My CV contains such jobs as journalist, advertising agencies CEO, and PR manager at financial companies. So, my friends asked me for the independent audit of financial company that was working with PR agency N*(I won’t name those companies, although they are not business partners any more).

After analyzing tremendous reports about PR success due to “internal PR manager – PR agency synergy”, I’ve mentioned to myself that an agency used mostly its own brand while communicating the client’s messages. This was made for enlargement agency’s first part role. It’s a shame, that contract between company and agency didn’t contained argumentation for such issue. At the same time, I was shocked with content analysis results which demonstrated high mentioning. The independent experts’ verification didn’t approve such perfect agency results.
Deep analysis showed that agency counted all brand mentioning without any ranging. Even if its own press release contained 5 brand’s mentioning, this number was added to counting and not one (when naturally it’s really goes as single mentioning). In other words, if you have 5 press releases with 5 brand mentioning in each release multiplied by average quoting ratio 10 and you will get 250 (!). The only thing left is to add advertorials and in the end client is looking at PR report with so much beautiful but so much fake numbers.

I won’t be commenting on the content of PR materials. Mostly those materials were written as advertorials so couldn’t reach audience that has to decide itself on what to buy.

To tell the truth, I was a little surprised to find out that there was a single company providing advertising and PR activities … PR agency N*. How is it possible? But there is more! As we all know, honest and fair cooperation between the Client and Agency includes:

• An agency uses all the discounts it possesses when there is a need to issue a publication. If there is a need, client cover all the expenses for media accommodation, except for agency discounts;
• An agency gives all free PR bonuses it possesses from media accommodation to the client; the client doesn’t have to pay for PR bonuses;
• An agency gets from the client only an Agency fee (10% and more).

In our case there was a clear manipulation scheme. An agency sold FREE PR bonuses to the client. An agency didn’t use its discounts when placing the ads. Moreover, an agency differentiated discounts for regional issues of the same edition. Even though, every media buyer knows that working with media holding or edition an agency gets a single discount for regional issues. Naturally, despite all that budget tricks, client paid regular agency fee for PR and advertising services.

I did objective recommendations to the client – only the truth and nothing but the truth about an agency. Later during informal meeting with PR agency N* CEO he told me that there was a BIG difference between information that Agency gave to internal PR manager and information this guy showed to the TOP managers. An agency recommended not using some instruments but PR manager himself insisted very often. It’s a pity but during the crisis thesis “if you pay, you will be in charge” wins over the professional attitude towards business.

Knowing double-sided Slavic essence President of USA Ronald Ragan said to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 during official meeting: “Don’t trust without verifying”.

• Event management. Any work with rich client is based on privacy. VIP client should be treated with great respect individually paying attention to every need of his. So, the most suitable opportunity for an individual work with VIP clients is events: wine tasting parties, cigar clubs, and diplomatic banquettes. Organization of such events is quite expensive and complex work. Although, there is a slight opportunity to surprise VIP clients because they always attend different presentation and events targeted to motivate them invest or donate money.
• Media coverage. We can talk here about editions targeted on very special audience: Forbes, air magazines, glossy, and the most authoritative business magazines. It’s a pity but we don’t have Forbes or Esquire published in Ukraine. Although, we have a couple high-rated business editions that are adored by VIP audience and a few status glossy magazines. It is clear lack of media instrument to work with.
• Working with target audience directly. There are a lot of closed status clubs where rich people gather to discuss some Mercedes novelties or to play golf. So, correct and proactive work of managers in such clubs can be very effective. Managers can reach their targets by communicating with VIPs properly or event making friends.

I think there are a lot of other instruments for PR promotion of VIP services. Which ones? Let’s discuss.

At the same time, all that positive aspects mentioned can be fully used if a PR agency is highly professional. It’s a pity, but in Ukraine more or less professional is that agency that doesn’t roll aside with its clients.

1)Nokia N85.

Nokia N85 was positioned by Finish vendor as multimedia computer even though it looked as mobile smart phone. In other words, PR specialists tried to widen understanding of PC in consumer minds. A Story about N85 multimedia computer either was targeted not only at rich buyers (the price was rather high for Ukraine), or it should create Nokia image as innovation brand in heads of mass consumers.

2) Logitech + Skype = High Quality Video.

Another good example of a Story is the result of cooperation between Skype and Logitech Company. The plot of a story was based on declaration that Skype communication can be exclusively qualitative only through Logitech peripherals (web-cameras, headphones). The project was called High Quality Video. The message box used in a Story for Logitech devices promotion in cooperation with Skype contained: communicating with family or relatives who live far away can be lifelike; find your love in Internet (on-line dating) and so on. Naturally, all these messages were forced to underline the high quality of the devices.
I can easily go on with other examples but in the end let’s analyze a Story that was created in crisis.

3) Erste Bank.
Recently in Ukraine, banks have the most active informational position. Banks that have lost trust of clients try to find new path to their hearts. Bright TV advertising demonstrating profitable rates doesn’t work anymore. A few weeks ago I’ve read an article about Erste Bank in popular Ukrainian business magazine “Contracts”. It was a PR Story. Key message of this Story may be spelled: “only conservative bank can handle financial crisis”. An article tells about conservative and slow development banking strategy, little mortgage and car credits shares in debt portfolio. That issue confirms liquidity and stable position of the Erste bank. PR specialists proved conservatism with external loans absence and declining of consumer crediting. At the same time, Erste bank PR Story is adequate to advertising activity – “190 years of stability”.
Besides Erste I can’t see other efficient examples of PR Stories in Ukraine. Even those companies which spend a lot of money on PR not often try to create a Story. Although, I am sure that crisis will make business to use Stories for confirmation of stability.

(I have used actual brands names not for advertising. It would be incomplete picture if I described fake cases )

Everybody knows that conservative companies acting isolated will never avoid being mentioned in Internet once. If you are either interesting or keep silence they will find some information about you in blogs, forums, yellow news portals. And this information they find is not necessarily good. Very often Ukrainian companies aren’t control the media area.
The problem
IT press in Ukraine is facing deep crisis. During the last month due to the advertising budgets decreasing 2 IT publishing houses had been closed. Measuring in editions equivalent Ukraine lost 7 magazines that wrote about PCs, mobile phones and hi-tech novelties. It is not a joke any more! Leading IT vendors in Ukraine has now left only a few print editions to work with.
I suppose that in new severe conditions the role of Internet channel will significantly increase. PR will move on-line for some companies or even product categories. Lets us now analyze blogs as one of the most perspective PR instrument of the future in Ukraine.
Blogosphere of Ukrainian Internet
Just before financial crisis boomed some commercial banks started to finally understand the meaning the importance of internet “noise” and planned some budgets to work with this channel. It was only first weak steps.
In the last year on of the biggest Ukrainian bank,”Privatbank”, launched its own blog (http://privatblog.com.ua/). The bank has reached few targets developing that service. Firstly, “Privatbank” always tried to be a leader in opening up the World Wide Web. For example in June 2008 this bank launched Internet-widget, that open an opportunity for every user to sell bank services through its own site or blog getting oneself tips. Moreover “Privatbank” was one of the first companies that started using Internet banking in Ukraine.
But let us come back to the “Privatblog” and mention a couple of loses that arise (or rising) during its work:

• So, among the blog members form the Bank you may find the TOP management including the President whose last post on a page was dated 31.09.2008. Everybody knows that the President of such big bank has no time for blogging or even answer to the comments. So why do they added him to the blogger list? It would be more efficient if the right for virtual communication have only single business branches representatives (retail, corporate);

• The topics I have found on the “Privatblog” are not adequate to the real questions or problems of the bank or even banking system in general. Ukraine is living in a deep financial crisis. In such hard conditions every communication channel should work for fighting against banking panic. Despite those problems there is a discussion concerning “Privatbank” – Skype partnership on the last blog pages.

Analyzing this example I would like to mention one more time the secondary role of blog in the eyes of PR managers and marketing specialists of the Bank. We should give them credit for answering even the negative comments and not deleting them. “Privatblog” is not distributing any company messages.
Progressive companies try to use blogs of popular editions. We could also call them columns. For example liga.net informational agency offers blogging platform for famous politicians, businessmen or other authoritative people who are experts in their branches. If the PR manager wants to make a market expert out of his client he launches a blog on a popular platform. In case with liga.net I know a legal agency, “Yust Ukraine” whose manager is having a blog there.
As I was telling earlier, either corporate blogs or participating in social networks hasn’t become an important PR promotion channel for companies and its products. I can prove it with a couple of arguments. First of all, business is not ready yet to pay bloggers or on-line PR specialists. Second of all, the public is primarily focused on the fact of existing blog or even Live journal account, not on the resource content. Hardly ever in Ukraine we will ever be able to see an accident similar to that one took place on a CNN, iReport, blog where American teenager posted an information concerning the Apple president Steve Jobs who supposedly had a heart attack and is going to die soon. The news spread really fast and Apple PR specialists had to deny this untrue info. By the way, that news hit the company’s shares value pretty much. In Ukraine you can post whatever news you want on your blog and nobody but your friends will ever read it. At the same time the news concerning the fact that President of Ukraine V. Yuschenko registered himself an account on Twitter were distributed widely and is being discussed recently.
Even the leading worldwide corporations operating in Ukraine still don’t want to use blogs as an option. For example Apple and its distributors didn’t pay a lot of attention towards branch local Mac-blog. Although, such blog have been launched with the help of Apple Ukrainian users. It’s called ProstoMac blog. It functions as a helper for IPod users, MACbook users or any other Apple product. Although, this blog it is not an Apple project.

• 48% of respondents claimed that Internet editions give them primary information; if we divide those respondents by 2 age groups, we will get: 55% of young people (age of 18 – 29) and 35% of seniors (age older than 65);
• 86% of Americans claimed that Internet editions are more important news source than others; just to compare: “For” the television claimed 77% of respondents, “For” the radio – 74%, “For” the print press – 70%;
• 32% of respondents claimed that Internet news are more trustful than from other sources; “For” the TV claimed 21%, “For” the radio – 15%, “For” the print press – 22%.

As far as know, there are more than 225 mln. (74% of the USA population) Internet users (the whole population is equal to 305 mln.). According to the “Gemius” company research in November 2008 total number of the Internet users in Ukraine exaggerated 7 mln. (15% of the Ukrainian population). The total population of Ukraine is more than 46 mln.

It’s a pity that I haven’t seen any public opinion surveys concerning the role of Internet editions in the lives of Ukrainian WWW users. Although, I suppose that on-line information plays important role for citizens. I can even guess at least one reason for that – price. Trivial remark, one would say? In Ukraine for Internet user is more favorable to get news from informational portals or on-line newspapers, than to buy paper versions. There are very few editions in Ukraine that “hide” their news and articles from non-subscribers. You will have to subscribe in order to read some serious analytical features with high added value on some magazines such as “Business”, “Companion” etc).

What does it mean for PR specialists?
What does it mean for Ukrainian PR specialists if the readers go on-line? I must say that nowadays most PR specialists use electronic editions only for the press releases distribution. It is quite common practice. Although, you don’t need to kill much time in order to write a press release and send it through the base of electronic editions and web-portals, or even to just post it on special release resources (Ukr Biz, “Correspondent”).
Step aside of the trivial press release distribution there is an opportunity to do the journalist’s job and write an article oneself. Some editions will take it if your writing style is perfect and you can “hide” advertising beyond the actual and socially useful information analysis. If you send an advertorial, the moderator or site editor will throw it away.
Specialists agree that in Ukraine the professional level of the on-line journalists is much lower that print ones. Moreover, print word still is more trustful than the text on the computer monitor. I think, this situation will be actual till the population on-line will exaggerate off-line audience. More Internet users – better quality!
There is one more important issue. I personally know that on-line journalists earn less money than print media staff. At the same time, lots of print media journalists write for electronic editions under the pseudonyms. As a result, often for PR specialists on-line media representatives are less authoritative than other journalists. Step aside the fact that audience of on-line and off-line media is incomparable. An article posted at Internet edition web-site is spreading all over the Net immediately.
Ukrainian PR managers are going to raise attention towards on-line media. Actual trend of “new PR” claims for messages diversity to different media types. Internet itself create wide field for specialized niche editions. There aren’t offices here and you don’t have to take on staff for printing the off-line paper or magazine. All you need is 1 system administrator, designer and writing editor. This small team can easily develop any idea and target it on narrow audience.
I would like to mention example that catch my eyes not long ago. This site named “Good News” (http://www.horoshienovosti.com.ua) positioning itself as a resource with “the news for those whose life is great”. The creators have discovered lack of positive news because of negative information flow concerning crisis. I personally was told about that negative background by journalists themselves! Recently, the “Good News” site creators launched press conferences series targeted to describe positive and perspective trends in economy step aside crisis and recession. Those press conferences will be dedicated to different economy branches. First one is going to be about banking system – one of the most painful topics in Ukraine nowadays.
The “Good News” is a very bright example of niche edition that was born from the crisis reality. And you know, I really don’t think we could see new print newspaper or magazine concerning this topic developed during such short period of time.