The Department of Health has recently launched a new framework entitled Ambitions for Health which says how they will increasingly rely on social marketing to improve public health. PR Week this month reports on how public relations will increasingly play a role in the DH’s strategy on providing new ways of empowering people to make their own choices. An example of a social marketing campaign that I led, before establishing People, Words & Pictures, was www.listentoreason.org – a stop smoking campaign that was recognised in last year’s Association of Healthcare Communicators awards and has seen many local people approach the local NHS stop smoking service as a result of engaging with the campaign material.
Archive for July, 2008
Diamond
In the same year that Neil Diamond appears at Glastonbury, 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift, the founding of the NHS and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, the eyes, ears and voice of the PR industry. This is surely some cause for celebration. What was it about 1948 that made people establish one of the great British institutions in the Health Service and get together an assembly of post-war communicators who would latterly be employed to defend the NHS’ reputation from attack decades afterwards?
Radlett, again
‘Law of coincidence’ blog post – July 18 – seeked explanations to the unexplainable UFO (Unfortunately Frequently Occurring) mentions of a small Hertfordshire village of Radlett that is gripping the nation, or possibly just PWP Comms. See today’s Metro Newspaper “Speed cameras lottery explained” P14 article for further mentions of the phenomenon… “Residents in Radlett, Hertfordshire, have a conviction rate [for speed camera offences] of 27 per cent – more than double the national average.” Where will it end? What next will this previously unheard of town top the polls on?
Law of coincidence
PWP en route to Luton
When an unusual word is mentioned three times by different people in different conversations in different settings in a relatively quick time space, the law of coincidence makes you stop and wonder why. Why Radlett in this case. Radlett is a place that through many previous decades has never been mentioned to me, or if it has, I was not concentrating which could explain a lot as not concentrating can sometimes be quite appealing, and possibly more appealing than listening to someone telling you in great detail about Radlett. Coincidence One: my train to London is terminated by East Midlands Trains at Luton with a belated message telling me I have the option of somehow getting to Radlett whereupon another primitive form of transport will somehow take me beyond “a large village located north of London in the county of Hertfordshire between St Albans and Elstree on Watling Street with a population of approximately 8,000.” Thank you Wikipedia. Coincidence Two: friend at the school summer fair announces her family are off for the weekend to Radlett. Coincidence Three: PR Week announces that Radlett is after a PR agency for some PR support or some such story. I cannot believe for one moment they need to boost the large village’s profile as everyone it seems currently is talking about Radlett or ending up there.
Your favourite people, words and pictures
Being based in the East Midlands, PWP Communications is after your favourite East Midlands person, your favourite word and your favourite picture. Early front runners include Brian Clough and Gary Lineker, and ‘lugubrious’ and ‘quagmire’, while favourite pictures seem a bit too random to mention at the moment. You can have your say by clicking on
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z_2fefWLfcXCQWbtKy_2byu55Q_3d_3d
and taking a few minutes to suggest names dear to you. It is probably one of the simplest quizzes ever arranged. There is no prize set up but if you desperately want a prize then we will see what we can do. The survey has an East Midlands bias but we would not preclude anyone from jotting down their favourites.
A campaign with 100% proof
If you like being social and you like marketing, then you will love ’social marketing’. If PWP had a top 10 list of things we love then social marketing would be right up there, along with ’summer’ and ‘making lists’ .
Drink sensibly
Social marketing is defined (by people who define things) as the ’systematic application of marketing concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals relevant to a social good.’ If you want to know more, please contact us – inquiries@pwpcomms.co.uk or have a look at the National Social Marketing Centre which is hosting a world conference at the end of September – www.nsms.org.uk/public/default.aspx
Press releases and fishing
Has anyone ever walked past an angler by the side of a river, lake or canal and at that precise moment of passing seen them actually reel in a fish? It must happen as often as a big Lotto win, if at all. These ‘ermen’ – as I doubt the existence of fish in said aquatic bodies – seem to be playing the equivalent role of the untargetted press release sent out by the PR executive, whizzing out his email like the line on a rod. If anyone has an experience of walking past an ermen and seeing a fish pulled from the water, I would be grateful for their tale. Please note spelling of the last word in the previous sentence.
Launch day
The hottest day of the year sees the launch of People, Words & Pictures, a new communications consultancy, specialising in editorial services and strategic communications. This blog will be used for general musings on all things PR but to kick-start things please have a look at our new website – www.pwpcomms.co.uk – and tell us what you think. The website has details of PWP services. You can also try www.pwpcomms.com and hopefully get very much the same result.
