Olympics in London 2012, no thanks to LOCOG

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Now we’ve marvelled at the spectacular closing ceremony for Beijing 2008 we can all start focusing on the Olympics for London 2012. But a post by Neville Hobson has made me wonder if LOCOG (London Organising Committee) will really be able to cope with the fundamental shifts in society that are occurring. By 2012 change will have accelerated even further.

Neville has used the London 2012 logo on his blog, even explaining “I couldn’t find a logo file for download from the image library or anywhere else on the 2012 website. What’s at the top of this page is a screen capture from the 2012 home page.”

The reason Neville couldn’t find the logo in the image library is that he’s breaking the law by using it. The draconian LOCOG ‘Using the Brand’ guidelines make it clear that:

“For example, without the London 2012 Organising Committee’s written consent, it is unlawful to use the Olympic symbol, the London 2012 logo or the mark ‘London 2012’ in the course of trade.”

Neville’s blog is definitely used in “the course of trade”. But wait, the guidelines also say:

“The words protected by OSPA can, however, be used in editorial news pieces without our authorisation and journalists are, in certain circumstances, able to use our emblem etc to illustrate an editorial piece about the Games.”

You could easily argue that Neville’s blog is an “editorial news piece.” Unfortunately, LOCOG also say:

“This exception does not however apply to businesses which produce newsletters, client bulletins or other marketing collateral.”

But that’s very wooly wording. I’ve produced lots of newsletters for clients that I would argue are nothing to do with ‘marketing’ and it clearly says “other marketing collateral” therefore implying the first part of the sentence only applies to marketing newsletters.

What you are allowed to do is use this logo to “Link to the London 2012 website.” But it’s hidden right at the end of some very long and dull FAQs. Don’t bother following the link as it just takes you to a bunch of rather pointless, brightly coloured text boxes.

The site also has links to a series of big PDF documents detailing all the different ways that you aren’t allowed to do anything to support London 2012.

I fully understand and agree with the need to protect the sponsorship and investment in the 2012 games, but this is not the way to do it. It is 1995 thinking (The Olympic Symbol etc. (Protection) Act 1995 (OSPA)), added to in 2006 (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006) by people who don’t understand how society is changing. Personally I can’t see this old school ‘command and control’ dictatorship lasting until 2012.

This is not the way to motivate the nation to get behind 2012 (and at the moment the whole nation is not behind it, many questioning the expense and the disproportionate focus on London, ignoring most of the UK.) Can you just begin to imagine the damage to the 2012 image as LOCOG brings the full force of its legal might down on a tiny local business or community group that is just trying to support its local sporting heroes?

The intelligent solution would surely to have two versions of the London 2012 logo – one for official sponsors and one for enthusiastic supporters.

UPDATE: I wrote most of this post last night, but didn’t post it. There is already a comment about this and Neville’s response on the post.

How to do PR in 2008

Shel Holtz has a great story that illustrates how really savvy PRs should be operating in today’s always connected society. It’s about a US magazine (MAD) and a big electronics retail chain (Circuit City). The magazine ran a spoof Circuit City ad (sort of sub-Private Eye style) and an executive at Circuit City took umbrage and order the mag to be cleared from the shelves and destroyed.

As you’d expect in today’s citizen journalist world the offending email was leaked and published in the blogosphere (on Consumerist). The story then took off and received 114 comments, an amazing 1935 Diggs (with a further 165 comments) and was picked up by AP.

But, this is where it gets really good. Instead of acting like a big, old, dumb corporate Jim Babb, a savvy PR in Circuit City’s corporate communications department sent a witty email that: a) Admitted the mistake; b) Tried to put it right; and c) Apologised.

The result was acclaim from The Consumerist and the apology received 63 comments – almost universally positive.

Shel quite rightly points out that the mistake should never have been made in the first place. It’s essential that potential reputation issues are run past the experts (i.e. the public relations people) and that every manager and indeed employee has a basic grasp of when they might need to take counsel.

The story illustrates how word of mouth marketing can be negative as well as positive, so it pays to get expert advice to help you manage it.

Sony Ericsson joins the Wolfstar client list

Whoever said August is meant to be quiet? At Wolfstar we’ve never been busier with lots of activity on for existing clients and an exciting new one to announce.

Some of you have probably already seen the news (thanks to those of you who’ve emailed and tweeted) that we’re now working with Sony Ericsson. Initially our brief is working with the Global Communications and Public Relations team to help develop a social media strategy. But very soon you’ll be seeing the first results of our work.

There are lots of great things about this client, not only is it a great brand to work for, but more importantly that it’s a global brief looking at social media in a range of different markets, not just the UK.

XP: A PR Guy’s Musings blog

How will the new Consumer Protection Regulations work in practice?

At the end of May I attended one of the WOM UK Espresso Briefings on the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations. There was an excellent presentation from Stephen Clarke, head of marketing and privacy law at law firm Osborne Clarke, who went through the details of the new law. There was also a rather less illuminating presentation from Marina Palumbo, legal director of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, who simply went through some of the best known case studies that most word of mouth practitioners would already know very well. Both presentations are available on the WOM UK website.

But the big questions about the CPRs remain as to how they will be interpreted by case law and how they will be enforced?

Ian Delaney, editor of New Media Knowledge (NMK), has an interesting post on his personal blog. Reading the post it looks very much like Carphone Warehouse, or one of its agencies, is engaging in unlawful activity by blogging without revealing their identity.

It looks like some Carphone Warehouse ‘fans’ have been commenting about how wonderful it is on Ian’s post about his negative customer service experience. All of the comments have Hotmail addresses, but come from the same IP address.

But here’s the rub, Just because it appears that Carphone Warehouse is guilty doesn’t mean it is. It genuinely could be some quite nutty Carphone Warehouse fan posting all three comments. But now Ian has blogged about it then the damage to the brand is done.

This raises interesting questions for online reputation managers such as the need to monitor for situations such as this and respond to them as appropriate.

It also illustrates the need for guidelines for employees (it is directors and senior managers who will go to prison) – guidelines will help prove a due diligence defence. You do want employees to engage in conversations, but in way that benefits them and you, not one that potentially damages you both.

CBS goes inside the Barack Obama campaign

I’ve just found this fascinating video on the Total Politics site where CBS takes a camera crew inside the Barack Obama campaign to interview some of the backroom staffers.

Most telling for me was chief strategist, David Axelrod, talking about the difficulties of campaigning against friends in Primaries or internal party elections. Axelrod had worked for Hilary Clinton in her first Senate campaign and now found himself working on the other side.

I had exactly that experience when I worked as Director of Communications for Alan Johnson in the Labour deputy leadership elections. Hilary Benn, another of the six candidates, is an old friend of mine and as a Labour Party staff member I worked as his campaign manger in the Leeds Central by-election where he first won his seat.

XP: A PR Guy’s Musings

Wolfstar wants account directors, account managers and account executives

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a public relations and social media star then Wolfstar wants to hear from you. We’re recruiting at every level in order to service recent client wins and staff up for new business in the pipeline.

If you can tick at least some of these boxes we want to know, if you can tick them all then we definitely want to know more:

• Passionate interest in social media, social networking, web 2.0, word of mouth marketing and all things online
• ‘Traditional’ public relations experience – it might be just having graduated from a PR degree course or you might have spent ten years at the coal face of a PR agency or in-house communications post
• Be a great writer – PR might be moving on, but writing is still a core skill and you’ve got to be good
• Be fun – you have to want to enjoy your job, you do it because it’s your passion, your career and your future – not just a wage
• But we do serious stuff for our clients – you’ve got to be committed to helping us to deliver a real return on investment for everything we do
• Geography isn’t a deal breaker – our head office is in Leeds, but if that’s not for you then we still want to talk

If you’re interested then drop me an email. Ideally I’d like a PDF of your CV/resume, but if you don’t have an up to date one then don’t worry as you could just point me to your LinkedIn profile.

The newspaper that published spoof news releases

Blogging minister Tom Harris has an amusing story from his days as a student journalist on a local Scottish newspaper. The rival newspaper, in the same town, had even fewer staff and less time to re-write or check news releases submitted to it. So the enterprising hacks at Tom’s paper invented a fake local charity and wrote weekly spoof news releases, which would duly be printed in their rival paper, despite the fact that anyone reading them should have spotted the numerous clues that it was a spoof.

Don’t blame the PR intern - ever

So many things I could say about this story on Gawker about a US PR firm impersonating a rabbi to post fake blog comments. But let’s keep it quick with three simple rules.

1. Don’t ever blame the intern. They are working on your time, on your clients. It’s up to you to supervise them and make sure it’s done right. If they screw up, then it is really your firm that has screwed up. Someone should have been mentoring them properly. They are there to learn and gain experience, not just do work for you.
2. Don’’t fake it on the internet – ever. Firstly, because it’s wrong. Secondly, because you’re likely to get caught. Thirdly, in the UK at least it is illegal thanks to the new Consumer Protection Regulations – you can go to jail.
3. If you do get it wrong then admit it, apologise, learn and don’t do it again.

Thanks to Stephen Davies for the link.

And hello to Sam Oakley

I’m also delighted to be able to announce that PR and political blogger Sam Oakley is joining Wolfstar as an account manager.

Sam is a great new addition to the team and is the author of the lively All About PR blog. I’ll let Sam introduce himself, but I also want to let you in to the not so secret fact that Sam is an enthusiastic Conservative activist so will provide a good foil to my Labour activism.

One thing you find is that people who are passionate about public service and politics usually have more in common that they do differences. We’ve both already tried to convince Beth about the wonders of West Wing, but she’s refusing to be lured away from the Jack Bauer fan club in 24.

We’’ll be telling you a little bit more about what Sam is going to be doing shortly.

Au revoir, Arrivederci, Auf Wiedersehen, Do pobachennya, Ma as-salaamah Sebastian

Our account manager Sebastian Mysko has been with Wolfstar since our very first day, so it is with immense sadness that I announce he has departed for pastures new. But it’s also with great joy and pleasure because Seb has landed an absolutely fantastic job and I’m really pleased for him.

The job is actually with Rising Music, which as some of our more avid readers will recall is also our latest client win. So in theory I should be a bit p****d off with Seb as effectively he’s stealing a client. I could get really arsey and start waving our client and employee contracts around. But I prefer to take a more mature view and say there are times when you need the lawyers, but more times when you don’t.

Seb is a fantastic account manager and I’m sure he’ll make a fantastic Head of Marketing for Rising Music. I just want to wish him well and say that the Wolfstar door is always open. And as Seb alluded in his post we’re relaunching the Wolfstar blog soon and there will be a space on it for alumni, because we never want to lose touch with our old friends.

Next Page »