Good Bad And Ugly Stories

Probably one of the most frequent questions I get asked by those trying to get their story into the media is: “What kind of coverage do you think you can get?”

Of course if I knew the answer to that every time I would have one of the great secrets of publicity and the job would be a lot easier for all of us.

In fact the best way to gauge whether a story will attract the interest of the media is to ask yourself whether it is the sort of thing you would ever start telling your mates or your family about in the evening as simply an interesting story.

March dawned with some major stories all hitting on the same day: terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team on the same day that Gordon Brown and Barack Obama invited the media to their first historic meeting as world leaders; there was a harrowing court case over the death of a two-year-old in Scotland and a building collapsed in Cologne causing deaths.

So which story was the one that was most e-mailed by viewers of the BBC website? Which one did people read most and want to view on video online.

Well, actually it was none of these major stories. It was a story about a cat called Ugly Bat Boy that was left at a veterinary hospital in New Hampshire, USA under the headline “Is This The World’s Ugliest Cat?”

Stories do not have to be important to sweep the world and grab attention – but they do have to be interesting and entertaining. Sometimes we forget why people buy newspapers, read magazines, watch TV, listen to the radio and surf the internet.

Rarely they do these things because they want to be lectured at and hardly ever because they want things sold to them. Mostly they want to be entertained, fascinated and inspired.

Ugly Bat Boy may have been a bit of light relief but even I now know that there is a veterinary hospital in Exeter, New Hampshire (well actually I have learned there is another Exeter a long way from the one I know so well in Devon!); I have learned that it has a chap called Dr Stephen Bassett, who will care for an animal even if it is ugly and unwanted and there is a welcoming receptionist.

Some good key messages to get out to an audience and I’m willing to bet that lots of people will suddenly want to take their animal for a check-up just so they can take a peep at Ugly Bat Boy!

Cupid Is Followed By Mum And Bunny

You might think that news is unpredictable – who could have foreseen the terrible scenes of fires raging in Australia or the plane landing on the Hudson River?

Stand up the person who predicted the Credit Crunch.

Now we are all sitting comfortably turn away from the front pages and there is a completely different picture. The beginning of February saw snow on the ground and love in the air. Every year we are surprised by some winter weather (which always turns out to be the biggest, deepest, windiest or wettest since records began) and every year the media get all loved-up over Valentine’s Day.

As soon as that is over the magazines and newspapers will be turning their minds to filling supplements on Mother’s Day and the television and radio will be looking for those “special mum” stories to fill the air time.

Soon after that it will be Easter and everyone from The Pope to the chocolate manufacturers (stand by for record sales of chocolate being announced as the credit crunch turns us all towards comfort eating) will be jumping on the bandwagon. Rabbits will get a chance to make headline news for a day or so and the media circus will move on.

You see much of what appears in the media is highly predictable and by tapping into those milestone events throughout the year the PR savvy businesses will be gaining the most coverage.

Of course timing is everything and in the case of these milestone events in the year it is often “first come first served”. You need to get in early with your hot weather story or your St George’s Day yarn.

Planning is the key and drawing up a list of events throughout the year and how you might make the most of them with a good PR story is vital. Then you can have the story on the stocks and approach the magazines a month in advance with something to interest them for that special edition.

In January Empica achieved three pages in a magazine, including a cover picture, around Chinese New Year for Dynasty and Zen Restaurants – but the idea was pitched to the publication before Christmas.

So….thinking caps on and see if you can come up with an idea for May Day while clearing the snow from the driveway.