The Clip Book

Working part time in an agency gives an insight into how far they have regressed.

In the 1980's and 90's I ran a PR consultancy. We had a sister evaluation company (Media Measurement) which did all out work on clip book production as well as evaluation to meet a range of client needs. In those days we used a lot of trees in PR.

The evaluation team were specialist, had all the software and equipment to deliver product on time and right first time.

Professional PR people and awesome writers were not wasted on clip counting and mounting.

Easy.

Now, a decade later I find that agencies are still using PAPER! The Clipbook carbon footprint in the PR industry is massive.

Because clients want it?

Now, I don't care about the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) demand for huge amounts of money to force organisations to knock over more trees. Its time to face them down.

I am not a person who believes that you can't read off the screen. We all do it.

I don't care about size for size Advertising Equivalents spreads and all that complete AVE rubbish. That was invented to satisfy the 20th century egos of Marketing Directors. In those days they had secretaries who typed letters!

Paper guard books offer so little information compared to digital ones. Today, would professional managers accept cash flow forecasts without drill down?

But what I resent most is the complete an utter waste of intelligent people’s time and on every count. Cost, wasted skill, environment damage, encouragement of lazy, typically innumerate, PR practice are all reasons to move away from paper.

Partnering with a professional evaluation company is the right direction for agencies (and I mean partner – not supplier) and this needs to be a three way, transparent relationship with the client.

In cost saving alone, it makes sense.