Hill+Knowlton Strategies

So we near the end of the first month of 2012 – WELL DONE US. Except that Italian captain. And Tom Watson’s intern. And all those naive enough to believe that the SOPA/PIPA thing has gone away (if those words mean nothing to you then read this). And Snickers. And unwitting singers at American churches. And the Russian police. And Bayern Munich. And Uzbekistan. Everyone else, though, pat yourselves on the back – especially me, who found my very own doppelganger last week! We survived the most depressing day of the year, and from hereon in everything will be just peachy.

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New Year, everyone (I feel that it’s inappropriate to bother with the ‘happy’ charade after nearly two weeks of workaday tedium). Well, it’s been a while. HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED! A new era has been ushered in, where a man’s political fate can rest on a small-if-perplexingly-executed typographical error, and where said typographical error causes the entire country (or at least the white-collar, desk-bound, twitter-using part of it) to down tools and descend into some horrendous infinitely recursive spiral of non-humour; in which a new way of drinking whisky is almost certainly the first harbinger of the forthcoming Mayan apocalypse;  in which a bunch of apparently sentient adults chose, of their own volition, to spend a night in a furniture warehouse; and, hopefully, in which this particular Italian politician will never again be allowed to make videos.

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I believe it was contemporary urban philosopher Ferris Bueller who once said ‘Life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’ (NB – on reflection, I don’t know why I wrote that; I hate people who ascribe deep significance to the throwaway utterances of fictional characters. IT WAS WRITTEN BY A SCREENWRITER, YOU CHUMP). This edition of Web Curios is brought to you by the whooosh-ing sound that time makes as it flies past your ears; it seems like only yesterday that I was writing the last one of these, talking about holidays and the end of summer and stuff. All of a sudden it’s December, I’ve not written a Curios for a month (not that any of you CARE, you unappreciative whelps), and you can’t turn on the television without a famous trying to sell you stinkwater. On an unrelated note, I am yet to eat a mince pie in 2011. If anyone would like to courier some over to H&K towers, I will be very grateful and possibly do a small happy dance in gratitude; thanks (in the unlikely event that HRH Prince Charles is reading this, I am a massive fan of Duchy Originals).

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Phew. Three weeks since I last did one of these, and my word has there been a lot going on. Bankers have shut down a church (well, you know, indirectly)! The Sun gave us possibly the most tasteless frontpage in years! One of the most appalling hatecrimes of the (admittedly newish) decade was committed to little or no mainstream media fanfare! France and Germany mocked Italy’s sexually incontinent Premier! The filthy rich just keep on getting richer! And loads more besides, much of it even more dispiriting than those few links I’ve just shared.

Ignoring the fact that world is going to hell in the proverbial handcart, though, I’ve actually had rather a lot of fun (because that is obviously the MOST IMPORTANT THING). I’ve seen comedy; I’ve been to an awesome gig;I’ve been to the theatre and seen probably the most harrowing play I’ve ever seen, ever (actually, make that the second-most harrowing - this was probably worse); I’ve eaten some truly tremendous food; and I got to see a truly tremendous rapper live in a tiny venue. So, you know, I’m alright. Are you alright? I’m starting to worry.

Anyway, enough of this. Make yourself a cup of tea, settle down in a suitably confortable chair, and imagine my soothing, dulcet tones reading this out to you (and, if you like, imagine my malcoordinated body acting out every single video too. You pervert). You may want to get some biscuits too; this could take a while.

Image courtesy of Neutron, LLC

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The pretence that this blog is a weekly thing really has to stop. One month since the last one, fact fans. I’ve had THINGS TO DO. Not least going to Brussels and Croatia, where I went on holiday and did NOTHING other than read and swim and be horizontal. It was awesome, and as a result I now look less like this and more like this. No really, I do.

BUT that was then and this is now; I have returned to a world in which the internet spends all its time railing against the evil of corporations and then…er…goes incontinent with grief over the passing of the head of one of the world’s largest corporations; in which Silvio manages to somehow become even more ridiculous and offensive;  and a world in which somehow one of the members of 1980s pop combo Hue & Cry has become a consultant on games, play and ludic theory. We live in interesting times. Here are some totally insignificant bits of online ephemera to help distract you from what appears to be the total meltdown of civilisation which is going on all around us. Christ, I sound like an old man.

Socially responsible graffiti on a Croatian beach hut

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“Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness; close bosom friend of the maturing sun…” – or that’s what Keats said. Personally speaking, I think Keats can do one, as can September and Autumn in general. Everything smells of wet dog and regret, it’s cold and miserable and it’s now just the long, slow trudge towards another season of crass mass-consumerism and endless, interminable, incomprehensible perfume adverts (NB – anyone who works in advertising who reads this, please feel free to explain to me why perfume advertising is so oblique, as I have literally no idea).

Think, then, of this edition of Web Curios as the lightbox to your SAD, the plaster to your axewound (for future reference, an unpleasant conjunction of words to Google), the United Nations to your genocide. I’m here to help. To that end, here are some recommendations for awesome stuff you can do in London over the next few months (NB – that last link is one of the best things I’ve seen in years, very much recommended. Oh, and for an interesting take on Libya, you could do worse than read this). In the real world! NOT ON THE INTERNET! Crazy but true.

But for now it’s still all about the internet. Well, on this particular blog it is, anyway. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do (though I’d prefer it if you didn’t; I’m needy, and low-to-moderate traffic figures are all that’s standing between me and a P45).

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Oh dear, I fear I may be committing to a long, ongoing series here. But as a well-known webmong always tells me, it’s good to blog on an issue and keep going at it. That’s why, after July’s top tips for Powerpoint, this week we bring you our top tips on how best to engage with bloggers.

Blogs and bloggers are a key channel. Some are extremely well read, some of them reach exactly the audience that you want/need. Most of them however are not professional, and many may not have encountered us PRs before. With this in mind, here are our tips – with thanks to Candace, Daisy, Becca, Matt and Joey.

Blogs and Bloggers are a great channel for reaching your audience - but only if you approach a blogger campaign in the right way

1. Most bloggers aren’t professionals – yes, some are dedicated, paid-up writers, and many more monetise their sites. The fact is though, the vast majority blog out of love for their subject. Many are unlikely to have been, or want to be, pestered by PR people incessantly pushing a product or service. Assaulting their senses with marketing-speak is therefore likely to lead to an instant bash of the big read ‘D’ button. Establish a dialogue, explain and justify why you’re writing to them (without the marketing-speak) and don’t push them for an instant decision.

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Guess who’s back? NO, IT IS NOT EMINEM! IT IS ME! (Though in fairness our level of musical / performing talent is comparable) Stop gawping at the back – I AM NOT DEAD! I wish that there was some sort of exciting reason for Web Curios’ long absence – an enthralling, Willy Fog-esque journey, an unexpected temporary career change, an unforeseen visit to chokey…but no, nothing so thrilling. Like Schrodinger’s Cat, Web Curios’ existence was momentarily uncertain – but now I am most definitely here. I think.

Anyway, there’s a lot to catch up on. Some people’s phones got hacked and everyone got VERY ANGRY; the most powerful man in the world turned 50; my new favourite rapper released a mixtape; I went to Boston and saw none of it (but did get to fly business class and thus received a pair of complimentary pyjamas – THANKS VIRGIN –  which was well worth the £3,000 that the flights apparently cost); oh, God, loads of things.

None of that matters, though. What does matter is that you immediately click on this link and donate money to stop people dying of starvation in Somalia. Thanks.

Frankly nothing that you’re going to read from hereon in matters one iota compared to the above, but it’s probably going to be marginally more cheering. Read on, and make your Friday afternoon of wageslavery marginally less soul-crushingly worthless than it might otherwise be.

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Monday morning normally greets the great British public with a range of bad news stories generally relating to the economy but also touching upon politics, crime, sport and almost every other section of society. However, with Britain’s capacity for critical analysis and debate stronger than ever, it was encouraging to hear the British media covering a good news story about our close European neighbours constructing a high-speed rail line topped with 16,000 solar panels. The line running between Paris-Antwerp will produce enough electricity to power all the trains in Belgium for one day per year as well as contribute to powering Antwerp railway station.

The railway line runs under a tunnel constructed to protect trees from falling on the track below. The solar panels have been built on top of the tunnel and therefore are in a prime position to soak up the sun’s rays. Unlike wind farms the solar panels are relatively discreet and therefore there is no problem with stringent planning permission requirements or nimby protests

Not only has the story been covered widely in the British print media. BBC Breakfast news has also covered the story. The pertinent question that needs to be asked is, when are projects of these kind coming to the UK?

Unfortunately, according to industry experts the British government’s reduction in support for solar projects means that recreating such a project in the UK is unviable. With big business involved it seems difficult to believe that £12.6 million (the cost of the project) does not exist in this country for a similar initiative.

So even behind every ‘good news’ story there seems to lurk disappointment and controversy. Surely, this is what makes a free press so vital?

I had an opening riff all worked out for this week, webmongs, but that was before I saw this amazing news story. Poor the confused,  sweaty-palmed masturbators! That aside, though, it’s been a relatively uneventful 4-day week, apart from the British press redeeming itself slightly for Gareth Barry John Terry Ryan Giggs-gate by actually doing some proper investigative journalism – which, inevitably, led to literally nothing changing whatsoever in the no-way-at-all-corrupt HQ of world football; and perhaps from the best story likely to appear in print anywhere in the world in 2011. Oh, and if you were traumatised by goats as a child (and let’s be honest, which of us hasn’t been) then THIS IS YOUR MONTH.

The rest of you, though, for whom it is NOT your month, will simply have to content yourselves with the following collection of webthings. Apart from The Man – for it is always his month.

Alice Was A Lot Less Innocent Than Is Often Presumed

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