Alex Singleton

Charles Moore explains the difference between the news choices made by national and local papers

Alex Singleton — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:54:57 +0000

Here’s Charles Moore, former Editor of The Daily Telegraph, on good news: It is striking how differently the local media approach this subject than do the national. Local papers and broadcasters are unashamedly on the side of the areas they serve. Of course they relish scandals, but they also delight in successes. At flower and [...]

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Why brands need to be subservient to what works

Alex Singleton — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:25:39 +0000

I send out a lot of direct mail. And one of the things I regularly test is paper and envelope types for mailings. I know that a DL-sized envelope gets a bigger response than C5 envelope. But what’s really significant is paper colour. A letter sent in a white envelope pulls significantly fewer responses than [...]

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Why has no one written ‘The PR Masterclass’ before?

Alex Singleton — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:59:36 +0000

You might have thought that how-to books on media relations from ex-journalists would be everywhere. Yet, as far as I can tell, The PR Masterclass, is the first one from a former staff journalist on national newspaper. Yes, there are many good memoirs by ex-journalists discussing their time on Fleet Street. But I wanted to [...]

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How to build a brand – and what a brand really is

Alex Singleton — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:01:39 +0000

When Virgin Mobile merged with cable operator NTL Telewest, Richard Branson ensured that something vital was done at NTL Telewest before the Virgin brand could be associated with it. The customer service was improved. Gordon McCallum, chief executive officer of Virgin Management Limited, said at the time that: “Taking on the Virgin brand is about [...]

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David Ogilvy on how pretty design ruins advertising

Alex Singleton — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 18:12:00 +0000

“The average advertisement is read by only four per cent of people on their way through the publication it appears in. Most of the time, this is the fault of the so-called ‘art director’ who designs advertisements. If he is a aesthete at heart – and most of them are – he doesn’t care a [...]

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Does using postage stamps increase the response rate of direct mail?

Alex Singleton — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:39:25 +0000

Yes – slightly. J. Scott Armstrong, a professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, published a paper in 1990 on the subject. He analysed 13 studies and found that a real postage stamp increased response rate by 3.4 per cent. Specifically, the comparison was between what the United States Postal [...]

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An English lesson from the Patrick Mercer lobbying sting

Alex Singleton — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:18:05 +0000

Did you see the the website of the fake lobbying company, used by undercover reporters? It’s full of painfully incomprehensible copy – I wonder if the journalists enjoyed creating what is a rather effective parody of the awful blurb that the low end of the public relations industry uses on a regular basis. The website [...]

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‘The medium is the message’: what direct marketeers know about paper

Alex Singleton — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 16:37:42 +0000

One of the interesting points made by James Hammond – author of a Sunday Times book on branding – is that businesses often forget to appeal to all the senses. So they’ll focus, for example, on sight (the look of a mailing), but not touch (the texture of the paper). Businesses, in an attempt to [...]

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How to improve diversity in PR: fix the creativity & measurement problems

Alex Singleton — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:15:16 +0000

For years, the PR industry has been flagellating itself for its supposed and actual failings in hiring a diverse workforce. We tend to under-celebrate its unique personality – it is overwhelmingly female and is also welcoming to gay men. This is surely good. Yet both of these groups are allegedly “over-represented” in the sector. Meanwhile, [...]

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Week’s Weakest Word: multifaceted

Alex Singleton — Fri, 10 May 2013 07:02:34 +0000

I hate the word multifaceted. Corporate writers habitually add this piece of jargon to sentences for no clear reason – and PR people should stick well clear of it. The word is supposed to refer to something with more than one facet. But I wonder if, in business memos and corporate brochures, it has literally no [...]

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