Rob Fenwick
a Northumbrian abroad
Social media shenanigans
Feb 19th
A quick plug for a presentation by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications on the merits or otherwise of corporate blogging, which includes a contribution from your local blogger here.
I’ll be speaking at the annual convention of the Association for Cultural Enterprises next week – if you work in that sector and fancy a session which will involve PowerPoint but also the collective creation of a small piece of social marketing collateral (despite warnings not to rely on an internet connection!), then do come along.
Francesco Mazzei launch @ Pizza Express
Feb 2nd
I had a great night on Monday at the launch of the Francesco Mazzei menu at Pizza Express, courtesy of Mark Pack, and the lovely ladies of 1000heads. Lisa, one of the said lovely ladies, handled my tipping half a flute of Champagne over her with admirable grace and professionalism.
Each of the Franceso Mazzei menu additions were a delight in their own way, though the Calabrese should come with a health warning. HOT. I was stunned in to silence for upwards of a minute, and that is quite something.
I believe the menu is being rolled out nationwide from today – try the Rustichella. To die for. In time it may even tempt me from My Usual.
But then again, perhaps not… why break a habit developed over 10 years?
Christmas in Northumberland
Dec 26th
It’s been a beautiful white Christmas in north-east Northumberland, so I thought I’d share some photos of the area around Alnwick: More >
Some thoughts on where #Eurostar’s communications went wrong
Dec 20th
There are plenty of people rushing to judge Eurostar this weekend. The headline on TechCrunch is almost comical – “As hundreds of Eurostar passengers languish, Eurostar ignores Twitter.” On the face of it, it’s rather like saying “As shelves run dry of food, Tesco ignores Susan Boyle.” It’s quite random. TechCrunch’s view of the issue is pretty narrow (as this post from We are social shows.)
The whole communications effort could have been better, and the speed of the social media response is just one symptom – hopefully Eurostar will take some lessons away from this weekend.
Where did Eurostar go wrong?
- It’s worth saying that when it comes to PR, Eurostar were unlucky – as ever there’s not a lot of news around at Christmas, and this is a big story which is relatively low effort / low cost to cover. Dramatic though it is, is it really a bigger story than a vulnerable toddler being abducted from a police station? Personally I don’t believe so – but there are unfortunately a lot of angry passengers in the Eurostar story who are able to keep the story running.
- It sounds like there was confusion in Eurostar HQ – We are social’s Robin Grant describes grabbing the chief executive for a minute “in between various crisis meetings”, and being sat alongside the Sales and Marketing Director. In a situation as fast moving and high profile as this, the key people could have worked better together if they had been co-located in one room. It would have been good to see Eurostar’s crisis team validate or update their corporate message every thirty minutes, while managing the operational challenge.
- I think Eurostar could have picked a better core message – the explanation offered about changes in temperature affecting the trains left more questions than answers. Over time it looked like the company didn’t know what was causing the breakdowns, so it would have been more credible to say “we don’t know what’s happened to the trains, but we’re working as fast as possible to understand it.” There was also an attempt to move too quickly to the final stage of the comms plan – the review and compensation line – when practical operational comms to passengers was needed. More >
New Google search interface promotes university competition
Nov 30th
Google is currently testing a new search interface, which could among other things have an impact on recruitment to metropolitan universities.
One of the major factors for students who choose to study at a metropolitan university, particularly those living in London, is the proximity of the University to their home. These students are more likely than most to search for a specific institution by name, as they may be familiar with it having been exposed to the brand through advertising / signage / events.
If you search for the University of Westminster on the current Google interface, you will see a first hit that looks similar to this: