Edinburgh PR agency news

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK.

URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk

PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

  

Mobile recommerce specialist Redeem extends into 6 new countries with Estonian acquisition

Redeem specialises in electronics recycling for mobile network operators, retailers and large enterprises

Bathgate, Scotland, UK, 15^th May 2013. Leading mobile recycler, Redeem Holdings Limited today announces the acquisition of its Estonian partner, UPR Global, a market leader in mobile phone recovery, reuse and recycling.   
 
Redeem currently operates in ten EMEA countries specialising in wholesale mobile electronics, recommerce and recycling. This latest move will add six new Nordic and Baltic countries to that list. Redeem is already the UK’s fastest growing recycling company* and the largest mobile recycler in Europe. This latest move further consolidates the company’s stated intention to expand throughout Europe.

UPR Global started in Estonia less than 3 years ago, buying second-hand mobile phones from consumers via the web. The business quickly expanded into Lithuania, Latvia and Finland.  Last year a partnership agreement opened up the Norwegian mobile phone recommerce market.  Today UPR runs mobile and smartphone handset as well as other popular handheld electronic device buyback programs for consumers, enterprises and mobile network operators (MNOs). UPR has established strong relationships with seven leading MNOs across the Nordic and Baltic regions aligning with Redeem’s future expansion strategy.

Redeem specialise in extracting the maximum value from traded-in mobile phone technology (recommerce)  to help network operators retain and acquire customers by making it affordable to trade up to the latest models.  Like Redeem, UPR handle all aspects of the recommerce operation for the mobile network operators: integrating innovative software to market and manage online and retail trade-in, collection and processing of the handsets and their ultimate resale or recycling.

Jorgen Berg, newly appointed CEO of Redeem OU, says, “Being part of the Redeem family allows us to access a lot of knowledge and experience. This brings us a unique opportunity to help grow Redeem as a global player by supporting MNOs and major enterprises in the Nordic Baltic region.”

Urvo Männama, founder of UPR and recently appointed business development director of Redeem OU, says, “Since our launch, UPR has enjoyed considerable operational successes and in the process delivered a great experience to our customers and clients. This acquisition brings together two great companies which are growing considerably. The combination of UPR Global and Redeem Holdings Limited, reinforced by the successful Redeem brand, will be a powerful force in international recommerce.”

Claes Svensson CEO of Redeem Holdings Limited says, “We are delighted that UPR will be our strategic platform for expansion into Baltic and Nordic countries.  On top of existing contracts and a strong portfolio of prospects, UPR brings us a lean cost-efficient organisation for sourcing and processing of second hand phones.  Over the last 18 months UPR has increased its turnover dramatically. We see good potential for further growth and our ambition is to triple that growth over the coming 12 months by developing the online and in-store tools in line with customers’ requirements, using UPR’s unique understanding of this marketplace. “

About Redeem

The Redeem group, founded in 1991, is an international environmental marketing services company.
With 150 employees in Scotland, England and Hong Kong, the group provides sustainable, data secure, recycling services to MNO and corporate clients throughout Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Redeem’s international clients includes mobile network operators, wholesalers, retailers, charities and direct consumers.

Redeem refurbishes and resells or recycles high volumes of a wide range of IT and electronic equipment including mobile phones, tablets, mp3 players, sat navs, digital cameras, consoles, laptop computers and games.

All devices are reused or disposed of in accordance with the WEEE directive. Re-used items are security and theft checked, data cleansed and sold in accordance with current legislation.

Redeem has certified ISO 9001 & 14001 compliance as a specialist waste carrier.

*Redeem has won a number of local and national business awards, the most recent being named the UK’s fastest growing recycling company in the Chartered Institute of Waste Management’s Fast 30 list.

Redeem is also on the 2012 Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list which shows that it is the third fastest-growing private company in Scotland and 41st in the UK.

About UPR Global

• Established in 20010 UPR Global OU is the Scandinavian and the Baltic market leader in mobile phone recovery, reuse and recycling.
• Currently UPR operates in six countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania plus Norway, Sweden and Finland.
• UPR Global’s head office is in Tartu, Estonia, with satellites in Kaunas, Lithuania; Helsinki, Finland, and partner in Oslo, Norway.

About Jorgen Berg

Mr Berg is a Swedish national and has 15 years experience in various senior sales, marketing and general management roles within Sony Ericsson. More recently he was responsible for running a €170m turnover business unit within Sony Ericsson covering Central Asia and Africa.  Prior to Sony Ericsson he spent 13 years with IBM in various sales positions with the latter three years at its headquarters in Paris within a group business development role.

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh Rock - and PR

Edinburgh Rock, USPs and PR

Sometimes an outsider immediately spots something that we take for granted. So it was with a relative from the Midlands, up here visiting Edinburgh. Now this lady is a superb cook with an excellent, refined palate. So when she insisted she absolutely had to get some Edinburgh Rock before she went back, she said something odd but interesting to a PR: "There's nothing else like it. It's hard to explain, but it's unique."

For those of us brought up here, Edinburgh Rock is part of our childhood. It's no big deal.
For the record, I have to say the nearest I can come to a decription is that: it's a soft pastel coloured rock in a variety of colours with a crumbly texture, an interesting taste and crucially, it melts lingeringly on the tongue.

For me this was a classic example of being too close to something to spot its special qualities in comparison to all its competitors. The thing that makes it stand out: it's USP (unique selling proposition).

I know when I started up in business 27 years ago, I struggled to come up with my USP, yet I knew (perhaps more than most given my profession) that without a clear description of my services, how could I expect others to understand what I do and spread the word? Sheer commercial necessity forced me to apply my mind and test out various versions.
But I always found it dead easy to do for others.
I was too close to see the wood for the trees.

I went through some reasonable iterations of USPs with feedback from others and help from business coaches. My USP progressed as my business developed through PR, editing services, through to PR and content marketing to todays version: getting B2B clients noticed online and in the media.
No doubt it will change again. I notice that people are noting and remembering my current email signature: Helping businesses grow for over 20 years and three recessions
It's perhaps not 'PR' or 'B2B' specific enough but it certainly helps me stand out from the crowd of  'experts.'



PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

How to go video viral without passing on a cold

Will it blend viral video

Sometimes the best blog posts are kick-started by stumbling over the same topic several times in the course of the day. And today I had two conversations about viral video at this morning's 4networking group in Leith, Edinburgh. Then spotted the inimitable Seth Godin had posted a typically short and to the point piece.

"Make an impact on just one person. Even better, make it so they can't sleep that night unless they choose to make a difference for just one other person by sharing your message with them."

Then came across a great long blog on a membership site that's closed to non members, so no point in posting the link. But the bit that leapt out at me from all the usual stuff about chosing subjects most people can relate to, and avoiding commercials hit me fair and square - Be Fearless! Rightly pointing out that this is where most companies fall down as they don't want to risk looking foolish. But the real risk is wasting time and money being bland and unmemorable, creating no impetus for people to spread the word.

Zero risk = zero reward, but too much risk can be dangerous.

Just think of the traction the famous "Will it blend" videos got for Blendtec. Yes, there was a risk that the company founder and inventor might have  looked foolish. He was good at verging on the edge of potential explosions, not to mention possibly breathing in noxious-looking fumes (remember the be fearless maxim?). But someone who can blend a billiard ball, and a new iPhone with an equally straight face commands respect. Respect for their sense of fun and faith in their appliances.

That campaign took time. Today's viral videos may be faster but are almost certainly given a promotional push and will need a budget that allows for several attempts and the possibility of failure, plus a fair amount of granularly detailed promotional work.

My personal favourite is still Herding cats by UPS. Classic.


PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

PHPR welcomes Supreme Court decision to protect internet users from "over-reaching copyright collectors"

Press releases are a key part of  PHPR's service to get clients noticed in the media and online 

Edinburgh-based PR agency, PHPR welcomes today's news that the Supreme Court has supported all of the arguments made by the PRCA (Public Relations Consultants' Association) against the NLA (Newspaper Licensing Authority) re browsing online articles without infringing copyright law. It will now refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) so that this point can be clarified across the entire EU.

The PRCA's press release is here: Supreme Court supports PRCA and Meltwater in landmark blow in favour of internet freedom

Francis Ingham, PRCA Chief Executive says, "The PRCA is very proud to have stood up on behalf of the whole PR industry for the last few years. We are delighted that the highest court in the country accepted our argument outright."

Penny Haywood Calder, founder of PHPR says,"It beggers belief that the Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd (NLA) thought it could charge for looking at a web page online if it included newspaper articles and passing on a link to an article: something millions of people probably do all over the world every day. It is particularly galling as the NLA is extracting cash from the PR industry and their clients, despite us alerting journalists to many potential stories and often bending over backwards to give them access to senior executives for quotes and comment. To charge us for checking to see what a publication had done with that input is, in my opinion, ridiculous. 

"The introductory NLA license is for a small agency of up to 5 people serving just three clients. In our experience, we have to run more than 3 clients a year per consultant to break even, and it places us in an impossible situation if we get a spate of one-off launches and other ad hoc work. We are too small to risk falling foul of the rules, so we just suggest to clients that they make their own arrangements to see results. It is galling when our client knowledge gives us the ability to go into each and every online news search in more granular detail than would be possible with a general monitoring brief involving a third party."

According to the PRCA, the Supreme Court said that the NLA’s position would be “an unacceptable result, which would make infringers of many millions of ordinary users of the internet across the EU who use browsers and search engines for private as well as commercial purposes."

Penny Haywood Calder added, "I have been online since 1985 in the heady pioneer days of acoustic coupled modems running at unbelievably slow speeds. I've watched online forums rules develop to balance the fundamental freedoms of the internet against the need to curb abuse, then watched as users developed individual codes of practice and social media policies. In nearly 28 years online, I have never seen anything as blatant as this attempt by the NLA to curtail online freedom. 

"As a small business owner, I felt powerless to do anything. All credit to the PRCA and Meltwater that they have stuck with this battle. A battle that, in my opinion, should not have had to be fought. The only winners in this long drawn out battle would appear to be the lawyers, which in the current economic climate is not good news for entrepreneurial and ground-breaking newsworthy businesses and their PR support teams."

Jorn Lyssegen, CEO of Meltwater said: “We are very pleased that the Supreme Court overruled the previous rulings of the Court of Appeals and The High Court that the simple act of browsing the Internet could be copyright infringement. This ruling is an important step in modernizing the interpretation of UK copyright law and protects UK Internet users from overreaching copyright collectors.”

Penny Haywood Calder adds, "It's not yet over for PR agencies who the PRCA advises to keep paying NLA fees as "a precautionary measure" until next year when the Court of Justice of the European Union is expected to report. 

PHPR is an Edinburgh-based PR and online marketing agency founded by Penny Haywood Calder in 1986 and incorporated as PHPR Ltd in 1999. The agency now specialises in B2B, technology and small businesses. PHPR has come through three recessions and spends up to a third of its time actively learning about new outlets and practical tools to effectively help develop clients' businesses on and offline. PHPR is an award winning agency and a VIBES finalist - Scotland's top environmental award for business. 

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

ConnectED Talk Today: "Content may be king, but clarity and contacts (or was it connections?) determine the size of the kingdom"

3 vital Cs: Content, Clarity and Contacts

Really enjoyed giving Publicity Tips to ConnectED members: mainly small business owners this morning.

A phrase that really pulls together a lot of what we do popped out during the talk. From a Google search, it looks like no-one else has said it: 

"Content may be king,
but clarity and contacts determine the size of the kingdom"

Penny Haywood Calder, founder PHPR Ltd

From the buzz on the ConnectED LinkedIn group, it is entirely possible that I actually said: 

"Content may be king,
but clarity and connections determine the size of the kingdom"

The truth is: I can't remember, but both seem apt and I have a slight preference for the latter which seems to roll off the tongue smoothly.  I may shorten it to 

"Content may be king,
but clarity and connections shape the size of the kingdom"

The gist of the talk is that publicity is the oxygen of business, otherwise, no-one's heard of you. 
Underpinning all effective publicity for business, from word of mouth to website to media to marcomms to sales is: Clarity, Clarity, and Clarity.

That stems from clear purpose/vision and the hard work that goes into really nailing your core business proposition. Bill Joos - Silicon Valley VC & supreme clarity-meister suggests that to stand out from thousands of applications for funding (or indeed, anything else) you need to nail your key proposition in seven words or less, including an emotional hook. 

Ours is: 

PHPR gets businesses noticed on and offline. 

Getting noticed is a major issue for people as all too often businesses ignore them. 

Websites are the cornerstone of marcomms, yet many websites neglect to clearly spell out what they sell on the front page - including many large companies which have become so big, they are generalists. We sell solutions may have had shock value when IBM was best known as a hardware provider, but if a small business echoes such vague general statements, they are not going to get far. The annual Bowen Craggs large corporates' websites survey sponsored by the FT is due out at the end of this month. If this year is anything like its predecessors, it will show that there is still plenty of room for improvement which will be good news for small businesses: more chances to nibble away at the big guys' markets, one niche at a time.  

I say niches very specifically as it's much easier to reach people in niche areas effectively - find Joint Venture partners who need to reach the same markets (e.g. trade associations, complementary non-competing companies or....? ) and offer a major benefit to their customers/members - and they'll do your publicity for you provided that you keep them supplied with relevant news and titbits. 

Plus small businesses can nurture key contacts and use social media more effectively to plug the gaps between meetings and accelerate the relationship. That's because the networking tends to be done by the top people - or by people with a very short line to the top. 

I passed on various tips today on tools to use to remember to stay in contact, such as www.fivehundredplus.com. 

Plus work smarter with social media using Hootsuite. And provided a run-down on social media and the specific merits of the main platforms. With several B2B business owners in the audience, the reminder to optimise their Linkedin profile seems to get the note-takers scribbling. And use the Linkedin groups to expand their reach. Plus an example of the power of using Linkedin's shared connection lists intelligently.

Constant Contact or Mail Chimp are good solutions for newsletters. In our experience, the former is easier to use, while the latter is FoC: you takes your pick: time or money? 

Plus Paper.li's automated curated content newsletters and associated Twitter feed plugs the posting gaps that are inevitable with owner managed or very small businesses. 

The Qs and As ranged over a variety of tools, plus the value of blogs: very high if they contain good content that sits on your own domain. 

Fund-raising for Practical Action

When I originally offered to do the talk, I hadn't planned to do this year's 5x50 challenge and associated fund-raising. The entry fee goes to Comic Relief and I've chosen to raise funds for Practical Action who lift an amazing 1 million people out of poverty each year. I was delighted that several people were sufficiently pleased with today's publicity tips that they agreed to donate to the cause, although I did suggest they wait until they had benefited materially. PR tips in exchange for charity donations is a first for PHPR, but it seems to work! 

If you benefit from anything above, do consider helping Practical Action lift even more than a million out of poverty next year by donating here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/PennyHaywoodCalder 

More about the 5x50 challenge and my progress here: http://5x50xpenny.blogspot.co.uk/ 




PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PR News Round-Up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Practical Action inspires 5x50 fund-raising action

With a face as bright as my Practical Action T-shirt, this is me today with 70k clocked up so far in the 5x50 challenge to walk, run, cycle 5k a day for 50 days. My 5x50 blog charts my challenge progress here.

I'm doing it to raise funds for Practical Action, the charity that was born out of the "Small is Beautiful" Ernst Shumacher Centre. Practical Action takes an incredible 1 million people out of poverty each year using technology developed in partnership with local people. Support their work through my VirginMoneyGiving page here.

I like to think there's some synergy (but not the scale) between Practical Action's ingenious use of technology and the way PHPR goes about using technology and ingenious content to help small businesses punch above their weight in today's uncertain economy, creating/securing livlihoods for people.

I am lucky enough to have been online since 1985. I started my own PR business a year later. I couldn't have set-up the business without a computer as I had no confidence that I would be able to afford admin support when I first started. The computer enabled me to do so much more, including my own admin until I got going properly. Plus it freed me from the 9-5 routine of working for a major bank's PR department. I am eternally grateful to technology for enabling me to do my own thing, and am happy to support Practical Action who are multiplying that effect x1 million each year to help free-up people around the world - fabulous effort. .

I am particularly proud to be using my PR and technology experience to work with Redeem, a Scottish mobile phone recycling and recommerce company with a great CSR offering that recently entered the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list of fastest growing companies in the UK.

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Tracking Multi Online PR Channels

Generate URLs for each online PR tactic

How do you account for results if you are using a variety of PR tactics to boost traffic to a website?  Tactics like:

• press releases
• press and blogger outreach
• social media.

They'll all be there in Google Analytics, but it will be quite hard to sort out what came from where.

I'm indebted to Jason Poulos at The Buzz Bin  for showing me how.

The answer is to use Google's unique URL builder tool to create custom campaign URLs so that the results generated by all your individual tactics (or channels) show up separately in your analytics results.

There's a separate tool:  the Google Play URL builder for mobile app tracking.

Clever, huh?


PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PR news round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Social Media: In-house or Outsourced?

In-house or outsource social media?

As part of our offering is support services for social media, I was initially interested in a long thread about in-house vs outsourcing social media on a Linkedin group for marketing professionals today. By the end of the thread I was so cross, I left the group and I don't do that very often.

Most agreed the ideal solution is in-house to deliver the authentic feel of the company. I agree.
Several pointed out that's not always practical and well managed external help, combined with in-house handling of direct customer engagement and strategy provides a good solution to delivering a consistent service. Well, we are hardly unbiased on this one!
Most posters on the thread agreed that strategy should be driven by the in-house team's deeper understanding of the company's vision, values and business objectives. So far, so good.
I was somewhat amused to see several postings that were blatant adverts, thereby immediately disqualifying themselves from involvement in any serious social media work.
There were also plenty of spelling mistakes; "shouting" block capitals and grammatical errors in the postings - again seriously undermining confidence in the quality of their work and posting judgement.
I was already doubting the wisdom of being in this group -  I must have evaluated it on a good day.
Then I found one person proudly announcing they had created a fictitious person and standard log-in in for all their social outlets to ensure continuity in their social engagement. While I can see the usefulness of this approach to the company (real staff are such a messy inconvenience :-) do they seriously believe that basing customer communications on a deception is the right way forward in building relationships with people?
It's just too easy to be found out. Linguistic researchers have long known that we all use words in ways that are as unique as our fingerprints.
A quick comparison of two texts run through natural speech analytic programs will tell if two pieces are written by the same person. My guess is: if a machine can tell the difference, a human will easily smell a rat. Especially if they get 'engagement' couched in differing word patterns, all purporting to be from the same person. Even if they can't put their finger on it, a real live customer will have an uneasy feeling that something's not right. An uneasy feeling is a long way from the ideal warm glow generated by empowered staff capable of genuine human engagement.
Then my eyebrows really disappeared into my hairline as one chap posted that collaboration between the in-house team and the outsourced company meant allowing the employees to get stuck into their work while they outsourced the socialising! This reminded me of an international banker I worked with many years ago. He was complaining about all the amazing feasts he was attending while he was drumming up business in the Middle East.  I jokingly offered to do his eating to let him get on with the business - a solution as patently useless as getting someone else to do your socialising online - or am I just an unrealistic idealist?
My eyebrows repeated their assent into my hairline when a lady (who claimed many years in professional marketing) argued (with shouting capitals) that smaller companies can't do their own social media because they are not marketing experts and wouldn't do it right. So they should outsource it all.
I grant that small businesses often need support and counsel, but would it make sense for a small business owner to fully outsource their social media to someone who stridently shouts in social media posts? Not to mention clearly holding a very low opinion of her small business clients' abilities? It doesn't look like a happy win:win  to me. I believe business relationships need to be forged on a certain amount of respect for each other's capabilities.
Another 'professional' thought the purpose of social media was to "beat the marketing drum".
They clearly have years of catching up to do, starting with David Meerman Scott's excellent New Rules of Marketing and PR book.
Interestingly only one of the 28 respondents in the thread mentioned monitoring for any form of business  ROI.
In the legendary words of News of the World reporters at swingers' parties: "I made my excuses and left".


PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

For PR's Sake, Think Like a Publisher and Employ Editing Skills

I was astonished to see various reports that Amazon had been selling T-shirts emblazoned with the message: Keep Calm and Rape Them.

Also on sale was:
Keep Calm and Knife Her 
Keep Calm and Hit Her
Keep Calm and Choke Her 
Keep Calm and Grope On

The T-shirts are an adaptation of the popular revived and oft tweaked World War II poster slogan: Keep Calm and Carry On. The offending T-shirts were made by the unfortunately-named Massachussets-based company, Solid Gold Bomb. Given their extensive apology, the company would probably be the first to admit that they have indeed bombed (in the sense of having done really poorly as opposed to the more recent slang meaning which is currently the opposite) with this one. The company has since withdrawn them and apologised, but it was their (long) explanation which you can read for yourself here that I found really gob-smacking.

Apparently the slogans were part of a computer generated series of Keep Calm and ... parodies.
Their apology says:

"The ultimate file-list generated created the base data and the core of the problem was certainly the fact that certain words both individually and in combination were or became offensive. This was culled from 202k words to around 1100 and ultimately slightly more than 700 were used due to character length and the fact that I wanted to closely reflect the appearance of the original slogan graphically."

To me, this raises more questions than answers because, according to the above, the list was twice culled. Even if the lists were not manually culled (I have no idea whether they were or not - it sounds as if they were just checked for their visual appeal by character length), by the time they got down to 1100 and certainly at 700, surely it is not particularly difficult to get a responsible thinking person (for example, an experienced editor) to manually check for aberrant meanings?

As a former editor, I find it is second nature to check material before posting, and to double check before expensive printing compounds an error. As a human being, I can't say that I am totally 100% perfect, but I think most experienced editors would manage to spot five offensive slogans in a list of 700.

They don't say if the computer generated slogans also led to a linked computer generated Amazon ad, or if the pictures of the tee-shirts were also automatically produced. Seems to me that, the more you rely on automation to produce and advertise anything involving words, the more reason there is to have an experienced human back-stop as a final check on the wording.

Words are devilishly slippery little things, and it's very easy to fall foul of them.

Good on fellow Edinburgh PR, Donna McGrory for actively raising awareness of the T-shirts on Twitter.

 PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv

Edinburgh PHPR News Round-up

PR blog posted by Penny Haywood Calder at PHPR Ltd, Edinburgh, UK. URL: http://www.phpr.co.uk PHPR TV Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHPRtv