Paying for a noble craft

It was with considerable interest that I recently watched Private Eye editor Ian Hislop give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. In some regards, I found it particularly striking when he made the point that journalism was a noble craft that shouldn’t be given away for free.

As much as, in theory, I do not disagree with that point, I cannot help feeling that for people such as Hislop, or indeed for Lionel Barber of the Financial Times, it is easy to adopt that position. Both individuals head publications that are specialist in nature, and thus can afford to charge for the content they provide.

However for other publications, particularly daily newspapers, Hislop’s assertion becomes far harder to achieve. On an individual basis, newspapers may well argue the merits of the works of their journalists over those from other publications as a key selling point. Yet, with the greatest respect, it may not always be the case that there is such a strong desire to buy newspapers simply to read the output of certain journalists. Reporting of the Leveson Inquiry is a case in point. With so much information available from such a wide variety of sources across different media, why should people pay for reports on the Leveson Inquiry when they can access them for free?

There is no doubt in my mind that good journalism is indeed a noble craft worth paying for. In spite of this though, consumers have rapidly acquired a taste for that which is free. In the months and years to come, getting consumers to pay for that noble craft will only get harder and harder.

On piracy and file sharing

I was interested to read an article posted by Yahoo titled “Most pirated movie ever revealed”. In it, the 2009 Hollywood film Avatar is considered by one source to be “the most pirated film of all time”. Or, at least, to date.

I think what I found most striking about the piece was the use of the word “pirated”. That something should be pirated carries a deeply negative connotation. Generally, I would have considered something pirated to either be illegally filmed in a cinema auditorium and then sold on, or, download and then sold on.

File sharing on the other hand, is something quite apart from the aforementioned. That which is downloaded for one’s own use with no intention of resulting financial gain is completely different to something that, knowingly, is being illegally sold in a flea market or locations other.

Moreover, the notion that file sharing is an industry crippler is absurd, particularly when within the same Yahoo article it was stated that Avatar had worldwide box-office takings of £1.77 billion, in spite of TorrentFreak claiming it was downloaded twenty-one million times.

Whatever your view on file sharing may be, one thing does appear to be clear: there has never been anywhere near the kind of debate that this situation warrants. Nor have corporations attempted to address these issues by engaging in any kind of meaningful discussion with consumers, who after all are the people keeping these companies afloat. For now at least.

On ethical blogging

Recently, I have been giving thought to blogging, and how to do so in as ethical a way possible.

Some weeks ago I was looking at a blog concerned with marketing. I read through a few articles, and they appeared to make relative sense, but the subsequent articles seemed to move to more sexual themes. I don’t see anything wrong with this – erotic stories attract a lot of attention online, and like a great volume of literature, they are probably highly cathartic for those writing them. At that time though, when I was looking for perspectives on marketing, it really wasn’t a treat to get stories about what the author wanted to do with someone in a club.

I started thinking, was it ethical for the blogger in question to fashion their blog in a certain mould then go completely off topic? Alternatively, was it the right of the blogger to do whatever they wanted with their blog? Using my own platform as an example, I set out at the very beginning what it was seeking to look at, and ultimately what I was going to write about. This means that when I am fortunate enough to have visitors, be they by choice or accident, they are aware of the parameters that my writing is set within.

Too often though, I find that a great many blogs either fail to define their own parameters, or define them then ignore them. There have been a number of occasions where I have found people posting reasonably sensible pieces at one time, then at another posting entries making truly rancid comments about people on the basis of their gender, skin tone, sexuality, nationality, or faith. I have wondered, and indeed failed to understand, how people can make a lot of sense in one posting, then follow those words with remarks so hurtful and disparaging.

This lack of discipline and ethical underpinning is hugely troublesome, and totally undermines the credibility of bloggers around the world, the majority of whom make fantastic contributions to the blogosphere. Arguably, the recent scandal involving blogger Tom MacMaster, author of “A Gay Girl in Damascus”, highlights perfectly my assertion concerning the need to tread carefully – and ethically – when blogging. MacMaster adopted the nom de plume Amina Abdallah Arraf al Omari, supposedly a homosexual living in Syria, and wrote very sincerely over time about Amina’s thoughts and feelings. As far as anyone knew, Amina was entirely real. The blog ultimately became enormously popular, all the more so when news was broken of MacMaster’s ‘Amina’ character being abducted in Syria. This news was posted on the blog by the fictitious Amina’s equally fictitious cousin, ‘Rania Ismail’, another pseudonym of MacMaster’s.

People were understandably angry and upset when they discovered that Amina, a girl that many cared greatly for, was never real at all. Things looked even worse for MacMaster when it transpired that the photo of Amina was actually stolen from someone who was a real person. The sad thing is that had the author of “A Gay Girl in Damascus” declared from the beginning that the blog was a work of fiction, there is no reason why it could not have been popular in any case. Fiction often serves as a wonderful platform for people to come together, enjoy the imaginary, and even unite as an incubator for positive ideas that can change reality. Importantly though, this can only work when everyone is aware that everything they are reading is fictitious. As is evident with the MacMaster episode, it can go horribly wrong when such words masquerade as fact.

Thus we come full circle, back to the issue of discipline and ethics. As bloggers, our freedom to make our voices heard and our words read should never come under question or threat. However, we must always keep in mind the consequences of our words. We mustn’t use blogs as loud hailers for prejudice, for the adoption of a moral high ground over others, or indeed to trick or deceive our readers. There will always be differences in opinion, and this is a natural and healthy feature of respectful, meaningful debate, but we must always try to ensure that our thoughts and our words bring the world closer to us rather than pushing it further away.

It is wise to remember also that one person’s ethics can often be another person’s sins. It would be easy for me from a communications perspective to show print ads on my blog by, for example, PETA, Greenpeace or Benetton. I might very well argue that, for me, this is adopting an ethical position in relation to a particular cluster of issues. For others though, the imagery often found in such campaigns might be considered coarse, immoral, and against various religious values. This fact recognises that we are but human, and we will make blunders as we try to convey our views, and undoubtedly we will cause offence even when we don’t mean to. An honest mistake is one thing, but to deliberately post something making someone feel low or less of a person is quite another. It is far from easy, but we must always remember that it is not simply eyes that read our words, but hearts and minds as well.

This blog posting is dedicated to my friend Zeina, whom I greatly respect and admire, and whose thoughts and words never fail to inspire me. You can read her blog at http://saysomethingom.wordpress.com.

Losing Sarah Jane

I was saddened to hear of the recent passing of the actress Elisabeth Sladen, known more popularly as Sarah Jane Smith from the BBC productions “Doctor Who” and “The Sarah Jane Adventures”. I am certain that a great sense of loss will be felt by all of her fans, but arguably the group most saddened by her passing will be children.

Adults, especially those within the media industry, frequently forget the impact that something like this can have on children. In spite of the time spent agonising over the consequences of being exposed to harmful images, often there is a complete failure to understand the impact that a natural occurrence such as death can have on a child, especially when it becomes linked in some way to popular media such as those featuring the Sarah Jane Smith character.

When news sources announced the death of Elisabeth Sladen, they appeared insensitive to the fact that for many children who were fans of “Doctor Who” and “The Sarah Jane Adventures”, it was not Elisabeth Sladen who had died – it was in fact Sarah Jane herself.

As a child, I was a huge fan of the animated series “The Transformers”. I can remember very clearly being taken by my parents to see “The Transformers: The Movie” when it was released in cinemas. Most notably though, I remember how heartbroken I felt when one of the lead characters, Optimus Prime, died in the movie.

For an adult, it would be easy to snigger and be dismissive of such a reaction from children, but that would be a failure to recognise that such a storyline would in many cases represent a child’s first experience of death, the impact of which should not be underestimated. The same is true of Elisabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith character. Many children will have struggled to understand why Sarah Jane died and most probably would have taken her death the hardest, yet they were the consumer group that was overlooked when news channels and other media were delivering very adult-style eulogies.

There are countless numbers of ‘concerned’ adults willing to do everything necessary to prevent children being exposed to sexual content and harmful marketing communications. However, the reporting of Elisabeth Sladen’s death underlined the fact that when it comes to recognising the finer details of how children think and how they are likely to react, the adults of the media industry are often clueless. Ultimately, one suspects that children are given consideration only in reference to the money they can generate as part of commercial vehicles such as television programmes and toy lines. For everything else, children are ignored. That is tremendously unfair, particularly since children are also a consumer group so routinely without a voice or a platform to express itself.

A story that must not be lost

The recent incident involving Iman al-Obeidi – a female lawyer from Libya – being assaulted and dragged from the Rixos Al Nasr hotel in Tripoli shocked many people across the globe.

Various media reported that Iman al-Obeidi claimed to have been stopped at a Libyan checkpoint, held at gunpoint, was taken away to be raped by up to fifteen men over a period of two days, tied up, and urinated and defecated on.

She attempted to make her voice heard at the Rixos Al Nasr on Saturday March 26th 2011 by speaking with international journalists reporting from the hotel. Her attempts to convey her ordeal led to her being beaten and hauled away by Government minders and security forces, some of whom were found to be posing as members of staff at the venue. In the brawl that took place there, a number of international journalists were also assaulted, including the Financial Times’ Charles Clover, and Channel 4 News’ Jonathan Miller. See the following report from Euronews:

Understandably, the social media sphere in particular has been electric in its reaction to this. Harder to understand perhaps has been the response from Rixos Hotels. Posted on the company Facebook page the following day, the statement given was anything but electric:

Announcement:

Despite the tough and dangerous conditions faced in Tripoli, Libya, the hotel staff of Rixos Al Nasr return to their daily work duties voluntarily putting their own lives at great risk in order to provide the representatives of world media, residing in the Rixos Al Nasr, with adequate hotel services.

It is with great sadness that it was brought to our attention that the regrettable incident that occurred further to Mrs Iman’s El Obeydi’s visit to the hotel on 26th March 2011 involved few members of the hotel staff. Mrs El Obeydi arrived at the hotel, in order to share her horrific story with the international media.

We would like to assure everyone that notwithstanding the challenging circumstances, we are doing our utmost to review what has happened and take the necessary steps to exercise disciplinary action and prevent such incidents from re-occurring.

In the hope that peace and serenity return in Libya and its people.

Regards,

RIXOS HOTELS

The above statement had no humility, no sign of responsibility being taken, and is one of the poorest pieces of PR communication I have seen in some time. The hotel in question disgraced itself by allowing such gruesome treatment of Iman al-Obeidi and the journalists that tried to help her, and is facing an international reaction that even the best and most expensive marketing campaign will have difficulty turning round.

Ultimately though, the real issue here is not about public relations or zero-value statements. The real issue concerns a woman who paid a devastating price simply for being a woman, and who had to pay an even higher price for trying to tell her story. Rixos Al Nasr tried to act as an obstacle to that story.

It is now the responsibility of the international media to ensure that even though Iman al-Obeidi has been temporarily lost to Libyan Government control, the world must not lose the story she was trying to tell, nor the stories of the millions of women like her.

ITV: On a dangerous road

Undoubtedly, ITV has produced a certain amount of good quality content. However, ITV has had a number of significant failures in recent times. The collapse of ITV Digital is an obvious example. The loss of the ITV News Channel, as poor as it was, left the United Kingdom with one less twenty-four hour rolling news channel, and this in an already poorly served market. The loss of the majority of the network’s regional identities continues to anger consumers, many of whom felt that the decision was taken against their will. To compound all of the aforementioned, the huge reduction of regional news rooms has left many of the old ITV regions almost completely bereft of meaningful local news content.

While it may be somewhat premature to refer to the recent failure of the new “Daybreak” breakfast show as the final straw, ITV cannot keep making such mistakes and hope to survive. Either ITV as a company is not listening to consumers, or it is simply ignoring them. Daybreak is a case in point. Certainly, GMTV would have benefitted from being freshened up, but consumers seemed generally satisfied with the show. It seems strange then that they should have been force-fed the new Daybreak show, almost implying that everything they previously enjoyed was inferior.

The bottom line is that no consumer wishes to feel pushed around or ignored. One suspects that ITV will not fully understand this fact until it is too late.

Kaali – Ek Agnipariksha: Part serial, part learning tool?

 

 

Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?

The aforementioned quote is attributed to the renowned social psychologist Erich Fromm, and seems particularly apt when giving consideration to Star Plus’ latest Hindi-language serial “Kaali – Ek Agnipariksha”.

Produced by the Fox Star Studio, the serial aims to increase awareness about the growing number of cases of sex-based crimes against women India. In this instance, viewers get to follow the trials and tribulations of the central character, sixteen year old Rachana (played by Swati Kapoor) as she is tormented by the villain of the piece, Thakral (played by Ashutosh Rana). Though it is enormously refreshing to see Indian media tackling social issues, the serial and its central character Rachana will no doubt prompt painful memories of Ruchika Girhotra, a fourteen year old girl who was molested in 1990 by then Haryana Police chief S.P.S. Rathore in Chandigarh. Ruchika committed suicide three years after the incident.

But in the Hindustan Times newspaper, the show’s writer Mrinal Jha commented, “The show is about fighting for justice; we wanted to depict the reality around us. But it deals with much more than any particular case. It is a fictional show based on elements shared by a number of real-life cases”.

Nevertheless, the presence of serials such as “Kaali – Ek Agnipariksha” or even “Mann Ki Awaaz Pratigya” provide evidence of a shift away from the comfortable, traditional, timid narratives that have been so common throughout the years on Indian television. This is a great opportunity to use such serials not as a platform from which to preach or lecture, but to tackle social issues in a safe and responsible manner. Be it a serial, a learning tool, or indeed both, “Kaali – Ek Agnipariksha” has the potential to become a significant contribution to responsible media, and may well influence the structure of many serials to come.

English-language general entertainment in India: time for a new strategy

It would come as little surprise if the impending launch of the three new English-language channels from Big CBS acts as a shot across the bows for Star World, Zee Café and AXN – three channels that have shamefully underperformed for far too long. To offer meaningful and effective competition, and to attract viewers, it is important that those channels take this opportunity to have a strategic rethink in terms of their content.

Throughout India, and South Asia generally, the English-language general entertainment market is ripe for development. Yet, in spite of this, a look through the schedules of the three channels in question reveals an array of content that is both overwhelmingly American in origin and often stunningly banal.

One surprise is that nobody has attempted a significant link up with content producers in the United Kingdom such as the BBC, ITV or Channel 4. As strategically odd as this may seem, many consumers in India continue, unfortunately, to react negatively to narratives concerning Britain and Britishness. Thus, one might speculate that any large-scale attempt to integrate programming of British origin into Indian television would likely be met with the same archaic and depressingly tired arguments about British imperialism – this in spite of India’s own well cemented place as a contemporary cultural imperialist.

However, though the above is, at best, a childish excuse for largely ignoring content from the United Kingdom, there is no excuse at all for shunning content from other major English-language content producers such as Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other small-scale producers worldwide.

Ultimately, all English-language general entertainment channels in India will fail if they continue to carelessly pump consumers full of Americana rather than concentrating on the best quality programming, regardless of its point of origin.

A Big opportunity for Indian television

October 2010 will see the release of three new English-language television channels in India. By virtue of a partnership between Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd and CBS Studios International, viewers will see the launch of ‘Big CBS Prime’ (a general entertainment channel), ‘Big CBS Spark’ (a youth focused channel), and ‘Big CBS Love’ (a channel for women).

There are a number of clear advantages to the Big CBS partnership. Firstly, the three channels will have access to an extensive library of past and present CBS programming. As a consequence of this, there is not the same pressing need to spend money commissioning Hindi-language content, even though Screen India reported that some commissions have already taken place.

Secondly, according to The Huffington Post, the Big CBS partnership will not only hold programming rights across India, but for Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Pakistan as well. This presents a magnificent opportunity for Reliance Broadcast and CBS to integrate and develop their brands in those viewing territories.

However, attention should also be paid to the disadvantages of this venture. Firstly, on the surface at least, there appears to be a significant imbalance in the relationship between Reliance Broadcast and CBS in relation to content. If indeed CBS are to provide an overwhelming percentage of the content for the three channels, then their success relies to a great extent on how strong or weak that content is. If CBS goes through a baron spell, then so will the Big CBS channels. In this instance, Reliance Broadcast would need to be very careful that its own brand equity does not diminish as a result of CBS.

Secondly, all three channels could be rendered useless if they become a dumping ground for low quality content. Like all content producers, CBS has its fair share of failures, and to pretend that such programming can even act as filler in otherwise good channels would be complete folly.

Thirdly, there is a very real possibility that with the bulk of the content originating in the United States, the overall output may become very narrow. The United States is hardly the only English-speaking nation in the world. Thus, the scope for content outside of the USA appears greatly reduced.

Lastly, Big CBS should proceed with caution when attempting a ‘youth’ channel or a ‘for women’ channel. History shows us that, in the first instance, viewerships tend to criss-cross fairly significantly, resulting in channels attracting audiences that did not form the initial target market. This is evident, for example, in younger viewers, older viewers, male viewers and female viewers consuming and interacting with each other’s media as opposed to that which is crudely decreed to be ‘their own’.

What the aforementioned point highlights is that, in general, consumers react negatively to being told what they are and what they are not, and what they should and not like. Historically, channels intended for women, regardless of the viewing territory they were launched in, had a terrible habit of being populated by programming consisting of low grade talk shows, fashion items, and beauty tips. Alternatively, ‘youth’ channels have often tried to be wacky and zany, normally consisting of cartoons or school-based dramas. To suppose that women and young people are (or ever were) so standardised and homogeneous is completely absurd. One would hope that Big CBS does not make such a mistake. That said, the very name ‘Big CBS Love’ sounds worryingly queasy. Worse still, CNBC-TV18 recently cited ‘Judge Judy’ as one of the programmes designated for ‘Big CBS Spark’ (see below):

I have heard ‘Judge Judy’ called many things, but youth entertainment? Unless youth audiences have shown a significant appetite for existing like-programming such as Kiran Bedi’s ‘Aap Ki Kachehri’ on Star Plus – and there is no tangible evidence I know of which indicates that they have – what makes Big CBS suppose that youth audiences would flock to ‘Judge Judy’?

All this aside, the launch of Big CBS is an exciting step for Indian television. As with all media, Reliance Broadcast and CBS must ensure that their strategy and execution for Big CBS are correct. If they are, then the Indian television market may be about to take a very significant step forward.

Cruelty and ridicule do not equal good marketing

Marketing communications are, by their very nature, a complex mixture of excitement, tedium, confusion, and controversy. With advertising in particular, it is often the case that people can spend as long or longer speaking to each other about the adverts that they watched than they do about prime time television programming. How marketing communications are perceived is often subject to the ideas, associations and value systems of each receiver. This can result in multiple readings of one advert, or any other form of communication, thus making it incredibly difficult to break through the ‘noise’ of other communications, achieve awareness, and if applicable, motivate purchase, subscription or adoption.

But the notion of the ‘any publicity is good publicity’ theory as some kind of panacea to be used by marketing practitioners wishing to break through that noise has long since been ridiculed, at least within a broad spread of academic literature if not within mainstream media.

Therefore it is with great curiosity, and more than hint of disappointment, that some marketing practitioners continue to feel that the most creative way to promote a brand is to offend. I make this point with the bookmaker Paddy Power in mind, and one of its most recent television adverts featuring a blind football team who kick a cat into tree having mistaken it for their football (see below).

Whether or not the creative team behind this advert intended it to be offensive is a matter open to conjecture. However, according to The Guardian newspaper on 21st July 2010, the United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority had until that date received one thousand and eighty-nine complaints, making the advert the fifth most complained about in the history of the ASA. Inevitably, opinion on this advert was and still remains mixed, but I still found particularly surprising the ASA deeming the advert not offensive. This aside, even if the advert achieved greater awareness for Paddy Power, that does not mean that it has achieved an increase in positive brand equity. Without proper trials and good market research, what could possibly make any creative team think that abuse of animals – real or fictional – could be good for a brand or organisation? Consider then the efforts of employees of a leisure firm in Russia who, as part of a ‘public relations exercise’, forced a donkey to parasail over the sea (see below).

As before, I understand that any judgements on any form of marketing activity must be left open-ended, as opinions and reactions are normally too many to be conclusive. Yet, I fail to fathom what promotional stunts such as the above can achieve for brands concerning positive equity. That a frightened animal should have to perform a distressing act which it cannot understand, all for the sake of a marketing ‘stunt’, is at best supremely stupid, and at worst, horribly cruel. Even in the case of the Paddy Power advert, I would argue that the supposed act of physically abusing an animal is in this instance not only humourised, but sanitised.

Moreover, concerning the blind footballers, the most offensive aspect to that is not the site of blind people playing football. This should be considered a joyous event, and one which should earn its brave participants great respect and admiration. Rather, what makes that offensive is that in order to make the advert funny, it was deemed necessary for blind footballers to be the catalyst for the advert. In other words, these footballers were not featured in the advert so that viewers could look at them and think ‘wow, they’re amazing’. No, they were there as pawns to realise the childish and half-witted ideas of a creative team. Why should this be? Are we to conclude from this that blind people are so oafish and incapable as to be unable to tell the difference between the sound a cat bell and the sound of a bell within a football? Might it not have been possible for a footballer with perfect sight to miss the ball and kick the cat by accident as it darted across him? Ultimately it is a desperately weak concept for an advert, no matter how long one deliberates over it.

It would be both wrong and unforgivably crude to assume that marketing is the problem, or that marketing as a discipline and profession is somehow to blame for acrid texts such as those highlighted in this posting. Thus, we should not consider it the bogey man, or some kind of pantomime villain to be booed every time it comes on stage. Marketing communications need not be all about motivating purchase, and in fact have the capacity for achieving tremendous good – it is simply down to the intentions of those using them.

I sympathise with all marketing professionals who are struggling to find a way to be new, exciting and innovative, and are finding that such traits are virtually impossible to achieve. I am also greatly aware – though in no way willing to condone – that marketing professionals are often acting out the will of their clients, often having limited creative input. And it may well be the case that, realistically, everything that could be said, done and pitched already has been. Whether or not the answer to this can be found in creativity and respect is something to be given far greater consideration. One thing does at least appear plain: the answers will not be found in cruelty and ridicule.