'1 for 10' Volvic campaign

When reading Heat Magazine today, yes it can be very useful and not just a waste of time, I came across a very interesting add for Volvic mineral water. The headline was that "1L of water here means 10L in Africa", and says that for every 1L of water bought in the UK 10L of water will be generated in Africa as Volvic has set up a partnership with World Vision to build new wells in Africa to provide the people with fresh water.

I went online and the '1 for 10' website is a very interactive website with lots of information about the campaign. There are nine different sections where you can, for example, find out more about the campaign and world vision, get more information about the countries where the project is being carried out and find out how you easily can get involved.

Under the 'Get involved' section it encourages visitors to tell their friends and set up groups on Facebook to inform about the campaign. This special reference to Facebook shows how incredibly powerful social networks have become and is a commonly used tool event for large corporations. Another thing the site encourages visitors to do to help is to put up their posters, which you can download from the website.

The '1 for 10' campaign has also got some third party celebrity endorsement through Thandie Newton who hasa gotten involved with the project and is a very important part of the website. Online there is a 'Thandie's story' part with photos and videos from Thandie's visits to Africa. Furthermore tehre is also a personal letter from her and some general information about her career so far.

I really like this website as it is simple to use, it has lots of videos and photos to make the information more visiual and thereby personal, and there is a '1 for 10 Totaliser' constatly updating how much water have been generated so far. The only thing that is missing is some kind of a forum for supporters and maybe some blogs from the team in Africa. At the moment there is a lot of videos and individual profiles of the different stakeholders, i.e. the World Vision and Volvic team, local kids and Thandie Newton, which is really good but a blog that's updated at least a few times a month would be good to show how the project is getting on.

A somewhat synical point may be that no matter how well the project goes, it will be very good PR for Volvic.

I don't buy bottled water very often, but will probably choose Volvic in the future; it's for a good cause..!!

And the award for best blog goes to...

I've been browsing through the blogger choice awards' website and found many funny and interesting blogs. They have awards for blogs in many different categories, like for example 'best celebrity blogger', 'best corporate blog' and 'best gossip blog'.

The best celebrity blogger award went to Rosie O'Donell and her blog on rosie.com. The blog is really just general updates about what happens in her life, for example exhibitions she's seen or concerts she's gone to. On the rest of the website there's pictures, videos, links and an "ask Rosie section", where visitors can ask her questions, some very personal. I think this site is good since it gives us a glimpse into her personal life, and also since she's actually interacting with her fans and tries to answer all their questions. Rosie O'Donell may not be a major Hollywood A-lister, but despite this it is funny to get an idea of what her day-to-day life consists of. Just imagine if a much more famous person like Angelina Jolie or Cameron Diaz would keep a blog like this giving some more insight into their everyday life... The fact that Rosie is keeping a blog like this does render her lots of free and much needed publicity, and is a way for her to somewhat stay in the spotlight.

The best gossip blog naturally went to PEREZHILTON.com with his devilishly honest blog about the Hollywood celebrities. According to alexa.com Mr. Hilton has had a very steady continuum of visitors and continues to be incredibly popular. This blog has also been listed as number six on the Guardian's ranking of the world's 50 most powerful blogs. He's the number one celebrity fear, but does at the same time give them lots of attention and coverage, maybe just not on the things their PR people would like them to be in the spotlight for.

The award for the best corporate blog went to Scott Ragsdale CEO for the company Naseba. When first accessing the site a picture of a mafia-like bold man smoking a huge cigar appears, and the hopes for a good CEO blogs weakens slightly. However once you start reading his posts it's actually very entertaining and insightful reading. he also allows for all kind of comments and replies to them, even the negative ones. This makes the site very interactive, which is most certainly very beneficial to the company. It is not just a traditional CEO blog talking about the company and its employees. Scott incorporates happening from his daily life as well as company happenings, which makes it more personal and interesting to read.

I've just chosen some of all the blogs from the awards website, but by presenting awards to successful bloggers the interest for blogging is heightened and blogs are becoming more professional and interactive. We all like to be able to give feedback and have opinions about what we read, and overall it certainly looks like the big winners at these awards are the ones who allows for comments, critique and ideas and actually do reply to them!

Interactivity?

Having interactive and conversational website is crucial for any company today. They all need to establish online tools with which customers can discuss its performance, ideas and also give critique about business behaviour. Shutting the general public out and work behind closed doors no longer works..

Most companies still are struggling with becoming more accessible and conversational with the public and do still have website that pushes information onto customers in a very propagandist fashion. A good example of this is the killer coke campaign that my group work with for our presentation. Their website is a very good example of an organisation that providers visitors with a lot of information, news, pictures, articles and other things, but no opportunity for visitor feedback or a place to discuss the issues. You'd think that an organisation that works soo hard to gain support for their cause would be a bit more conversational and interactive, and not just attack people visiting the website.

But of course there are companies that are trying to adapt a more conversational tone towards the public, Starbucks for example, have developed a My Starbucks Idea where people can come with suggestions and discuss the ones given. What is strange though is the fact that on the Starbucks website there is no links or anything advertising this new site, which makes me question how keen Starbucks actually is for customers to leave suggestions, or if it is more of a PR stunt to appear more accessible.

I think ideas like Starbucks' are really good, since it feels more that the company is actually listening to and caring about what their customers think, and are also using their ideas to develop the products to even better fit the taste of the consumers. Another example of a company like this is Dell, with its Idea storm. Here people can blog, post ideas for new products, discuss current ones, and also get a preview about what the company is currently working on.

Companies that do invest some money in making their online communication more conversational, and strives to invite customers to have opinions about their bussiness' performance will win on this in the long run. I think consumers are tired of being bombarded with information and never being able to ask questions to the people that are making the decisions. In order to keep customers happy and expand, management needs to become more visible and start talking to customers!!

Ethics online...

Ethics online is a complicated matter... The right for free speech in the online environment is incredibly important, yet there is some problems connected to it. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a foundation that works very actively to protect free speech online, and their latest campaign is mainly concerned with bloggers and citizen journalists, which is quite relevant since this is a blog. On the foundation's website there is nine rights listed, for example the right to blog anonymously, keep one's sources confidential and have the right to blog about one's workplace, which anyone who is blogging should be entitled to. I totally agree with these rights, especially when it comes to countries where the freedom of speech is very limited, like for example China. Here people cannot even mention the words democracy and civil society in either blogs or emails, and if they do blogs will get barred and emials will bounce back.

However in my opinion blogs and articles looses credibility and accountability by being anonymous or having its sources classified. By signing off with one's name at the bottom, one ads a lot of credibility and thereby make sure that there is back up for stated opinions. Naturally, in situation where the signing of one's name may have very serious consequences, then of course it is acceptable to write anonymously. But as far as possible I think everyone that is blogging should stand behind their opinions expressed in their blogs by adding one's name to it.

KFC Face from Space, Yum!

In the Monday's Guardian KFC was featured for winning the MEGA (Media Guardian Innovation Awards) for best PR campaign. The campaign was concerned with making the rebranding of KFC into a "global talking point", as it became the first brand visible from space.

What the whole campaign was basically about was to create a record-breaking 87,500 square feet, updated Colonel Sander's logo, in the Nevada dessert. Allbussines.com states that the logo featured Sanders in a new costume, featuring an apron instead of his traditional suit, in order to symbolizes the home-style culinary heritage of the brand. All to remind customers that KFC is always in the kitchen cooking delicious, high-quality, freshly prepared chicken by hand, just the way Colonel Sanders did 50 years ago.

What is interesting about this campaign is that it was so simple, only carried out online and attracted enormous amounts of media coverage. According to the team behind the campaign they made it so simple since the only thing KFC had really done was to update Colonel's look, and since he is already a global icon there was nothing to do besides go galactic...

The campaign was a massive success, with 230 000 people accessing the KFC website on the launch day alone. According to the Guardian the campaign was featured in media, like for example, NBC's Today Show, Jay Leno and David Letterman, and was also featured in many different UK media channels. The advertising costs for the same amount of coverage have been estimated to be $45m.

By using online channels to promote the campaign, especially through social media websites, the PR team was harnessing the power of the web in order to attract customer attention. Customers was encouraged to go to the KFC website, and they could also zoom in the logo from outer space via Google earth. The zoom application, videos of the building of Colonel's face and a shot of the complete logo were also seeded on to site like YouTube, BoingBoing and Google Video.

Some of the motivations from the Guardian jury were that "The face from space stunt was a bold idea for a global audience with the rebrand key message coming through strongly. It enabled the brand to gain worldwide attention without the complication of language." Another one was "But the most significant achievement of this campaign was that it succeeded in gaining reams of publicity around the world, and became a talking point as all the best PR ideas do. It was an incredibly simple idea that managed to demonstrate the global power of PR."

The fact that the campaign was covered globally by media in, for example the US, the UK and China, shows how incredibly effective and important online media channels are for a successful PR campaign...

5p, come on!!

In the beginning of FebruaryM&S announced that from the 6th of May they will start charging their customers 5p per plastic bag when buying groceries, which I think is a splendid idea. In sweden, where I come from, supermarkets has always charged customers for both plastic and paper bags, and it does work, people do recycle their bags. The telegraph.co.uk states in an article that this move is part of M&S's drive to improve its ecological credentials. The company has launched an animated video on their website motivating their decision and advising customers on how they can help to save the environment.

In relation to M&S' move the BBC news website has posted a set of articles and videos arguing that annually 17bn plastic bags are given out in the UK, which is something that has disastrous effects on both the environment and animal life. In this particular video they have chosen to exemplify the effects of plastic bag waste by showing the lethal affects they have on the leatherback turtles, which is something that many other newspapers also have picked up on. I think that using the turtle to personalise the story is a very swift move, as anyone who watch the video, or read an article on the issue, will most likely think twice before wasting their plastic bags again.

Think twice..

M&S is not the first to take action against plastic bags however. Heather Suttie is a Scottish radio personality who have started the 'Say No To Plastic' campaign, and have got over 1200 people to sign her online petition aiming to ban plastic bags. Allmediascotland.com has featured her in an article stating that has done a handful of appearances in the media, where she has talked about her campaign, including on the Today programme on BBC Radio Four. Heather has also started a group on Facebook where she is urging people to sign her petition, and also promoting her "range of 100% bio-degradeable, eco friendly, natural and carbon neutral jute bags. The cool, hip and non toxic alternative to plastic." So far the group has 324 members. The campaign has achieved quite a lot of coverage in the media, and Heather herself has been interviewed in the BBC videos concerning tha plastic bag ban.

Go Heather, GO!!

This idea of charging for the plastic bags has received many divided reactions. Some people, like me, think that it is a really good idea and are prepared to sacrifise the money in order to do some good for the environment. Other people, that are obviously not very concerned about the damage they have on the environment, think that plastic bags definitley should be included in the price. But the fact that a major company like M&S launch a campaign of this sort have achived major media coverage, and has furthermore been a very good way for other campaigns, like for examples Heather's, to get lots of coverage for their cause. It has also stirred a massive public discussions, where opinions are very much divided.

If it means that, by paying 5p for a bag, its possible to save the lives of even just a few animals, I think we should all be prepared to pay this...

Why torment us any longer??

In May the biggest happening of the year is going to take place, at least for all of us who are abnormally obsessed with 'Sex and the city', cause in two months time the film will premier. Ever since the cast started shooting the film it has attracted massive media attention, and footage from the onset locations leaked out on a very early stage.

The girls are finally back together again!

I thought I'd look at the promotional techniques that have so far been used to promote the film, and realised two things very quickly. Number one was that it still is two months left till the film premiers, so the promotional campaign probably hasn't kicked off in full strength yet, so I will definitely have to do a follow up closer to the premier. Number two was that with the success of the series, the media massive media coverage it has already attracted and the innumerable rumors surrounding the cast, the film won't need as much promotional efforts as other films.

The series finished in 2004 and ever since there has been rumors of that a potential movie was to be made, but as with most other succeful series there has been said to be too much rivalry between the characters for the film to happen. As with any series, but this one in particualr where the importance of friendship is the main emphasis, this rumor I think has been used very much as a publicity stunt. It is very hard to imagen that people that are as close friends as the girls are in the series wouldn't be just that in real life to. In November 2006 contactmusic.com had an article on that the actresses finally may have settled their differences, and now the film project hopefully is back on track. The rivalry between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Catrall have benefited them both in terms of publicity. The main reason behind the feud between the two is the massive difference in salaries, buzzle.com states that Sara Jessica Parker (Carrie) makes almost twice as much as the other characters. Samatha, Kim Cattrall's character, has grown incredibly popular over the years, and she has therefore until now refused to take part in the film, until salaries are re-negociated. What is very interesting is that both the PR team, and the actresses themselves are denying that there are any tensions among the cast...

Friend or foe?

Another thing that is furthermore adding to the massive interest in the shooting of the film is the fashion aspect, which is one of the series' most important way of attracting its massive audiences. 'Sex and the City' is known for constantly displaying different designer outfits and shoes, making the four main characters looking fabolous at all times. One of the Elle's fashion bloggers, for example, are featuring three pictures in her blog.

One of the snapshots from the film, making fashion bloggers go crazy.

The promotional team behind the movie has now released an official trailer, which have spread like wild-fire online and can for example be found here. Heat Magazine for example has it as one of their top stories on their website, and the daily mail have a full article, including lots of pictures, about the making of the film on their online version. Overall I think any PR team behind the release of a new movie would thank the gods for all this promotion, without really having to put their back into it...

And please why makes us wait any longer?