GlobalCom PR-Network presented at ITB Berlin

No premiere, but still exciting: GlobalCom PR-Network was represented with its own booth at ITB Berlin, the biggest tourism trade fair worldwide! Four participating agencies went to see the world: Claudia Wittwer from GlobalCom PR-Network (Germany), Luc Malcorps from Outsource Marketing and Communications (Belgium), Daniel Chardon from Chardon Communications (Switzerland) and Velibor Zolak from amc communications (Montenegro), all members of the tourism task force within the network, presented GlobalCom to airlines, hotel chains and destinations.

Little obstacles put in our way – the public transport was on strike and there was heavy snowfall right on the first day of ITB – did not keep us away from making about 50 meetings with companies and organizations like Kempinski Hotels, Regione Piemonte, National Tourism Organisation of Montenegro, Abu Dhabi National Corporation for Tourism and Hotels and many more. The follow-up of these meetings is still in progress, but some of the meetings were quite promising. more… GlobalCom goes ITB

GlobalCom PR Network welcomes Medicom Group and expands expertise in the healthcare market

Healthcare specialist Medicom Group has signed up to the GlobalCom PR Network to drive its expansion into the international healthcare market. “GlobalCom is not a loose network of agencies. It is a formal business with partners paying for the marketing and administration of the global organisation,’ said Medicom Group chairman Martin Ellis.

“We are very pleased to welcome Medicom Group to GlobalCom PR Network,” said Ralf Hartmann, co-founder and Chairman of GCPR. “The healthcare industry is a growing market with a strong demand in specialized PR expertise which we can now provide in the UK as well as in other regions.” Claudia Wittwer, responsible for international business development and network development at GlobalCom PR-Network N.V., will continue to integrate more healthcare communication agencies in core markets into the network and build the network’s international and European healthcare practice with the support of the Medicom Group. more… Medicom Group joins GlobalCom PR-Network

It is the 17 th of February and you are in a ballot booth ready to register your vote. In the heat of the moment your subconscious dispatches a stream of chaotic images of political posters and advertising spots. They flicker before you, like visions in near death experiences. A blur of candidates wrestling for your attention, grappling to pocket your vote.

That instant filtering in your mind’s eye – especially if you are in the all precious undecided group – is precisely what brand and media consultants have been working on over the last few long months. It is possible that somewhere in that visual stream
you will see a Ioannis Kasoulides close-up standing in front of an immaculate green valley more reminiscent of Microsoft-land than any region of Cyprus ….

Political brand building is the science of shaping the image of political personalities to affect the public’s perception of them. Selling politicians as brands is a challenging task, in particular when long established personalities dominate the political scene. In the past, election campaigns were traditionally dominated by the issue of the Cyprus settlement. Being a member of the European Union and the eurozone, new priorities arise and gain importance in political campaigns.

Nicholas Karides, director of ampersand and newswatch media monitoring – GlobalCom PR Network Partner Cyprus - reflects about the challenges in political brand building arising from new political circumstances and the increasing importance of the media.

More …

California based bio energy expert Primafuel, starts European PR in conjunction to their attendance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference and the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Bio energy specialist Primafuel situated in Signal Hill (California, USA) presents a new and innovative approach to the production of zero-carbon fuels. Primafuel develops technology for the biofuel industry, reducing the carbon output along every step of the fuel supply-chain. Their innovative concept includes waste-stream recycling, scalable and modular refineries, carbon-monitoring infrastructure and the use of next-generation feedstock, such as algae.

In November Primafuel was named a 2008 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF awards companies which have developed ground-breaking technologies in the categories Energy, Biotechnology, Health Care and IT.

The company, currently attending the UN Climate Change Conference, saw the worldwide interest in the conference and the upcoming World Economic Forum as an incentive to expand their PR activities. GlobalCom PR Network will coordinate the first steps of the European PR launch from their German offices in Munich and cooperate with the GlobalCom Network partners for future activities.

GlobalCom Team Munich

Greetings from those of us who could make it to the Christmas Season opening at the Witzigmann & Roncalli Bajazzo Munich.

You might know some of us already or might come across some of us at international accounts in 2008…

All the best from the Munich team

Together with Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Ralf Hartmann, Shareholder and Board Director of the Brussels-based GlobalCom PR-Network NV, attended the festivities of the 2007 Bavarian award for entrepreneurs in Munich.

This award honours managers who rendered outstanding services to the creation and retention of jobs. The jury set a high value on companies that are both local and site-specific, social, family-friendly, fit for the future and economically successful.

The award went to the South Germany-based company Baufritz. They finance an ideally equipped day nursery with a large outside area close to nature, enabling employees to combine job and family.

The special award went to the internationally operating TV manufacturer Loewe AG (Kronach). The company managed to master serious business problems and to become “Turnarounder of the year 2006” in Germany. Especially remarkable: the Loewe management paid back the wage renunciations by the employees with a 25 percent return.

“We appreciate the award for entrepreneurs who are aware of their social responsibility, who fulfil their
role-model function and manage their company accordingly,” said Ralf Hartmann. "Exemplary companies operate honestly and sustainably beyond the legal requirements."

From Xavier Prabhu, Founder of PR HUB India.

How would you characterize the PR business in your country/region? Have there been any significant changes in the past few years?

I would characterize the PR business in India as being in between the second or third stage of evolution if we were to take the US as at the fourth stage.

The key trends that we see are:

- outbound work out of India is likely to leap as Indian companies go global with a vengeance

acquiring and establishing presence in markets overseas; infact this will change the contours

since it then positions India not as a market for local PR services but a market where global PR itself originates

- more and more maturing of the local industry with the processes and systems getting more aligned to the global ones

- increased footprint of the large global players in India and most large and medium firms getting aligned to some global network or the other over a period of time

- the large global players unless they grow inorganically cannot dominate the marketplace in India for some time to come due to variety of reasons

- there will be some attempts at vertical focus though it has not been a successful model in India

- the fee levels will raise in India to global levels or atleast closer to it.

Are there specific challenges that are exclusive to your country/region in terms of PR and communications work?

Talent:

The first and the biggest will be the scale of the people issue that the industry faces. The industry at some level is going to see 300-400% growth which is placing enormous pressure on the HR side of the firms.

- There is acute shortage at the entry level despite new institutions springing up and despite salary levels increasing significantly which is going to worsen over the near future; this is going to drive many firms to sheer desperation and see quality of hiring being the worst impacted

- In the middle level too there is going to be pressure as people arrive there through quick and often hasty promotions probably ill-equipped to do the best at that level; this has two implications -they are not going to be able to provide the right kind of leadership and training to the new joinees who inturn will be disappointed and leave in droves complicating already a big challenge

Business:

- The immense growth in business is going to result in mushrooming of new PR firms which will further commoditize the lower end/media relations part of work done by PR firms. They will also bring significant price pressure onto the bigger firms.

- The growth in business will not allow the firms to make investment in business or processes as much as they would love to leading to some kind of drop in delivery and quality of services; the clients will start doing a roulette on the PR firms

What sectors provide the most opportunity for business and growth in your country/region?

- Retail

- FMCG

- Telecom

- HR

- Professional Services

- Banking & financial services

- Healthcare

- Pharmaceuticals

- Engineering

- Manufacturing

- Aviation

- IT

- BPO

- Automotive

If the list looks large and almost like every sector possible, well, at the rate Indian economy is growing it would be a surprise if no sector is part of this growth story.

How much of the business out of your office is truly global in scope?

20-30%

How would you describe the local media scene? How has it changed? What media outlets are especially important to you, from both a local and global perspective?

Chaotic, unpredictable and in some patches increasingly commercial.

There is explosion of media vehicles and options and while that is good news for a company or a PR firm it is not so as there is lack of direction or differential editorial focus between many of them leading to clutter.

In some groups, there is also increasing attempts to link business news and related information to some sort of commercial consideration which is a new challenge which may or may not be unique to this region.

The media most important varies from client to client, market to market but for most corporate clients the media of priority in the order are:

- Business and mainline English dailies

- Business and mainline magazines

- Electronic media

– TV channels

Leading trade magazines

- Vernacular dailies

- Vernacular magazines

via The Global Account by PR Week

Thanks to our Russian Partners we have some pictures of our world-wide partner meeting in Brussels, Belgium in May 2007.

From the left to the right: Robert Nyström from InformationsCampagniet in Sweden, Hinata from Kyodo PR in Japan, Xavier Prabhu from PR HUB in India, Tadahisa Kimura from Kyodo PR in Korea and Stanislav Grafski from Terra Nova in Russia.

Tadahisa Kimura from Kyodo PR Korea and Stanislav Grafski from Terra Nova Russia.

Sitting from the left to the right: Sakae Ohashi from Kyodo PR Japan, Paruyr Davtyan and Stanislav Grafski from Terra Nova Russia.
Standing from the left to the right: Alexandre Cordeiro from  C&C – Consultores de Comunicação Portugal, Xavier Prabhu from PR HUB India, Tadahisa Kimura from Kyodo PR Korea, Ben Huybrechts from Kyodo PR Belgium, Wangli from Kyodo PR China.

Nicholas Karides, director of ampersand communications in Cyprus, writes regurlarly for the Cyprus Sunday Mail. This week he has written an article about branding a country with the help of a successful young Cypriotic tennis player:

Branding Cyprus: from the Cyprus problem to Marcos Baghdatis

By Nicholas Karides
(archive article – Sunday, July 1, 2007)

At the end of Marcos Baghdatis’ defeat at the Gerry Weber Open final in Germany earlier this month, the organisers brought out a small unappetising cake to celebrate the Cypriot’s tennis star’s 22nd birthday. A polite and genuine gesture for a colourful sportsman whose temperament and talent by admission of the International Tennis Federation have animated an otherwise dull (bar Nadal) circuit.

The cake was marked with the Cyprus flag. In the world of fast information and images and faster impressions, the Baghdatis-Cyprus connection at that moment generated more positive recognition for Cyprus than any Cyprus Tourism Organisation campaign featuring computer tampered squeaky clean images of beaches and mountain tops.

We all have ‘brand’ perceptions of countries, cities and companies which tend to determine our behaviour towards them. In Cyprus we’ve always been conscious of what foreigners think of us both as a tourist destination but above all in terms of how they understand our position on the political problem.

Every year, Global Market Insite Inc ranks many of the world’s ‘nation brands’ by surveying over 25,000 consumers in 35 nations. The brand of a nation is produced by analyzing perceptions of the cultural, political and commercial assets, the investment potential and tourist appeal of each nation. This in turn is interpreted into a measurement of ‘national brand power’. A good result indicating a positive nation brand provides a competitive advantage in today’s global marketplace. Like multinationals, countries compete with each other for the attention, respect and trust of investors, tourists, consumers and the media.

We’ve all read about how the World Cup in Germany – by far the biggest media event of 2006 – elevated the German brand, crushed deeply held negative perceptions about Germany and improved the country’s image (even, it is said, among Germans themselves). We saw it happening after the successful organisation of the Olympics in Athens which, combined with Greece’s victory in the UEFA Football Championship in Portugal that year, elevated a whole nation and altered its own outlook and particularly the way others saw it. 

Cyprus and Greece are not included in the GMI survey (Sweden tops the list, Germany is ranked sixth and Turkey last after Russia, China and India).

It is not difficult to identify the key elements that form the basis of the global brand recognition of Cyprus: souvenir shops on the islands of Milos and Ios would disagree but it is safe to assume that Aphrodite holds a Cypriot (and EU) passport and is a popular reference vehicle for the Cyprus brand. Richard the Lionheart’s connection to Cyprus was too dreamy to feature permanently. True the oft asked “isn’t there a problem there with the Turks?” element and the much advertised ‘last divided capital of Europe’ are popular perceptions. Throw in some halloumi if food is your portal to the world and that is where roughly it all ends. Our accession to the EU gave the country some brand credibility but missed opportunities such as Cyprus’ huge ship register making the EU the biggest ship register in the world were left unexploited when in fact they could have boosted our global brand.

Enter Marcos Baghdatis. Born 11 years after 1974, talented, charming, laid-back but also

temperamental; tri-lingual and very European. If he wins any grand slam down the line he’ll be elevated to Cyprus’ global ambassador. He will personify the way the world identifies and appreciates Cyprus. Of course, like him, Cyprus counts hundreds of agile, hard working and focused professionals both here and abroad who are capable of carrying the Cyprus brand. At the end of the day, we know we will never host a World Cup or the Olympic Games. So all we can do is to encourage more like Baghdatis to excel in what they do and hope that the state will prove clever enough to help and embrace them. It appears our only asset with branding potential is the human one. 

Vision Communications (VisionComm) was established by Tibor Szentgyörgyi in 1999 in Budapest.

The Hungarian, integrated communications service and consultant, agency provides full scale PR and marketing communication services to its customers.

The agency’s commitment is to support the cooperation based on mutual interests between their clients, and their target groups. The team believe that the business scope of their clients can be supported the most effective and cost-saving way by using PR tools.

Vision Communications precisely planned and implemented projects proved their professionalism to their clients that have done them proud of their trust for 3-6 years.

The agency’s clients are international companies, their local subsidiaries and the governmental sector.