Andres Wittermann on international media relations trends

Great event in Budapest

I have just been speaking at PR Nap, the First PR Conference in Budapest arranged by Kreativ, the #1 Hungarian PR publicatication.

Interesting how everyone says the same - it is all about web 2.0, speed and visual elements. It seems to me that the Hungarians are around 6 months behind the developments in Western Europe re Web 2.0 / Social Media. But the trend is clear.

Back in Germany there recently have been several stories about how Twitter and Blogs are key in PR and mass communication. It is amazing how fast this now happens.

Anti-Cyclical Behaviour Wins

It is an open secret that being really different is a key factor in being successful. Why else would companies try to define their key Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) - who basically summarize what makes them different?

Warren Buffet is the richest man in the world because of this.

And today I read on Grenzposten (a German journo / PR / online blog) about the idea that companies should build a fund of communication budget to be spent in time of a crisis or recession. Because that is when you really need to communicate internally and externally. And because in a recession still the main first reaction is to cut comms budgets.

I think this is a great idea. I am also lucky enough to work in a company who has been building a cash reserve which now allows us to grow even in a recession and to open new offices.

International PR Panel at Medientage Munich

Finally I have found a link to the interesting discussion we had at the Medientage about International PR.

I had been kindly invited by GoldMedia to participate and had a great time discussing International PR with my fellow panelists from Publicis and Roland Berger.

Enjoy (it is in German though!).

European Web Innovation - (Nearly) Without Germany And the UK

Today LeWeb announced the entries for the upcoming competition.

OK, this event is taking place in France and therefore has a string focus on this country. But still, I would have hoped to see more entries from main markets like the UK and Germany. From the 30 contestants only 2 are from these countries (Samedi from Germany and Charge Ventures from UK).

So - congratulations to the our Dutch neighbors and to Spain - who both at least were able to enter two interesting candidates.