. So far there are over over 100 ‘tweets’ all search-able via the hashtag #dontpanic . That’s a lot of information about Pradvertising, 3DPR, the decline of e-mail and the revelation that the first speaker up Tom Murphy doesn’t like Twitter.
There is a danger when we tweet (or blog) about twittering that this becomes navel contemplation but it is an interesting phenomenon nevertheless. There is also the discovery that new communications channels bring new and unexpected challenges. Two of the Twitter correspondents have had to abandon their live reports because their phone batteries died. Well at least they were there.
Rob Brown has worked in PR for over 20 years and for over fifteen years held senior PR positions within three major global advertising networks; Euro RSCG, McCann Erickson and TBWA. He launched his own business ‘Rule 5’ in MediaCityUK, Manchester in November 2012. Rob is the author of ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ (2009), blogs for The Huffington Post and is joint editor of the forthcoming 'Share This Too' (2013).
Groucho Marx once said that he didn’t care to belong to any club that would have him as a member.
Well, the same goes for Facebook Groups, such as Manclopedia, which send you pictures of city centre Manchester – in December – with naked people.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for artistic expression and the pure, unblemished beauty of the human form. But, I mean, the concepts “Manchester”, “December” and “Nude” do not sit well together.
If it were May or June, now that would be a different story.
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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JonClements
'Jon Clements'
When I was a kid I loved everything about fish and chips. There was something almost decadent about it, the smell of vinegar drifting up the street from the chippy. Unfolding the sheaves of newspaper to get at those hot, tender morsels. Being treated to an extra meal by a conspiratorial uncle – it was all good.
Before the chippies started to fade from our street corners, they started to abandon the newspaper as the standard wrapping for their culinary gifts, perhaps it wasn’t regarded as sufficiently hygienic. We lost something there, but if you told me that one day the newspapers themselves might start to disappear I would have been aghast at the very idea.
I predict that in less than two years the rationalisation of our national dailies will begin, with closures and mergers leaving news stands that bit lighter. Don’t get me wrong I like the choices that are laid before us. There are still chippies and there will always be newspapers but we are all adjusting to a new daily diet. We just need to be mindful to preserve the best of what we have; whatever the recipe, whatever the format.
Rob Brown has worked in PR for over 20 years and for over fifteen years held senior PR positions within three major global advertising networks; Euro RSCG, McCann Erickson and TBWA. He launched his own business ‘Rule 5’ in MediaCityUK, Manchester in November 2012. Rob is the author of ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ (2009), blogs for The Huffington Post and is joint editor of the forthcoming 'Share This Too' (2013).
At last, a reason to talk about Christmas that doesn’t revolve around how long the mother-in-law is coming to stay.
BBC Radio 4′s news flagship, Today this morning revealed the winner of the Churches Advertising Network competition to tell the Christmas story in 30 seconds. Frankie Hipwell-Larkin from Hampshire impressed the judges with his video rendition of the “greatest story ever told”.
A recent PR Media Blog post mused on how the old Rotary Club model of networking was seeing a renaissance in social media. But the Church getting down with the kids is really something else.
Let’s face it, the church is one of the great communicators of all time, so the existence of its own in-house ad agency re-telling an ancient story for a new era should be no surprise. Its methods are a clear recognition that a new generation of non-believers needs speaking to in its own language.
I can’t help thinking that Monty Python, if still around, would have no small amusement with this. But the job they did on the Christmas story – The Life of Brian - has really done it already.
As Brian’s mother (Terry Jones) says to the Three Wise Men on Christmas night in the film: “Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.”
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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JonClements
'Jon Clements'
How does a city with a reputation for rudeness change its image?
The rudeness of Paris and its inhabitants is legendary, though I confess to have experienced none of it when last there. In fact, we got hugged to death in a restaurant by the staff. So, is the Parisian glumness nothing more than an urban myth cooked up by non-French speaking Brits and Americans?
Well, the Paris tourist board seems to think there’s a problem, having launched the Paris Greeter scheme, which provides local volunteers who are not only “enthusiastic and friendly” but show visitors the “the true Paris, the way Parisians live it and love it.”
So far, so good. But Parisian, Agnes Poirier, writing in the Guardian was less than impressed when trying to obtain the services of a Paris Greeter. After weeks, she’d heard nothing apart from an email saying the search was on for a suitable greeter. She says: “I knew it: the friendly Parisian is a myth – even an association whose sole aim is to greet foreigners can’t manage to muster up a single volunteer. It must be a joke: the Parisian greeter who cannot be bothered to greet.”
Such is her personal commitment to making up for Paris’ Gallic shoulder shrugging in the direction of visitors, she has offered to give a personal tour herself, accompanied by a photographer to record the whole thing.
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
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JonClements
'Jon Clements'
Take a look at this great vodcast from Albert Maruggi interviewing Jeff Pulver about all things social media-like.
And an interesting take on what social media is: it’s the modern day equivalent of the Rotary Club – that international bastion of local business relationships. What’s changed is the technology, which enables us to interact from our computers rather than the back rooms of pubs.
Jon Clements is a Chartered PR consultant specialising in B2B PR, corporate and marketing communications and is the founder of Metamorphic PR.
Connect at:
JonClements
'Jon Clements'
