EVER wondered how the giant corporate Public Relations and advertising agencies win business?

Now you can get a valuable comedy insight, courtesy of YouTube (or ‘MyTube’ as perhaps it should now become known).

Congratulations to Jon Mason, aka Jollywise, for his hysterical take on the corporate advertising world in ‘The Truth in Ad Sales’.

With almost half a million hits and hundreds of comments, it seems clear that for many the video has a certain authenticity.  Watch, recognise and cringe…

WARNING: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR THOSE OF A SENSITIVE DISPOSITION

The Truth in Ad Sales

A FASCINATING insight into the workings of Government is provided by the right-wing Spectator magazine in its blog ‘Coffee House’.

It tells how Cabinet Minister Ed Balls, a close confidante of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rang up the magazine’s political editor, Fraser Nelson, to complain about an earlier article which had branded the Children’s Secretary “a liar”.

It is not for us to pronounce on the rights and wrongs of the complex dispute over debt between the pair. Readers can make up their own minds.

But it is quite astonishing that Labour’s Mr Balls, who is in charge of the nation’s schools after all, should take the time and trouble to phone up a Conservative journalist and angrily demand that a blog post be withdrawn. Allegedly.

More on It’s not the internet – its Balls!

A SALFORD social enterprise has become the first in the North West to win the prestigious Social Enterprise Mark.

The fair-trade style Mark has been awarded to Unlimited Potential, after it demonstrated that its work benefitted local people, rather than anonymous shareholders or owners.

Profits made by the company are used to tackle social or environmental issues in the city.

Unlimited Potential, which is one of Sound Communication’s clients, joins other ethical businesses, such as the Eden Project in Cornwall, in winning the new Social Enterprise Mark.

More on Salford’s Unlimited Potential first in North West to win Social Enterprise Mark

THE fallout over the Damian McBride smear campaign continues apace – not least amongst the Labour Party’s online community.

They are anxious not to panic and throw the baby (new media) out with the dirty bathwater (McBride’s smears) by suddenly rejecting the web-based campaigning epitomised so eloquently by Barack Obama.

The disgraceful online activities of McBride, Gordon Brown’s closest adviser has of course left Labour extremely vulnerable.

So the Fabian Society have put together a comprehensive and commonsense defence of blogs and the blogosphere, assembling a variety of Labour-linked bloggers in its support.

They celebrate the internet as a force for good, empowering people who have been disenfranchised and alienated, giving a voice to those who have been silenced and cannot be heard.

They also put forward an extremely robust defence for using the internet to expose the wrong-doing, lies and hypocrisy of the powerful. We couldn’t say it better ourselves: More on Blogging – a force for good

THE Pope’s outburst about condoms and AIDS has understandably caused a firestorm of controversy.

An online petition protesting at the Pontiff’s position has now been started by the excellent global campaigning organisation, Avaaz.

It is clear about what Pope Benedict actually said about condoms on his flight to Africa, where 22 million people are infected with HIV.

As the controversy raged, both the BBC and the Times also seemed fairly categoric.

But then a familiar phenomenon took place. It became a process story: about the Vatican’s press office. More on Does the Pope need a new spin doctor – or a new message on AIDS?

ANY self-respecting journalist will shudder at the prospect of getting a terse ‘no comment’ from the subject of their latest exclusive.

It’s bad for the reporter (s/he looks easily fobbed off); bad for the story (it looks unbalanced); and bad for the subject (s/he/it looks like they have something to hide).

Our advice to any client, almost whatever the circumstances, would always be: “don’t say nothing, at least say something”.

To stay schtum or refuse to comment can sound the death knell for reputation.

We thought this lesson had been well-learnt by the media-savvy corporate world – until this week.

That was until the giant computer company Fujitsu, the employment agency Kelly Services and Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue all combined to commit the cardinal sin.

In triplicate.

More on When ‘no comment’ speaks volumes…

BANKERS appear to have overtaken estate agents and journalists at the top of ‘Professions You Love To Hate’.

The credit crunch, global economic crisis, rising unemployment and job insecurity have all combined to make the banker ‘Public Enemy Number One’.

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears reluctant to start mixing it with the money men, the new President of the United States, Barack Obama, has lost no time in pouring scorn on the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street.

Obama speaks for many of us who believe the worsening recession and billion pound ‘bail-outs’ have been directly caused by the unregulated speculation and irresponsibility of the financiers.

So it is good to hear of one bank – the Co Op* – which has actually turned away business as a result of its ethical approach. More on How to turn away business – and still be successful…

LOCAL newspapers have become amongst the first victims of the global recession with major job losses, pay freezes and closures announced.

Some commmentators are already predicting that the future for local papers is bleak, almost terminal, as they are hit both by the economic downturn and the march of the internet.

Editorial quality is always one of the first things to be sacrificed it seems, as newspaper ‘bean counters’ cut jobs and titles to reduce costs and maintain profits for their shareholders.

Here in the North West, for example, 43 journalist jobs are going at Trinity Newspapers on Merseyside, publishers of the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post; the Guardian Media Group, publishers of the Manchester Evening News, has closed local paper offices all over Greater Manchester and the Newsquest-owned Bury Times is now being moved to Bolton! The same story is being repeated all over the country. More on Is this the death of local newspapers?

FLEDGLING businesses in Greater Manchester want more help to market themselves on the internet as the recession bites, according to a Sound Communication survey.

They want better technical support, more training and stronger creative input to help market their businesses more effectively on the web.

Although most are ‘reasonably’ or ‘very well equipped’ to use the internet, the biggest barrier they face is their lack of knowledge and the ‘techy’ jargon used by experts.

More than 100 start-up enterprises took part in the survey which was carried out by Sound Communication during a series of ‘Marketing on the Web’ workshops we provided for new small businesses.

More on New businesses want more web marketing – Sound Communication survey

MORE than six million people have so far been emailed a spoof video blaming them for electing Republican John McCain as the next President of the United States.

The video is going out to more than 30 new people per second as a direct and personal reminder to them to vote in next Tuesday’s Presidential election.

The spoof video is set after the election and “reveals” that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has lost by just one vote. The ‘missing’ voter is the person receiving the personalised video!

In the spoof news-style video, the missing voter’s name is blazed across headlines in the New York Times, is personally thanked by George W. Bush and is castigated by irate US citizens (including an hilariously foul-mouthed grandmother, pictured above) and a lonely goat herd who now fears his flock is about to be bombed by ‘President McCain’.

The video is witty, irreverent and extremely well done – and it may have the desired effect in helping to Get Out The Vote as well as becoming a global hit.

Research shows that this kind of social “nudging” is extremely effective. The organisers are aiming to reach 10 million people before Election Day in the USA – but look set to easily reach their target.

To see how it works, you can fill in your friends names and send the video to them today.

Send the Spoof Video

More on Getting Out The Vote – US style