Andres Wittermann on international media relations trends

Germans bitter about the World Cup Finals already?

The opportunity to host a global event like the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup may initially look very attractive So everybody is fighting for them.

Living in Germany I can now see though why the people living in the hosting city (Turin) or country (Germany) often get frustrated over time. The more we learn about how (little) local business may benefit from the 'opportunity' the more we see it will be the Official Partners who will benefit the most - and local companies (like the Bavarian breweries) are more or less excluded. Also, the consumer is getting frustrated as they don't get any tickets. In the end we will all end up watching this event in front of our recently bought flatscreen at home - if you are living in the US or in Germany.

What does this mean from a marketing / PR perspective? The public should have been prepared much better on what the actual business / ticketing etc. opportunity would be this summer. The OC seems to have too much to do to get the people 'in situ' involved and excited. The disaster with the now cancelled opening show is just a good example for what I mean.

Don't get me wrong. The Germans are really happy to have been chosen as the host for the FIFA World Cup. But if the only opportunity to buy tickets is to spend Euro 55,000 (that's more than $60,000) for 10 tickets in a hospitality package (I received that offer last week), this doesn't make you a big fan.

Am I personally disappointed? Yes (I still don't have a ticket). Is this why I write this? No. I write this because it is one of the hottest topics in ANY public or private discussion I see going on at the moment. And therefore is an increasingly important national issue.

Beijing 2008, London 2012, South Africa 2010 - you all better learn from this before big business and bad preparation ruin your hig hopes.

Where you find the best stories

I happen to fly from Munich to London on a more or less weekly basis. Very often I am on board of the early Monday morning flight together with a large number of employees of a big Munich-based company. You would not believe how much you can learn during these 90 minutes. I often think if I was a business journalist, that's where I would be looking for an inside story.

People are relaxed, are talking about the weekend and are really happy to share their views on everything (!) with everyone. Also with people who just happen to sit close to them - and probably should not hear what they are saying. Or read their mails - or check their presentations marked CONFIDENTIAL. People tend to think they should always be productive and will use their time on board of a plane to be just that. Sometimes I think they should rather read a good book or sleep - or at least consider who may hear what they are talking about.

Or will this now be the end of my really interesting start into a week on the way to the UK?

Europe - an introduction

I was recently asked to put together a list of European speaking opportunities for a client. Also, as an agency we are often asked to put together proposals for basic campaign in Europe.

This makes me often wonder if people know that there is nothing such as Europe. Europeans themselves stil wonder where it begins and where it ends. Do you mean EU? The region? The market? EMEA even? SEMEA?

Looking at a map on my wall I count at least 43 countries within the European geography with many more languages, nations, ethnic groups etc. So first of all when you want to address this whole group, you will struggle already to find a language everyone understands. English helps - but already in France, Spain and Italy you should not count on it, even less so in Eastern Europe, where Russian was a lingua franca for half a century.

So when you go to Europe (for holidays, with your business idea or whatever), think about a very focused approach. Choose your market and concentrate your resources there. The main economies still certainly are Germany, the UK and France. But there are countries which are far advanced in certain areas - like the Nordics with telecommunications. I personally think Europe still offers some of the best opportunities in the world - most of all this is still a really politically stable region. I just realise that from the outside the challenges and hurdles often look bigger.

But once you are successful here, you can be successful anywhere. That's what we prove at LEWIS every day.

Welcome to my blog!

This is Day One of my new blog about the world of international media and PR. Why do I think I should join the blogging community? First of all, in my international role at LEWIS I get a good view on at least the European (if not global) aspects of media development and the PR industry. Well, I am certainly not alone with this. But there may not be many Germans sharing their views on it.

But as a start let me introduce myself quickly. I am vice president Europe at LEWIS Communications, a PR consultancy with currently 17 offices worldwide. I am overseeing the operations in our offices in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. I also have built partnershhips to agencies in Czech Republic, Poland and Portugal - so my outlook is quite international really. That's why I am writing this blog in English, although it is not my mother language. I am sure you will have some fun with wrong expressions I will be using.

Enough about me. What's up today in my world? It seems that the news today are affected by the low temperatures we have in many parts of Europe (here in Munich this morning we had -13 Celsius). The ProSieben Sat.1 takeover by Springer has been stopped by the Kartellamt, The Greens have decided not to make official inquiries into the current secret service scandal in Germany (as their former leader was involved in it as well before they lost power) - but FC Bayern will return to the pitches tonight with the next round of the German Cup.

In the world of PR we can't stop celebrating having been chosen as the number two in mid-size agencies, based upon the judgement of the US journalists. Well done, LEWIS US! If only there was a European organisation which could do the same. But that's another story which you will hear about later.

So enjoy this blog, I promise it will become controversial, interesting to read, newsworthy and just TOTALLY sexy (just learned from Tom Wolfe this is a very outdated expression, so being a German I think I can still write this) over time.