A tale of two cities

Two very interesting news stories in this month’s Public Affairs News, at opposite ends of the Eurostar.

London public affairs and corporate communications agency Hanover is breaking into the Brussels lobbying market, having snared Weber Shandwick’s Christian Hierholzer to open a new office a stone’s throw from the European Parliament.  The Brussels public affairs market continues to grow apace, while big European healthcare/pharma PA agency Rohde Public Policy will be doing the reverse with a new office opening in Westminster at the end of March.

Also the news that Hanson Search have hired a young Tory gun to help them with their PA recruitment during what is already a very busy year in the UK market

By Ben Pickering

WPP’s PR Revenue fall by 7.4% in 2009

But PR fairing better than advertising. Reported  in Gorkana…

By Erin Leahy

Virgo Health won ‘campaign of year’ for their PR Strategy on the weight loss drug Alli.

See PM live site for full article…

Saphia Haddouche

The numbers don’t lie.

Women are outnumbered by men 2 to 1 on television based on a recent study commissioned by Channel 4. The numbers are even more dismal when comparing news broadcasts where more than three quarters of presenters are male.

In response, Sky news is having all its programmes presented and produced by women to mark International Women’s Day today 8 March.  

What can you do to bridge the gender gap in your industry?

By Jenna Morton-Aiken

More effort needed.

Who does the Google doodle’s?  Must.Try.Harder.

Jamie

Climate change experts losing the PR battle…

Climate change scientists are losing the PR battle it has been claimed… with recent scandals such as the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit emails and the IPCC glacier melting times it has been a bad time for the climate change movement. But as Ed Gillespie (Futerra Sustainability co – founder) says ‘Denial of compelling science is a very attractive place to be – as it means you don’t have to change or do things differently’

It only takes a moment to read the sleuth of articles out there detailing the very real danger of climate change; people just need to get their PR up to scratch…

More information HERE

By Jessica Greatrex

“We go together…”

This week we saw the entirely predictable and totally unedifying bailout of one of the more indebted Eurozone economies, Greece, as the Franco-German alliance bent every rule in the book to avoid the spectacle of Greek going cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund (the prelude to falls of governments usually).

Greece’s deficit is 12.7% this year (4 times the 3% cap in the Eurozone’s much-vaunted and oft-broken Stability Pact rules), and with strikes hitting the streets of Athens – coupled with a tax collecting system modelled on a sieve – it’s a greatest threat to the Eurozone in its 11-year history.

Sure, the global credit crunch wasn’t foreseen (although it should have been, but that’s another story), but the laxness with which the European Central Bank has treated the more indebted members – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain (helpfully branded the P.I.G.S. until Ireland joined their ranks) – just further weakens confidence in it.

It just goes to show that one size does not fit all, and that the 16-member Eurozone is just too diverse.

The Germans must in their hearts of hearts regret abolishing the mighty Deutschmark for this shambles.

By Ben Pickering

Uncertainty Reigns

With two major IPOs shelved in 24 hours, it would appear investors, not been impressed with recent major listings like Gartmore and Taminco are reacting to unstable market conditions.

All eyes are on New Look’s scheduled meeting today.

2010 will be a very interesting year.

By Jamie McLaughlin

Google s’apprête à mettre du réseau social dans sa messagerie.

Google s’apprête à introduire un élément de réseau social dans sa messagerie GMail, selon le Wall Street Journal. Google pourrait mettre en œuvre ce changement en ajoutant une fenêtre à la page Gmail, permettant de prendre connaissance en temps réel des actualités postées par des amis. Le quotidien a précisé que Yahoo! avait déjà introduit cette possibilité dans sa page courriels l’an dernier, permettant par exemple de savoir quand un correspondant a mis en ligne des photos sur le site Flickr. A terme, la nouvelle fenêtre de Gmail pourrait permettre d’accéder directement aux photos et vidéos mises en ligne par les utilisateurs d’autres services de Google, comme YouTube et Picasa.

By Guillemette FAURE

More tips….

Dos & Don’ts Of Penning The Perfect CV

Dos & Don’ts Of Interview Techniques

By Alice Weightman