Gordon Brown admitted SOME mistakes

Most Politicians claim that they are in the best position to run a country.

To be elected any politician needs support and that support come from the public. Politicians have to get their message across the public in order to be understood and to convince.



How our Prime minister is dealing with its publics?

Labour party have not done well in the election but Gordon brown thinks they can recover from this situation.

If the Labour party lost so much seats during the election it is certainly because either the message do not get across or the public are not convinced.

Gordon Brown was interviewed by Andrew Marr from BBC.

Gordon Brown admitted that the tax rate of 10p was a mistake. He said understanding how people feel concerning the petrol, economy uncertainty, utility bills, standards of living which are going up

Gordon Brown Plan for future

.Solving economicla problems
.Building more universities & more colleges
.Investing and planning on skills & nuclear energy

However Gordon was criticised for puting too much efforts on details rather than presenting the overall pitch.

What the public thinks about the government

.The country is not run properly,
.Too much money wasted on health services
.Prices are going up so there is unsustainable personal borrowing
.The Prime Minister is seen as an old style politician & conservative


Gordon Brown will have to present more convincing plans to improve the country's economy because his celebritry is going down.

read full story

Apple will sell movies on itunes

Online technology is gaining more and more impact on .

Internet will soon be an essential key for communication and transactions.




Apple is making a move into video entertainment joining loveFILM,Amazon, blockbuster, Netflix already in that category. Apple will sell new releases films on itunes website in agreements with most Hollywood studios including: 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment

Some of the movies that will be available this week are: Juno, American gangster, I am a legend. New titles will sell for $14.99 each and catalog titles for $9.99 each.

It's likely that ipod users will be more than keen to download movies from itunes because they can watch them on their ipods.

Downloading movie is more convenient because you can save it and watch so many times and the quality is still the same there is no problem with cd scratched or .

For hollywood studios it is a cheaper way to cut manufacturing and distribution costs.

Apple expect that selling film release will boost apple TV, iTunes traffic and sales for its ipod. That new entry into the video entertainment market could also put Apple as first provider of music and video download.

Is Facebook secured for users?

Facebook is actually one of the prefered social networks for postimg photos, finding old friend etc...

BBC had found out how to steal personal details of facebook's members. Apprentely members' identity on facebook such as name, age, adress, school, pictures, telephone numbers etc...is at risk.

Facebook is really popular because users can add applications on their profile and those applications more often about games quiz etc allow members to keep in touch and to challenge. So now bbc sign up on facebook and created an application, able to steal personal details, which they send to some members.

According to BBC it was impossible to put that application on my space because their security system is better handle compared to its competitors.

Personal view
I am a user of facebook and it never came to my mind that fecoob was insecured. Knowing that some people can easily have my details just freaks me out. Imagine someone taking your pictures with your name and doing funny videos of you...wow i will not appreciate it at all

I hope facebook will sort out that problem and get back to a trustworthy website.

Here is facebook response to BBC investigation

China accept to talk to the Dalai Lama to stop riots

Due to recent Tibetans protests threatening the good continuation of the Olympics Games events, China agreed to find a compromise.

Under the pressure of others countries and Olympics games sponsors, China has agreed to talk to a representative of the Dalai Lama.

A spokesman for the Tibetan spiritual leader welcomed the offer of talks.

But China added that the Dalai Lama would need to "take credible moves to stop violence and stop disrupting and sabotaging the Beijing Olympic Games.

China has longer been a country under repression. Accpeting to talk to the Dalai Lama is a great move into corporate public relations. At least China is making an effort to deal with its public.

Watch video

Bank of England invested 3 millions in PR

If I was down to a dollars I would invest it into public relations said one day Bill Gate.


This statement is quite greatfull to public relations' power and honnest because we have seen a lot of big organisations refering to publiuc relations as their life vest when experiencing crisis situation.




Bank of England did really consider public relations' capacities when they decided to invest £3million into to their PR campaign to put right British economy. British economy is experiencing a slowdown and customers are less willing to invest or take credit.
The campaign should inform and reassure customers as well as reinforce the market in order to avoid future panics.Read full article

keeping good understanding relationship with customers is essential for budsiness success but Bank of Scotland should not only lie on public relations to solve their crisis.

Customers are expecting changes witihin the market and if nothing happens that campaign will be a waste of time and money.

Bad image for Coca Cola?

Coca-Cola one of the biggest supporters of the Beijing Olympics games.

Actively supporting the Beijing olympics games is like ignoring past riots that tibetans experienced in China weeks ago.

For the reason that it is a worlwide event there is a lot of people watching what is happening. Coca-Cola should be carefull with the way they handle this situation because it affect their image and reputation.


150 group have sent Coca-Cola a letter accusing them of complicity in impending tibetans'humanitarian disaster

How British Airways is dealing with their problems

"When British Airways's Terminal 5 descended into chaos as its public opening,BBC viewers were treated to the sight of BA's exasperated PR Richsrd Goodfellow shutting the door to a staff rest room in the face of pursing journalists after a fraught press briefing in which the dorector of operations, Gareth Kirkwood, refused to take questions." The Guardian, Monday April 7 2008.

"When it is OK for a PR to run away" was the title of the article.

British Airways is a well established airline company and it in some way reprents Britain. Experiencing such situation is a real crisis but that is where public relations has to exerce its power to deal with it and find solutions for both parts.
British airways did apologize and it promised to do its best to solve the problems that situation incurred and to refund all passengers who lost their luggages. However running away and refusing to take questions is the good way of solving those kind of crisis situation.

What BA's PR representatives could have done differently?

.Pretend to need space for new passengers arriving and take the media away from seeing what is really happening

.Move the media(journalists, TV, press etc) into another room in order to stop them from asking questions to passengers and collect more negative opinions.

.Because it was a big opening events they should have restricted t he number of journalists

.Put more focus on the events and have a PR spokeperson ready in case of a crisis.

Have other opinions or others approaches?

Feel free to share them with us!!!

British Airways got problems handling crisis situation

Unbelievable but apparently true.






British Airways completely missed the launch of their new Terminal 5.

It was a total disaster for British Airways.

Passengers lost their luggages, several flights were delayed and canceled

BA chaos at Terminal 5

For several hours there was nobody to speak to the press and nobody knew what was going on.

There was nobody to represent BA and nobody to handle the situation within the terminal.

BA and terminal 5 joined the list of top PR blunders

That is quite bad for British Airways' reputation and it could destroy their relationship with their customers in the future...

Tibetans protesting

Tibet is a rich area but Tibetans' human rights have longer been abused.
So now Tibetans want their independance

Buddhist monasteries are among the few institutions in China which have the potential to organise resistance and opposition to the government so China is exercising an real control on Tibet and is regulating closely monasteries.

Tibetans are taking advantage of the Beijing Olympics Games as the world eyes are turn on China, to raise their issue. Recently there were a lot of Tibetans protesting in the streets.

How China respond to Tibetans protestations

Beijing police officer cracked down on the protesters with force, sending in hundreds of troops to regain control of the restive areas.

Hundreds of young Tibetan men have been rounded up and jailed to stop further protests against Chinese rule in the run-up to the Olympic Games, it was claimed yesterday. (Simon Parry, Dailymail)

China is facing a big dilemma

If Tibetans continue their protetations China will have to stop them and apparentely it will be by violence. That horrifying image will not benefit the upcoming Beijing Olympics Games.

Beijing Olympics Games means a lot top China. It will:

. Enhance China image or reputation
. Lot of profit earning (tickets sold, hotels bookings etc...)
. More investors
. More future businesses opportunities
. Enhance tourism

Therefore China is in the urge to find a sound solution for both parts.

Opening of Terminal 5

The Queen officially opened Heathrow Airport's Terminal 5 and describe it as "21 century gateway to Britain".

Terminal 5 will begin its operations on 27 March with the opportunity to receive more passengers but no more flights.

Terminal 5 facts and figures

• Cost £4.3bn
  
• Construction started in 2002
  
• 9 million cubic metres of earth moved during construction
  
• 30,000 square metres of glass in walls
  
• Main terminal is 40m high
  
• 60 new aircraft stands, including 14 for the Airbus A380
  
• 13km of tunnels were bored for baggage handling and rail links
  
• Most rainwater falling on it will be recycled
  
• Six new rail platforms, including two for London Underground

Advantages

• Terminal 5 will be able to handle 30million passengers per year,
  
• The terminal's control tower will be the highest in the UK.
  
• Around 18km of conveyor belt will be used to transport luggage around the terminal when it opens.
  
• It is the UK's largest ever single site archaeological project, with over 100 hectares of land requiring investigation.

However, Heathrow's owner, BAA, said it expected the new baggage system at T5 to work "perfectly" but admitted other parts of the facility would suffer glitches. (Dan Milmo & Rebecca Smithers, The guardian 14 March 2008).

So there are some doubts that Terminal 5 may not be ready or at its full capacity during its next opening on 27 march.

If it is not sure that the Terminal 5 could receive so much passengers why rushing then?

Here are some opinions concerning the opening of Terminal 5

The future will tell us if Terminal 5 was ready to operate or not...

Students: let's be more knowledgeable

Are you a student?

Are you interested in beeing aware and receiving update information concerning politics, financial markets and businesses?

What if you can do all that for free?

Here is the solution...





It is now possible for students to register for a free finantial times account via Facebook.

A subscription to FT.com costs £98.99 per year in the UK. FT is offering a free 12 months subscription renewable for up to four years to any college student that add its Facebook application. Once the FT application added on the user's profile, his/her friends can see it and can be invited to register for a free account.

Ien Cheng, publisher and managing editor of FT.com, said: "There is an increasing demand from university and MBA students for access to the FT's quality of insight and reporting and the new Facebook application will enable them to access that premium content for free". This application is part of our ongoing efforts to reach a new generation of readers who we hope will become life long fans of the FT." ( Staff Brand Republic 06-Mar-08)

Finantial Times is originally a British newspaper which is now printed in 24 big cities.

Finantial Times website has 36.6% of its users coming from UK and 37.7% coming from USA. For a British we can say that FT is doing good if not better on the international plan.
Below is a graph from Alexa to draw attention on their website traffic.






















Facebook is the most popular social networking allowing users to share pictures & applioations, to communicate, to find new or old friends, etc...

Facebook website has only 9.4 % users coming from UK compared to 40.9 % users coming from USA.

However overall Facebook has a a lot of traffic on their website (see below).
This new association with FT can be a good opportunity to have more people from UK registering or visiting their website.





















For more information on the free student subscrition offer click here



I have already subscribe for an account. Hope to see you soon.

Public relations in Fashion industry

Public relations is often used to build relationship with customers and inform them about the organisation.

When used for persusasion public relation is often compared to propaganda

There is no problems about persuading customers to buy but when it has a negative influence on them then we have to worry about the image organisations projects to its publics.

Topshop, Zara, Morgan, All Saints, Miss Sixty,Jane Norman etc...are well kmown from the fashion industry. They sell trendy clothes and

The Fashion industry today is more about selling and imposing their products rather than satifying customers. Fashion show industry use PR as a tool for influencing and convincing customers to buy watever is produced.

Most of their clothes are designed according to certain model and those clothes size small.

So customers take those model as role or real woman and try to loose weight in order to look like them and being able to wear those clothes.

London Fashion Week due to concerns raise by the public is now asking for their models to provide good health certificate from doctors specialised in eating disorders

Nivea is launching "Get closer" for a new Guinness Record

Nivea is launching "Get Closer" campaign on Valentine's day (14th Februaary). All proceeds of the campaign will go to Cancer Research UK .


Valentine's Day hug part of the 'Get Closer' campaign


By launching the "Get Closer" sampling campaign, Nivea is attemting to set a new Guinness Record for the world longest hug. Basically during that event, two persons will stand close until one abandon.

The date of this campaign is really well chosen because Valentine's day is the only day in the year when people really want to get closer and express their feelings to their beloved. That events will certainly attract a lot of people especially because it is in central London (Paddington)and Nivea is distributing more than 600,000 cans of its deodorants across the country from February 9-21.

Today,Consumer PR is a fundamental aspect of most companies' planning process, thanks to its capability of opening a dialogue with the market and listening to consumers to acquire appropriate knowledge. The goal of consumer PR is to inform customers about some products and drive them to adopt them.


Via this sampling campaign, Nivea will create exitement about its male and female deodorants and boost sales because those who will try them and like them will definetely buy them for either themselves, their friends or partners. Nivea is bringin the customers to understand the idea behiend those deodorants. Therefore Nivea is not only building an identity at its deodorants but Nivea is also building relationship with its customers.

Chinese new year

In general Chinese have the reputation of being reserved and introvert when it comes to interacting with others people.
Even abroad chinese stick to their cultures (food, manners, traditions) , in a way they have their own world. What is more surprising is that some citizens (non chinese) adopt their religions, food and activies. Chinatown in Piccadily Circus is frequented and reputed for its restaurants, suppermakets, souvenirs shops and attractions.

With their new year, chinese have proved again that they are well accepted in the British society. On wednesday 6 February 2008 Chinese celebrated their new year. Festivities started in Trafalgar Square with a traditional parade involving dragons, musicians, lions, fireworks, firecrackers, dancers, martial arts, music and dance travelling through the West End. It seems like the event took over the whole central london. Everybody in Oxford Circus or Leicester Square looks chinese. London's celebrations are the biggest outside Asia, said Chu Ting Tang, president of London Chinatown Chinese Association.  Celebrations for the year of rat will continue until the end of spring.