IPRN in Dubai: Day Four
April 28th, 2008 Posted in BlogMost of the past two days have been filled with case study presentations that show the members how public relations is practiced in their country or region. Each presentation, done by the firm’s owner, sets out the goal and strategy of the campaign, presents the key messaging and positioning, recounts challenges during implementation, examines the results, shows the art product and news clips, analyzes media coverage and details agency fees and costs.
Chantal Carrere-Cuny of Passerelles, with offices in Paris and Bordeaux and 12 employees, presented her agency’s campaign to raise the French public’s awareness of pediatricians because only a sixth of French babies have ever seen a pediatrician. The campaign sought to increase the number of kids seeing “baby” doctors, increase the number of medical students choosing pediatrics and improve French children’s health, especially by fighting obesity, which has doubled in the past 10 years to about 20 percent of kids. The focus of the campaign was an annual “National Day Against Childhood Obesity,” which sounded so much better in French.
The campaign was national, but also concentrated in 100 other cities. Chantal gave a brief media landscape of France, showing charts illustrating the huge number of regional and city newspapers, radio and television stations, concluding that to get complete penetration for the campaign, she would have to do blanket media coverage of the country, an enormous effort of contacting hundreds of individual journalists and editors by phone and e-mail. There were 20 pediatrician spokespeople around the country, each of whom Chantal media trained, some over the phone, most in person with video camera. Each was given talking points.
The day chosen was a date in January which I can’t recall. When I asked was that because January is when people make New Year Resolutions to lose weight, Chantal looked politely befuddled since apparently people don’t have that tradition in France, and January was chosen because it’s such a slow news month. Thank God our American media have managed to fill it up with celebrity diets. I’m quite curious about what the presidential inauguration coverage this January will be.
Chantal’s campaign was a great hit, now in its fourth year. Chantal presented a media report—more than 500 clips, 34% national, 66% regional—then showed the budget, and a lively discussion ensued with a common theme, how so much can be done for so little on the dangled hope for so much more.
For the two Americans at the meeting, it was interesting that one entire “challenge” in our world was missing from the campaign: addressing the costs of the services. Need medical care in France? Bingo. Take that issue off the table, spend more resources teaching moms not to push the fois gras on Jean-Paul, who’s spending more and more time with his video games. And there’s his McDonald’s habit as well, another win for the global high fructose corn syrup cabal.
Chantal’s case history was a classic example of how a social marketing, behavioral modification campaign focused on one issue can achieve collateral benefits for the sponsor: French pediatricians. A benchmark pediatrician and obesity awareness survey before the campaign would have helped and a post-campaign survey could have shown measurable improvement.
Which observation led us into a more detailed discussion of how we measure success in different countries. Almost all of the members use Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE), a method of gauging a campaign’s effectiveness (and worth) by calculating the total editorial coverage by column inches or airtime in a particular medium (Time magazine, or NBC 11’s Tech Now, for instance), finding out what the equivalent amount of space in advertising would cost and then multiplying the result by three to indicate the extra value news coverage confers over than paid advertising. Susanne from Vienna had an ingenious method of measuring PR cost effectiveness vs. advertising, but I didn’t take comprehensible notes.
Most of us agreed that any measurement of campaign effectiveness had to include a media analysis that determined whether the coverage was positive, neutral or negative, or if competitor mentions overshadowed the client. Members recommended measurement services they used in their countries, and we spoke about Katherine Delahaye Paine’s services and her blog.
While clients often want extensive reports to justify that their marketing budget is being spent wisely, they must also realize that services costing many hundreds and thousands of dollars a month need to be paid for by the party wanting them.
Alberte Santos Ledo from C & IC Comunicacion y Relaciones Publicas, a 28-employee agency in Madrid, then presented his campaign to reverse initial negative public opinion about a proposed environmental, totally green city to be developed by the regional economic development body in conjunction with a large coalition of architectural, environmental, real estate, financial and manufacturing groups. When the original announcement was made of the redevelopment of one of the country’s most economically depressed cities (Soria in north-central Spain) as an exemplar of green design and construction, the press wanted to know how much it would cost and when would the project be completed.
Unfortunately, the spokespeople for the project did not have that information. Wide press coverage followed, but it was more than two to one in negative tone and facts.
The government development agency then hired Alberte’s company to relaunch the project and convince the public that it was a good idea and a great leap forward in sustainable civic development.
Alberte’s campaign included producing a logo and Web site for the project as well as FAQs, bios of the executives involved (including a famous soccer team owner), architectural plans and illustrations, position papers, an extensive media outreach campaign and several events, etc.
The re-launch was successful, with three to one positive press coverage in hundreds of publications, national and regional. The budget presented seemed to be in line with the labor provided, which is one benefit of quoting budgets in Euros, since so many of IPRN’s agencies work in EU countries and those of us who don’t have frequent experience of how much our local currency buys in Euros.
Our next presenter was Valerie Tan, head of the global communications division for Emirates Airlines, a 16-person operation with 40+ PR agencies around the world. Valerie gave her normal presentation about Emirates, showing how this young (1985) airline made a huge bet in 2000 by committing to buy 58 Airbus 380-800s, projecting that airline travel from markets around the world would increase because of Dubai’s economic and tourist growth. The airline is now one of the most consistently profitable in the world, just announcing this week profits up 62% for the 20th consecutive year.
Valerie spoke about how her division worked with medium-sized agencies around the world. They distribute 200+ press releases a year and generate more than 2500 articles monthly in global media. They have 400+ fam tours for hosted journalists per year and have more than 100 media events annually.
Much of their publicity efforts are coordinated with Dubai destination PR campaigns, so there is a common theme about Dubai and its importance in the global economy.
She spoke about the local airport, originally built in 1960 and expanded in 2001 to accommodate 17 million travelers when the local traffic was 7 million. Current traffic is 35 million visitors in 2007, so two more terminals will be built, one dedicated solely to Emirates to meet the need of 40 million visitors in 2008.
A whole new airport is being built across town on a site covering 140 square kilometers, more than 65 square miles. It will be finished in 5 years.
Emirates Airlines is one of the main engines of Dubai’s growth, transporting millions of guest workers to man the 24/7 construction effort and provide the everyday labor of waiters, cab drivers and hotel workers as well as the occasional PR agency owner from the UK or Austria.
Valerie spoke about how she works with her agencies, and the message between the lines was that she works them hard. That’s one reason she uses agencies like those in IPRN, companies that are owner-managed, focused on hospitality and air transport and which can deal with the many sudden crises that airlines endure: crashes, delays, food poisonings, etc. One thing Emirates does not have to contend with is union disturbances. No unions. And just one shareholder, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum.
More agency presentations to come.
Tags: dubai, international public relations network, iprn, public relations, Silicon Valley, silicon valley public relations
