Chameleon PR

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

ESRI (UK) is the UK’s market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and part of the global ESRI network. To demonstrate its worldwide expertise in GIS, ESRI (UK) brought Redlands chief of police, Jim Bueermann to the UK to share his experience of using ESRI GIS for crime mapping over the last ten years in California with Scottish police at the annual Association of Scottish Police Superintendents’ conference. Chief Bueermann also talked about the lessons he could take home from Scottish policing in the video interview with Deadline press agency here as well as being interviewed by RadioForthFM and featured in the Edinburgh Evening Post. Definitely more professional than Steve’s Twittering police man!

 ”Explain how PR will tangibly drive sales leads,” is a favourite of bottom-line minded CEOs when being pitched new PR ideas.

Now, of course, PR is a fairly blunt sales tool. Its main role is that of building awareness, credibility and positioning. Direct sales lead generation is more the role of telemarketing, direct mail, email shots and the like. Advertising, too, can easily carry a call to action; it’s paid for space.

But, on occasion, sales generation is possible with PR. A few months back, Siemens Enterprise Communications asked us to create a PR campaign for its security consulting service.

An often neglected aspect of technology-related security is social engineering or, for sake of quick understanding, confidence tricks to blag one’s way into an office and, once there, to get employees to divulge confidential information such as log-in details. No technology is involved in the blagging, but the aim is to get access to the IT network.

Given it’s a little understood phenomenon, it’s an ideal stomping ground for a white paper. And given it’s security, it’s a media friendly story. Combine the two, and you’ve got a slew of excellent coverage much of which carries a link to a white paper on the Siemens Enterprise Communications website for extra information.

A little data capture prior to download and that’s a semi qualified sales lead database. It’s certainly one example of how PR can tangibly drive sales leads.