Overall, there was a fairly consistent meeting of minds between Liz Coyne, Iain Morris and Scott Bicheno. Three words effectively summarise their collective thoughts – both in terms of their own behaviours in the build up to the show and the qualities they most appreciate from the supporting PR community: routine, realism and relationships.
Routine
Both Liz and Iain were honest and said that they organise the vast majority of their own briefings with telcos and vendors direct, without PR team intervention. As you’d expect from seasoned journalists, they have cultivated a network of contacts within major global telcos and supporting tier one vendors over many years. These contacts seem quite content to keep them entertained year on year. Indeed, Iain suggested that 95% of his meetings were organised in this way (though he later intimated it might be less). Liz said much the same. Both Iain and Liz admitted that they spend most of their time speaking to a lot of the same companies – large incumbent telcos and vendors who are driving the industry forward.
Ultimately, the media cover the companies that the rest of us want to read about. This highlights the size of the challenge for smaller, more niche vendors.
Realism
Ian and Liz were honest. They sympathised with smaller companies looking for attention. The simple truth is that there are simply too few journalists to share around all attending companies. Both were appreciative of the levels of disruption and innovation some of these companies offer, but also wanted to urge realism. Perhaps MWC is not the right environment to make yourselves known to attending media? The competition is so fierce that perhaps engaging media might be better done when more captive media audiences can be guaranteed?
Scott, in particular, offered hope to these smaller companies however. He pointed to the potential for paid media engagement at the show. He has spent the majority of the last few shows spearheading the delivery of paid video interviews. On reflection, Scott, Iain and Liz all agreed that this was an excellent opportunity for companies to guarantee coverage – especially if they had major customers on hand to join them and provide instant testimonials. Video content like this serves as highly effective marketing content that can be leveraged well beyond the show.
This raises another key point – simply securing media briefings isn’t a guarantee of coverage. Liz, Iain and Scott all admitted that they never feel an obligation to write up anything as a result of a briefing. In fact, a relatively small proportion of the conversations they enjoy do. This has as much to do with time pressures as it does with the availability of newsworthy stories.
Another area requiring realism relates to MWC show news. There is often too much of it for the media to cope with. The more companies can do to get news to journalists in advance of the show (ideally release it before), the better their chances of success. One of the outcomes of hectic show schedules is the inability to appreciate the announcements that are made without prior warning.
Relationships
The importance of relationships was constantly referred to by all three of my guests, from multiple perspectives. First was the need for the media to manage their own relationships with key industry contacts, including highly coveted senior telco and vendor executives. It is precisely this need which drives the majority of appointments our guest journalists secure themselves.
All three also underlined the importance of the PR community investing time and effort in cultivating their own media relationships. More often than not, the relatively few appointments they accept from outside their own network tend to come via PR people they know, respect and trust. They also reminded the PR community that MWC is a massive opportunity for all PR people to build and cultivate their media relationships. Helping journalists to acknowledge and appreciate the personalities behind the countless phone calls and emails can make all the difference.
Overall, it was a great discussion and a lot of fun to pull together. It was a useful reminder of the grim odds we face as PR people approaching MWC alongside our clients. Thankfully, it was also a reflection of all the time and effort we have invested in building and maintaining so many great relationships, with so many journalists, over so many years. Not only do these relationships help us beat the odds, they’re also the source of a lot of fun and enjoyment too.
If you’d be interested in meeting with CCGroup in Barcelona this year, drop us a line. We’d love to meet you!
