Creating an integrated PR plan

Charlie Laidlaw is a director of David Gray PR and a partner in Laidlaw Westmacott.

There’s nothing worse than random marketing, with confused (and confusing) messages being squirted out without any thought to the recipient, your potential customer.

The best marketing and PR strategies are carefully crafted to communicate a small number of core messages, and to then reinforce those messages by repetition.

The fact is that, once upon a time, it used to be that people needed products to survive – a loaf of bread, some vegetables, a bit of meat.

Now, it’s the other way around.  Products need people to survive.  In a business context, and in a market economy, companies need customers to survive – in other words, marketing and sales.

So far, so obvious.  Less obvious is that the marketing and PR landscape has changed out of all recognition, with the internet and social media adding a multitude of new promotional dimensions.   The need for integrated PR strategies has never been greater.

Here are some thoughts on building a successful PR strategy.

Objectives

The longest journeys start with the first step.  However, you also don’t set out on a journey without knowing where you want to go.  That’s the first rule of marketing and PR: defining what you want to achieve, on a quarterly basis – whether that’s to develop the brand, position the company with its buying markets, drive traffic to your website or generate enquiries.  Clear objectives give you something to aim for, measure success, and better determine what could be done better.

Strategy

Strategy is the glue that binds everything together.  It defines an overall approach, rather than the nuts and bolts.  Clear objectives provide the finishing line; strategy is broadly how you intend to reach it.  A good strategy will articulate brand and corporate personality, ethics and values – in other words a cohesive framework within which marketing tactics easily fit.

Messages

The central element in any successful marketing strategy is information.  We need to provide potential customers with the essential facts to buy our product rather than someone else’s.

Yet that’s precisely the central element that a great many firms fail to recognise in devising marketing or promotional campaigns.  The information that customers need to make that buying decision is confused by poor messaging or corporate techno-babble.

Indeed, some firms’ corporate communications are so full of technical information to be impenetrable.  Time after time, I see corporate literature or websites that convey huge amounts of information that the firm thinks it should communicate - but not the essential information that the potential customer wants to hear.

Strategy + Messages = Content

In the buyer-led world, content is king.  You need to attract the right customers and lead them through each stage of the sales cycle.  Creating that great content and placing it where buyers are looking doesn’t happen by accident.  It takes a good content strategy, research and expertise – and making sure you show up on search engines.

By aligning your published content with your potential customers’ needs, you will naturally attract inbound traffic that you can convert.  It merely involves distilling key facts and figures and promoting corporate and product information online and offline in ways that potential customers will find digestible.

Integration

Social media and the internet have allowed for a new kind of information flow, one in which we can all participate – from creating a regular blog to posting on Facebook, publishing video content on YouTube or sharing images on Instagram – not to mention Twitter, Google+ and rest of the social media universe.

It’s a new kind of information democracy in which we are all publishers.  It has allowed us to replace old outbound “push” marketing with inbound marketing to pull people towards our companies.

That takes great content that is appropriate to your customers and a well-crafted PR strategy to ensure consistency of tone and content across platforms.  The absolute need for integration has never been greater.

Do you have an integrated PR strategy?

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery.  You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+.

Image courtesy of Frank Tschokert

Machiavelli and a PR dimension

Charlie Laidlaw is a director of David Gray PR and a partner in Laidlaw Westmacott.

The issue of PR and its influence on the media is never far away, the underlying concern being that PR either distorts the truth or blatantly hides it.

It’s a continuing debate about ethics, and the extent to which public relations should be completely open and transparent.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ethics as “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity.”

Moral principles are themselves about defining good and evil, right and wrong, but the real question is – to what extent is PR the servant of absolute truth, or the servant of those who pay for the service?

The Roman orator Cicero made the point that public relations mainly operates to benefit those who commission it.  (A great blog on Cicero and PR from Paul Seaman can be found here).

More recently, Joe Haines, Harold Wilson’s press guru, remarked that PR people have to be economical with the truth and sometimes “have to dispense with it altogether.”

In the UK, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) has a code of ethics that sets out comprehensive principles and guidelines, grounding the PR profession into a framework that clearly delineates right from wrong.  The International PR Association extends ethics internationally.

But moral frameworks only take us so far.  For example, how does a PR deal with a client’s poor financial results?  Is it unethical to focus on exceptional restructuring costs or international market conditions to try and divert attention away from underlying problems?

The uncomfortable fact is that there is a thin line between truth and falsehood, and an even thinner one between truth and half-truth.  That vacuum is filled with omission and spin – the subtle art of saying nothing or deliberate obfuscation.  It’s what clients want (sometimes), PRs (often) deliver, and the media (always) expects.

Perhaps the worst example of a downright lie happened in 1990, when a volunteer nurse in Kuwait claimed that she’d seen Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators, at a time when President Bush was being urged to take military action against Saddam Hussein who had invaded the oil-rich country.

It was reminiscent of the U-boat sinking of the RMS Lusitania in World War One, which helped to propel the USA into the conflict.

Except that the nurse’s testimony was a fabrication.  She was, in fact, a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family.  America took military action, and Saddam was expelled from Kuwait.

Her testimony was, of course, unethical; so too the activity of PRs who promulgated it.  However, the really tricky Machiavellian question is: did the means justify the end?  Was the West right to take military action?  Were all the deaths worth it?  Was kicking out one dictator to restore another dictator a good thing?

From a Kuwaiti perspective, yes.  From a Western perspective, no.  Truth might be the first casualty of war, but a lie is never a good justification for war.

In the scales of ethical balance, it’s worth noting that there are now many more PRs than journalists.  Chuck in constantly-evolving websites, blogs, forums and social media and ethical questions proliferate.  As Mark Twain remarked: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

In other words, in a news landscape where the media are following target individuals, companies and organisations on Facebook or Twitter, there are no longer any clear boundaries to where PR begins or ends or, therefore, codes of ethics that apply to everyone.

However, I remain sanguine about the role that PR plays in our society, and of the professionalism of the media to see through flim-flam and the fog of spin.  In a democratic society, we have the right to voice our opinions, sometimes bend the truth – but, hopefully, never, never lie.

The conduct of PR in liberal democracies might not be perfect, but compare that to some other regimes around the world, where PR and propaganda have entirely replaced an independent press and media.

According to one estimate, 1.6 billion people – over 20% of the world’s population – have no say in how they’re governed, and can face extreme consequences if they try to kick the system.

Take Syria.  The Syria Times is currently running with a “story” that suggests that “the recent US Israeli escalation against Syria after the failure of their successive sinister attempts…explains the real objectives of the US Zionist project in the region.”  Really?

Or North Korea’s Rodong Sinmum newspaper which this month carried an article extolling the publication of supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s work, “Let Us Brilliantly Accomplish the Revolutionary Cause of Juche, Holding Kim Jong Il in High Esteem as the Eternal General Secretary of Our Party.”

Snappy title, and I won’t bore you with the newspaper’s fawning coverage that makes reading a telephone directory seem interesting.  Suffice to say, I would rather live in a free country than in the shadowland that is Pyongyang.

Maybe PRs and the media should try to get on a bit better, or recognise that creative tension and differing agendas are pivotal to press freedom and public accountability.  I could, of course, be quite wrong but, for moral and ethical reasons, would never say so publicly.

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery.  You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+.

Modern messaging and killing the messenger

Charlie Laidlaw is a director of David Gray PR and a partner in Laidlaw Westmacott.

King Boabdil, the 15th century king of Grenada, didn’t much like the news that a city had fallen to his enemies. So he had the messenger killed.

It wasn’t the first time that the bearer of bad news had got the blame, or the last. The origins of the phrase, killing the messenger, goes back to Sophocles and Plutarch.

Nowadays, we’re a bit more civilised and make clear distinctions between the message and the messenger, although we’d all prefer to be the bringer of glad tidings.

But getting the message right remains the single most important part of PR and marketing strategy, communicating what your company stands for and what its products and services do.

Getting it right can be a deceptively simple exercise, but in an age of social media and instant communications everything is about perception, good or bad.

The basic rules, however, are simple enough.

Define the benefits that your company or product delivers, and develop a number of key messages that underline your business strategy.

It’s about brand vocabulary and developing a corporate proposition that is uniquely yours, and which also helps with SEO strategy – getting those words and phrases seeded onto the internet

is much, much more than a marketing bolt-on. The business guru Tom Peters has said that, “In a competitive environment, only those who have a strong unified message, who create and sell quality and value, will survive.

”Developing those words and phrases involves delving into the heart and soul of your company, not just the nuts and bolts of your product or service: what do you want customers to feel about you?

In that sense, a clear message strategy is also a psychological strategy: it’s about using whatever means to get inside your customer’s head, and better understanding the touch points that generate sales.

(Hardly surprising that the “father of PR” Edward Bernays was also closely related to the ”father of psychiatry” Sigmund Freud. No coincidence, surely).

However, some aspects of messaging are becoming more complex. For example, consumers now respond more quickly to brand messages when they appear on their phones – rather than desktops or other mobile devices.

The reason is that we see our phone as uniquely ours, and that messages that appear on it have a stronger psycho-cognitive emotional appeal. Putting that into English, messages on our phones are more personal and, therefore, to be trusted.

Lesson one: if you haven’t optimised your website for mobile, go to it.

Largely, messaging is about plain old common sense – with a large dollop of research and brutal honesty. We may think we know what customers think about us, or our products, but do we?

Lesson two: don’t assume.

Then it’s about communicating those messages in ways that engage with customers, using whatever platforms are most appropriate – from newsletters to traditional media, from social media to…well, the list goes on and on.

Lastly, it’s all about context; ensuring your message is heard on an appropriate platform at a time when your potential customers are likely to be receptive.

In conclusion, a true story.

A busker starts playing his violin in a Washington DC metro station at the height of the morning rush hour, and in the course of 40 minutes makes just over $30 – not a bad return.

Of the 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen. Most were late for work or thinking about the day ahead. A busker with a violin they could do without. When he finished playing, there was no applause.

Except that it was stunt dreamed up by the Washington Post. The busker was Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world, and he was playing a 1713 Stradivarius worth $3.5 million.

Many of those who passed by would have paid huge sums to hear him play, but in a familiar context at a familiar time of day. In a busy morning metro station, he was therefore someone to be ignored.

Which does, I suppose, underline aspects of messaging strategy. We might have the best message in the world, in support of the best products or services, but if we communicate those messages in the wrong way, at the wrong time, who will be listening?

Hopefully, not King Boabdil.

The independence referendum: the importance of SMEs

The referendum debate is picking up speed, with heavy guns being deployed on both sides.

Would Scottish independence be a good thing? The airlines and some parts of the manufacturing sector say yes. The oil industry and financial services take an opposite view.

The debate so far has largely been confined to the biggest issues, voiced by business leaders representing the biggest companies in Scotland. But as the date for the referendum comes closer, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Scotland’s economy is heavily dependent on the small business sector, and they are as much affected by tax or fiscal uncertainties as anyone else.

The country may need oil and financial services for its tax revenues, but employment and business growth is largely being fuelled at the other end of the economic spectrum.

The statistics are compelling. Levels of unemployment in Scotland are falling, employment rising, and there are now some 340,000 small businesses in Scotland. That’s the highest number since records began.

To put that in perspective, over 30,000 Scottish businesses registered with Companies House in 2013. In 2012, it was 25,500; in 2011, 24,000; in 2010, 20,700. It’s a trend we should all welcome.

This is borne out in a recent report, the UK Startup Ecosystems Report, which ranks Britain’s entrepreneurial ecosystems. Scotland comes out extremely well – ranked fourth, reflecting its high business birth rate and low business death rate.

The report, essentially, is a guide to the best places in the UK to start a business, and is based on a number of criteria – for example, business birth rates, unemployment rates and the number of businesses per 10,000 adults. Scotland came after the south east, London and the east.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) quotes Scottish government statistics to show that small and medium-sized enterprises now account for 99% of all Scottish businesses and for over half of all private sector employment.

The FSB also recently said that Scotland’s SMEs need support from banks, the government and utility firms if the sector’s recovery is to gain momentum this year. Tellingly, the FSB also said that both sides of the Yes/No debate needed to make a more compelling case to SMEs on the benefits of unity or separation.

It’s a point noted by the Yes campaign which is promising simplification of the tax system and a slashing of red tape for small enterprises – as well, of course, the benefits of having control of VAT: targeting tax breaks for the likes of the tourism and hospitality sectors.

However, many of those proposals don’t need independence. For example, the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Bill which was voted into law earlier this year, is intended to improve the way that regulation affects Scottish businesses while encouraging sustainable growth. It’s a good bit of legislation, overwhelmingly supported by the Scottish parliament, and a good example of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought in the constitutional debate.

However, for most voters, the referendum debate has become bogged down in what BA or BP says; whether Scotland can (or should) retain the £; and whether we will be granted early membership of the EU. 

These are, of course, huge and important issues. But we have to remember that Scotland is a patchwork of many thousands of companies, working across the business spectrum – many of them dependent on UK or export trade; others on international collaboration.

Scotland’s economy, in a digital age, has been transformed: from medical research to renewables; from gaming to computer software: again underlining Scotland’s proud history of innovation. Would independence be a benefit or a hindrance for those high-growth sectors?

Rather, then, than have the independence debate shaped by RBS or Standard Life, it is the SME sector that politicians and the media should be listening to. Should be, but aren’t.

The trouble, of course, is that it’s not easy for a small business to speak up, let alone make its voice heard. That’s where the likes of the FSB, Chambers of Commerce and other representative bodies are so important.

The small business sector is the Scottish business sector. What happens to it will have a much greater impact on Scottish employment and economic health than many big Scottish employers put together.

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery. You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844024 or michael@laidlawwestmacott.com

Crisis communications and the search for MH370

The search for MH370 continues, with possible debris spotted in the water, but with factual information either patchy or non-existent.

It has become the Marie Celeste of the 21^st century – a modern mystery of horrific proportions, with 239 passengers and crew onboard, and played out in real-time across the world’s media.

In the absence of absolute proof that the flight did crash, relatives continue to cling to the tenuous hope that the plane might somehow have landed safely, in an echo of the TV series Lost.

It has created a poisonous brew of distrust and grief, with police ejecting relatives from press conferences and a protest march in Beijing – something almost unheard of.

But how well, or otherwise, has Malaysian Airlines coped with the aftermath, in a febrile atmosphere where nothing is quite as it seems?

Certainly, the immediate aftermath was handled badly, with media briefings providing only sketchy information, sometimes contradictory, and spokespeople not answering questions.  That allowed speculation to run riot: from dodgy passengers on stolen passports, to the pilots’ political affiliations.

The Daily Telegraph in an early editorial described the PR response as a “masterclass in how not to deal with the aftermath of an incident.”  That reached its nadir when a civil aviation chief described two suspect passengers as resembling Italian footballer Mario Balotelli.

But much of that criticism should be directed at the Malaysian government, and not the airline which, in my view, has done rather well, from issuing a relatively prompt first press release to “darkening” its website and social media channels – removing all content that could be considered frivolous or insensitive, and announcing that the flight codes MH370 and MH371 would be retired.

Its social media response has also shown empathy.  Two Tweets sum up the approach.  “For the families involved, every minute is like an hour.  Please keep them in your thoughts as we continue to search for MH370…”  Or, “We would like to humbly ask all Malaysians and people around the world to pray for flight MH370…”

The airline has tried to follow the Triple R of crisis communications – regret, reason and remedy – but has been hampered by contradictory “facts” entering the public arena, fuelled by innuendo and false rumours.  Also, while it has expressed regret, it hasn’t been able to offer reason and remedy – and nor can it until the plane is found, and likely causes of the crash ascertained.

The first rule of any crisis is to get ahead of the story.  But, in the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the airliner’s disappearance, how do you get ahead of this particular story?

The airline has also been criticised for announcing by late night text message on Monday 24^th March that it believed that the flight had crashed into the Indian Ocean, without survivors.

It looked insensitive.  But the airline, in the middle of a worldwide media frenzy, was trying to be open and transparent – something about which it had been criticised.

The airline’s PR team had already been facing an uphill battle, even before MH370 went missing – an uphill struggle that has just become mountainous.

The airline has racked up losses for the past three years, unable to deal effectively with high costs, unprofitable routes and the emergence of low-cost rivals.  In 2013, it returned a negative 4% margin, worse than almost any airline in the world.

And, while China accounts for only 7% of the airline’s capacity, China is a growth market; if Chinese passengers choose to fly on other airlines, that spells more trouble.

The airline’s share price has been falling for some time, and has fallen a further 10% since MH370 went missing.  It now languishes at about a tenth of its value in 2004.

The disappearance of MH370 is both a human tragedy and a disaster for an airline in real financial trouble.  If nothing else, it underlines the need for robust crisis PR planning.

Many companies pay lip-service to crisis communications.  MH370 is a reminder that paying lip-service isn’t enough.

Our sympathies are with everyone who has been affected by the loss of this airliner.  On a much smaller scale, my sympathies are also with the Malaysian Airline’s PR team which has done an adequate job in the most difficult of circumstances.

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery.  You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com

PR and the internet of things

Charlie Laidlaw is a director of David Gray PR and a partner in Laidlaw Westmacott.

The advent of big data is allowing companies to deploy smart marketing campaigns aimed at smaller and smaller segments, profiling all of us against analytical technologies that are driving messaging from the macro to the micro.

By tapping into large sources of data, smart companies are beginning to understand how the demographics and buying habits of an ill-defined crowd can be distilled into valuable marketing information to drive bottom lines.

A research report from McKinsey, published in 2011, said that big data will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus.

The report said that 15 out of 17 sectors in the US have more data stored per company than the US Library of Congress, and that the value of all that big data could translate into a $300 billion saving for US healthcare, a €250 billion value for Europe’s public sector – and a 60% increase in retailers’ operating margins.

Understanding and making use of big data isn’t just a challenge for marketers; it’s a challenge also for PR, with content management becoming of increasing importance – with compelling messages for smaller and smaller groups, even down to individual consumers.

It’s something that, conceptually, is well understood.  Content marketing topped the digital priority list in 2013, according to a Econsultancy report, although only a minority of companies had a defined content marketing strategy in place or dedicated people to carry one out.

Sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and data mining capabilities now allow marketers to focus messages onto comparatively small target groups and, as big data gets bigger, those groups become smaller – the ultimate content management opportunity.

Being able to talk to consumers on a one-to-one basis remains the ultimate dream.  However, understanding consumer behaviour and market dynamics is one thing; big data, in particular using social media channels, will soon allow companies to talk to you and me – with a different sales or PR message for each of us.

But big data is set to become a whole lot bigger as “the internet of things” picks up pace, and the virtual and real worlds become a little more blurred.

The internet of things is all about making more intelligent use of information, by building in communications functionality in more and more stuff – from cars to farm animals – including the stuff we carry around: everything from store and credit cards to mobile devices.

Nor is it entirely science fiction, and there are think tanks and a consortium dedicated to its development.  It has come about through wireless and computer technology – and has implications for virtually everything.  (It’s sometimes also called the “internet of everything.”)

Imagine then a world in which every human being, animal or thing has an IP address and the means to wirelessly transmit information.  On the upside, it could be a heart patient with a monitor implanted, and who can be alerted when an irregularity occurs.

But as more and more things become smart, capable of monitoring and transmitting our every click or purchase, and GPS always knowing precisely where we are – the implications become staggering. 

The security implications are obvious; indeed, Cisco has just launched a competition to find new ways to handle security in the internet of things.  (If you have a good idea, they’re offering prizes of up to $75,000).

How the internet of things develops in the years ahead shouldn’t be down to technologists alone, because it has implications for all of us, because we’ll all have to think and behave in new ways.

It’s therefore something we should, at least, be aware of, and a McKinsey report from 2010 is a good place to start.  It’s the future of communications, but it’s already here.

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery.  You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com or connect with us on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Scotland the Brand, from Scott to Isaac Newton

Charlie Laidlaw is a director of David Gray PR and a partner in Laidlaw Westmacott.

Companies stand or fall on the authenticity of their brands, with brand value an integral element in corporate and marketing strategy.

The same is true of countries, particularly in a global economy: a pertinent observation ahead of Scotland’s independence referendum later this year.

If Scotland does vote to go it alone, it is the value of the country’s brand that will sustain it – driving everything from inward tourism to international investment.

Of course, defining a national brand and its value to the economy is virtually impossible, as perceptions vary enormously.  The Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index, which ranks countries against a number of criteria, offers some insight.

 We are, of course, hotwired to think in shorthand.  For example, think of Italy, and what do you associate it with?  Pizza?  Ferrari?  Do you have a positive view on Italian manufacturing quality?  Would you buy an Italian product against a competitor product from, say, France?

In some instances, the national brand guessing game is easy.  Germany, for example, despite being on the losing end of two world wars, has achieved an international reputation for engineering excellence that has made it the economic powerhouse of Europe.

In that sense, Germany has reinvented itself.  So too, Japan.  “Made in Japan” once meant cheap and second-rate.  Now, the Japanese automobile and electronic industries straddle the world, and stand for excellence and reliability.

Scotland too has reinvented itself, most obviously by Sir Walter Scott who organised King George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822.  It represented nothing less than a national brand makeover, making all things tartan chic and fashionable.  Later, Queen Victoria put the heroic back into the Highlands.

In some ways, for such a small country, Scotland is overburdened by iconography: from tartan to whisky, from lochs to glens, shortbread to haggis, bagpipes to the Loch Ness Monster, golf to kilts…the list goes on.

National symbols are important because they sustain economic activity.  For example, Scotland’s tourism industry employs some 200,000 people and visitors spend almost £11 billion a year – with many of those visitors coming from other parts of the UK.  Will they still come if Scotland becomes independent?

The tourism and hospitality industry seems split on that one, despite the Scottish government promising to cut VAT for the sector and reduce airport tax.

Whisky is another icon, an industry that employs 10,000 people and, according to the Scotch Whisky Association, exports in excess of £4 billion.  But food and drink extends well beyond the water of life. 

Scotland is also home to about 25% of the UK’s beef cattle, and we catch over 50% of the nation’s fish.  Our salmon rivers are world-famous, supporting rural and remote communities.

Or financial services, another national icon, with Scotland also credited with “inventing” retail banking.   Yet if Scotland achieves independence, banks would have over 1,000% of Scotland’s GDP.  When Iceland’s banks went bust, their assets were some 880% of GDP.  Is that brand strength, or brand risk?

Westminster politicians obviously think so, having blocked Scotland from entering into a UK Poundland after independence.  Does Scotland therefore revert to its own currency?  Or, longer term, think about the Euro?

(Incidentally, it was Sir Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint at the Tower of London, who brought Scots coinage into line with the rest of Britain following the Act of Union).

The financial case for independence is based, at least initially, on two iconic industries – North Sea oil and the financial sector.  The SNP hopes to secure some 90% of tax from oil and gas, albeit a diminishing source of revenue, and a healthy slice of income from the country’s financial sector.  (That’s leaving to one side the issue of Scotland’s share of national debt).

That means that Scotland the Brand will be dependent on a diminishing asset under its waters, and a sector that (post-crash) the country can’t necessarily rely on to deliver a safe return.   Let’s not forget that, against Scottish tax revenues of some £60 billion annually, the cost of the bank bailouts was some £500 billion in loans and guarantees.

It’s why the SNP government is keen to develop renewables as a new icon of Scottish industry, despite some ambivalent figures – for example, that offshore wind investment halved to £29 million last year.  Biggest blow was a decision by Scottish Power to drop plans for the £5.4 billion Argyll Array windfarm.

Scotland has other strengths, particularly its track record of invention: from penicillin to the postage stamp, from TV to the telephone, the steam engine to logarithms…that list also goes on and on, to modern advances in gaming to Dolly the Sheep.  If Scotland the Brand stands for anything, it must also be about education, innovation and invention.  Medical and scientific research may become brand icons of the new Scotland.

However, in this year of decision, Scotland the Brand will also step onto an international sporting stage, helping the country to redefine itself (again) as a country of beautiful cityscapes and wilderness.  The Commonwealth Games and Ryder Cup couldn’t have come at a better time for the pro-independence lobby.

But it’s the future that will better define Scotland the Brand: how the country’s universities engage internationally; how Scotland diversifies from oil and financial services; how Scotland can find niche industries to build worldwide reputation; how it attracts inward investment; and how it promotes its festivals, cities and landscapes.

Scotland may or may not vote for independence.  But the debate has done one great thing for Scotland: it has raised awareness internationally in Scotland the Brand, a marketing opportunity that the country should grasp with both hands.

We are specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery.  You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+.