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December 13, 2007
Forty Years in the UK
I went over to London this week to celebrate the 40th birthday of Edelman in the UK. My father, Dan Edelman, persuaded Michael Morley to set up our first non-US office in a non-descript space on Dover Street near Piccadilly, to serve our then largest client, Gillette. Morley reminisced that British Telecom was slow to provide service to new companies so he had to use the red phone booth down the street outside the Ritz Hotel to call clients in the early days. He quickly built a superb client base, including Mars, Roche, World Wildlife Fund and the Government of Spain. Many of the Edelman UK stalwarts, including David Davis, Rosemary Brook, Abel Hadden and Nigel Whittaker returned to pay tribute to Morley and to relive past glories. I would like to thank Michael and David Davis in particular for their loyal service and patience with me as I learned the business.
During the course of the three days, our firm hosted events attended by important political and business leaders, including Lord Mark Malloch Brown of the Foreign Office, top Tory Lord Michael Heseltine owner of Haymarket Publications, Richard Sambrook, news editor of the BBC, Adam Leyland editor of the Grocer, and Chris Rycroft-Davis, former executive editor of the Sun. Here are some observations from these events:
1. The Rising Debate on Immigration—Tory politicians, including party leader David Cameron, are now beginning to question the “melting pot” thesis that has been basis of policy for the last decade. There are now 600,000 Poles in the country, mostly in London. The population of the UK has swelled by four million in the last decade to 60 million. As the economy slows, there will be ever louder cries for restricting immigration to those of means or strong educational credentials. The other school, propounded by London Mayor Ken Livingstone (disclosure: Edelman client), believes that mobility of labor goes with liberalized financial markets and provides a higher quality of life for all (note that Polish plumbers are considered the best in class in the UK)
2) The Special Relationship with the US, Frayed not Fractured—The Brown Government is seeking a different sort of marriage than its predecessor, still close but not sleeping in the same bed. Troop strength in Iraq will be down shortly to 2,500. Common policy is pursued on Darfur and Afghanistan. This ambivalence is not new; I had a fascinating chat with Lord Heseltine about his resignation from the Cabinet over Prime Minister Thatcher’s decision to select an American helicopter over a European consortium product for the British Army, not on the merits. There are periods of closeness, such as Roosevelt and Churchill; Thatcher and Reagan; Blair and Bush. Now Britain is turning toward the Continent.
3) Trends in Food—Leyland noted that the Food Standards Agency (FSA), a quasi-governmental organization, tasked with reversing the sharp upsurge in obesity (now highest rate in Europe) has become sharply critical of the food industry and is driving for its agenda on advertising to children to be adopted in Brussels. There are two systems are used to inform consumers about ingredients and percentage of fat: the FSA’s Traffic Light (red, amber, green) and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) based on typical FSA system portion size. The food companies prefer GDA, but food NGOs point out that 47% of British consumers cannot understand the percentage consumption concept. There is a new trend toward natural and wholesome products, even at higher price points. Not all British moms agree—there is a group of “meat pie moms” organized to defend their traditional foods against healthy, good for you, natural food chefs such as Jamie Oliver.
4) Trends in Media—Sambrook said that BBC will shortly be including non-traditional media content as part of coverage of breaking stories (note at present only traditional media such as Washington Post is aggregated around a topic). He sees increasing overlap between broadcast and newspaper content on line, with both doing text and video. He added that BBC will be investing in a better, more specific offering for mobile phones, which will allow users to take content and repurpose it, to seed conversations away from the BBC site. He believes in advertising supported, not subscription supported content for a mass audience.
5) Super Rich versus Middle Class and Poor—London certainly is prosperous, the Christmas decorations on Jermyn Street a royal purple hue, the stores full. One begins to hear some muttering about the hedge fund managers and foreign billionaires who drive up property prices while sub-prime mortgages go into default at the other end of the economic scale. The number of rich and scale of wealth is unprecedented – new, wealth from all over Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and South Asia, plus the city of London’s mavens. The gap between have and have nots calls into question the concept of a fair society.
London has become the home of global public relations. As the most open capital market, with proximity to centers of new wealth, multinational work force and tradition of creative excellence, it has a size of PR industry far disproportionate to its economic rank and the number of global company headquarters. The Olympic Games in 2012 will further solidify its position. It will be interesting to observe the upcoming clash of ideology between those who believe that the country’s destiny is as capital of the world versus those who give priority to preservation of a national identity, centered around the economic debate of free market versus fair society. As always, I would appreciate your views.
Posted by Edelman at December 13, 2007 1:30 PM |
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Comments
As ever the debate on national identity is limited to the S.E. of England and the English. Every debate I have seen never considers, for instance, how the Welsh view English incomers - who are increasingly pushing up property prices in rural Wales and who consistently refuse to recognise the fact that in many rural areas the language spoken is Welsh. Should the Welsh-speaking Welsh demand that monoglot English speakers learn Welsh before they move to a Welsh speaking part of Wales? In a way the attitude reflects the arrogance of sections of English society - personally I am not in favour of any restrictions for people moving around the world.
Posted by: Dafydd Ladd at December 17, 2007 7:59 AM
Sir,
Hi, its lovely reading your thoughts on issues..and as the chief executive I wish to form an alliance with your community, on behalf of Garunar, at www.garunar.wordpress.com.
May we hear from you indeed.
Happy holidays and best wishes to you,
Regards,
Kyaw S.Win, Commissioner
Posted by: KYAW at December 18, 2007 6:29 AM