Chameleon PR

With a cupboard-load of Felix cat food, when all we had was a hamster; a  Somerfield store’s stock of toilet paper, even though we weren’t expecting anyone;  when force-feeding  Nutri-Grain bars to innocent visitors for approximately two months was normal; and when Magnum ice-lollys was ‘all there was’ for dessert, I knew something was up…

The answer lies with competitions- the power of the ‘free’ should not be forgotten in PR.  Tech goods always go down well, the feeling that you’re ahead of the pack with new technology, similar to the ego that exploded out of the first ‘iphone’ beholders, makes the efforts to win all the more significant. The popularity of competitions is undoubted; in the recent May issues, competitions at PC Pro and Computer Shopper received 33,000 and 5,000 entries respectively - no prizes for guessing we put a client forward  in similar publications for this win-win situation.

To give an example of costs, the deal with Dennis publishing for a placement in both PC Pro magazine (circ 75,538) and online, and Computer Shopper magazine (circ 53, 115) and online is: provide a prize value of £500-£1000 for the ’star prize’ slot, and receive

 - Half a page in advertising space

 - Product image

 - 80-100 words in copy

 - URL

Alternatively, smaller prizes with a value of £50-£250 nets:

 - Quarter of a page in advertising space

 - Product Image

 - 80 words in copy

 - URL

For the credibility boost - particularly valuable for product launches - and not to mention the associations created with the brand, it is good business. So, in true PR fashion, give it a ’spin’.

When working with our clients, we often build a media map - a picture of the titles that are relevant to that client and the topics that particular spread of media is covering.

The logic, of course, is that by understanding their media landscape we can develop content that media will find interesting and useful. And that leads to coverage.

Sometimes a client will have genuine ‘hard’ news, or something that demands attention regardless, but generally it is far more logical to understand the media’s agenda and ride on it.

As we often work with Apollo Research to evaluate PR campaigns (and indeed have ’share of voice’ metrics tied into some of our client contracts), it was only a matter of time until the bright idea struck - Chameleon commissioning Apollo Research to produce a landscape view of technology oriented coverage in the UK. Just moments later, the analysis was named the Technology Media Landscape.

In the UK, Apollo Research logs the details of over 30,000 stories a month across 350 titles: national and regional newspapers, business technology, consumer technology, vertical industry, general business, and lifestyle magazines. That’s as comprehensive a database as you’re likely to find for this type of analysis.

So, if you’re an in-house marketer at a tech company, feel free to download the report and have a read. It’s an industry-wide view and will hopefully give an insight as to what technology issues the media are most interested in. Consider the angles your company has on the ‘biggest risers’ topics, for example. It’s an easy way to attach your brand to the things journalists are writing about.

If you’re another PR agency, feel free to download a copy, cut and paste the graphs and pretend it’s your own. If it means that as an industry tech PR practitioners become a bit more useful to journos, then it’ll have served its purpose.

Google Wave v Bing share of voice online (Radian 6)

Yesterday’s online “battle of banter” between Google Wave and Microsoft’s Bing begged the questions which technology giant was trying to spoil the other’s announcement and who won out in share of voice?

Mike Arrington at Techcrunch gave everyone the first heads up that it would be a big news day and that was no lie. Microsoft announced Bing - a “decision engine” (really a search engine) and Google, Wave - a new “communication and collaboration” tool (that sounds like it will bring together, IM, email, microblogging and social networking into one platform, sounding another death knell for email). more