POSTED BY Kerry Ruffle

There have been long debates on the fate of print papers in the digital age. But we missed something vital. If consumers have the choice of blocking online ads, will digital advertising survive? The argument goes like this: as modern society consumes information differently (digitally), news, and implicitly advertising, moves online. The business model is changing – the internet gave users unrestricted access to news and information which in turn put a lot of small papers out of business, while some moved all of their content online. Some newspapers will safeguard their precious content under a paywall but the rest will disseminate it for free and stay afloat from digital advertising revenues. This is old news. But what happens when the digital advertising does not reach its target audience? The Financial Times published a very insightful piece, this morning, on how adblockers are messing up a £120 billion online advertising industry. An adblocker is an application which prevents advertising from appearing on webpages. According to a study by Adobe and PageFair, the number of people using ad blocking software rose 70% last year. Out of 2.8bn internet users worldwide, 144m use adblockers. Media groups such as Google, who depend on advertising – and we’re talking billions of dollars’ worth of revenue, are up in arms over this. Publishers are equally unhappy and we discover that all big digital leaders have developed various ways of fighting adblockers including lawsuits, cash and software. This is just the beginning of a long war between consumers - who feel empowered to use the internet as they wish, software developers who create adblockers, and publishers. My question is where does this leave PR? Hypothetically, if you pay for digital advertising which your target audience then blocks by using software like AdBlock Plus, what is your return on investment? Are adblockers a game changer?

The company Twenty Recruitment is one of the world’s fastest expanding independent recruitment businesses. In January 2009 while the recruitment sector was suffering from the effects of global financial meltdown, it was rewriting the rule book and setting up the next generation of recruitment business. From a standing start in the very depth of the recession, the company is profitable, has multiple business streams covering 7 industry sectors, a global client base & offices in London and New York. The challenge While BlueSky had secured an impressive level of press coverage in both broadsheet and sector specific press, Twenty was also keen to feature in the broadcast media in order to influence and share opinion on pertinent business issues. The solution BlueSky has always been of the opinion that PR is not just about the press but about creating compelling content that is not only read – but also shared. BlueSky already created content for Twenty’s company blog and ensured that it was disseminated through other channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn. We knew that to get the attention of broadcast journalists we had to contextualise the news and comment on something that there was already an appetite for. As Twenty has a financial services practice – and there were several thousand column inches in the press devoted to the public backlash over bankers’ bonuses and executive pay – we piggybacked this with a blog suggesting that it was time to stop bashing the bankers as the financial services sector was really the only thing left that the UK was any good at! We ensured that it had all the relevant keywords as tags and shared it through LinkedIn and Twitter ensuring that we targeted broadcast social media channels.

Could there be a worse time for a London Newspaper to get it wrong? The 21st March saw the arrival of the much-anticipated Budget for 2013 – though some managed to see it sooner than intended, as shortly before the Chancellor’s speech was due, the details were revealed on Twitter by the London Evening Standard. The paper had been given details of the Budget’s main themes prior to the speech under a press embargo until later that afternoon. The embargo was still in place when the Standard tweeted a picture of its front page to its followers – a front page full of Budget information. This was unfortunate for all involved, including George Osborne who was faced with the opposition party mockingly waving copies of the front page at him from the benches. Though a swift apology from the editor of the paper was made, and the offending tweet was removed, the damage had already been done. The journalist responsible was suspended, and the newspaper is now rumoured to be denied future access to the exclusive briefings given in advance of both the Budget and the Autumn Statement. For the London Evening Standard, this is a particularly big loss as, being London’s evening newspaper, it was often the first to distribute the news of such events. We often hear about the responsibility those working in PR have to the journalists they communicate with, and the need to be honest and trustworthy, but what about the responsibility the press has towards its sources of information? The Standard’s situation clearly demonstrates how important it is for a journalist to uphold their end of the deal when it comes to handling sensitive information.

This year’s Budget wasn’t without its hitches, and The Evening Standard’s premature publishing of the results will lead to a review on how information is released in the future. It’s clear that George Osborne brought some welcome news to Britain though; September’s 3p fuel duty rise is to be scrapped, beer duty will be cut by 1p, and a 20% tax relief on childcare up to £6,000 per child is to be implemented from 2015. But how have the outcomes affected the recruitment industry?