CorpComms Magazine

The mindset of a traditional financial PR agency is to engage with a handful of key national newspaper journalists and ignore all other forms of media. So says Howard Kosky, chairman of broadcast communications agency markettiers4DC.

Kosky was reacting to the results of a survey, conducted in association with CorpComms magazine, which revealed that 40.7 percent of communication departments use online media only for annual or interim results, while an equivalent number use it only to counter negative press comment. Almost seven in 10 respondents (67.8 percent) use online media for proactive diary stories or to publicise the use of new products or services. But Kosky believes these results indicate a wasted opportunity.

'When the Big Brother racism row broke, Carphone Warehouse did nothing until an online lobby group signed up 250,000 customers who threatened to boycott the company unless it dropped its sponsorship of the show,' he points out. 'That is people power - and it demonstrates that the web is hugely important.'

Kosky is similarly dissatisfied with the respondents' attitude to TV: just 37.3 percent use the medium for comment, 27.2 percent to launch new services and 18.6 percent to counter negative press coverage. 'Television gives companies the ability to communicate with a huge audience,' he says. Yet just 6.8 percent of firms rate television as the most important part of their communications strategy, compared with 37.7 percent who place national press in pole position.

'Corporate communications departments are concerned with brands and the organisation, so they will advise the CEO not to go on live TV because it can be dangerous,' adds Kosky. 'But have they ever researched themselves as brands before giving this advice?'

Kosky predicts it will be the chief executives who can perform well in front of the TV cameras and who understand the medium well who will prosper. 'Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, was probably the UK's greatest businessman, but few consumers could name him because he was rarely on television,' he explains. 'Instead, most people would probably name Sir Richard Branson in that role because they know and recognise him from TV. And yet if something goes wrong with a company, a traditional PR officer will usually advise a chief executive to give an interview to the Financial Times rather than go on GMTV.'

Kosky is disappointed that just 3.4 percent of companies use television to publicise their interim and annual results. 'The executive summary is always a bullish statement of future prospects,' he points out. 'So this would be an ideal time to use broadcast media online, and could be seen as a move toward further transparency by a company.'

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