A look at the Future of Wireless

A guest blog by Laura-Jane Hughes (16)

As part of my week’s work experience at PRPR I attended the second day of the Future of Wireless International Conference organised by Cambridge Wireless. The main topic was Networks under Stress, and there were many companies who had a great deal to say about it.

Personally, my favourite speaker was Dr Tapani Ryhänen, who is the laboratory director for the Nokia Research Centre. I found his talk most interesting because it focused on new mobile phone technology that was really astounding, such as a phone that is flexible and can be turned into a bracelet, and how they are working to create a phone battery that you can bend. It felt like something out of a science fiction movie! Other than the many different speakers, there were also stands inside a marquee where you could find out about the many different companies.

Even though the sun was not shining, everyone seemed to enjoy networking and discussing the array of new products and wireless technologies. The overall message seemed to be that with the amount of new wireless devices available the network is becoming clogged up, so we must resort to something new – some called this using ‘good pipes’ not ‘bad pipes’.

What I found made the whole event better was the location – St John’s College in Cambridge. Surrounding the marquee were beautiful university buildings and small rivers complete with students punting, making the atmosphere much brighter despite the rain. I spent the morning listening to speakers from the BBC and Nokia. The BBC speaker was talking about a ‘dual screen experience’ where you can watch television with another screen such as a smartphone or tablet.

After the first speakers the audience gathered in the marquee for refreshments and to browse the stands. Some of the displays were remarkable, like one that included a robot that could draw graphs of the temperature on a large sheet of paper. This shows that in the future technology is going to be very amazing; even more than it is now. After the break everyone rushed back into the next talk that sparked more conversations between the largely male-dominated audiences.

After lunch, everybody flocked back to the auditorium where the last three speakers enlightened us with their views on the conference topic, ‘Networks under Stress’ in their individual, inspiring ways, summarizing the conference brilliantly. At the end of the day I’m sure that everyone who attended left feeling much more knowledgeable and happy to have met many other technical companies as they shared their views on what is going on in the wireless world. None of it could have been done without Soraya Jones who is the CEO of Cambridge Wireless, and her team, who made the conference excellent for everyone.

Careless tweeter

This week saw the sudden sacking of PR firm Redner Group by its biggest client Take Two after Redner tweeted about awful reviews of the new game “Duke Nukem Forever” saying…….

“…too many went too far with their reviews. We r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.”

Ouch

This was immediately seen to mean that reviews would only be given to those that write nice things in future. And on the face of it, yes it really does read like that. However, when you actually look at some of the rude, badly written and no doubt biased ‘reviews’, it is easy to see what the tweet may have been supposed to mean. Basically, that they wouldn’t be giving review copies out to just anyone who asked; in future they would go to genuine, independent, unbiased reviewers who could write a proper constructive review. A totally different proposition to how it came across.

The trouble with tweets is that it is hard to get more complex thoughts across and therefore they’re sometimes easily misunderstood. It is also all too easy to tweet without really checking or examining the way what you have written could be taken. I am sure if I go through my history of tweeting there are a few tweets that could be taken in many different ways. But as long as they are my views, people are welcome to take them how they want. However, Redner’s tweet sounded like it was speaking for Take Two and therefore – despite the fact that if they meant it in the way I think they did they were perhaps absolutely right to say what they did – Take Two really had no choice but to sack them.

It’s a terrible shame, but an important lesson for those of us in PR. Always check and recheck and think before you post anything in the capacity as a spokesperson for your clients or indeed your own company.

While it takes a second to tweet, it can’t be taken back once it’s out there and your mistakes are likely to spread far faster than your triumphs.

A blog off at prpr

prpr ran an internal competition to come up with a new name for this blog. Madalene Whitson from our consumer team was the very worthy winner and as you can see we have now re-launched and rebranded the blog as we blog @ prpr

Pictured below is Madalene taking a quick break from organising a big press launch for our client EUClaim to receive her prize from colleague Allie Andrews’ wine cellar.

The church of PR

We’ve all no doubt experienced those clients who have claimed not to see an upturn in sales or increased ROI on a specific media hit or piece of coverage. I’ve even seen some PRs recently state that they won’t work with clients like this because they obviously don’t believe in what we do. Got me thinking- if PR is a ‘faith’ and something to be believed in, then aren’t we the preachers whose responsibility it is to provide a catechism for clients? Especially nowadays when every role in the marketplace ecosystem is constantly being evaluated and all employees are under pressure to justify their existences; are we so brazen to think PR should be accepted purely on blind faith alone? Of course not.

So, just how can we rescue the situation when clients have a crisis of faith?

You can attempt to prove it. Methods like calculating the advertising value equivalent (AVE) can work for clients who like bottom line figures to present to their boards. There are obvious problems, since the added value of the independence of PR over something paid for is invariably a figure plucked from the air. And readership of a publication doesn’t necessarily indicate its overall influence over the target market. Today, it is seen by many in the industry as out-dated, but nonetheless can serve as a useful exercise, particularly if in a direct comparison to an organisation’s ad spend, but it shouldn’t be solely relied upon.

Some may just need to be reminded that PR is not a direct sales function. In its simplest form, PR is about reputation building and management- supporting a brand and its credibility over time. It’s not a quick sell and involves intangibles that are impossible to quantify. After all, you can’t put a figure on the value of someone instinctively trusting a brand over another due to what they have read or seen in the press; the company, and indeed the new customer themselves, may never know PR was in part responsible for the sale.

Suggest a meeting with sales. While PR is not a direct sell, we have had much success with establishing good relationships with our clients’ sales teams or leaders. Allow them to become PR missionaries by making sure they are aware of your efforts and encourage them to direct prospective customers to recent media coverage. We’ve even helped clients include a clause in their new business contracts that covers PR to help with obtaining case studies and contract win stories where appropriate.

Remember that even with religion there is an end result in mind, and the same has to go for PR. The overall objective in most cases is to grow business. When that happens, it may not be possible to directly link or ‘prove’ an increase in sales or a higher customer retention rate in relation to PR; but you believe in PR, have implemented a good campaign and sales have gone up, so it must have played its part.

And a final thought- as long as you’ve been clear from the start that PR is a slow burn, set and delivered tangible objectives and, importantly, feel happy and confident in the work you’ve done- don’t beat yourself up if a there are still those clients who debunk. They’ll probably be back one day when sales drop!