Little Red Rooster head of content James Day
Journalists can be terribly quick to turn to Twitter when lambasting bad PR agencies, but rarely flag when they do something fantastic.
I’m not going soft, and I know I’ve got a foot in the other camp these days, but with my editor’s hat firmly on I wanted to explain the magic needed to make a great PR agency.
To answer this, I need to go back to the start of my relationship with Little Red Rooster and for once it began with a hangover instead of ending on one.
Personal relationships
After floating around celebrity journalism for a while I was keen to get back into something more serious when an opportunity arose to join the Metro features team. I convinced the editor we should cover more consumer tech and Friday’s Connect section was born.
The issue was, I had about as many contacts in the tech space as Boris Johnson has well-fitting suits, and largely living in a land before Twitter this was a problem. Not for me, I knew what I wanted to cover, but PR agencies didn’t know I existed.
Metro’s Connect section still runs every Friday
I can’t honestly remember how Little Red Rooster tracked me down, but I know it took perseverance to get me to agree to lunch. They booked somewhere lovely in London, and I was horrifically late.
To Victoria Ruffy’s credit, she was resolutely personable and professional throughout, even when it transpired, we lived five minutes apart in Berkshire and could have gone to my local. But we weren’t pals yet, and Victoria knew not to hedge her bets.
She listened as I explained how I worked and how the agency could help, then presented her clients with poise focusing on why they were better than the competition. It was just the right level of feistiness, and I’d soon come to learn this was the Little Red Rooster way.
Clare Newsome, a fellow former editor and now resident rooster, believes this approach should extend to all forms of early outreach. ”Some PROs act like your best friend when you’ve never met,” she says. “Asking questions about your weekend, for example, seems false, and reinforces journalists’ innate cynicism about PR. We’re busy, so PROs need to be professional and plan how they could be useful to us.”
So, being relentless in your pursuit, but refined in your approach, and professional as opposed to over pally forms a strong basis for what makes a great PR agency.
Plus, building personal relationships over time will always win out in the long run against blindly sending out press releases with little or no desire to cultivate meaningful connections. That kind of PR is simply not sustainable.
Clare Newsome says PRs need to be professional and always plan ahead
Understanding what makes a good story
When it comes to PR pitches, the science of storytelling can play a really important role because our brains are wired to respond to certain narratives – and it’s essentially the same structure whether you’re writing fantasy fiction or selling-in flatpack furniture.
But here’s the crux – what makes a great PR agency is understanding what makes a good story and providing journalists with all the tools to make it happen. After all, they’re the real storytellers. That doesn’t mean an agency can’t be wily enough to angle a piece the way they want it to go, as long as what they’re pitching is intelligent and relevant enough to resonate.
To Little Red Rooster’s credit, they’ve always worked to the philosophy that they have two sets of clients – brands and journalists – and a pitch has to balance what’s best for both parties, pushing back on a brand’s idea if it’s not in the best interest.
In this game, honesty that isn’t sugar-coated will always be the best policy, and a sure-fire way to gain respect from all sides. It also totally ties into the most important Little Red Rooster mantra of all: to always under promise, and over deliver.
I can’t confess to ever having a mind like an elephant, but whenever a PR sold me a dud, I always remembered, and that reputation sticks like tar in the mind of a writer.
Short on time
As part of my role at Little Red Rooster, I try to teach some of the newer members of the team about getting into the mindset of a journalist, and one of the key things to remember is they’re time poor, so how can they help mitigate that?
“Being authentic, pacy, and professional is vital in PR,” says Clare. “And please – PLEASE – have a decent selection of pictures, all in high-res, but not those insane-size TIFFs, save those for your OOH advertising and exhibitions.”
Clare is right of course; what makes a great PR agency is making sure you’ve got your act together before even reaching out to a member of the media so you can make their life as easy as possible.
This definitely extends to press trips and events too, by giving guests time, space and a decent broadband access to allow them to open their laptop and file copy if needed. There’s this thing called the internet now, where immediacy is often paramount.
Our Summer Showcase is a really good example of giving journalists what they need, all in one place, at one time, with space to get their work done. This year, it’s a takeover of The Violin Factory (the first ever Grand Designs project in London) where our client’s products are exhibited in situ as an immersive experience for the media to have a good old browse. Think of it like a ‘living magazine’.
Having been a guest numerous times as a journalist, it’s always presented a unique opportunity to get face-to-face and hands-on with the people and products that matter in a crazy short space of time and come away with a handful of decent leads.
The way Little Red Rooster presents its clients’ products in context is also another nailed-on example of knowing what makes a good story and providing journalists with the tools to make it happen.
Client products in situ at the Summer Showcase
From a journalist’s point of view, being able to write about multiple brands and products picked up at one event isn’t just useful for producing content, it helps justify a day out of the office.
As much as it was always an undeniable treat to be invited on press trips around the world, it became harder and harder to justify if it was for one brand, one product, or in some cases nothing newsworthy at all.
Seriously, I once turned down an all-expenses paid trip to New Zealand to write about The Lord of the Rings trilogy to tie in with its release on DVD. The movies, and New Zealand as a tourist destination, had been done to death in the press for the past year at least, and I made the excruciating decision that I just couldn’t justify it. It still grates.
Little Red Rooster’s solution to this kind of conundrum is to basically take the Summer Showcase on the road, packaged up as a press trip so journalists can cover multiple clients with the added colour and experience of international travel.
I can’t think of a better example than going on one of its CES trips to Las Vegas, where multiple clients pool together to cover costs. It meant we got great access to several new products, along with more dosh in the kitty for fun times in the evening!
In summation, I’ve come to learn I couldn’t do my job as a journalist without PRs and having spent time on the other side I have immense respect for the amount of work and effort that goes into what they do. It also helps if that agency has true passion for the brands they’re representing too. That makes it organic authenticity, and it rubs off on the media (even if we don’t always admit it).
I honestly think if there was an option for a week-long job swap each side would empathise far more and it would eventually be like cats and dogs finally getting on.
Overall though, the biggest compliment I can pay Little Red Rooster and the way it goes about its business is that Clare and I had no hesitation in joining the agency on its journey.
