Profile: Anorak

This month i’ve been lucky enough to speak with Cathy Olmedillas from Anorak Magazine. Borne out of a flash of inspiration and a real gap in the market for a beautifully illustrated and fun magazine for kids, Cathy set about developing Anorak, which she very aptly refers to as ‘the happy mag for kids’!

Basic stats and facts:

How many uniques per month do you get? The site has an average of 5,800 unique visitors a month and this figure is increasing rapidly.

What’s the Anorak demographic? Although Anorak is aimed at children aged between 5-9 years, its content is designed to be enjoyed by everyone, including adults. The magazine is published quarterly and retails at £3.50 per issue.

What’s the best e-mail to send editorial information to? cathy@anorak-magazine.co.uk

What’s the best e-mail to send advertising opportunities to? cathy@anorak-magazine.co.uk

The Anorak philosophy

When did Anorak start publishing? Anorak was launched in Winter 2006 and represents a new direction in children’s magazines. Its art-house look and feel gives it the ‘cool’ factor that is so lacking in children’s media today. It fills parents with nostalgia (Anorak is inspired by the traditional annuals of our own childhoods – think Beano) and importantly, provides them with assurance that the content is suitable for its readers’ age group. The tone is naïve, innocent, quirky, engaging and positive in outlook

What can readers expect to find in Anorak? You’ll find little editors carrying out book & film reviews (there’s an unofficial team of 70 children’s contributors!), mad cap comic strips, quirky fashion features, colouring-in pages and engaging stories focusing on real life issues affecting kids, but always with a light-hearted feel.

How big is the editorial team? Anorak has built a reputation for working with some of the most talented illustrators around today and Winter 2008 is no exception. Illustrators include Jean Jullien, Patrick Gildersleeves, Amandine Urruty and Laura Ljungkvist.

At Seldom Seen Kid, it’s all about making the connection between journalists and PRs easier. This is the first of a monthly profile piece that looks at different publications, be they offline or online. If you’d like to be considered for next month’s slot, please send answers to the questions above to matt[@]seldomseenkid.co.uk, or drop me a line for more details!

Twestival

This year, Twestival is supporting charity: water, a not for profit organisation dedicated to providing clean drinking water for those who don’t have any.

Please visit the Twestival website for more information on the event itself, which has been put together, for free, by different twitter communities around the world.

The exposure that charity: water will hopefully get from Twestival, will be invaluable. Many charities do not have much money to put towards advertising or PR, and rely on volunteers to spread their message. Tying in with my post on Ethical PR, i’ve been asked to contribute to the London Twestival blog. It is a small contribution, and many others are doing much much more to support the charity.

I hope that the mainstream meida will pick up on what the twestival team are trying to achieve and will write about the event with enthusiasm. Not only this, but it is the perfect answer to the Daily Mail’s anti-Twitter stance, demonstrating the good use that Twitter can be put to.

Ethical PR – PRing PR

Should PRs have a moral obligation to help ethical businesses? This is a question I have found myself trying to answer for the last week or so.

Following my post ‘Primark Sweatshop PR Disaster’ there followed quite a stream of comments discussing the rights and wrongs of what Primark had done, and the PR implications following the TNS Knitwear-sweatshop scandal. One particular comment in particular hit a spectacularly pertinent note. Shauna Chapman of Quail By Mail, an ethical clothing company, made the point:

Every time Primark and the other sweatshop devils make a slip up it highlights proper ethical fashion. Emerging eco/ethical labels couldn’t afford this type of press otherwise as we’re not yet deserving–apparently.

And Shauna is so, so right. A small Internet startup, be it a clothes or computer games retailer, is always going to struggle to get noticed in the mainstream media when the larger high street brands have thousands of pounds to throw at advertising and PR, unless they are offering something truly unique.

Ethical clothing, or fairtrade companies for example, have an even tougher time because they are working with even smaller budgets and, until something drastic happens with shoppers’ characteristics, will not get the same amount of custom as their traditional competitors.

Should PR agencies then, have a moral obligation to help out these companies who are doing their bit to be as ethical as possible?

The PR industry gets a lot of stick for being immoral trying to dupe consumers, and there are a plethora of blogs that point out its failings.

Perhaps the CIPR could discuss with its members the possibility of doing some voluntary work for companies that are without PR represnetation who are providing a service on a small scale. This could be someone such as Quail by Mail, or perhaps an infant fair trade t-shirt manufacturer. The PR agency could do 2 hours a week of basic media out reach, funded perhaps by the CIPR or a partner organisation.

Now, there are going to be a few PRs who will think “Why should I spend my time helping out a small unheard of client who’s not paying very well?”. Er, human nature? Your conscience? But no, seriously. If the CIPR were to instigate an accredited award, perhaps that would act as a measure of how ethical your PR agency really is, instead of having the token green client, it would add some credibility to the proposal.

Do individual PR professionals have a duty to take their directors and say, ‘look, why don’t we give something back?’. Even better, why not do it on your own community, perhaps offer a helping hand to a loical charity or club that needs some PR to raise funds.

What do you think PR can do to make itself more ethical in this sense? Can PR find the time to do something akin to what I’ve suggested? I’d really appreciate your thoughts!

Russell Brand Joins Twitter – Twitterverse rejoices

Twitter has welcomed Russell Brand to the web 2.0 party to join Jonathan Ross. I dread to think what the Daily Mail will say. But more to the point, this is a shining example of how the microblogging service can bring together groups of different people who then share the same experience – of watching lines of text appear from all over the world and interacting with the person behind them

It’s very rare that ‘ordinary’ people get the opportunity to at least partly interact with people in the public eye. Andy Murray’s Twitter feed provides an interesting insight into post match thoughts for example. it is this which for which Twitter should be praised and not maligned as has been the case previously.

I wait with baited breath to see if Russell ends up having more followers than anyone yet, he currently has (as of 23:22) 2,935… more will surely come as the UK gets online tomorrow and reads about the latest edition to Twitterland.

UPDATE: Speed of the media eh, both Jack Schofield at the Guardian and DrewB were quick off the mark writing about Russell’s new adventure, what a wonderful space we interact in :)

Top 10: Where to watch Barack Obama for the Newly Politicised

Barack Obama is America’s new Commander in Chief, and possibly the most powerful man on the planet. He has engaged with social media in a way no other politician has done so far (apart from John Prescott…). So where can you keep upto date with what Barack is doing?

1) White House Blog
2) Twitter
3) Barack Obama Now
4) Barackoblogger
5) Positively Barack
6) Barack Obama.com
7) Barack at Huffington Post
8) Flickr Photostream
9) Barack Obama Community members’ blogs

Where else can you follow Barack’s goings on? What have I missed?

Twitter to raise $250 Million

According to a report on the Washington Post website, Twitter is putting together a plan to raise $250 Million following their refusal to be bullied by Facebook. Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch suggested that venture firm IVP were to be the main initial backers.

What does this mean? In short, the Twitter team need some money but want to remain independent. It also means that they’re not going to go down the route of traditional advertising on Twitter.

Twitter Search though is another story. According to Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, ‘within the next 10 days Twitter will be putting their search feature into the home pages of around 1% of member pages before rolling the feature out to everyone’ say Dot Sauce.

With Twitter’s huge recent growth and surpassing of Digg as the place to be seen, now is of course an ideal time to put out a call to arms and get some cash in the bank.

It will be interesting to see just what the raised money is spent on and how this will benefit Twitter’s millions of users.

Video of the Week: George Bush gaffe spoof

Spotify – free ad-funded music

Spotify is a Swedish ad-funded social music platform, or, you can listen to music online for free with it. You download and install the program which you have to sign up for as at the moment, Spotify is in private beta.

Once you’ve installed the program, you find yourself looking at a browser that’s a combination of Safari and iTunes. You are then free to search for as much music as you can lay your ears on and start building playlists. All of the music is hosted with Spotify so you don’t have to download any pesky MP3 files. What this means is that you are essentially building your own private Internet radio station. Or not. You can share your playlists with other Spotify users, and this is where the social element comes in.

Here’s a list of places to put your playlists…

Specifyspot.com
Spotylist.com
Spotyshare.com
Topsify.com
Listiply.com
Spotifyfriends.com
Spotifylists.com
Yourspotify.com
Spotifylist.com

Andrew Mason has posted a playlist of his ‘Top Motivational Songs’, on his blog for example.

In that spirit, here’s a playlist of songs to party to on a Saturday night…. well maybe not party, but certainly listen to.

Spotify offers three different revenue models, and this is where Spotify gets really interesting. Anyone can sign up for free and start listening to music, but every now and then there will be an advert slipped in for about 30 seconds inbetween two songs in your playlist. Now, these adverts so far cover Lady Gaga’s latest single, something or other from a health and safety executive, and a warning about nothing in particular from the government. As you can tell, they really made an impact on me. Which is great, because it means that I must be going on standby mode when the ads come on, just as I normally would when watching TV or listening to the radio.

These adverts of course, are paying for the likes of me to be able to use the service. Level 2, at 99p, gives you unlimited access to the service, without ads, for 24 hours. This is a great way to get consumers on the free service to upgrade to level 3, the Premium service which costs just under a tenner and gives you completely ad-free listening for a month at a time, plus the opportunity to invite your friends.

Spotify has a pretty good catalogue, there’s not been any artist or song that I am yet to not find – always a good sign – and the tracks that are streamed come through as high quality MP3s, bonus. the upload times are non existent as tracks change and so far (fingers crossed) it’s not crashed on me – it’s not a clunky service – and takes seconds to load up.

Definitely a 9/10 here, good to see I agree with Hypebot about something! I’m watching with baited breath to see their next move.

4 Quick Fire Questions: Jaz Cummins

Jaz Cummins

This is the final installment of a weekly four part series that asks four questions about the relationship between PR and social media in 2009. This week I’ve been lucky enough to get the thoughts of Jaz Cummins

Jaz is a specialist in digital/social media PR and SEO and works with start-ups and multinationals, across consumer, B2B and corporate communications. Jaz also acta as a consultant and practitioner to develop strategies and manage effective tactical execution for brands online to create goodwill and traffic.

I would argue that 2008 has been the year of Twitter – what do you think will be the big social media development in 2009?

Well, it’ll probably be something none of us have seen coming – which is what makes it such an exciting time and place to be working! I’m not one for making predictions but as you’re forcing me, I think I’d say the growth of two existing elements which are on my radar on a personal level:

Mobile web will continue to gather momentum with better tariffs and handsets, as people get used to the convenience and entertainment they won’t go back. It’s changing the way we shop, navigate, communicate, socialise, listen, watch and interact with brands all over again. Globally, there are going to be lots of people who mainly access the internet on their phone and don’t have it at home – which is a huge idea for us home-users to bear in mind.

SEO, I’m biased having just moved into a search team at Mindshare! But content continues to be king. There’s no point making great content, having great dialogue if no-one can find it. Couple that with the wisdom most agency’s and brands now have, to let consumers find you – or at least feel like they are, not forcing yourself on them. Savvy SEO combined with social media expertise is going to be a great asset in 2009.

What do you think is the best way for PRs and marketeers to use Twitter to build relationships with journalists?

The same way PR has always been done best – reading and knowing your media. Twitter is a new medium but the principles are the same, make sure you’re following/reading the right people, and you understand what they need, like and want – both professionally and personally. Twitter offers a fantastic opportunity to learn more about your consumers and influencers. So take an interest, then be useful, relevant and friendly when you approach them. The blessing of Twitter is that it forces you to be concise and fluff-free!

What sort of risk do you think there is of PRs being ‘forced’ to use Twitter by their clients to broadcast their messages, and will this lead to companies auto-following each other to see what they’re upto whilst the rest of us ignore them?

Haha, that is already happening I think, both the ‘forcing’ and the ‘ignoring’. No harm done if they do, like you say, it’ll mostly be ignored and people will learn to use it properly.

Last one! PR has managed to get itself into quite a tangle with bloggers this year, such as TechCrunch and Lois Whitman-Hess – what’s your top tip to PRs approaching bloggers?

Be well-read, relevant, useful, real and nice. Being nice and real builds relationships and that’s good PR.

Many thanks to Jaz for taking the time to answer these questions in this last 4QFQ. You can revisit the series by going to the 4 Quick Fire Questions page.

New toys, old ideals?

Toy brands endure. Through recessions, the toy industry is generally robust and many big names including Lego, Scalextric, Subbuteo and Hornby, will have been through the likes of the current economic downturn before.

It seems, so far, the current economic climate is having little effect on the toy industry:

Retail Traffic Index (RTI) figures for December released by Synovate Retail Performance reveal the number of non-food shopping trips made in the month was down by just 1.3 per cent on 2007 and up by a huge 33.3 per cent on November’s footfall.

Indeed, a recent report said that Lego’s sales will beat the company’s own expectations for the year of 12%,and Barbie, now 50 years old, is going to undego an aggressive marketing push.

So when I asked the Twitterverse what brands they remembered from their childhood, I was not surprised but what the responses said:

elliotpearson Lego, Playmobil, Scalextric, Micro Machines, Tomy, Play-Doh, Mattel & others I’ve reminisced about on retro sites!

simonbarker Brands from childhood would definitely include Lego, Scalextric and best not forget Transformers…Dinobots were very cool!

Galvinatwindows Big Jim and action man!

femruto starsky and hutch (car and lunchbox), Sega, Commodore64, Atari

And I would imagine that if you were to ask the same question in 20 years time, the answers would be very similar.

What these brands have done over a long perios of time, is cultivate an image of standing for something, whether it be imagination, playing together or building something from scratc, and it sticks eith you from a young age, right through until you are buying toys for your kids.

“If it was good enough for me then, it must be good enough for them now”

There are many crazes that have come and gone, from marbles and pogs, to Tamagotchis and Yugioh cards, but they’ve not endured like the other toys mentioned previously. This is because the toy industry knows that if something becomes a craze, to make as much dollar from it as possible, before the furore dies down and children move onto something else.

This is where toys come into their own – they are just that little bit more exciting – they do more ‘stuff’ and can provide hours and hours of entertainment, giving parents value for money.

Toys are in it for the long term, and will survive more recessions than many other businesses, because whatever the financial hardships families go through, escapsim for children with toys will make a parent happy and sleep a little better at night knowing that their kids are happy.