So Labour has invited the public to ‘do it yourself’ and design their latest poster. You’ve probably seen the winning entry comparing David Cameron to the Ashes to Ashes character DCI Gene Hunt under the strapline ‘Don’t let him take Britain back to the 1980’s’.

The design was free, they received extensive PR coverage and even ticked the all important digital / social media box by videoing the winning designer Jacob Quagliozzi visiting the Saatchi and Saatchi offices which has been posted on YouTube.

Was this a genius strategy from the Labour party to bring user generated content in to the heart of their campaign? Or is this simply a gimmick?

Well, on first appearance this looks like it could be a good move with maximum exposure for minimum investment (something all marketers are striving to achieve). The Labour party isn’t the first brand to encourage their ‘customers’ to contribute to their marketing communications activity (the nation awaits with bated breath the results of Walkers next crisp flavour chosen by the public).

More importantly though, are the results any good? Jacob’s idea was judged the best of over a thousand submitted to the Labour Party but I’m not sure the guys at Saatchi and Saatchi need to be overly worried that Labour will be ditching their agency in favour of more work from the public on future campaigns.

The Tories didn’t seem too miffed either with Dave claiming to quite like the comparison and their own agency RSCG promptly brought out a version of the ad changing the strapline to ‘Fire up the Quattro, It’s time for change’.

This may have sparked a trend of using other parties posters as yesterday the Lib Dems launched their latest poster based on the Tories ‘tax bombshell’ campaign originally used by the Conservatives in the 1992 election.

So perhaps Labour’s DIY poster competition wasn’t the touch of genius it first appeared to be and we can put this particular battle down as a score draw with no clear winner. Unless of course Audi decide to use this renewed interest in their iconic Quattro brand with their own bit of retro marketing.

‘Vorsprung durch Technik’, as they used to say in adland.

P.S. for what it’s worth, I know where my vote will go – it’s got to be Spanish Chicken Paella surely?

I heard on BBC’s Breakfast News this morning that the Electoral Commission are using Facebook to generate some new business – in this case to encourage the 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote but are not registered to do so to get their backsides in gear.

Voter turn out amongst 18-24 year-olds is always poor, so anything that can be done to improve this must be good news.

With this in mind, it is one of the most useful campaigns I can think of in recent times and one which can genuinely be called “social marketing”, what with the potential benefit it could have on society as a whole – a truer reflection of how the people would like the country governed as the proportion of people having their say increases… unless of course these 3.5 million who have slipped through the net are complete morons or Nazis or something, in which case I’m sure it will be awful.

Of course, how successful it will be remains to be seen and the real challenge will be to actually get people off Facebook for 5 minutes and into the polling booths. So may I suggest to the Electoral Commission some sort of experiential marketing or sales promotion enticement to follow up – put your ballot in the box and you get the chance to live on an MP’s expense account for a year perhaps? I can already see the headlines now: “Counting still going on after three days – all parties stunned by highest turnout ever.”

“Who does a CEO call first in crisis? Now it’s the PR” (Evening Standard 15th March 2010)

This article highlights the renaissance of the PR industry as it has bucked the trend of depleted budgets and spending during the recession. Chime Communications has recently unveiled a 15% increase in profits and Martin Sorrell concurs with the uplift, emphasising the rise in financial importance of his portfolio of PR agencies.

Undoubtedly, there has been, as the article explains, an increase in the importance of PR for corporations and high-profile individuals. Danny Rogers of PR Week (as he should) believes the discipline has “moved up the food chain” over the past 5 years. We would agree. Ten years ago, a high proportion of the Alchemis client base consisted of PR agencies of varying size, stature and sector experience. Since then we have seen a marked dip in the number of clients in this industry, and it has been a much smaller proportion of our turnover for some time. Whereas we used to work in financial, corporate, technology, manufacturing and pharmaceutical markets, more recent PR clients have been consumer focused and even here, it has been a tough environment to be working and driving business development. However, I believe the recession has helped the PR industry. Agencies are often viewed as a cost effective alternative to advertising and we have seen this, with several PR clients in varying markets enjoying successful new business campaigns over the past 12 months.

This perceived cost benefit is just one side of the coin. More importantly, corporate reputations are far more fragile with the rise of the internet, digital media and almost instant worldwide coverage. PR agencies have adapted in recent years to embrace a digital offer. Whilst a reputation can be damaged at the click of a mouse button, they can also be protected and enhanced. PR agencies that will survive and thrive will understand the importance of the digital space and be equipped to use it to good effect for their clients.

What is very interesting from a new business agency perspective is the identification that, despite prominent PR agencies being full of talent, the power and hence profits remain with the founders. This, Rogers believes, will result in the emergence of many breakaway agencies. I believe that this has always been the case to a degree as we have worked with many PR agency start-ups utilising that “big agency” experience as a key selling point. Additional agencies entering the market should only be positive news for a specialist business development agency such as Alchemis. We have always built strong relationships with PR people who tend to be extremely loyal taking us from agency to agency throughout their careers. The offers are diverse and the very nature of the discipline lends itself to more in-depth, engaging and interesting conversations for our New Business Managers. Not every sales person “gets” how to sell PR as it is not as tangible or quantifiable as other disciplines, but we have a real heritage in the area and a bank of highly capable people ready to fill a PR gap in their client portfolios.