BBC DG Mark Thompson
BBC DG Mark Thompson
Convergence. This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference. It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.
Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review. This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.
Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed. It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with. And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.
Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with. They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.
BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content. The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform. Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.
Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward. In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.
Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.
One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television. Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.
Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population. Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.
Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic. Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.
Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer. For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it. Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example. Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?
So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself. The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it. Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.
I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy? Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe? Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity. The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.
Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings. The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.
KPMG reports that that consumers are “spending less on traditional and digital media than six months ago, but consuming more.”
Of concern to media executives though is that 21 per cent of newspaper readers paid nothing for news over the past month, compared with 15 percent six months ago. In London this almost doubled – 23 percent to 41 percent – highlighting the impact of the Evening Standard move to a ‘free’ model. And today we hear on 
Burson’s Social Reputation Damaged By Facebook Work
Sunday, May 15th, 2011Global public relations and communications agency Burson-Marsteller was outted last week by a blogger for planting anti-Google stories for Facebook that would smear the reputation of the search giant.
Blogger Chris Soghoian was approached by Director of Burson-Marsteller’s Washington DC Media Practice John Mercurio to see if he would write an op-ed for a top-tier media outlet that from a PR perspective would further raise awareness of privacy issues surrounding Google’s business. Soghoian rebuffed Mercurio and published their email correspondence, which was subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast who confirmed that Burson’s client was the social networking mammoth Facebook.
The assignment raises questions not just about the ethics of PR in promoting one set of views over another, but also our industry’s understanding of the media landscape in which it operates.
Let’s not be naïve, assignments such as the one that Burson accepted does take place. It is part and parcel of what the business world. Briefings, allegations, misinformation are tactics that while they are crude, are part of certain people’s skill-set.
That said, one of the first questions that needs to be asked is that of why did Facebook deide to or even agreed to a campaign to highlight the failings of a competitor? Such campaigns, as we have seen, carry a lot or risk and can leave ones reputation severely damaged. Why didn’t Facebook embark on a communication initiative that would highlight it’s strengths, while ignoring competitors weaknesses. Strategically the answer lies within Facebook and the counsel it received from Burson-Marsteller.
All this said and knowing about the factitious relationship that exists between these two giants, questions have to be asked about the quality of Burson’s work, an agency that I must declare I did work for in 2008.
The content, structure and tone in the brief email correspondence between the two parties that Soghoian released raise a number of key points and questions:
Bearing these points in mind and from reading his email exchange with Soghoian one questions why Burson would have Mercurio work on such a project. Let me highlight the reasons I ask this:
Such work is only successful if there is an element of trust that you can work on. Approaching bloggers in such a cold manner leaves not just an agency such a Burson-Marsteller open to attack, but also the client who rightly so would expect anonymity.
Mercurio is trained as a journalist, with a background in politics. Surely he has experience on how to received leaks and how to protect sources.
From a communications perspective the whole operation leaves one questioning not just the suitability of Burson for such an assignment, but the internal understanding of how views and opinions are shaped in a world that is less media-centric. There will be plenty of internal questions within this prestigious agency given that it isn’t just Facebook’s reputation that’s been damaged.
Tags: agency, blogging, burson marsteller, communications, facebook, google, journalism, leaks, news, pr, privacy, public relations, reputation, security
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