Articles by Piers Finzel

Piers Finzel has 10 years experience working with the Spanish media and business. He was a Senior Account Manager for Ulled Comunicacion and is on the Executive Committee of the ATP (Spanish Association of Communication Professionals).

The Perfect Client

December 22, 2008 in Business, PR by Piers Finzel | 1 comment

Little over a month ago, a friend and ex-colleague of mine who nows runs her own PR agency in Madrid, launched an innovative new campaign to find the perfect client. The campaign consists of a competition that potential client companies could participate in so as to try and win the first prize of 3 months free PR. All they had to do is supply a good briefing and explain concisely what is required of the agency. In order to be considered the ‘Perfect Client’, they also had to fulfil at least 3 of the following criteria, which I will share with you here because they are something that, after so many years in the business, we can all relate to highly.

The ‘Perfect Client’ is hence one that:
- Knows how to provide a clear briefing
- Congratulates the PR agency when a job is done well
- Doesn’t look to be on the front page of a national daily come what may, because it knows that sector specific media are or can be more important
- Doesn’t ask over and over again before a press conference: “How many journalists are coming?”
- Doesn’t want to hold a press conference every fortnight and distribute a press release per week (unless it can be justified)
- Doesn’t expect journalists to drop everything to cover their event, because no matter how important it might be, sometimes other breaking news stories take priority
- Can be flexible with budgets so that, although not limitless, they allow for a creative or newsworthy action that makes the agency’s work easier
- Looks upon the agency as a member of it’s own team and not an external supplier of solutions to problems
- Doesn’t prolongue to approval of materials until editorial deadlines have passed and the opportunity has been missed
- Is willing to do interviews, and if not, then doesn’t complain because the media never publish interviews with them
- Trusts the agency to do what it does best - COMMUNICATE on its behalf - and doesn’t leave it to find out important things about the company from third party sources
- Is realistic about the budget and what it can do with it
- Has an open and fluid relationship with the agency and doesn’t squeeze its time with the agency into the five minutes between sales meetings.

As soon as I find out who the winner was, I’ll let you know.

“I’m going to stop watching the News”

October 14, 2008 in Uncategorized by Piers Finzel | No comments

It’s a comment I’ve heard uttered on numerous occasions recently, not least last week when the world was treated to a crash course (please forgive the pun) on how NOT to run a bank. I, for one, have taken that path and have got to the stage that only when I overhear a piece of good news on the TV playing in the background will my ears prick up and I listen.

The irony of it all is that even the media industry is feeling the pinch, brought about in the most part by the collective nervousness and lack of confidence in the short term future which they themselves helped whip up in the first place. If you were to believe what was being reported both in the Spanish and international press for example, you would think that everyone in Spain now sitting down to lump of stale bread for dinner each night whilst huddling round a candle flame for warmth. The media spends so much time feeding its audiences with doom and gloom that it is beginning to lose them as an audience.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Spain, as a big cog in the machinery of globalisation, is having its fair share of problems due to the world crisis and it’s unlikely that it will escape falling in recession alongside its European colleagues, probably next year, but at the moment there are plenty of reasons for optimism, depending on where you look for them. Business IT spending hasn’t dropped much, local legislation protected the Spanish banking system from contaminating itself with toxic mortgages, certain sectors are having difficulties recruiting enough qualified workers. And as for consumer spending - I challenge anyone to try and find a parking space in a shopping centre car park on a Saturday morning at the moment.

As PR professionals, we are used to presenting the positive side of things on behalf of our clients, even trained to do so. It’s not about ignoring problems when they occur, so much as looking for and finding ways of distributing information that directly or indirectly creates confidence and optimism about the subject in hand. We are all tired of so much bad tidings now so perhaps the world could take a leaf out of our manual and find something cheerful to talk about. Then maybe, just maybe, things will start to improve quicker than expected, and who knows, people may start watching the news again.