Propeller PR is back at Ad Week Europe bringing the cream of business journalism to another ‘Wallflower At the Orgy’ session.
It’s an eye-grabbing title for a panel and an example of PR in action: it’s got you reading this far. However, behind the title lies a serious purpose.
While PR has mushroomed in recent years to embrace channels such as influencer comms, content, events and social media, at its core is still the ability to sustain a positive profile in media that matter.
Start-ups, SMEs and established businesses will all at some point value coverage by credible journalists in trusted media brands. Positive media exposure helps attract investors, partners, customers, talented employees and reassures shareholders. And don’t forget the role that a high media profile plays in helping the industry’s movers and shakers in climbing even further up the career ladder.
However, no person or company has an automatic right to be profiled in the national media business pages or on TV. Generating coverage by working with business journalists is an art and a skill. With the help of a variety of senior journalists, our series of Wallflower panels have explored what kind of stories capture their attention and make it onto page and screen. And, conversely, what gets spiked.
For the “earned media” branch of PR, the route to success lies across a bridge connecting the client’s aims and messages and the journalist’s agenda and motivation.
Understanding a reporter’s priorities is the start of making a worthwhile connection. Some publications want their journalists to find the human angle in a story and explore how real people are affected, positively or negatively, by a business decision (the human story behind the Port Talbot steelworks saga, for instance). Others want the numbers and their meaning for shareholders or M&A buyers or acquisitions.
To whet the appetite, here are a few canapes of advice that have been served up by journalists at previous orgy sessions:
- Remember, just like most people, journalists have bosses. You need to convince them as well, or give your day-to-day contact something to persuade their editor that they should run your story.
- Publishers need stories that differentiate their news brands and bring their readers back for more. Shape clients’ stories in a way that helps the journalist convince their commissioning editors that it will interest their readers. Ian Burrell, media correspondent for the “i” newspaper, says: “The reality, certainly for me, is that we are hugely dependent for access on PRs and their imagination in identifying stories from their organisations.”
- PRs need to think about the end reader and why they choose a particular paper or visit a specific site. One US business reporter says his personal criteria for stories is that they must help people to do their job better, adding: “Tell me how [this story] is going to help kids just starting out of college, or a senior exec going into a big meeting.”
- Journalists love opportunities to identify and elaborate on a trend, meme or movement. They will be more receptive to a story suggestion featuring two or three companies that can all shed light in various ways on a topic or sector, rather than being pitched a single viewpoint.
- Business journalists will sniff out if the PR is unfamiliar with the story they are offering. As one Australian editor says: “If it’s a tech story especially you need properly to understand it and be able to explain it to me. Otherwise you shouldn’t have picked up the phone in the first place.”
- It takes a lot of preparation and effort to introduce a business story into the national media. Journalists are cynical and they do not want to be spoon-fed platitudes. But they are open to covering a story that features a recognisable company or familiar character or a new take on a resonant theme.
For the curious, the panel title comes from writer Nora Ephron’s description of journalists: “Working as a journalist is exactly like being the wallflower at the orgy…everyone else is having a marvellous time, laughing merrily, eating, drinking, having sex in the back room, and I am standing on the side taking notes.” Sourced from Wallflower at the Orgy, 1970
In reality, whatever else they may be, we know journalists are not shrinking violets. Our guest panelists will provide plenty more intriguing anecdotes and insights into how business desks work at the next Wallflowers At The Orgy Ad Week Europesession to be held at 2.30 pm on March 21. Dress code optional… Note pads essential.
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