Author: admHonWpAdm

Technology has transformed journalism much more than by simply replacing newsprint with websites. The immediacy of online publication and powerful analytics used by media outlets mean the traditional workings of a newsroom are changing quickly.

A page one story is no longer the most sought after by many newspaper reporters. Instead, they win kudos from editors for stories which meet benchmarks for online engagement – in the same way as reporters at digital-only publications.

These real-time analytics mean there’s no longer any doubt about which topics resonate most with an audience: granular data is often likely to determine the daily news agenda as much an editor’s gut instinct.

That’s why, for example, property stories continue to dominate local news coverage: click rates indicate it’s a topic in demand.

Some media can use colour coded systems to distinguish between items that attract readers and those topics that go largely unread, with stories ranked from “green” for the best read through to “red” for those that fail to gain traction.

Journalists can also be recognised for content which generates a new subscription – a customer journey which can now be tracked by the systems used by media companies.

Why it matters

For clients seeking press coverage, the implications of this shift are significant. Editors who focus on data can adjust websites to elevate stories generating traffic and relegate those generating no interest to the dark recesses of a site.

Giving a journalist a story which falls into the latter category is a sure way to limit your chances of successfully engaging the reporter on that same topic again, let alone generate meaningful exposure for your organisation. So, perhaps even more than before, it’s critical to know the elements of a good story:

• A clear, sharp angle
• A topic that resonates with a broad audience
• Credible evidence to back it all up

Here are some other observations worth considering in a media relations strategy, or even your own organisation’s content:

• Puns are out: Headlines of old based on clever word plays are less common. Today’s headlines are very literal and often short, perhaps because search engine optimisation is as much at play at news outlets as elsewhere. Journalists now often write their own headlines, unlike the past when sub-editors performed that role. And headlines may be changed if early traffic for a story doesn’t meet expectations.
• Speed is key: The 24/7 news cycle means media comment needs to be delivered swifter than ever to get published – often within the hour (so forward planning is key if you want to comment on an upcoming event).
• Remember trade press: The fact a story fails to generate clicks at a mainstream publication may simply mean that it’s targeted at the wrong audience. The financial trade press continues to give industry players a strong voice that reaches a dedicated readership.
• Newsletters extend reach: Many news outlets wrap up regular coverage in newsletters to which readers subscribe by choice. More popular stories are included in these newsletters, which increases the chances of a story reaching the target audience. The Australian Financial Review, for example, has around 20 newsletters including Inside Property, Carbon Challenge, Wealth Generation and Before the Bell. The ABC’s weekly Your Money Explained newsletter is another example that directly targets readers with financial content.
• Not clickbait: Relying on reader analytics doesn’t necessarily equate to clickbait. Authoritative and thoughtful comment remains in high demand for business news.

Media companies differ in their application of the above principles but the broad trend is evident.

Honner has strong relationships with mainstream media and the financial press that gives us a front row seat to the changing media landscape. To discuss any of the above in further detail please contact zoe@honner.com.au

Honner CEO Philippa Honner met Future IM/Pact founder Yolanda Beattie nearly 20 years ago when she was a client working at Macquarie Bank. The pair forged a firm friendship after Yolanda ran Honner for a year in 2010, allowing Philippa to take maternity leave. Today the friendship includes working together to support the drive for more women in front-line investment roles.

Future IM/Pact is an industry initiative aimed at attracting more diverse talent into the investment teams of fund managers and super funds – many of whom partner with the program to foster emerging female investment talent. 

Q: Yo – Congratulations. Future IM/Pact has been going for more than five years now and is stronger than ever! What was the initial impetus to set the business up? 

A: I was part of the investor working group of the 30% Club, which was formed to advocate for more women on boards. The asset owner and manager CEOs and CIOs around the table acknowledged the challenge of getting their largely all male teams to effectively challenge board chairs on the topic given they weren’t doing much about it themselves. That sparked my curiosity that led to me galvanising industry to research the issue, and that research led to industry supporting the creation of Future IM/Pact. 

Q: In my 25 years working with local and global asset managers, I can count my engagement with frontline women investors on one, maybe two, hands.. What progress have you seen since you first started talking with asset managers and superfunds about the lack of women on investment teams? 

A: There has been significant progress in attracting more women at the grassroots level and a determined commitment from many leaders to recruit senior women too. Because there are still relatively few women in those senior roles, one fund’s gain is another fund’s loss with all fundies fishing from the same shallow pool. Our original research found women are 50% more likely than men to leave at the senior analyst level and up to 30% less likely to be promoted. That’s why more effort is needed to support, develop and promote women through the pipeline.

Q: You worked at WGEA as well as Mercer prior to establishing Future IM/Pact – how do the recent WGEA stats on the gender pay gap in Australia reflect on our investment and super sector? 

A: Published gender pay gaps reflect the power gap in organisations where men dominate the highest paying jobs and women are more concentrated in lower paying roles. Addressing these pay gaps require funds to evolve their cultures and practices so that more women can thrive in jobs they love as their family responsibilities and interests evolve. I’m happy to say the policies today are now best practice. The change must now come from every single portfolio manager and people leader connecting with the individual needs of women in their teams and asking what support they need to manage these competing interests, while helping them chart a path to more senior, decision-making roles. 

Q: You have some new research coming out soon that tracks gender composition and talent mobility within Australian investment teams – can you give us some hints on trends you are seeing? 

A: Our Gender Data Report, run in conjunction with Mercer, updates the foundationalresearch I ran when working at Mercer in 2017 which tracks composition, appointment, promotion and exit rates of women and men across 9 levels, broken down by organisation and role type. This granularity reveals where women are thriving across the industry and what pockets remain heavily male dominated.

We’re still collecting the workforce data so I don’t have full visibility yet – but I have completed about a dozen qualitative interviews and can say the super funds are doing the heavy lifting to create cultures where women feel equally valued and heard. Asset managers have world-best practices, and the embrace of flexibility/hybrid working has been a game changer – however the more hypermasculine culture in these teams is a turnoff for women who feel they have to fight so much harder than their male peers for recognition.

Q: What’s the biggest hurdle investment teams talk about when it comes to hiring more women? 

A: Finding them. Or more specifically, convincing them to leave their current employer. That takes more effort and a commitment to build a culture where women can see themselves being supported and challenged in all the good ways.

Q: As we both know – there are lots of smart and decent people in investment management who want to build diverse investment teams that deliver the best outcomes. What is your advice to those team leaders looking to improve diversity? 

A: It really comes down to a bespoke approach to every single hire and every single team member. And that doesn’t just apply to women – it’s relevant to men too, especially if you want to hire men who are different from your current crop of talent. That’s because this is a human issue more than it is a women’s issue. 

I encourage leaders to deeply connect with how they need to change and evolve to bring out the best in others, knowing that we all show up in ways that inhibit others fulfilling their potential, often unconsciously. Doing the work to discover and shift these blind spots is essential for building the curiosity, humility and humanity that great leaders are made of. 

Future IM/Pact is a pro-bono client of Honner. For more information go to Future IM/Pact.

“Seeing is believing” is more than just a cliché. Humans are highly visual creatures. That makes video a powerful tool to engage an audience and communicate ideas. Research from Brightcove found more than half of all consumers and 66% of millennials reported engaging with a brand after viewing a video on social media. As businesses catch on to the medium’s potential, video has become the most commonly used format in content marketing, overtaking blogs and infographics.

During COVID-19, this trend is accelerating. The amount of time people spend online is surging and much of what they are consuming is video. A Nielsen study reveals a 60% increase in the video content watched globally. During these challenging times, the power of video to forge emotional connections makes it a valuable tool for building trust, strengthening relationships, and providing guidance to customers and investors – who are hungry for information, analysis, and reassurance.

At Honner, we partner with videographer Theo Fatseas to produce highly effective videos for our clients. The Honner team will help with the planning and scripting of your video and make sure you get your messaging right. Our experienced hosts can showcase the expertise of your spokespeople in on-screen interviews. And because we know appearing onscreen can be daunting, we offer digital media training, so you always look and sound your best. The filming and editing are handled by Theo, who delivers high production values and employs sophisticated film-making techniques to engage and connect with your target audience.

Theo is a former documentary maker who now produces corporate videos, including for the Livewire Markets platform, and is therefore a great fit for our financial services clients who want to reach out to their customers and investors with high quality visual content.  In this Q&A with Honner, Theo shares some insights on making compelling videos that resonate with audiences.

What elements of documentary making do you bring to your videos?

My experience as a documentary maker has given me an appreciation of the importance of authenticity and realism. When I look down the lens, I can tell if a person needs more direction, or if we need a second take. I can put myself in the shoes of the audience.

Another big part of it is understanding story structure. Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. When I’m filming, and when I’m piecing the video together during the editing phase, I’m keenly aware of the need to create a hook at the start to capture the audience and give people a taste of what they are about to see. Then you have the main body of the story, your Act 2, where you flesh out the concepts you introduced at the start. Act 3 is the closing – now that I’ve told you all this, what does it mean for the audience?

After a lifetime of conditioning from watching films and TV, people expect to be engaged. They want and expect the hook. They want to be invested in a video. If those boxes are not ticked, then you are making them do extra work.

Do you have any tips on what speakers can do to ensure a good onscreen performance?

Your performance on camera can mean the difference between being engaged and genuine or being boring and contrived. It’s a good idea to get some media training if you’re not experienced. You want to present as if you are talking to a person in a natural conversation.  While filming, actively imagine you are talking to a person one-on-one.

Is shorter always better?                         
                                                                  
When we started doing videos for LiveWire, the target length was 2-3 minutes. Now some go to 18 minutes. It depends on the content and how engaging it is. Mobile devices mean people can watch anytime so keeping it short isn’t as important anymore.

Longer videos don’t get watched during work hours – people will watch them during personal time. This suits videos that are made for a general audience.

A long video can be engaging if it has stock footage and attention to story structure, and a great, succinct presenter. An 18-minute video we made for Livewire Markets during the GFC went viral because it was very dramatic and talked about financial markets being on the brink of collapse.

How long does it take to produce a video?

It depends on the video. For an “About Us” style video, production would take a few weeks from the time of filming. A straight interview can be turned over in 24 hours. Something super urgent can be shot and edited on the premises, which is sometimes necessary with crisis management videos such as during COVID-19.

How are you operating during COVID?

I have been doing a lot of shooting in people’s homes. Some people are supplying me with video shot on iPhone or Zoom and asking me to edit it, but in terms of quality, you can’t beat old school camera and microphone. I’m now starting to return to shooting on location in the city.

If you’d like more information on using video to engage and communicate with your customers and enhance your brand, contact us at honner@honner.com.au

It’s not an easy time to be a journalist.

On the one hand, newsrooms are busier than ever, with reporters working frantically to cover the developing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on people, the economy and markets.

At the same time, the lockdown has not only forced them to rethink the way they work but also continued to put more pressure on an industry that was already being dramatically impacted by digital disruption. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact our society at large, it is challenging media outlets both big and small and resulting in the loss of more journalist jobs as ad revenues continue to fall.

At Honner, we wanted to get a clear idea of how the lockdown has impacted Australia’s financial journalists, in particular, as they face the pressure of keeping up with the escalating pace of economic, market and corporate news from their loungerooms.
We wanted to know how journalists are coping, where they need help, and what their priorities are during this exceptional time.
 
So, we asked. In May, Honner surveyed a national database of active reporters from across the trade and mainstream financial press. Here’s what we found:

The news cycle is speeding up
 
More than 80% of respondents said they have been busier and working harder since the impacts of COVID-19 took hold in Australia in March.

A key pressure has been filing stories quickly as financial markets reel from daily COVID-19 news—made more difficult by the fact journalists are working in isolation.

People are worried about their jobs

Journalists also reported growing concerns around job security, with 60% saying they were much more concerned, or more concerned, about the security of their role.
 
Over the past three months, several newsrooms have closed permanently, and dozens of other mastheads have suspended operations, resulting in hundreds of staff being laid off or stood down.

Other journalists are feeling the brunt of cutbacks, including pay cuts, forced leave and reduced hours as the pandemic causes a sharp fall in advertising revenue in an already fractured media landscape.

They want insights – and it’s not all about COVID-19
 
When asked about the most important assistance market commentators could provide right now, journalists ranked news insights as number one, followed by research data to support story angles and ‘getting back to me quickly’.
 
Nearly 80% of respondents said they are not under pressure to deliver a COVID-19 angle for every story, but rather are looking for a more diverse range of stories.
 
The top areas of interest for financial reporters included investment strategies to navigate markets, the impact of COVID-19 on sectors such as superannuation, property and financial advice, and Australia’s economic environment.
 
Virtual story-gathering – from home
 
While working in isolation presented some difficulties, such as not being in a newsroom environment and not being able to interview people face to face, many respondents said working from home had proved less stressful. Thirty per cent of respondents said they didn’t miss the commute to work and 25% liked being able to work at their own pace and time of day.
 
A substantial 70% of respondents said they would prefer to continue working more days from home as social distancing measures eased.
 
In terms of changed work practices, the majority of journalists have embraced virtual news gathering as a new reality under lockdown. More than three quarters of respondents (78%) said they would like to attend more virtual briefings and nearly half (48%) said they would like to connect virtually with more offshore spokespeople to discuss events across global markets.
 
Virtual briefings should be short and snappy however, with nearly 4 in 5 respondents (79%) suggesting 30 minutes as the right timeframe for a briefing, and 21% suggesting 60 minutes. Twenty per cent of respondents said they would look to use video interview footage from briefings for broadcast purposes.
 
When asked about various ways they’d like to virtually connect for media interviews the humble telephone call remained the preferred method for an interview (68%), while 55% of journalists also chose written email comments as an option and 41% were happy to interview via Zoom.
 
Audiences are up
 
One of the positive factors that came out of our survey was that audiences are up. Nearly 50% of respondents said their audience numbers were up by greater than 20%. Twenty per cent of respondents said audiences were up more than 50%.
 
The whipsawing of financial markets in recent months has added to the financial worries of investors and savers across the country, and they have been thirsty for information.
 
With ongoing economic uncertainty, the pressure remains on financial journalists to deliver news and explain the impacts to everyday Australians, as well as those working across Australia’s substantial financial sector.
 
What this means for financial services brands
 
COVID-19 has dramatically changed the way brands engage and communicate – with media, but also with other stakeholders such as employees, customers and the industry at large.
 
In times of uncertainty, effective and timely communications is more important than ever. And with social distancing in place, we now need to do that differently.
 
To help clients cut through, Honner has partnered with a number of leading providers to help our firms deliver their message through visual digital platforms: engagement that is efficient, cuts through and is personable.
 
For a copy of our Business as (un)usual during COVID-19 – Engaging in a time of uncertainty deck or further insight from our journalist survey, please contact me on paul@honner.com.au or 0427 755 296.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed every aspect of our lives, and this has been especially true for the media, who have been working round the clock like any other front-line essential worker.

With everything else around the world practically coming to a standstill, the news cycle has picked up pace, buzzing with demand for trusted, timely and relevant information like never seen before.

Journalists have rapidly pivoted to remote guests, phone interviews and socially distanced press conferences. The speed and intensity of the crisis has also created wall-to-wall COVID-19 coverage, as every sector of the economy has been impacted.

This also created a shift in the working relationships of journalists and PR professionals as everyone was effectively adapting to the new normal.

I was fortunate enough to hear from Erin Bouda (Supervising Producer at Weekend Today), Michelle Stephenson (National News Director at Nova) and Aleks Vickovich (Wealth Editor at the AFR) as they discussed the media landscape in the new normal of COVID-19 in a recent PRIA webinar.

Below are my key take outs from this insightful session to help friends in the PR industry (and brands) understand the new best practice in working with print, broadcast and radio journalists, as well as what the future looks like for journalism after the crisis passes.

“Change is the only constant”

Greek philosopher Heraclitus couldn’t be more accurate when he said this. As the situation escalated in Australia and WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, news changed, plans changed, narratives changed, graphics changed, work and travel arrangements changed. Everything changed.

News bulletins were renamed as COVID bulletins, breaking news was scheduled for every 15 minutes instead of twice a day, and newsrooms were transformed to ‘home sweet newsroom’.

As the journalists in the webinar said, “who knew we can pull together a full newspaper or co-host a national breakfast show from home?”

Recognising that people are spending so much time in their homes due to social distancing restrictions, radio adapted quickly and started promoting their content available via smart devices such as Apple podcasts, Spotify etc.

In addition to the public health coverage, the economic reporting became equally important as a 10-year bull run in the stock markets came to a halt and various stimulus packages from the Government started to roll over, including the early release of super.

Opportunity for PR: Adapt or leave

All journalists in the webinar were unanimous in their opinion that the PR agencies and consultants who were agile enough to adapt quickly to this crisis, came off very well for their clients.

“It’s all about gauging the shifting appetite and the relationships you can tap into,” they said.

My understanding of the media’s expectation of PRs is to go through two self-assessment filters before pitching their clients or stories during this crisis.

#1: Is this what people want to watch / read / wake up to / care about today?

While the journalists admitted to their COVID-19 reporting fatigue, they also confirmed COVID-19 stories continue to attract the highest traffic and engagement from their audiences. So your pitch still needs to be relevant and pivot back to the pandemic.

Perhaps not so much on what has already happened, but more about planning life on the other side of this crisis.

#2: Is my spokesperson equipped to talk about this topic?

A one-size-fits-all approach may not be appropriate, as all companies and spokespersons are not thought leaders on a crisis. Experts that are reliable, and have relevant data and projections, or have made positive changes to their business should be unleashed as it’s their time to shine. If they don’t’ fit any of these criteria, don’t encourage them to speak outside their area of expertise.

Another evergreen best practice that is particularly relevant now is to present your pitch in the format that makes sense and saves time for the journalists who are already time-poor. For example, when pitching to radio, attach ready-to-use audio grabs to make it easier for the journalist and avoid all the back and forth in a rapidly evolving news environment. For television, if your client has previously spoken on TV or YouTube, feel free to share those clips to give the producer a sense of their talent.  

Broadcast journalists also admitted that due to virtual systems, expectations of quality have dropped in some cases. While this holds true for video interviews (mostly held over Zoom or Skype), audio grabs still need to have top sound quality.

In print media, however, readership has doubled for leading publications as they have attracted new digital subscribers. There is no question of compromise on the news quality to ensure new readers are engaged.

Lastly, while it’s easy to assume that since journalists are working from home, they’re more open to interviews, you might want to reconsider. They are under a lot of pressure and anything you can do to ease that pressure will go a long way in building a long-term relationship of trust.

“It is heartening to see people re-engaging with media sources again, and transparent reporting of how this crisis is affecting everyone, including us, has generated goodwill for the media,” the webinar ended on a warm and fuzzy note.

Honner will soon release a survey of Australian journalists looking at their experience of working during COVID-19.

I’ve decided to start this blogpost with a cranky headline. Much like Dr Bruce Banner before turning into The Hulk in the first Avengers movie, I will also let you in on my secret: despite not showing it, I am always angry… whenever I hear someone call news coverage “a great outcome”. It’s not… And calling it that can cause us to drift away from our objectives.

Don’t get me wrong, favourable news coverage does make me happy, especially whenever my team and I have been working hard to attain this. My point is the outcome of our PR strategy and activities – the actual communication outcome – is something that can’t be seen in any news coverage analysis. Positive coverage does not automatically mean positive reputation. That is a far-fetched assumption, especially if we’re only looking at earned media to asses reputation. To understand the outcomes of our campaigns, we must look beyond.

To begin with, communication happens not when news is published or advertising is displayed, but when our target market reads or listens to what we say or is said about us, and when they understand, accept or respond to the stories that involve us. Likewise, it also happens when we listen, understand, accept or respond to the messages from our target audience – that is, if we accept the notion of stakeholder capitalism. 

But even if we are still passionately attached to the old paradigm of shareholder capitalism, where the sole role of PR is to persuade a target market to think or act in a desired way about a brand or product, the real communication outcome can mostly be observed through market research, using techniques such as surveys, focus groups and in-depth interviews, among others, not by running news coverage analyses and making fancy-looking graphs with the clips achieved.

This approach to measurement and evaluation has been proposed by the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) since the publication of the Barcelona Principles in 2010 (updated in 2015), and more recently, with the appearance in 2016 of the Integrated Communications Measurement Framework. The framework distinguishes between Objectives (SMART ones), Output (our story and messages communicated to our target audience), Out-takes (immediate reaction of our audience and information recall of a story, organisation or product) and Outcomes (effects in the attitudes, opinion and behaviour of our audience towards a story, organisation or product). At least a version of this is worth considering for structuring an integrated communications program or campaign.



Let’s go back for a minute to the fancy-looking graphs. To clarify, these graphs with news coverage segmented by prominence, favourability, audience, reach, themes, message cut-through, visual impact, etc. do have a role, an important one even. They help us to stir a program in different directions if needed, and they might even be useful for generating KPIs. But if we’re aiming to have in place a sound strategy across all media with measurable communication objectives that can aid the organisation’s business goals, it’s critical to consider news coverage for what it is – which is, output, not outcome.

It’s also important to note for anyone that made it this far down in this cranky blogpost that a clear taxonomy of concepts is not an end in itself. The ultimate benefit of referring to news coverage for what it is is that it allows us to look at the big picture, which is first and foremost, our communication objectives. What is it that we’re trying to do? Is it increasing brand awareness among a specified segment of the market from 10% to 15% in the next 12 months? Is it to replace A for B as the most associated brand attribute, assuming A will help the organisation to increase leads or conversions? Is it to decrease from 20% to 15% the percentage of people who are currently not considering buying our products in the near future? Is it to lower from 60% to 20% in three years the amount of people with a specific misperception about our organisation and its services? All these are examples of the right questions to ask whenever communicational objectives are discussed and agreed on in writing.

Only once these communication objectives have been achieved, can we truly say that our integrated program across all media teams has jointly achieved a “very good outcome”.