Be brave and be creative says Martin Loat, chief executive at Propeller

The Rugby World Cup is on ITV. I am enjoying the IBM sponsorship idents where unexpected characters start spouting obscure rugby stats. My favourite is the one featuring two senior ladies on mobility scooters swapping data on penalties. Incongruous, but interruptive and therefore memorable.

More to the point (or three, or five) I’m impressed that the client “bought” the campaign. I know little of IBM in the UK, but my perception of “Big Blue” is of a huge corporate behemoth, run by white shirt-wearing technocrats not given to irony, mobility scooters in the promotional material, or indeed hairnets. So hats off to agency Ogilvy One for persuading – if that’s what it took – IBM to stick its neck out with these ads. To modify a phrase, “Some people DO get fired for buying IBM-style campaigns like this … if they don’t work.”

I’m inspired by agencies (of whatever stripe) when their leaders have the courage and self-belief to go against the default, eschew the path of least resistance and get the client to buy work that stands out. 

We have to respond to the well-reported changes in media and communication. Spreading information and influence has opened up like never before, driven of course, by social media. In PR the dominance of “media relations” is challenged as new pockets of influence emerge. Modern PR is about sharing content across a range of influencer channels, including, but not limited to journalist-driven media. We call it shaping and sharing content – online, offline and eyeline. But the content has to be good.

The Sunday Telegraph Dashwood column recently published a brilliant example of sharable content. An infographic on “how Europe sees itself” showed that, for example, Germany is seen as Darth Vader by the markets and the European Central Bank sees itself as Superman. This illustration communicated a lot about the politics and economics of Europe in an entertaining, engaging and informative fashion. What’s more this “4x4 how others see us” format is gaining traction and so building familiarity – another key hallmark of great communications.

A month ago, someone shared with me on Twitter a similar graphic about how people in PR agencies see each other. Apparently us bosses are seen as God by our account execs and as greedy Mr Burns by the account directors. Clearly I’m worshipped and respected … or at least that’s the spin I will put on it! In our current search for additional senior managers and directors we’ve shown this graphic in interviews and it usually prompts feisty debate about how PR agencies should be structured.

With our brains, moleskin notebook and mobile devices creaking with information overload, it makes sense to convey complex information in graphic ways that don’t take up a lot of our time, and crucially are easily sharable. 

In just the past three years, social media and self-publishing has made sharing easier than ever. People get excited by an image, graphic or any sort of engaging content they share across the web, whether by Facebook, Twitter, Picasa or Tumblr. At Propeller we created an infographic illustrating a client’s growth figures, which they shared with their employees. They had never had such a positive feedback about stats before! And why? Because it was not an Excel spreadsheet showing them some boring numbers, it was an engaging image which they could easily grasp and share.

So stand up for creativity, ideas and content that influencers will want to share with their networks. If they don’t want to, it probably means the content isn’t interesting enough, not the PR person! So it’s up to us in PR to pull together and convince our clients on the value of this approach. Some clients, particularly corporate and B2B ones, can often be quite stubborn, so remind them that sharable content is great value for money and is effective. 

Like us, though, they may need a bit of inspiration.