On Tuesday 8^th March, International Women’s Day (http://www.internationalwomensday.com) was celebrated around the world.  Flowers or other presents were given by family, friends co-workers and by companies, National Holidays were observed, big and small events took place and women were the focus of attention (which we all like!).  There is no standard way of celebrating it and its importance varies from country to country.  In Eastern Europe and parts of Asia particularly, it is considered as a major annual event and numerous initiatives are carried out, serving as a source of inspiration for many people.  In many of the countries that form part of the Action Global network it is a Public Holiday, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.  But, did you know that the first International Women’s Day took place on 19^th March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland?  Over a million men and women took to the streets to campaign for women’s rights.

In fact, its origins lie slightly earlier than that, in 1908 when 15,000 women marched in New York to demand fairer treatment at work.  The following year, the first National Woman’s Day took place in the United States.  Then, in 1910 at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, the leader of the Women’s Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany suggested the idea of an annual International Women’s Day.  This was approved and, to this day, it is still celebrated.  This year, it has taken on increased significance as it is the hundredth anniversary and countries that normally don’t do much, such as the UK, are getting in on the action.

So, what do people do?  In Bulgaria, men give flowers, or chocolates, or other presents to women, both at home and in the workplace.  Children may give their mothers flowers and usually after work people celebrate with their family and friends.  In Ukraine, it is a big Bank Holiday and at Action’s offices in Kyiv, they came up with a creative way to wish their clients and suppliers a happy Women’s Day.  Tiramisu is a very popular desert there, but the original Italian ingredients are hard to find.  Most of Action Ukraine’s client contacts are female and we sent our female clients and suppliers a box, which had a note sending them best wishes for International Women’s Day and added, “… as beautiful women, you are being sent one of the finest desserts, but to enjoy its pleasure, you have to carry out some Action….”  Underneath was the recipe for Tiramisu and all the ingredients.   Action Ukraine received many calls telling them how it had made their day!

Action Ukraine celebrates International Women's Day with clients and suppliers

In Russia, according to Action’s office in Russia, “It was perfect, the men in the office gave us beautiful flowers the day before, there were flowers everywhere and it was a sunny day.  It was like spring was beginning!”  The office sent flowers to its female clients and the day itself was a Bank Holiday.  People generally like to spend time with their families and friends but there are also a lot of big events and concerts.  At the same time, it is seen as a celebration of the past and of women today.

Slovenia, also celebrated and one of Action’s clients gave out around 20,000 chocolate bars to female customers at filling stations, with the chance to win spa weekends and other giveaways.  In Kazakhstan, just a couple of days before International Women’s Day, the first Women’s Congress of Kazakhstan took place, with prominent women from across Kazakhstan.

So what did you do for International Women’s Day?

The casual and topical Russian word for rain, дождь, became a top mystery for Twitter users worldwide yesterday.

The growingly hot weather in Eastern Europe was interrupted by a rainfall in region on Tuesday, July 20th. This event lead to the Cyrillic word “дождь”, which means rain, to instantly become one of the top Twitter trending topics. Every minute, 10+ tweets containing the word would appear. This is the first time when a Cyrillic word has been featured in Twitter’s trending topics.

Twitter Trending Topics Worldwide - 20 July 2010

As a result, Twitter’s English-speaking audience had an overwhelming interest for the unknown word, which resulted in rumors and funny guesses by more than 70 million users, with some tweets saying:

What is дождь?

#дождь is a time when the vodka falls from the sky and polar bears begin to walk on the red square with AK47

дождь is Putin’s new pet name

I know what is Дождь! Follow me!)

Rumors that “дождь” is a new Russian nuclear bomb or a new phone which is better than iPhone 4 had also started circulating.

By the end of the day, the word дождь had a viral flashmob-like effect in Twitter.

Even the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, posted a tweet containing the word дождь:

Translation: Just landed in Finland. Was it raining in Moscow?

Evening news on one of the central TV channels in Russia even reported on this funny case.

So why was a plain subject as the rain such a popular topic among Russian-speaking twitterers? Well with so many people being as exhausted by the unusually hot weather, they were so ecstatic to see some rain coming to cool things down and so started to instantly tweet about it as soon as the first rain drops hit the ground. And with more than 200,000 Russian-speaking Twitter users tweeting about it at the same time, it made the other 69 million and 700,000 Twitter users take notice.

The Blogpaper vs Traditional Media

The first issue of the Blogpaper was distributed in London on November 20th 2009 by theblogpaper.co.uk news community.

This project is aimed at providing an opportunity for bloggers, photographers and young journalists to reach new audiences. Also, the paper is supposed to give a weekly overview of the most important content submitted by the online community.  The Blogpaper intends to develop into a free weekly, but only a beta version has been published up to now, with an ePaper version available at its website.

“Instead of a few people controlling the majority of what is being published and therefore read, the blogpaper aims to put the majority in charge” the authors of the idea note. Although the new paper is aimed at a specifically targeted community, it does do some justice to Rupert Murdoch’s claim that “Readers, not owners, determine news”. Today the readers are not only determining the content, but they are as well eager to create it.

How is the Blogpaper created?

The Blogpaper is a free paper, composed of bloggers’ stories. Anyone can upload their stories and photo to the Blogpaper website, and then readers can determine their favorite stories by discussing and rating them. Those which get the highest ratings are then printed in the paper version.

Obviously, life is speeding up rapidly and new technologies enable anyone to make their own thoughts public with just a click of a mouse. Journalists are now working 30% more than they did 10 years ago and 1-2 pages per day is now an average quota for a journalist. A new trend of creating a newspaper within 1 day has become a popular way of entertainment among the new generation of Ukrainian journalists. But in addition to all their efforts they are now facing competition from their own readers.  This speed up of information flow creates new challenges for PR professionals also: offering readers, who are becoming the journalist as well, more and more targeted content.

But how many of us are willing to barter away exquisite chef’s specialties for fast-food snacks?

According to a leading media expert, Piet Bakker, traditional media would not disappear with the spread of social media, same as theatre still exists after the cinema was invented. Highly professional newspapers and magazines, offering analytics and exclusiveness, will never lose their audience.

About 70% of readers of printed news editions in Europe read other sources of information simultaneously, including Facebook, Twitter etc. Printed editions are not losing their audience, Dr Bakker says, giving an example of one of the most widely-circulated newspaper in Spain 20 Minutos with 270,000 offline readers daily and only 810 online visitors monthly. The same situation is observed with the Spanish Marca, El Pais and many other popular printed media in the world, which are not likely to lose their print version readers.

I’m looking forward to finding the Blogpaper in Kyiv one day. I would also be interested to know what its circulation and target audience would be. Your thoughts on this are welcomed.

Following the blog post ‘PR for Darth Vader’ from my colleague Ribal Dayekh(@ribalo) from our  UAE office, I would like to share with you my list of movies recommended for PR professionals.

1. ‘Wag the Dog‘ (1997) with Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman is a classic PR must-see movie for any person involved in the media business. It illustrates the role of media in the shaping of public opinion, as well as provides an excellent case of crisis management in the field of (not-very-honest) political PR. To downgrade a sexual scandal of the soon to be re-elected US President, the contingency specialists decide to fake a war with Albania, which ends up becoming a dramatic show for the whole country.

Source: chrisboardmanmusic.com

2. One of my favorite PR movie is ‘The Queen‘ (2006). This is a story of crisis management media relations of the British Queen after the death of Princess Diana. The two opposite strategies of media communication, employed by the Royal family and newly appointed Prime Minister Tony Blair, demonstrate the different tactics used for gaining the public support.

Source: samkoritz.com

3. ‘Man of the Year‘ (2006) with Robin Williams could be an example of a political election media campaign. An extraordinary candidate completely ruins the stereotype of politicians being serious.  He avoids boring speeches and transforms his debates into a funny TV show. Female viewers will be pleased to follow the romantic love story as a bonus.

Source: about.com

4. ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘ (2006). Don’t take this list item as a silly or too girlish one. Rather try to look at this movie as an insider’s report on the fashion media business. This film adaptation reveals many, usually hidden secrets of a glossy fashion magazine’s world. I would like to warn you however that the movie is not recommended for shopaholics, as it features a great amount of high-style clothing items.

Source: nytimes.com

5. ‘Chicago‘ (2002) is not only a well-known musical. A talented PR manager can be easily identified in the character of the advocate played by Richard Gere.

Source: allposters.com

Here are few more suggestions to add the list, which were recommended by my friends and colleagues:

6. ‘Bulworth‘ (1998) starring Warren Beatty. This is a movie about a revolutionary elections campaign by Senator Bulworth, who, being depressed, orders his own assassination and starts to criticize not only his opponents’, but also his own campaign, something that brings him some truly unexpected PR results.

Source: impawards.com

7. ‘Thank You For Smoking‘ (2005) starring Aaron Eckhart. A great illustration of the work of a spin-doctor, who does not deny the health risks of smoking while still wittily defending the cigarette industry in the most difficult situations, all in his own professional manner.

Source: add.ucoz.com

8. ‘Absolute Power‘ (2000), ok this is not exactly a movie but definitely worth watching. Absolute Power is a British comedy series with Stephen Fry (following him on Twitter is recommended @stephenfry) set in the offices of Prentiss McCabe, a fictional public relations company. It’s tag “spin is dead, long live PR” I think says it all.

Source: afisha.ru

9. ‘The Hucksters‘ (1947) with Clark Gable as a radio advertising executive is especially recommended for classic fans of movies . It is a cinematization of the advertising industry in its earlier days through a satirical Hollywood lens.

Source: listal.com

10. ‘Nixon‘ (1995) represents another movie where PR and politics merge. Anthony Hopkins takes the lead role in this biographical movie of  President Richard Nixon, who shows his skills as a political operator by seizing the opportunity provided by the backlash against the antiwar movement to take the presidency in 1968.

Source: impawards.com

11. ‘Radio Day‘ (Russian) (2008) – the film adaptation of stage comedy show Radio Day. If you’re a Russian speaker, watch this movie to see what radio DJs will do when there are no newsworthy events.

Source: kinokadr.ru

12. Oscar- winning ‘All The President’s Men‘ (1976) with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman is practically a documentary movie on the role the Washington Post played in the Watergate political scandal which led to President Richard Nixon‘s resignation.

Source: nighthawknews.wordpress.com

13. Another Oscar-winning movie ‘Network‘ (1976) with Faye Dunaway tells the story of a TV broadcaster who created a scandal before his retirement and got fantastic popularity and ratings because of it . This is a story of the cruel TV world and its dirty secrets.

Source: edjop.wordpress.com

14. ‘Bobby‘ (2006) features another Anthony Hopkins appearance in a PR-related movie. Not so much for its focus on media relations, the movie is recommended because of the excellent Robert F. Kennedy speeches featured, which can be seen as a guide book for speech writing.

Source: girl.com.au

15. In ‘Hancock‘ (2008) a superhero played by Will Smith with a terrible public image becomes a case study for a PR professional who decides to help him correct his image.

Source: traileraddict.com

These movies don’t necessarily show the best side of the PR industry and PR practitioners, but they are enjoyable when watched with a PR hat on… and a sense of fun.

I truly hope that you will continue this list in the comments section by sharing your favorite movies with a relevance to the media and PR industry.

Source: webdesignerdepot.com

Facebook has become a popular entertainment medium for people and an effective tool for companies. But at the point where personal and corporate interests overlap, some misunderstandings can occur. The much talked about recent instance in Britain with John Sawers’ wife facebook page proved that a dangerous crash can occur at such cross points.

The story started when the wife of John Sawers, the next head of MI6, published his private information on her Facebook page. In particular, there were details about their children and the location of their flat mentioned. Patrick Mercer, chairman of the counter-terrorism sub-committee admitted, “A great deal of taxpayers’ money has been spent over the past several decades making sure he and his family are protected from security compromises. Well, it doesn’t seem to be very relevant any more, does it?”

The situation raises a burning question – how do your ‘private territory’ and responsibility to your employer merge within your social networks content?

Social networks are a good opportunity for companies and politicians to come closer to the wider audience, and to show their “human” side. And one of the advantages of staff members sharing more personal information is that they can help their company look friendlier and more open to people.

At the same time, a latest tendency of adding personal Twitter and Facebook profiles to corporate contact information (such as in an email signature), creates a big blur on which part of one’s social media interaction is strictly personal and which is corporate. From this viewpoint, one should realize that when expressing their opinion online, they must make sure that it is in line with their company’s corporate philosophy and image or at least not going against it, as various examples online show people expressing something perceived as negative by their employers or clients, coming from a personal social media profile, resulting in their firing or getting into trouble at least. One such example that most of the online community has probable read a blog post or two on, is the case of James Andrews on his way to a business meeting with FedEx, tweeting about Memphis in a negative light, a hometown which FedEx takes great pride in. The new emerging Internet ethics show a need for a more careful review of the content one provides online before hitting ‘send’.

Most companies have still to create a guide on online content for their employees to read before they start representing their company online (which they automatically do once they work for a specific company), leaving the offline company policy open to interpretation when it comes to applying it to online interaction and self expression of the company’s embassadors (i.e. staff members), based on their understanding of what might be perceived as directly offensive and what not. An example of confidential information being shared online just minutes before they could be officially released, due to a lack of online guidelines, was the case of the Twitter scandal on the Germany presidential elections results being tweeted a bit prematurely.

Source: webdesignerdepot.com

One of the potential solutions people tend to resort to is creating two accounts – a “personal” and a “professional” one and then limit the access on their personal account. That way, they do not feel pressured to post personal information for the benefit of their company’s online image from their personal account if they don’t feel comfortable doing so, while they can still post photos of themselves in a swimsuit from their latest vacation. It is you who decides where the line is drawn between building a personal online reputation and your company’s image.

However, that being said, online content should always be revised very carefully before it is set free to the cyberspace.

Dutch insurance company FBTO warns users not to post information about their vacation as burglars are now going online to trace possible victims. An FBTO spokeswoman says, “Burglars used to check the mailbox to find out whether or not someone was on holiday; now they look at the digital mailbox”. A very fair warning as shown by the recently released “The Digital Criminal” survey results.

A good Ukrainian proverb says that words are like sparrows – you can’t catch them once you have already released them. Online, these “sparrows” will be flying around for a long time and will be available to a wider audience than in the older days, so it is highly advisable to check them carefully before letting them go.

Health problems and illnesses are one of the things which make us similar. However ways of treating them all over the world differ, just as companies use different ways to promote their medical products. But this blog post is about other types of viruses, which don’t require any treatment.

The Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry, which is now taking its faltering steps from advertising to PR, has recently faced a new digital PR phenomenon, called Victor Gord. The link gord.com.ua will lead you to the blog of a young 15-year old Ukrainian businessman - Victor Gord. Mr. Gord owns a business, which he ‘created from nothing’, he is fabulously wealthy, takes care of his wife and child, provides jobs for 10 people working in his company etc … (it’s quite possible that he can even read our thoughts right now ). And of course he can teach you how to become wealthy!

Source: gord.com.ua

Since March, when the blog was launched, Mr. Gord has been inviting visitors to share his extraordinary abilities by joining his business training courses. A pretty girl – one of Gord’s assistants – has been kindly chatting with numerous visitors, persuading them to attend business training with her teenager boss.

‘My name is Victor, I’m 15 and I want to make you better. After reading of the first sentence losers will close the page. They will die unlucky because they judge people by age. But I don’t need them. I need YOU – who gets at the root, who is ready to become interested and go on reading, who is ready to perceive and to act…’

The wunderkind has raised sharp discussion in the Ukrainian blogosphere. Some users admired him, while others, more experienced, concluded that Victor Gord was a part of viral campaign, created to promote certain business training. However, both views appeared to be wrong.

In a month, Mr. Gord informed that he had signed an agreement to cooperate with Bayer Company, manufacturing Berocca vitamins . Vitamins were positioned as the main factor of the young wunderkind’s success. ‘My father was giving me Berocca, that’s why I’m so smart now’, – Mr. Gord reassures.

Right now the blog contains some more details, revealing Who is Victor Gord in reality. The authors announce that the blog’s real aim was ‘to increase the awareness of vitamin pills Berocca and to create buzz about the product with limited financial costs’. And this aim was achieved.

About two months ago, Gord’s campaign was presented at the Kyiv International Advertising Festival. The ISD Group –  Gord’s so-called ‘parents’ – won the Golden prize in the PR campaigns section. The boy, who played the role of Viktor Gord, also participated in the presentation. He was hardly 13 years old, and read from notes in a halting manner, but tried hard to sustain the image of a self-confident businessman.

Gords’ ‘creators’ have proudly reported that during the two month campaign:

• - Over 111 000 users visited Victor Gord’s site;

• - About 49 000 users viewed Gord’s videos;

• - Around 7 000 unique users contacted secretary via chat;

• - More than 260 publications were placed in blogs and forums (one article was published in Korrespondent magazine in May).

• - Over 12 500 unique users visited the Berocca site.

It is especially impressive that more than 600 people signed for Gord’s seminars. Unbelievable how many Ukrainians are willing to believe in fairy tales!

However, despite such a success, there were a few strategic PR issues which Gord’s creators could not explain when asked by the Festival jury committee. First of all, they could not trace if their target audience – young men in the age segment from 25 to 45 years old – was reached. ISD group representatives assumed that Victor Gord might be of interest mainly for his age group. Secondly, it was difficult to estimate regional localization of Gord’s blog visitors. Given the fact that the majority of Ukrainian internet users are located in Kyiv, I daresay the campaign covered mainly the Kyiv region. The argument of limited regional coverage of online campaigns is often raised by pharmaceutical companies. When planning a digital campaign no one can guarantee that digital PR can reach mainstream audience across the whole Ukraine, due to the fact that 75% of internet users are concentrated in the capital.

Another question is how Gord’s fans reacted once they found themselves mislead by Berocca? Will they still be interested in the vitamins when the Gord phenomenon is disclosed? Will they be loyal to the brand in the future?

Finally, I also assume that around 30% of Victor Gord’s blog visitors were social media marketers and journalists, since the campaign was widely discussed by professionals. And if you’ve tried one of the links above, you have just increased this number.

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Source: http://www.pailingroup.com/j0423022.jpg

As a dedicated, active user of the web, who tries to keep an eye on international digital trends, the recent ComStore study, announcing Russians to be the world leaders in social networking, came as a bit of surprise to me.

As highlighted by TechCrunch Europe, the research found internet users in Russia to ‘waste’ 6.6 hours in social network sites, and on average views of 1,307 pages per visitor, per month.  To put that level of ‘addiction’ in perspective: the average worldwide indicator is 3.7 hours and 525 pages per visitor.

These findings not only made me curious about the possible results of such a study in my home country of Ukraine, but also increased my interest to evaluate Ukrainian web 2.0 development.  Browsing available statistics and analysing open data led to my identifying five trends in the Ukrainian internet market, essential to understanding and planning digital PR activities for the local market:

1. The first and, perhaps, the most significant factor, would be Ukraine’s low internet penetration. According to different sources, this indicator varies wildly from 8% up to 27%. The latter number is taken from research, accomplished by InMind and Factum-Group in eight CEE countries, claiming penetration in Ukraine to be one of the lowest in the region, compared to Slovakia with 51%, Lithuania with 56%, and Hungary and Germany both at 70%.
2. Most of the web trends are reaching Ukraine with a certain delay. A good example is online services popularity. In contrast to the world’s slowdown in blogging, with 95% of blogs being abandoned by their authors, the Ukrainian blogosphere is still anticipating a peak of growth. As of June 2009, Ukrainian internet users created 420,000 blogs and 20,000 communities. During the first half of 2009, the number of blogs increased by 70%, while in 2007, this quantity was three and a half times smaller, as reported by Yandex.
3. Rapid growth is the third feature of the Ukrainian web. As shown by the above mentioned study of Yandex, during the first six months of 2009, the Ukrainian Twitter community expanded in size by nine times. The same speed is observed in Facebook’s network popularity. While in late April 2009 Facebook had only 60,000 Ukrainian users, this number had doubled as of June 09.
4. However, in building an effective online strategy, one should remember a fourth feature of Ukraine web 2.0. Despite growing popularity of global social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, Ukrainian visitors prefer to use local versions of social networks. Similar to Russia, the most popular social networks are vkontakte.ru, a Russian language Facebook prototype and odnoklassniki.com, a local version of Classmates.com. These networks belong to the top six sites in Ukraine, according to Alexa.com.
5. The fifth feature of the Ukrainian online community, is the demographic of the internet audience. The typical Ukrainian blogger is a 22-year-old female, reports Yandex. And almost half of all Ukrainian users in Facebook are between the ages of 18-24 years old, while another 32% is no older than 34.

I think the next logical step would be to present a detailed profile of Ukrainian online visitors. But this topic is a big one, and I think definitely requires a separate blog post …

More than a half-century ago, John F. Kennedy‘s Presidential campaign  revolutionised electoral campaigning, by being first to use television as a powerful media channel. Last year it was

Obama who proved that new online media channels can be successfully used for gaining additional votes. It clearly showed that social media tools as well as electoral technologies had changed. But does it mean that the essence of elections has also changed significantly?

With the forthcoming (Jan 2010) elections in Ukraine, everybody has been waiting to see who would be the first to adopt Obama’s methods. Due to political instability, there’s no obvious leader among the candidates. Thirty-four year old politician, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, with a good education and a successful career, suits the American dream the best. The only weakness is that he is not a big player in the Ukrainian political game.

Arseniy To Save the Country via farm3 flickr

That hot summer day, when the first promotional billboards with Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s face appeared on the streets, citizens were left in no doubt that this candidate had adopted elements of Obama’s campaigning strategy. But within a matter of hours in the online world, negative feedback in blogs (e.g. fedoriv.com, pravda.com.ua – note these are in Cyrillic) showed that Yatsenuyk’s team missed one big thing. They are working with a political figure who is different from Obama. The blogosphere was very quick to react to an unprofessional attempt to apply an American model in the Ukrainian political environment. It took very little time for the poster to get transformed into a series of caricatures, which were immediately “copy-pasted” to a number of leading blogs and circulated in cyberspace via Facebook, Twitter and Instant Messages.

*To Save Cheburashka. Gennadiy. The quote is based on a popular cartoon featuring Crocodile Gennadiy and his friend, a fluffy toy Cheburashka as the main characters, via lh5.ggpht.com

* Arseniy Beer Saves Your Country, via picthost.ru

At first it seemed like Yatsenyuk’s team did everything right – they focused on having an interesting and creative design, used Web 2.0 tools, engaged in social media and interactive communications.

One method the candidate’s campaign team used to grasp the attention of the public was by engaging potential voters on Facebook. Yatsenyuk’s team created a Facebook profile for a virtual male user “X” and posted some nice photos, supposedly of him, on his profile.

Mister X started adding female users with the purpose of making them feel flattered by receiving his attention. Then this virtual, handsome guy started inviting his female Facebook friends to register at the candidate’s political website. Obviously, this strategy generated negative feedback amongst Ukrainian Facebook users. Whoever came up with this idea missed the point that, through informal communication, female users would prefer to be treated as a woman as they were originally approached and not as a voter. It also goes against everything that social media stands for: namely that being transparent and honest are this media’s first rules of engagement.

But now the campaign is further away from the real personality of the candidate who in reality has the image of an ordinary politician. It happened that Yatsenyuk’s team, who developed his promotional campaign, came to the foreground, while putting the candidate himself in the shade. As a result, the voters are talking about the campaign, but they’re neglecting the politician himself. The campaign is labeled as the Ukrainian Obama and every next step is criticised in contrast to the American strategy.

"I'm Obama" - Really?!

Social media instruments, including social networks, can empower the candidate but they cannot create a political leader from point blank.  And ready-to-use campaigns for social networks cannot be applied by disregarding the ‘product’ you want to promote which, in this case, was the candidate for a presidency.

The Ukrainian presidential election will take place in January 2010. We’ve therefore still got a chance to see whether the Ukrainian media experts succeed in creating their own Pygmalion.