Knowing when to jump on the bandwagon

News hijacking or issues response (IR) is a very effective way to gain exposure, establish your company as an industry expert and more importantly; generate coverage. For PRs it can be fun and demonstrate to your client the key skills and attributes of a PR professional: having your finger on the pulse of the news agenda, the ability to write succinctly on message and those all-important media skills. However, it is easier said than done and its success often relies on a good relationship between the client and the agency.

IR is when you see a new report, research or news story that is relevant to your client and something that you can offer a unique perspective on. Timing is everything. The aim is to take your report/research/news story and client comment to your core press before they have seen the news and especially before they have written it up. The ability to get comment written and approved in time is generally the make or break of an IR.

Now it is important to note that IRs are not for every business, as they often require the respondent to take a positive or negative stance against a major industry issue. An example would be agreeing with a report that is critical of the Government: if the Government is one of your major customers, it is probably not the smartest business move. Another stumbling block can be client approvals. If you know that your client has a multiple stage approval process, you need to consider if you will get the comment approved in time so you can pitch it to journalists before they write up the story. If it’s likely to take at minimum half a day to be approved, it is unlikely you will be able to sell it into the media in time and therefore your resources are probably best used elsewhere.

The development of pre-approved comment, which can be tweaked to relate to a news story, is one way to speed up approvals; especially if a client is based in a different time zone. However, there will still be times when a more technical or controversial response is required, which will need proper consideration from the client.

IR’s can go wrong, but the key to avoiding this is to ensure that you are on message and that you do the necessary due diligence to ensure it is relevant to your client.

At the end of the day; for an IR to work, agencies need to demonstrate their knowledge of the business and in return the client needs to trust the agency will only act in their very best interests.