latest from the blog

At GingerComms we land great news coverage because we don’t send out traditional PR releases - we craft news copy that is written as it will appear in the press, using layman’s terms and avoiding the - sometimes impenetrable - jargon of PR and marketing campaigns. This is a tip we’d pass on to everyone working in PR. Make sure your pitches to media are not written as client-facing campaign summaries and reports. Use the language and tone that the media uses - otherwise you risk turning...

The second part in our series of answers to questions that we are frequently asked by clients. If you missed it, here's the first part.   Do we need all this history or these extra facts? Generally speaking, the more information, the better. If you’ve got a well-written release then the more you can give to a journalist the better. It helps to create a story with more depth and can focus the reader in on more salient facts, which means that they are more likely to want to get to the...

By Ellie Glason First published on PR Moments We all know, in PR, just how rapidly the media landscape has changed over the past few years. Factors such as time poor journalists, the rise of social media fuelling news stories, and an upsurge in citizen journalism, all mean it is harder than ever to place PR stories in the traditional media. Yet consumer research is still seen by many in the industry as a failsafe way to get cut through in national news media - no matter how busy it is. And...

By Jon Horsley and Ellie Glason Click farms have been on our radar for some time, but when the following video, first tweeted by Jamie Bartlett https://twitter.com/JamieJBartlett, was passed around the Ginger Comms office we were enthralled. To see the inside of an actual “click farm” in China - where hundreds of phones are set up and connected to social media, ready for someone (who is paid a pittance) to click “like” on whatever content they are instructed to - was fascinating. And it’s not...

Our new recruit national news journalist Jaymi McCann tells us what we’re doing wrong. The relationship between the journalist and the PR is a complex one, formed of both need and resentment in equal parts. There are some brilliant PRs out there. Competent, knowledgeable and quick to respond, they are the ones getting their clients in the papers every day. But there are others. And if there is something journalists love to do it is gossip, about nightmare experiences with those on “the dark...

Here’s the first in what might well be a series of blogs trying to answer questions we get asked about what we do and how we create brilliant newsgen content. Read on to pick up some tips, work out how to use the best stats and develop the best newsgen projects you can.   Why should we do a news survey? It’s a great way to get a brand into the news pages of the national media. Open any paper and look at websites and you will find survey stories on there. As part of your wider PR campaign,...

In honour of Valentine’s Day, with coupledom and love in the air, we wanted to take some time to celebrate that very special relationship that is one of the foundations of our industry - the bond between PRs and journalists. It’s a given that PR practitioners and journalists need each other. Yet we all know that need is not always the best basis for a healthy and rewarding partnership. Resentment can develop when a relationship is based only on the wants of each individual, especially if one...

The end of Jose Mourinho’s reign at Manchester United came as no surprise for even the most casual of football fans. Under Mourinho, this season on the pitch Manchester United were variable, to put it as positively as possible. Already by the start of December they’d conceded more goals at home than they did in the whole of last season. Since club legend Ole Gunnar Solskjær took over, they’ve won seven games in a row, a new Premier League record. Meanwhile, by contrast, their rivals Manchester...

Our latest research delved into how British women feel about the word “housewife” - and it transpires that 50 percent of us reckon it’s outdated, sexist and embarrassing. Which means 50 percent of women DON’T think it’s sexist and outdated. WTF ladies of Britain?? Anyway, the point is, our story hit the headlines this week, landing in almost every national newspaper and news site, while also being picked up by Sky News, Good Morning Britain, The Wright Stuff and a host of national radio...

Amidst all the PR back slapping and applause on how KFC dealt with their latest "crisis" (and I have to admit they dealt with it brilliantly), I can't help wondering if, actually, it was easy enough to deal with in good humour, simply because it wasn't that much of a crisis. Lets forget the more serious side of crisis management for a moment (I wouldn't have wanted to be on the Oxfam press team over the past few weeks) - we are talking about a shortage of chicken. Has the world gone mad? Yes...

By Harriet Scott When did news gen research become the bargain basement activity of the public relations world? I would love to know how much cash is squandered by the PR industry each year on cheap, poorly thought out and badly executed PR research which will NEVER see the light of day – never mind the MailOnline. I’ve lost count of the number of times a PR has come to us and said: “We've done this research and it hasn’t landed – can you help?”…. While we always do our very best to find a...