Posts Tagged ‘PR Week’

Image-Boosting TV Role for Heathrow?

Heathrow Airport is upping its PR – and could get its own TV show in 2011, reports PR Week.

British Airports Authority (BAA), which owns and operates Heathrow Airport plus 5 others, is in talks with TV companies to make a documentary series about how the airport has improved, as well as reveal its inner workings.

BAA says the programme would “start to rebuild popular support for the airport.”

Support for Heathrow is much-needed after a variety of public debacles, including the shambolic launch of Terminal 5 and much-maligned plans for a third runway, which were eventually scrapped.

As a close neighbour of Heathrow, PR Superstar Founder Jill Kent, who lives just 5 miles away, suggests that rather than spend time and money on a glossy, image-boosting exercise, BAA bosses ensure their airport is properly run, with local communities in mind – starting with tackling aircraft noise, particularly early morning and late-night flights which cause misery to millions.

Tags: , , , , , , , | Posted in PR Comment November 18th, 2010

PR Week: Hack V Flack Experiment

The similarities between the roles of journalist and PR professional are explored in an experiment conducted by public relations bible PR Week.

The age-old tension between PRs and journalists is well documented, says the magazine.

PR Week set up the experiment to find out what would happen when a ‘hack’ and a ‘flack’ swapped roles for a week.

What would a PRO think of a journalist’s deadlines, being on the receiving end of pitches and deciding on stories in the news meeting?

And how would a journalist cope with managing clients, pitching to other hacks, and having to make those dreaded follow-up calls?

PR Superstar aka senior journalist and PR professional Jill Kent is highly experienced in both journalism and public relations with a 20-year media career, and can relate to the similarities and differences between the two - perhaps the job swap, as demonstrated in PR Week, should become more commonplace to help bring about greater understanding and better relations between the two professions, that do need each other let’s face it.

Tags: , , , , , | Posted in PR Comment July 29th, 2010

PR Disaster for BP

PR Week today reports that beleaguered BP is spending millions of dollars to minimise the PR damage caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which has been named the worst oil spill in US history.

With no end in sight to the ongoing saga, BP chief executive Tony Hayward has said: ‘I think this is clearly a major reputational issue for BP.’

As £12billion was wiped off the value of its shares earlier today, it seems that BP’s reputation – and its future - is at risk every bit as much as the Gulf ecosystem.

The results mean the company’s stock has fallen £42billion – more than a third of its value – since the fatal oilrig explosion six weeks ago.

Some analysts are predicting that BP may not survive.

Greenpeace, who are masters of effective PR, summed up the feelings of many around the world when they hung a large flag with their own design on BP’s West London HQ, rebranding the company “British Polluters.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Posted in PR Comment June 1st, 2010

Crisis PR: Surviving Scandals

PR Week investigates stars surviving scandals, following the News of the World’s front page expose on snooker world number one John Higgins.

What the industry journal discovers is that some stars fare better than others when it comes to the proverbial brown stuff sticking. Read PR Week’s full report.

PR Superstar is a crisis PR expert - we understand that with today’s 24-hour news stations, chattering blogosphere, and online channels, it’s easy for bad news to spread rapidly and your brand or reputation to be quickly damaged.  It’s essential that businesses, organisations and high-profile individuals have a public relations crisis communications plan in place to plan for problems – and then deal with issues that do arise as swiftly as possible.

Contact London public relations consultancy PR Superstar on 020 8274 0807 or e-mail hello@prsuperstar.co.uk to find out more about the benefits of crisis PR.

Tags: , , , , | Posted in PR Comment May 14th, 2010