Press Release (example) for British Museum

This press release is NOT real. Used as an assignment example.

PRESS RELEASE

6^th November 2009

British Museum Exhibits the Real Atlantis

…An exhibition that will change human history

The British Museum, as the first museum in the world, will open its doors for the new exhibition The Real Atlantis. The scientist can now prove the existence of Atlantis; it was discovered outside the coast of North West Africa near the Canary Islands on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The found objects are borrowed by the UK for a short period of time before the exhibits continue their journey around the world. The objects will arrive to London on the 6^th of November 2009 and remain at the museum for two months until 6^th January 2010.

The exhibition will display what archeologists have discovered under water in the Atlantic Ocean. The collection has over 500 objects recovered from the excavations; some of the objects are partial remains of an ancient civilization, which was hidden under water for thousands of years. It will show images of the underwater world and artifacts that were found on the site. Also illustrating the changing role of the people living in Atlantis in an historical and social timeline.

The exhibition will also witness a conference where scientists will give different theories to explain how Atlantis was washed away under water with illustration on the changing role of the people living in Atlantis in an historical and social timeline.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, said: “ the world has never seen an exhibition like this, showing the spectacular finding of a lost civilization everyone believed to be a myth. Majority of the objects have come straight from the excavations, and will show the magnificent life that was long time forgotten. None of these objects have ever been showed to the public, Londoners will be the first to experience this amazing discovery of a lost civilization.”

Dr Sarah Marshall, the curator for the exhibition added: “the London visitors will have the first ever opportunity to see for them selves that Atlantis is no more a myth.”

-ENDS-

Notes for Editors:

· Exhibition:

The Real Atlantis will be at the British Museum from 9^th November 2009 - 9^th January 2010

· Ticket Information:

Tickets: £10. Contacts and advance online booking call +44 (0)20 7323 8181 or visit www.britishmuseum.org

· Additional information:

For additional information on the objects contact Dr Sarah Marshall on +44 (0)79 5693 2244

· Atlantis:

The underwater image can be found at the co-ordinates 31 15'15.53N 24 15'30.53W

Contact

For further Press information please contact Yekaterina Odintsova in the British Museum Press office on +44 (0)207 961 9324 or email y.odintsova@britishmuseum.org

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Has Max Clifford Ruined The PR Reputation?

Max Clifford, mostly known as a PR guru, however has been called other things. His cliental vary a lot from highly paid celebrities to 'regular' people, of course if they can afford paying him (min £10,000). I got to observe this special person live in a debate hosted by the University of Westminster and organised by Trevor Morris. Max Clifford definitely lived up to his reputation and my perception of him, when he answered two phone calls while being on the stage; one of the calls was supposedly from Simon Cowell. After the debate someone asked if there is morality and respect in PR, when you answer a phone in a middle of a debate on stage inform of about 100 people. Max Clifford answer was: “I get paid a lot to answer the phone, and I don’t get paid to be here. It’s business.” And again his reputation supported my view on this man. The reason I’m writing about Max Clifford is because people see PR being equalled Max Clifford. I don’t agree. I’ve been reading on ethics in public relations for some time now for my dissertation. And many scholars write about that PR is perceived unethical and we need to change the way people perceive us. But how can we, when the most seen and celebrity popular PR practitioner is Max Clifford? Of course the rest of us will be perceived the same way as his practice as the general public doesn’t hear about other practitioners.

Why do we hear ‘it was PR’ when it is in correlation with spin and unethical practice or covering up crises? I guess that will always be our cross to bear if we want to be in the PR industry.

Despite the reputation Max Clifford has earned him self, you have to give him credit for his success. If I ever became famous and needed someone to cover up my adultery and deepest secrets, he would be the first I would call.

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Transparency And The Truth In Public Relations

We talk in PR about transparency, the need for companies to tell the truth, to avoid hiding or camouflage facts. But how can PR be transparent? Im thinking if there is a link between truth telling and transparency. Telling the truth means giving up all facts and secrets, where as transparency means you need to show your every step.

Do companies want to give up their whole process? Maybe for some companies it is relevant, but companies like Apple live on their secrecy. No one knows about their product before the launch day, and it works for them, and seams like their audience forgive them for the discloser of information. So why do people require transparency and availability to any information they want?

Looking up the definition of transparency: “Transparency is the opposite of privacy.” Of course, you can’t say that about truth, which drives this discussion about the difference between truth and transparency. Truth doesn’t require that “all information…is open and freely available.” Maybe people want the truth and not transparency. I believe with the new online communication, many question if what we read online is the truth, who writes the information, some one we can trust? PR since its beginning have been perceived as a deception practice, which means the transparency in online communication might be our way to put things straight and change this perception by for once telling the truth.

I'm writing this to see what others think, as i want to explore this 'transparency' concept further in my dissertation.

Codes of Conduct and New Media Transparency in Public Relations

Everyone in media and PR are talking about transparency in new media, for my dissertation I'm looking in to what extent is transparency realistic when used in new media?

The idea for this topic came from researching about how public relations has changed due to new media, resulted in coming across the CIPR New Media Codes of Conduct. After reading it and comparing with the original codes of conduct I realised that the new media codes are an addition to the original and the only difference is that when the New Media Codes were written, the word ‘Social Media’ was everywhere.

In the New Media Codes, under the part ‘transparency’ it says: “Members' use of social media must be transparent, and they must make extra effort to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. They should, if writing or contributing to a blog which recommends a service supplier, make clear any financial interest they or their client might have in doing so. They should make timely and public declarations of any conflicts of interest or the circumstances which might give rise to them.” Which means, when public relations is using new media they have to be transparent however further down in the codes under ‘Disclosure / Confidentiality’ it says that public relations practitioners have to keep disclosure about their company, clients and competitor.

The opposite side of this argument has been discussed in the US where newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post has social media policy where they restrict employees to post their opinions on social media platforms like Twitter. “For flagbearers of free speech, some newsroom execs have the weirdest double standards when it comes to censoring personal views.” However on the PRSA website the American association has not adapted their codes of conduct for using new media. The argument here is whether this ‘transparency’ can exist in new media without hurting someone?

The BBC’s global news director, Richard Sambrook, was speaking to a media conference about the benefits of social media (2009):

“Objectivity, he then pointed out, had always been an idea important for the news. For him it was once designed to deliver journalism that people can trust. But in the new media age transparency is what delivers trust. He stressed that news today still has to be accurate and fair, but it is as important for the readers, listeners and viewers to see how the news is produced, where the information comes from, and how it works. The emergence of news is as important, as the delivering of the news itself.”

Study Fashion Public Relations at University of Westminster

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Digital Climate to Kill Us All

Press Release

Green Leaf Hosting, a London based agency, launched a viral video today for a new campaign called “Digital Crises to Kill Us All”. The video is published on YouTube in order to create awareness about the damage digital centres are causing around the world.

The data centres, which are used to house the millions of websites on the Internet, are now damaging the earth as much as the aviation industry. A large data centre consumes the same amount of power as 30,000 homes. These Data Centres run 24 hours per day, 365 days a year to power corporate websites. A solution is sorely needed, and Green Leaf Hosting is the answer.

Quotes:

Matthew Dowling, director of Green Leaf Hosting, said: “I hope this campaign will raise attention to the raising issue, and since so many of us use the internet more and more, people need to be aware of the damages they are causing. However it is not only an awareness campaign we want to educate people about what solutions they can use.”

In addition to the Carbon Free services, Green Leaf now provides Green Web Design & Development, Graphic Design, Email Campaigns and Online Marketing all from a Carbon Neutral office based in North London. The company’s mission to educate businesses on their impact on the environment and to offer a practical solution has been very well received globally.

Where Green Leaf differs from the average agency however, is its big ‘side project’. It is aiming to be the first agency to offer Carbon Free IT solutions from the UK by using nothing but the wind’s power. This giant project will be funded by sponsorship, grants, investors and profits made from their current services. Green Leaf Digital; a green IT solution that doesn’t cost the earth.

For additional information contact the Press Officer:

Yekaterina Odintsova

www.greenleafhosting.co.uk

Kat@greenleafhosting.co.uk | 0207 193 2564

Nestle's Social Media Crisis

Greenpeace started a big global crisis situation for Nestle after posting an online video featured an office worker accidently biting into an orangutan finger instead of a Kit Kat. The video aimed to draw attention to the NGO's ongoing battle with Nestle over them using palm oil in their products.

Nestle have been bombarded with angry consumers on Twitter andFacebook with critical comments. Consumers have accused the company of ‘hiding behind PR spin', calling the company's response to the criticism a ‘major social media fail'. (PRWeek) Digital PR experts said the situation was quickly becoming a social media crisis.

Porter Novelli associate director, digital, Kerry Gaffney said: ‘Nestle's status updates are pushing people on to its official site to see its corporate response. Someone within Nestle is also responding to posts, but they are not corporate in tone and are juvenile. The company should be tailoring its response more to the environment with a more human tone.'

One of the things Nestle did wrong was to use a junior position to respond to the comments, but they should have used a more experienced senior position to deal with the online attacks.

Nestley thought they could get YouTube to close down the video and ignore the situation, which made it even worse, it was like throwing gasoline into a fire. The story blow even bigger! One user commented on Vimeo: "Thank you Nestle...I would never have seen this video if you hadn`t had it kicked off YouTube. Now I`m forwarding it all my friends, through Facebook, and guess what they are forwarding it all their mates. Fire your PR team. They are muppets."

Facebook has been hit worse, people was leaving critical comments on Nestle’s fan page, some criticising the company’s social media approach. For example, "social media is about embracing your market, engaging and having a conversation rather than preaching!" Which then resulted in more hostility from Nestle as they started to delete some of the comments.

After deleting, Nestley started to respond with juvenile statements like: "Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it's our page, we set the rules, it was ever thus."

This situation is a perfect theory example for a phenomenon called the Streisand effect. If Nestle reacted differently to the situation it might not have become a crisis for them. Use PR right: Don’t insult your customers. And in PR 2010, mind your behaviour in social media platforms — especially those particularly created for the fans of your company. Some say It may there is no such thing as bad press, but think twice when it comes to social media. Nestle is a perfect example.

What Nestle could/should have done:

1) When the video came out, respond where the attacks were happening and respond with the same technique.

2) Greenpeace have freedom of speech to spread their version, you spread yours. Never try do delete the content, as people will feel you are taking away their rights of free speech. After all, Nestle have good blogger relationships, they should have used that.

3) Point out that you are trying to make things better, but these things take time. In the meantime all suggestions welcome.

The way Nestle handled things Greenpeace achieved what they wanted with their campaign. Will this result in people stop buying Nestle products? Now on Facebook people are talking about boycotting Nestle products during Easter. The situation has resulted in revenue loss for Nestle; it will take them time to convince their consumers to buy products again.

This whole mess draws attention to what I think is one of the most important aspects of social media, which is the social media crisis plan. Clearly, Nestle had no such plan ready.

NGO Against Public Relations, Really?

Non-governmental organizations (NGO) need healthy relationships with the public to meet their goals. Foundations and charities use sophisticated public relations campaigns to raise funds and employ standard lobbying techniques with governments. A speaker from Friends of the Earth said that their NGO organisation would do anything to separate what they do from anything related to public relations. However, at the end of the day, what all NGOs do is PR!

He said another interesting thing, that NGO is "a brand destroyer". According to this man NGO run campaigns in order to destroy or threaten reputation of big companies. It all comes back to the first statement, how can NGO achieve all that with out techniques used in PR?

A good example of the statement is when Greenpeace ran a campaign against Dove. Greenpeace's forests campaigners were invited to meet with senior executives at Unilever headquarters on Friday 9 May 2008. In just two weeks Unilever had received tens of thousands of protest emails from around the world, because Greenpeace activists brought masses of news media to their buildings in the UK, Netherlands and Italy. Greenpeace achieved that by launching a viral video online called "Dove Onslaught(er)". Public pressure moved Unilever to react.

This was the first success in a broader campaign to secure real change on the ground in South East Asia. The campaign was designed to stop the palm oil industry from destroying the Paradise Forests, and ensuring the protection of the climate and a future for orang-utans. On the Greenpeace website they state: “If others in the palm oil industry are smart, they'll follow Unilever's lead. There's no excuse for wasting time now, so any industry slow-learners could be our next campaign target”.

15^th March 2010, Greenpeace kept their word. They launched a viral video “Kit Kat – give the orang-utan a break”.

Greenpeace state they have new evidence which shows that Nestlé - the makers of Kit Kat - are using palm oil produced in areas where the orang-utans' rainforests once grew. Even worse, the company doesn't seem to care. This has now resulted in Nestlé has struggled to contain a bombardment of criticism from angry consumers on Twitter and its official Facebook page.

On Twitter, the firm has been bombarded with critical comments. Consumers have also turned to Facebook and accused the company of ‘hiding behind PR spin', calling the company's response to the criticism a ‘major social media fail'. (PRWeek)

Digital PR experts said the situation was quickly becoming a social media crisis.

NGO might be fighting for a better cause using PR, but I believe the way they do it is harming the overall PR reputation.

Greenpeace vs Kit Kat

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/kit-kat-give-orang-utan-break-20100317

Greenpeace vs Dove

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/forests/asia-pacific/dove-palmoil-action

PRWeek - Facebook Crises

http://prweek.com/uk/news/search/991636/NestlE-faces-Facebook-crisis-Greenpeace-rainforest-allegations/

Does Ethics Exist in PR?

Creating a positive reputation for a company in the public's eye is essential for the survival of any organisation. Unfortunately, for many PR practitioners, this means using whatever means possible, including any unethical methods, in order to create the "right image" for their organisation and still maintain a pristine reputation amongst the general public. It is because of these dubious tactics by certain PR practitioners that lead journalists to call them "PR flakkers", a negative term given by journalists to PR practitioners for manipulating, self-serving information, which does not tell the whole story most of the time (Parsons 2004;5).

‘Truth telling is not a matter of speaking the truth but is rather a matter of speaking what one believes to be the truth’

Michell Green (2003)

The role of PR as a practice has had three major interpretations: controlling publics, responding to publics, and achieving mutually beneficial relationships among all publics (Newsom and Scott, 1985). Within the first interpretation lies the root of the belief that PR is persuasive by nature, the idea that PR practitioners would do anything in order to achieve their goal.

From a PR point of view, this interpretation is open to debate. ‘Ethical harmony is essential for social stability. And social stability is the mission and product of public relations’ (Sharp, 1990;25). In PR, credibility is vital. It is logical that an ethical business practice is better tha

n an unethical one when it comes to reputation and public image. Every person has their own ethical morality and follows those ethics on a regular basis, however, when it comes to a company’s ethics, the result might be contradictory to the practitioner's own beliefs. And here in lies the question. Is a PR practitioner's ethic's based on their company's standpoint or visa versa? To what extent will a PR practitioner bend their moral ethics to please their employer?

According to Bowen’s research, which supports a historical trend of associating PR with all things that are unethical such as lying and spin doctoring. She writes that many critics argue that there cannot be ethical PR for the reason that the practice itself is manipulative. The answers to the above questions, lies in that the PR department in a company has to follow its company’s ethical standpoint for the PR’s beneficial reasons. However if the company’s morality is not in accordance with the PR practitioners own ethical beliefs, PR is responsible for applying their ability to cover any issues up in a way that it will manipulate the output of the message so it is believed to be ‘in the favour of the public’. This is why many critics have the opinion Bowens is referring to.

No formal guidelines exist that could explain how a member should go about behaving in accordance with the ‘public interest’, nor has any formal structure been developed where a practitioner may contribute to the public interest on behalf of the profession (Parsons, 2004). Parson is not the only author discussing the lack of rules in PR; many others have joined the big debate, and everyone has their different points of view. However, it is interesting that they all have the same conclusion, that the PR When it comes to ethical behaviour, it is up to each individual’s morality, like Albert Camus once said, ‘Integrity has no need of rules’ (cited Parsons, 2004;37). However that is not always the case when it comes to dealing with PR. The Codes of Ethics were designed by major PR associations in order to help and prevent any unpleasant behaviour amongst practitioners by adapting these broad guidelines for members of their organisations to follow.

The Codes were created in order to have regulations within PR and to create a better reputation within the professional bodies. The creations of the Codes are an attempt to turn PR into an ethical practise and recognised as a profession by other organisations. PR for PR!

In order for PR to be considered a profession there must be a shared definition of professional ethics between any organisations and the ethical obligations a PR practitioner must possess.

The PRSA provides no concrete guidelines for its members who need them in order to show professional responsibility when serving the public interest. Suggesting that members simply conduct their interaction ‘in accordance with the public interest’, these guidelines can be manipulated into the belief that something is beneficial for the public, however a PR practitioner must follow the client's request. PR practitioners often state that Codes of Ethics are too vague to be useful in their own careers or that they do not give enough specific guidance to be anything other than basic (Bowen).

It is quite interesting since every Code of Ethics is essentially a collection of moral principles and values. However it is noticeable that most scholars that discuss morality focus on the foundation of ethical principles. Concluding that the Codes are neither professional nor ethical and until fundamental changes are made, PR will fail in its aim of achieving a professional status (Parkinson, 2004).

In order to change the perception of unethical PR, it is not only vital to have concrete ethical regulations for PR professionals, but also to have laws that will restrict and punish any PR practitioner and not only the members of the PR associations.

The discussion on the questions whether the Codes of Ethics are effective and can help PR practitioners to be ethical is still a very popular discussion. Until there are better-structured regulations in the field of PR, other professions will continue to consider PR as an unethical practice. These regulations are needed in the field of PR in order to have better guidelines for the practitioners and with the intention that the public will know that for any unethical and untrustworthy acts, there will be consequences.

The purpose of the discussion is to illustrate the unethical side of PR, as there are no laws stopping the practitioners to work around the rules in intention of achieving their clients’ requirements. The evidence from this discussion proves that the Codes of Ethics are ineffective as they are only written for PR associations’ members and are only used as a guideline, one of the biggest issues with the Codes of Ethics is that they do not cover the majority of the practitioners who are working within PR. What about those who are not members of big PR associations? Does that mean they can do what they please with no further punishment? This is still arguable, as mentioned prior, the PR associations need to come up with more strict rules and laws that would consider all PR practitioners and not only its members. By adapting more strict and structured regulations in PR, the public and other professions may change their existing view and start to consider PR practice as a profession that has values and rules, and if any of those regulations are broken there will be consequences.

Reference

Newsom, D. and Scott, A. (1985). ‘This is PR: The Realities of Public Relations’. Wadsworth, Belmont

Parkinson, M. (2004). ‘The PRSA Code of Professional Standards and Member Code of Ethics: Why They are Neither Professional or Ethical’. Public Relations Quarterly, Fall, 27-31

Parsons, P. (2004). ‘Ethics in Public Relations: A Guide to Best Practice’. Institute of Public Relations, London

Sharp, M (1990). ‘Harmonizing ethical values in the global village’. International Public Relations Review. Vol 13, no 3. P 25

Benefits of Social Media Webcast

A new webcast "Benefits of Social Media" was launched today on YouTube, to show how beneficial social media is to a public relations strategy. Katodin PR designed the webcast in order to illustrate how social media has a massive impact on business and how companies can benefit from a social media public relations strategy.

The webcast "Benefits of Social Media" is about social media, what it is and what benefits comes with it. However it also covers the downside of social media and how you can turn it around for your benefit. The webcast covers different areas regarding social media.

If you can't see the video click here (YouTube)

Think Globally - Act Locally

The debate about “Think globally - act locally” has been a well-discussed topic in PR world. Should you consider local customs in global campaigning or not? The technological communication tools have enabled us to communicate globally. Companies now need to be global and their communication strategies have to involve global PR. However the cultural differences matter. When operating in a particular country, the nations political systems and culture shapes the PR practice.

The principles of balancing global operations with respect for local culture extend to managing communications, in which cross-cultural understanding can make a significant difference in the effectiveness and success of a global campaign.

Cross-cultural communication came into its own in the mid-1940s. During the “Cold War,” the U.S. established the Foreign Service Institute, bringing together linguists and sociologists, among others, to help the corps develop language competency as well as an understanding of and sensitivity to distinct cultures.

Effective global communications has to take into consideration how local attitudes and behaviors differ from the global communication strategy. When building a campaign, it is essential to have a clear message and a defined audience, considering who the audiences are and where they are, and what local factors might influence the result of that campaign. Something as simple as observing local seasonal or religious holidays when timing the launch of a new campaign can have a direct impact on the success or failure of the campaign.

When setting up local communication team, a good idea will be to employ locals for the campaign as they have a better knowledge about the audience you are trying to reach. When PR companies run campaigns they need to take the local needs into consideration, otherwise the results might turn to the worse. International companies should first act locally, and then in order to sell their products, act globally.