PR Newswire in the Greek Market

PR Newswire entered the Greek market about ten months ago. It is known for its activities in reporting and broadcasting corporate news in a global scale and is now training the Greek companies and giving them insights of communication skills and potentialities through the use of PR Newswire, which includes international sponsors and international media. Companies will communicate their messages and news and will instantly reach the global market. Among others, this initiative of entering the PR Newswire world, is a great way of expansion of the Greek companies’ names (brand maintenance) and endorsement of a good status in the market by being known globally. Eurobank, the National Bank of Greece and Marfin are the first companies that have joined the Wire.

HP’s BTL in Publicis

Publicis managed to keep HP’s global account for direct marketing both in Europe and Middle East. Really good for Publicis since we are talking about an account that worths 200 million dollars. I should also mention that the company won a competition among other high profile companies such as Proximity, Wunderman and DraftFCB.

Richard Pinder, Chief Operating Officer in Publicis, stated that HP is always trying to find new ways in marketing to promote its printing technology. It is fundamental for that purpose to co-operate with a high prestige company. HP considers Pubicis as a strategic cooperator as it has a great reputation on its domain and ‘develops a holistic and culturally relevant communication solutions’.

Rumours!!!Can we prevent their damage?

I watched a movie last night, which was based on the gossip’s and rumour’s effects on people and their environment. It wasn’t a great movie but anyway, it made me think about all the damaging effects hese two elements can cause to an organization.

Rumours are usually a ‘thorn in the flesh’ of public relations and communications officers. They are not always harmful but recent research has illustrated that during restructuring and layoffs it might have effects such as decrease of productivity, lower employee morale, corrupt reputations and interfere with formal organizational communication, thus rumour control seems to be a necessity. So can a rumour=unverified information cause such disasters? Can something ‘you heard’ be of such an importance to certain groups and make such a great deal of it? Of course they can if it’s about changes of personnel, job satisfaction and anything that might threaten their current status in the workplace and make them feel insecure of the future.

I believe the best thing for an organization to do is be proactive about it. Include a chapter of rumour control in issues management or even in the crisis communication manual. Rumours can bring ‘python’ crisis to a company and it’s a shame because there are things that PR communicators can do about it. Being prepared to respond to those rumours, be alert to any negative effects they might have, be transparent to your staff, let them know of any changes and how they will affect them…it’s about having effective internal communication within the company that prevent at some level all the behind-the-back gossiping.

 

Velti in the Chinese Market

Velti is about to enter the market of China by buying out 33% of Casee, the greatest corporation in the exchange of mobile advertising in China. Casee was established in 2006 and contains advanced technology tools and services, which create an advertising market via the use of mobile phones, among companies active in the area of Mobile Internet and advertising. Through Casee, Velti will be given the opportunity to offer advanced services in the category of mobile marketing in China, completing its existing opportunities in Europe, North America and other countries in Asia.

Velti will offer Casee its experience in the mobile marketing and advertising sector, as well as its relationships with other multi-national advertising corporations and mobile telephony providers. This is great for Velti as it will have the chance to develop access in the Casee’s technology of mobile advertising exchange and then launch it in other countries.

Interamerican’s new online campaign

OgilvyOne keeps expanding by being assigned to very important and creative moves. This time, it designed two lines of interactive video banners for the communication and promotion of Interamerican’s programmes on retirement pension and residence. I would be more than happy to show you the video banners I found, but unfortunately they are only available in greek, so there’s no point. The key message of the campaign is ‘when you have Interamerican looking after your pension and housing facilities, then you have less important things to worry about yourself’. The campaign is accompanied by an online competition and there will be a draw in which the winners will be offered 10 GPS Navigators Mio C 230. The online media planning and buying, as well as the promotion of this campaign in Search engines has been organised by OgilvyOne. I am not quite sure for this campaign’s success yet, time will tell…