Tag Archives: corona

Corona conversations – the great and the good of comms analysis

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Seven weeks into lockdown and I appear to have developed something of a routine. It goes something like this – wake up, mint tea, think about what’s for tea, do some work, think about tea, walk dogs, make and eat tea, chat with friends and family, watch TV  or listen to music, go to bed. Repeat.

Of course, the days when I get to walk the dogs in the morning are like little victories, flicking two fingers at the pesky virus and its lockdown rules. I’ve also been able to exercise more, get out on the bike and even a few 5k runs – great when I have miles of largely deserted beach and dunes at my doorstep.

Social media has, of course, become even more of a dominant influence cementing its reputation as a two-faced security blanket/anxiety trigger. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has largely disappeared, as really there’s nothing to miss out on anymore, I’ve even forgotten all about football.

What has been encouraging is to see how the PR/comms community has come together to share insight and perspective on the good and bad of how the crisis is being managed and strategized. There really is a treasure trove of analysis, case studies and secondary sources that all PR students should have in their search engines on speed dial!

Of course, our very own visiting professor Stephen Waddington is leading the way with his regular analysis and lockdown letters on the Wadds blog. Stephen’s output has been impressive over the last few weeks with his posts not only acting as meaningful and important analysis but also a pause for reflection over what we can learn as people and society. Stephen’s reflection on Covoid brand conversations should be one of the first stops for any PR dissertation student looking at how brands have used the pandemic to manage reputation.

I continue to be impressed by PR Academy, edited by Richard Bailey, with its more scholarly tone and useful guides to the theories and concepts which guide comms. Richard’s briefing on the PESO model was a go to teaching tool for me this year. Recently the Academy’s content has understandably focused more on crisis – check out these crisis book reviews – and its league table of student blogs #bestPRblogs is always a timely reminder that I need to encourage our Newcastle students to blog more. Watch out PR Academy, Newcastle is coming for you (that’s really hard to say as a Sunderland fan!).

I’ve always enjoyed PR Moment for its blend of light and dark industry perspectives from those working at the coalface of comms. In particular, its regular Good and Bad PR feature is a great source for practice case studies and campaigns. And of course, there’s PR Week which offers the latest UK industry news, albeit behind a paywall.

On Facebook, the marketing, media and PR community of practice has emerged in the past few weeks as the go to resource for engagement and conversation, particularly around Covoid comms and messaging. Again, it’s been developed by Stephen Waddington, with some impressive metrics – more than 300 members and dozens of topics on everything from Captain Tom’s fundraiser to mainstream media distraction. The group is helping to shape how practitioners and academics are making sense of the strategy as we emerge into new ways of living and working – which leads me to my closing thoughts.

I’ve had a number of conversations with colleagues this week, including with the parent of a prospective student, about how PR and comms. will fare from the crisis. There’s a strong sense that the sector could emerge stronger and with new found respect. Perhaps even with New Zealand president – and PR graduate – Jacinda Ardern as its knight in All Blacks armour!

Generally, PR and comms was ‘relatively’ thriving pre-Corona compared with other media sectors, particularly journalism. The pandemic has, however, put an immediate dent in that with commercial organisations understandably putting a hold on budgets and recruitment.

But one of the positives is that clear comms. is coming to the fore during the pandemic and is what people value. That’s being recognised widely, and while not practiced by the UK government, my hope is that the sector will emerge with increased credibility as organisations recognise the importance of clear and consistent comms and messaging.  Ultimately that may translate to greater recognition for PR with organisations supporting within their teams internally and externally.

Chinese PR students tackle Corona anti-racism campaign

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dd

In a time, long, long ago – well January to be truthful – I was approached by a group of our PR students about Corona Virus.

As Chinese nationals, some of whom had recently returned to the UK after spending the Christmas holidays at home, they were concerned about the impending crisis and particularly the impact on the large international student body here in Newcastle. You may recall that disturbing media reports emerged at that time which suggested that Asian students in the UK had been targeted in incidents of racist abuse.

In an effort to dispel myths and build relationships with other students at Newcastle and the wider community, the group devised and then implemented a campaign over several weeks – using guiding PR principles at its heart.

The campaign was as simple as it was effective with PR and communications strategy as its anchor – raise awareness and change attitudes and behaviour via two-way balanced communication. Once the campaign was over, I interviewed the students for a podcast which I have shared with the cohort. If you would like to listen to that, then please send me a comment (the file is too large to post on here!).

I have summarised below the campaign plan. Reading it back again, several months later, fills me with both admiration and pride at what these young people were able to achieve.

Background：Many cases of xenophobia against Chinese and other Asians recently across the world

Objectives: 1.Improve students’ motivations of engagement in anti-racism campaign  2.Raise awareness of conventional differentiation of mask-wearing between east and west. It is a major root of the prejudice and misunderstanding.

Aims and Strategy: 1.Use social media and brochures to promote our campaign.2.Attract as many passers-by as possible to sign our banner and book ,or to be interviewed by us and by other reporters.3.Negotaite with NUSU actively to let our fully signed banner and book be collected by history room of Newcastle University.

Tactics:1.Make a team in our PR class(eight people) and allocate following tasks 2.Make brochures promoting the mask-wearing difference and the discrimination cases 3.Take portrait posters of our classmates from different nations 4.Make banners ready to be signed.5.Engage with NUSU and StandUpToRacism Society to gain financial support for printing and use their social media to promote our campaign.6.Get media access to display our posters on NUSU screen.7.Engage in the rally held by StandUpToRacism to have a speech and be interviewed by Global Radio 8.Invite journalists of CNN London and Channel 4 to report 9.Request to Chinese Association for promoting our article 

Outcomes: 1. 700 messages and signatures that truly goes beyond our expectations. 2. Media coverage on CNN London,Global Radio and Channel4. 3. The NUSU anti-racism society wants to cooperate us continuously 4.It’s the first time I saw a numbers of Chinese students who dared to have a speech or other forms about anti-racism publicly. 5. Via brochures we made and interviews,many Westerners firstly learnt the conventional difference of mask wearing.

It was truly an inspiring effort by all those involved, a glimpse of hope and light in otherwise dark times.

Finally, a name check for all of those involved – a huge congratulations to Jason Jiao, Emma Ma, Sherry Liu, Chelsea Zhao, Shan Xiong, Jayden Zou and Shawn Zhang. Apologies to any I have missed!