Saunders & Co PR

Our friends from SERMO at Talk PR in London recently went to hear a talk from Bruce Daisley, the UK Director of Twitter, where he outlined the platform’s advertising strategy as well as giving a few insights into where Twitter, which is about to celebrate its sixth birthday, is heading over the next few months.  And these are the 5 key points for you to take away….

1.  The idea of Twitter was hatched during a brainstorm on a company away day.

As Bruce said ‘day trips to two star hotels in the country with your colleagues can, from time to time, yield amazing results.’ 140 million worldwide users and counting.

2. Two out of every five Twitter users don’t actually tweet, they just use the service to monitor conversations.

The media seems to assume that people on Twitter are always tweeting about their lunch, nights out and latest music downloads, but there are in fact a lot of people who just watch and read from the sidelines.

3.Twitter doesn’t call itself a social network. It bills itself as an information network.

The emphasis is that it has gone from a place solely about people sharing, to a network where people find out the latest information and news. Bruce used lots of examples to illustrate this from tweeted pics of the plane landing in the Hudson River through to the updates around the riots last summer.

One interesting side point that Bruce mentioned is that some of the leading brands in the fashion world (i.e. Burberry), only use the platform as a broadcast mechanism. They send out messages to their followers but never respond to their queries. In many ways this flies in the face of the traditional ideas about social media which are all about engaging with consumers and hopefully turning them into evangelists for your brand. I guess the lesson here is that if you are successful enough as a brand and produce pioneering social media content you can be standoffish and people will still love you.

4. If you don’t know what a hash tag is you are not alone.

According to Bruce quite a lot of hardcore Twitter users don’t what it is and how to use it either. If it helps he says think of it in terms of a URL (website address) except that the hash tag directs people not to a destination site but to a specific conversation. One of the the key things about hash tags that broadcasters have cottoned on to is that they can be used to measure how popular programmes are. By gauging the number of people tweeting using a hash tags they can often get a very good steer on how many people have watched a particular programme.

5. And the hash tag that really caught people’s imagination was #prayformuamba.

In which Twitter users petitioned the almighty for the well being of Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba. It was used over 860,000 times.

What else???   Twitter’s advertising plans.

Essentially there are three ways of reaching out to Twitter users. The first one, and possibly the most appropriate for PRs to consider, is via Promoted Accounts. This is when a brand pays to to have the Twitter account promoted to people who Twitter thinks may be interested in it.

Brands only pay when someone follows that account and the fee for this works out roughly analogous to buying Facebook Likes. The other ways are through Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends.

Bruce stressed that Twitter intended to keep advertising low key so as not to make it too instructive for its users.

He then showed how a few brands had been using Twitter largely from a traditional advertising and promotions perspective. He highlighted Nike’s use of the #makeitcount hash tag and American Express, which enables its users to tie their Twitter and card accounts together and then easily pick up discounts and freebies.

Finally Bruce concluded by adding that the key thing for brands using social media was to offer competitions, promotions and content as in his opinion people didn’t become followers (or give away likes) for nothing and expected something in return.

Global Lifestyle PR network, SERMO signs up Saunders & Co

SERMO, the first ever global lifestyle pr network founded in 2010 by Talk PR (UK), part of the M&C Saatchi group, has today signed leading Australian PR consultancy Saunders & Co.

The SERMO network is made up of independent PR consultancies that are particularly experienced and connected in the fashion, beauty & lifestyle sectors.  The network’s founding partners, Talk PR (UK), Me & Us (France), Nike Communication (US) & Nota Bene (Spain) were joined by partners in Greece, Brazil, Russia, India and Hong Kong in 2011.  The move into Australia and Germany in 2012, takes the number of countries SERMO operates across to 11, spanning five continents with 15 offices worldwide.

The network allows its agencies to deliver a truly global offering to international clients whilst retaining a unique entrepreneurial and boutique approach.  SERMO agencies have created stand out international and local PR campaigns and events for clients including Vertu, American Express, Procter & Gamble, Rolls Royce, Swarovski, Tag Heuer, United Colors of Benetton and Yves Saint Laurent.

Jane Boardman, CEO of Talk PR comments “This is a great start to 2012, continuing the forward momentum of SERMO’s growth.  Saunders & Co is a great fit for the network and operate in important markets for global clients.  Presence in Australia will increase SERMO’s exceptional depth of understanding of the global lifestyle sector and will add value to all of the agencies client’s businesses.”

Saunders & Co is a privately owned company and founded by respected marketer Gary Saunders.   Gary has recently brought in business partner Raffaele D’Alisa to steer the agency operations.  Saunders & Co have produced outstanding brand building PR campaigns for clients including P&G Beauty, SK-II, Pantene, Clairol, Mecca Cosmetica, Essie and Invisalign.

Gary Saunders comments, “SERMO will ensure that our existing clients benefit from the scale and stature of a major international agency, while maintaining the hands-on approach our clients have always known.  This is also a fantastic opportunity for the Saunders & Co team to further develop our offering and explore global opportunities for our clients.”

For further information please email Raffaele D’Alisa at raffaele@sandcopr.com.au or call (02) 8394 4600. http://www.sandcopr.com.au

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