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- [00:00]
A
I mean, we haven't really talked about the. Because you've sort of started to talk about the mistakes. So obviously the show's about mistakes. We're trying to talk about. We've sort of got into the mistake here. So what was. So for those of you that don't know what's happened, I'll explain. In October, was it October last year, a couple of PR people who I, who I sort of know on Twitter talked about the fact that they were saying you use the term guaranteed coverage. And how can somebody guarantee coverage? Because if it's guaranteed coverage, it's an advertorial, it's not earned media. Now for those marketers that listen don't work in pr, are you. Do you really care about it? Well, if you're a PR person like I am from. We're all about authenticity, earned media. That is a key part of what we do. And we say to a, say to a client, you can't just put a story out and it'll get published. That's the battle we PR people face all the time. We've got clients going, I want you to get me coverage about this story. And we go, okay. We need to craft a story around that. It's not just that. And if you want to get that in the press, you're gonna have to pay for an advert or you're gonna have to do an advertorial. So I can see that. So that story sort of broke that people said guaranteed coverage is not a thing. And PR Week did an article on the 17th of October and several people had comments about it. So that's what we're talking about, isn't it, Chris? So what happened at your end then in terms of how did you deal with that? What happened? Just walk me through what happened and then where you're at.
- [01:35]
B
Okay, so if you go back, you're right. It was last October. And in actuality, what happened, A few people made comments on social media that, that were inaccurate, which effectively didn't understand our processes and how we go about our work. I think that some of those people had an agenda, but I completely understand that other people then picked up on that and ran with it. And I have to say it was an extremely stressful time. At 72 point it was particularly challenging because two members of our team were publicly named online and pictured two extremely professional, hard working young women within the team who because we act with probity and, and completely ethically that effectively they were very, very upset by the whole process of being sort of publicly outed for something that was completely inaccurate. PR Week picked up on the story because of the scale of comments on social media. And again, I come back to my point. I we should have been more transparent about our processes leading up to that because there is clearly a lack of understanding in the market about how we actually work. What we subsequently done is it did cause a great deal of introspection on our part. So we thought, you know, we looked at ourselves, it came out nowhere really. We weren't expecting it. So we looked at ourselves and we brought in the industry expert Stuart Bruce who came into the business and he conducted a six week review where we with full openness within the business, full transparency, he looked at all of our processes, interviewed several members of the team and I'm pleased to say that his report that the issue six weeks later said that we're not only ethical in what we do, we're actually ultra ethical. Because in truth, the content that we're putting on the wire has to go through a really assiduous process before we get it there. We don't make claims in our content that we can't back up with evidence, for example, or indeed our stories are always based on really robust research. And we are, that's the beauty to an extent of working with a newswire because it means we have to go through these multiple jump, these multiple hurdles to get our content to the quality that we believe it is. And I think our coverage outcomes show on a daily basis.
- [04:19]
A
Yeah, so I think that's where the confusion is, isn't it? Because people have seen that story and then they've gone, oh, right, okay, so I've sent a pre. I had a comment about someone sending a prep, I need to find it where someone's, oh, here we go. There's a lady called Iona who tweeted me and she put when I pitch a Reach PLC journalist, why do I get a reply from 72 point account team asking if I want to buy their PR services? So that, that's a what do what, what would we say to that? That's a valid question.
- [04:49]
B
Obviously I've seen the tweets, so, you know, I, I saw the question you put out. Look, I think ultimately that's a very difficult question to answer without more information. However, what we do have occasionally is sometimes our team are bylined in the national media, just briefly explaining why that happens. Half our team are trained writers and they actually write the content. So because it's page ready, they author the stories that go out. And so sometimes they go on the wire with their byline on and they get then get used in the media. And sometimes creatives see those names in the media, assume that they are staff people at that publication and reach out to them in that fashion. But I don't know if that's the case in this tweet and if I owner wants to get in touch with me directly, I would be more than happy to look into it.
- [05:46]
A
So thanks for listening to Embracing Marketing Mistakes. You've reached the end of the podcast. Hooray. What can you possibly do to help Chris and will the providers of this show? Well, what you can help us by doing is just please give us some feedback. Positive, negative, constructive? Well, hopefully not negative, but if you could give us a review somewhere, five star review, preferably wherever you get your podcast, it will really help for people to find the show because there's loads of other people out there that we'd love to hear about it. And the guests that come on here, we want to give them as much visibility as possible. So yeah, I want to just thank you personally for listening to the show. I really appreciate it because it's a bit weird. We record it in Leeds and wherever you are around the world, from Peru to Estonia to Russia to Africa, I want to thank all of you for listening. Really appreciate it. So yeah, if you like the show, please, please give us a review because it means a lot. So thanks a lot and enjoy the rest of your week. See you next week.