Lately, there has been some very public instances in which PR people have been ‘named and shamed’ online - on blogs and in twitter - for the way they have approached food bloggers. 

It hasn’t been pretty and when situations like this occur, it doesn’t do anyone any good.  I attribute this strife largely to a general lack of knowledge and understanding about bloggers and blogging. 

So in an effort to improve relations between PR professionals and members of the food blogging community, Stellar* is hosting a ‘meet up’ and panel discussion.  Please click here for event details and registration.

If you would like to gain some insight into the food blogger communities in Sydney and Melbourne; gain an understanding of who food bloggers are, how they work and what they do and don’t want; learn how to approch bloggers (without pissing them off) and build positive relationships, then please join us for this FREE event. 

Likewise, if you have questions you’ve been too afraid to ask - now’s your chance!  Ask on the night, email questions through to us prior OR leave a question on our blog.

The format is a panel discussion followed by an open Q & A session.  Speakers include:

• Ed Charles
  Melbourne based freelance journalist and food blogger behind Tomato, which attracts +30,000 page views per month.
• Helen Yee
  Food enthusiast and the appetite behind one of Sydney’s longest-running food blogs, Grab Your Fork, online since 2004.
• Reem Abdelaty
  A passionate foodie with an aptly titled and popular blog called I Am Obsessed With Food.

Why are we doing this?  Because as we stated here “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.  We want to help to make things better and we thought that this would be a step in the right direction for all parties.

Big thanks and shout out to Restaurant Arras for providing a beautiful venue and ‘hatted’ nibbles for the night.  And to Ed for making the trip up from Melbourne.

Posted by Renee Creer

Here’s this week’s media wrap up. Please click on the publication title to read the full article.

Media

• Celebrity magazines continue to fall in sales with all but one announcing a decrease - Sydney Morning Herald
• Matthew Johns could return to air sooner than expected as a commentator after being ’stood down indefinitely’ rather than saked by the Nine network - The Australian
• The vultures are circling over Nine’s reality renovation show Home Made after the show pulled in a dismal 860,000 viewers on Tuesday night - Mumbrella

Advertising

• Online advertising increased by 14 per cent in the first quarter of this year which states people still trust or are beginning to invest in the online space - Sydney Morning Herald

Sponsorship

• NRL boss David Gallop made a point to personally write to major sponsors in the hope of them re-signing next year with an estimated $10 million worth of sponsorships on the cards - The Australian

Digital and social media

• A snapshot e-mail survey by Australia’s digital services trade body suggests that most companies are planning to increase the amount they spend on digital, despite the downturn - Mumbrella

Posted by Helen Lear

Proving that you’re never too old school to be new school, James Halliday has launched his own iPhone application.

For those who don’t know, James is a leading wine critic and vigneron whose career spans over 40 years. He has contributed to more than 50 books on wine and has had them translated into numerous languages.

What impressed me is the fact that Halliday, so we’re told, is a bit ‘traditional’ and chooses to hand write his wine reviews rather than type them into a computer.

So when I learnt about this new app at a Wine Communicators of Australia seminar about marketing wine to Gen Y, I quickly jumped on my iPhone and downloaded it.

The app is a succinct version of Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion 2009, arguably one of the most comprehensive directories of wineries in Australia. It allows wine lovers to search for wineries across the country by name or region and compile a list of favourites.

Each winery is listed with full contact details, cellar door opening times and reviews, which would come in very handy when trawling around the Hunter Valley looking for your next tipple stop. And the best thing is that its completely free.

So from the Stellar* team we’d like to say “good on you James” and welcome to the digital hood.

Download the new app at the Apple appstore.

Posted by Helen Lear

Is it just me or has PR been slammed more in the last month than in the last few years?  The industry appears to be copping it from all sides.  We’ve had:

• Neil Shoebridge’s AFR piece titled How to lose clients and annoy reporters.  He argues that the PR industry is awash with incompetent people and outlines his top and deady PR sins.
• Jason Whittaker’s guest post on Mumbrella titled Precious PR hacks and why they do their clients no good.  Here, Whittaker has had enough of PRs telling him how to do his job.
• Ed Charles, journalist and blogger, named and shamed a PR in this post after he and other food bloggers were spammed via a contact list of bloggers Charles published online.
• Heated industry debate, in B&T magazine and online over Brisbane agency, Publicity Queen, and their promise of guaranteed publicity.

And that’s not the extent of it. So what does one in PR say or do about all of this?

We consider ourselves an agency of smart, professional people who know the media and have good relationships with journalists.  We have, on occasion, f#*$ed up, gotten it wrong, and done dumb stuff.

There are always two sides to any story or coin and may we state that the stupid and incompetent are not just confined to the PR industry!

Rather than scrap it out school yard style, we’ve decided to outline A NEW MANIFESTO FOR PR because if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

We promise to:

1. Not be idiots or self important show ponies

2. Not pitch stupid, irrelevant stuff to media outlets, journalists or bloggers

3. Continue to comply with spam laws

4. Limit blanket distributions where possible

5. Keep a sense humour

6. Get to know the media or blog’s scope and where journalists’ interests lie

7. Build reciprocal, positive relationships

8. Play nice

9. Make PR as relevant and exciting as possible

10. Always strive to be better at what we do

11. Follow up and keep our word

12. Set a positive example

13. Educate younger staff and clients on the right way to do media relations

14. Not make claims that we can’t justify or promises that we can’t keep

15. Do our research

16. Beware of fibbers and phonies

17. Try to fix things when they go wrong

18. Be patient and reasonable in the light of differences

19. Ask and learn more about how journalists work and what they need

Like to contribute?  By all means, add to the list.  Or follow this conversation on Mumbrella.

Posted by Renee Creer

Here is this week’s media wrap up. To read the full article, please click on the publication title.

Media

• A global survey has found that readers could be willing to pay almost as much for some high-quality online newspapers as they do for print versions, particularly in specialist news ares - The Australian
• Hit shows such as Underbelly and Packed to the Rafters are not enough to sustain the local industry without a funding boost in the federal budget, producers have warned - The Australian
• Have newspapers lost their relevance? Warren Buffett seems to think so - Sydney Morning Herald

PR

• PR stunt? It seems that all three parties involved in this issue have come off more appealing and slightly refreshed - Sydney Morning Herald

Digital and social media

• Beware celebrities, Twitter can be dangerous - Sydney Morning Herald

Posted by Helen Lear

Here’s this week’s media wrap up. To read the full article, please click on the publication title.

Media

• Packed to the Rafters actress Rebecca Gibney won the Gold Logie this week for most popular TV personality, also walking away with the Silver Logie for most popular actress - The Australian
• Media outlets are on notice after the consumer watchdog yesterday vowed to step up its scrutiny of infomercials, advertorials and current affairs programs after a court decision that drew a clear line between news and spin - The Australian

PR

• The first episode of the PRIA’s PRTV has been replaced with a re-edited version minus one of those who took part - Mumbrella
• The view that PR has taken control appears to be the consensus in The Australian and the AFR this week - Mumbrella

Advertising

• Oporto will double its media spend over the next year and launch a new product in August to appeal beyond its 18-24 year old core demographic - Ad News

Digital and social media

• AOL is rolling out a social network platform called Socialthing that will allow users to communicate with each other as well as broadcast their activities to other social networks - B&T
• Google has topped the list of the world’s most valuable brands for the third consecutive year with a dollar value of $140 billion, according to research company Millward Brown Optimor - B&T
• Social networking website Twitter took over Australian Fashion Week faster than a case of swine flu with bloggers and magazine editors alike posting regular updates - The Australian

Posted by Helen Lear

Here is this week’s media wrap up. To read more about each article, please click on the publication title.

Media

• Austereo is launching Pink Radio, a new digital station that will play artist Pink’s music and those of her favourite artists 24 hours a day - B&T
• Alcohol brand Jagermeister has teamed up with branded content company mcm media and secured naming rights for its national radio show Planet Rock as part of a cross-platform integrated campaign - B&T
• Lachlan Murdoch’s Illyria has taken a slice of regional broadcaster Prime Media after taking part in its $110 million capital raising - The Australian

Advertising

• Yahoo! Search Marketing will spend $24 million to provide small businesses with free search engine advertising campaigns for three months, just a week after Google unveiled its small business stimulus - Ad News
• The advertising market might be in the doldrums but television networks are already privately plotting their revenge next year on the big advertisers and media buyers who have forced huge cuts in the price of commercial airtime - Sydney Morning Herald

Digital and social media

• More than 60 per cent of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service a month after joining, according to Nielsen Online research - The Australian
• Australia’s richest performers, The Wiggles, have ventured further into cyberspace in a move that has alienated fans who feared the entertainers have dived too deeply into their pockets - Sydney Morning Herald

Posted by Helen Lear

Here is this week’s media wrap up. To read the full article, please click on the publication title.

Media

• Nickelodeon took home the big prize at teh 7th annual Astra Awards on Monday, being named Channel of the Year at the ceremony - Ad News
• Other Astra Awards included Selling Houses Australia as favourite program, Grand Designs as favourite international program and Foxtel’s ‘Good News Sale’ as most outstanding marketing campaign - B&T
• Nova and Vega radio parent DMG launched this week two new digital radio stations - Novanation and Koffee - Sydney Morning Herald
• The future of global press freedom is at risk if sporting codes can pick and choose what a news organisation is allowed to report online says the World Association of Newspapers - The Australian

PR

• A new service to train smaller media and advertising companies in PR rather than provide it has been launched in Sydney - Ad News

Advertising

• Mitchell Communication Group executive chariman Harold Mitchell expects the recession in Australia to be over by the end of the year - Ad News

Digital and social media

• Visual Jazz, part of the Mitchell Communication Group, has hired Simon T Small as its new digital strategist - B&T
• The ABC has unveiled its most ambitious broadband documentary project in the lead up to Anzac Day, launching an interactive website that enables people to relive the first 24 hours of the Gallipoli landing - The Australian
• In America today, there are almost as many people making a living as bloggers as there are lawyers. More Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinion than are working as computer programmers, firefighters or bartenders - The Wall Street Journal

Posted by Helen Lear

I have been trying to think of a clever intro for this post for about five minutes but the only words that come to me are:  radical technology. 

Here’s this week’s media wrap up. To read the full article, please click on the publication title.

Media

• ACP magazines has confirmed St Ives, Tetley, Butter Menthol, Sanitarium, MBF and Colgate-Palmolive as Diamond Sponsors for 30 Days of Health and Wellbeing - B&T

Marketing

• ‘Crowdsourcing’ is fast establishing itself as a legitimate business tool, extending its reach from research and development to politics and marketing - Sydney Morning Herald
• Unsexy point of sale field marketing has become the ‘new sexy’ as companies specialising in product sampling experience explosive growth - The Australian

Advertising

• Ten years after James Packer launched PBL Media’s first attempt at striking ‘cross-platform’ advertising deals across its diverse media assets, they have emerged as one of the few hot growth segments for the media sector this year - Sydney Morning Herald

Digital and Social Media

• Tic Tac is expanding its digital strategy as more of its target demographic move online, and has launched its first iPhone application - Ad News
• The Federal Government will invest up to $43 billion to create its own company to build the National Broadband Network after none of the five bidders for the contract met its requirements - Ad News
• Tourism Australia is to start hosting influential bloggers this month in an attempt to drive positive word of mouth about travelling in Australia - B&T
• The Associated Press has backed a call by Wall Street Journal editor Robert Thomson for online news aggregators to pay for the use of traditional media content - The Australian

Posted by Helen Lear