The dilemma of an Aussie who drew Brazil

Despite mentioning last month that I am less than enthusiastic about soccer (I mean football…I’m an Aussie, what else can I say!), and the hysteria that is the World Cup, I decided to play in our World Cup office sweepstake.

As I randomly drew the envelope that held the team I was about to start barracking for, I visualised GREEN AND GOLD and the Socceroos scoring their way to World Cup victory.

But out popped another nation for which green and gold is important.

Brazil.

And therein lies my dilemma. Brazil the favourites vs my home team. The one good thing is that my green and gold boxing kangaroo flags will sort of serve both teams, while most probably annoying all of my British friends and colleagues.

It’s interesting to see who, according to Factiva Insight, the UK media rates as favourites to win the World Cup – Brazil, England and Germany. The Australian media ranks Brazil, Argentina and then England. To count as a hit in this chart, the country named had to be mentioned within 4 words of the word “favourite”. Quite surprisingly, the Australian media doesn’t rank Australia as a favourite at all…but then we thrive on underdog status, which is clearly where it all went pearshaped in the last Ashes series.
















So I guess I will now be barracking for two teams…Brazil for the grand prize of the sweepstake, and Australia for national pride.

PS. As an update to my earlier post, The Rooney Metatarsal and Kewell Groin have more than doubled their media presence in the last 3 weeks, with a staggering 2100+ articles and 500+ articles respectively. WHAT is this world coming to?

What's the value of online coverage?

Years ago - pre-Internet - if any of us can remember that far back, getting coverage in the print version of a daily newspaper or target magazine was a huge goal; an achievement that would see the PR person and/or agency do a wee victory dance. Or if the coverage was significant, a raucous lap round the office. Well…perhaps that was just me…

Now – my marketing colleagues are frequently asking if we’ve had any good coverage in online publications. If it’s online, like the Factiva Research about French CEOs we provide to Les Echos each month for example, they can forward the URL to salespeople who can forward it to clients on prospects etc. They can refer to the link in direct marketing campaigns – online coverage definitely makes it easier and quicker to get further internal and external mileage from the piece.

Which leaves the old PR practitioner in somewhat of a quandary. What is more important in terms of print or online coverage? What’s more valuable and what gets more reach? Which medium is most appropriate to support a company’s PR strategy?

I guess the answer will be different for each company and for each scenario. I still love flicking through newspapers and magazines and seeing coverage – but an article can often get far more traction online, with bloggers jumping onto a story and giving it another round. It will be most interesting to see how this debate pans out.