February 8, 2010

By Jenny Griffiths, Cobb PR

Valentine’s Day...a time to fleece you?

So Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us. The time when love gets its own dedicated day for PR. A time when the cynics amongst us see it as an opportunity for retailers and restaurateurs to inflate their prices in order to extract as much of our hard earned cash as they can.

The day when some women tell men it’s okay if they don’t buy them a present, but still secretly hope they’ll nip into the jewellers to purchase a Pandora bracelet that so many of us covet at the moment. Yes, us women play mind games and it’s really a test, but it keeps our men on their toes. And no, you can’t win either way!

Saying that, I’m not really worried about expensive gifts. The most romantic gesture from my now husband was when I was 16 years old and he had a heart shaped pizza delivered to me. Not an expensive gift, but to me it was so romantic.

Of course, there are times when things go wrong and we never forget them. Like when my other half had a Valentine’s doughnut delivered to my work place (I know there’s a stodgy food pattern emerging, but it’s more interesting than the standard chocolates and flowers that many men unimaginatively buy).

The only problem was, while I tried to decipher what the cryptic message accompanying the doughnut meant, the delivery man returned to tell me he’d given me the wrong doughnut... when he swapped it, the correct message made perfect sense. It was lucky I hadn’t already bitten into the first doughnut and I wasn’t impressed with the delivery chap.

Far worse than that though was one Valentine’s Day, when my colleague took his wife for a romantic meal at a posh restaurant. The main course wasn’t served until after 11pm as the restaurant couldn’t deal with the volume of people. On a key night when expectations of service are particularly high, it must have irritated most of the guests. That’s a lot of lost business as all those people tell anyone who will listen what terrible service the restaurant gave.

Are you still with me? Then it’s about time I summed up or you might not be. If you have a partner to share what the shops say is the most romantic day of the year, good luck in making the right decision when it comes to gifts and cards – and whatever you do, don’t forget February 14th. If you’re single, make the most of it and be glad you don’t have this dilemma.

January 26, 2010

By Chris Gape, Cobb PR

A ranting and a rambling – but I feel better for it

As someone who is always happy to offer an opinion, I’m wondering why I can’t decide what to write about.  Must be nerves. My blogging debut.  First time out in front of the world wide community – i'll pretend this invisible community is waiting with great expectation for this literary offering.

I was saddened last week by the death of Bill McClaren.  So many memories of cosy Saturday afternoons listening to the voice of rugby describe the old Five Nations, especially in 1980, and the Bill Beaumont Grand Slam winning team – I can still see Dusty Hare out on the touchline kicking us to victory over the Welsh.

When I think of genuine talent, those that reach the top of their profession, I can’t help but also think of the nonentities that disproportionately occupy so much time on the TV and space in newspapers and magazines.  Am I the only one that finds it  depressing that so many millions of people, spend so many millions of pounds, lapping up the most vacuous and pointless crap about so many vacuous pointless people?

Unfortunately, the term ‘PR’ often or not gets a mention when debates rage about the latest twist in the reinforced bra strap belonging to some surgically enhanced wannabe that has scored with a professional footballer.  That isn’t PR.  The world inhabited by these people is all about publicity at any cost and of any type. 

I was at a function this week and after explaining I worked in PR, the guy hosting the event felt compelled to tell me he also knew and worked with lots of famous people.  He was disappointed when I explained I didn’t. 

Cobb PR doesn’t work with anyone who boasts 44 inch plastic breasts or with ambitions to appear with cockroaches down under.  We work hard managing the reputations of businesses and organisations right across the UK to help make them a success in their particular sector. That is PR.

That well known thinker and opinion former, Andy Peters, yes, the former children’s TV presenter, did once say something that made sense.  He said that his definition of a celebrity was someone that you would pay to go to see.  I reckon that’s about right.  Test the theory out when celebrity post-mortem starts in the spring on ITV 8; would you pay to see the performing corpse in question?

January 11, 2010

It’s my birthday and I’ll whinge if I want to

By Tim Cobb, Cobb PR

I’ve now reached the commendably mature age of 47. One of my old teachers predicted I would never reach this age in life, and most of them suggested that I would certainly never mature.

One of the problems with our education system is that they focus too much on results. I was recently asked to talk to a school assembly about career options. Before I got up, the teacher introducing me told the students that GCSEs results represented their one and only chance for a decent life. Aaaagh!

There are kids who are very academic, who will go onto to attain great qualifications and embark on a deservedly strong career.

And then there are others who are not Brain of Britain at school, who don’t particularly enjoy education, but who are all too often being told they will never make anything of themselves.

So where do all these “losers” end up? While some will end up at the bottom of the socially excluded pile, many of them will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

These people will have to try a bit harder to get a good job. And when the boredom of a mundane job gets too uncomfortable for them, they will seize the moment, quit the job and try something on their own.

We all know that 95% of them will fail within about five years. But so what? The ones that survive will do well, the others will probably try again until they find their niche.

I have a meeting with my pension advisor this week. No doubt he will tell me I need to have £1 million stashed away to afford me a comfortable retirement. So when I reach 65, I am hoping one of today’s entrepreneurs will have a nice little consultancy job ready for me. Send your job offers c/o Cobb PR.

January 5, 2010

Welcome to the Teenies!

By Matt Adams, Cobb PR

The Christmas tree is shredded, the decs are boxed. It's the start of another new year, and a new decade!

And if the Noughties were eventful, the Teenies (as the coming 10 years are now being dubbed) will surely be no different.

Political commentators are already foaming at the mouth over the forthcoming General Election (tipped for May 6 this year) with the NHS and the economy likely to be the main campaigning hot potatoes.

But while Brown, Cameron and Clegg, and their town hall faithfulls, battle it out for your vote, the rest of us must focus on the challenges ahead to our own businesses.

Cobb PR faced a tough 2009 like everyone else, and 2010 will be full of new hurdles, such as the return of full-rate VAT and a sharpening of the bank manager's pencil for all those without an impeccable credit rating.

But while it still may be premature to wax lyrical about 'green shoots', here at Jolly House we are certainly seeing some light at the end of our pipeline.

We were thrilled to secure Eastbourne Borough Council as a new client in the dying moments of last year (what a great Christmas present that was!) and we hope to convert several other leads in the weeks to come. (Check the Cobb Blog for updates.)

Who ever ends up with the keys to No. 10 in May, the challenges we face in rebuilding the local business economy will remain and there will no quick return from bust to boom.

Perhaps recession is best summed up in the words of Groucho Marx, who said: "It isn’t so much that hard times are coming; the change observed is mostly soft times going."