RSC Blog

[This article appeared in the February 2010 edition of RSC News, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of Sheena Elliott, Editor, RSC News]

The RSC is in the news very regularly and with significant impact. There are two strands to the media output of the RSC press office, one being what tends to be described as lightweight, the other as heavyweight. These words are rather misleading because in my view, as a veteran professional, lightweight stories are remarkably effective in establishing an organisation’s reputation.

If members of the public were asked to comment upon the RSC they would probably raise some of the famous “stunt” based work such as the Italian Job that straddled 2008-09 and which reached around the world. They might also mention two or three stories that have been featured on the Have I Got News For You programme in the past 14 months, such as the science of Yorkshire Puddings and why gravy should contain soy sauce. The impact of such stories has been very significant in projecting the image of the RSC as novel, humorous and pioneering. Evaluations show that to achieve equivalent coverage in 2009 through advertising would have cost the RSC in excess of £1.5 million.

Whether or not they have played any part in persuading the young to study chemistry or the middle aged to look upon it differently is another matter. For the RSC to divine the exact consequences of the stunt based work we would have to spend a lot of money and time assessing the impact through surveys. I would certainly be interested in the results.

But the light-hearted press coverage does appear to win the awareness of journalists. By associating chemistry with Yorkshire puddings, for example, the RSC has advertised its link to food and we seem to experience more media enquires on more serious food-related issues as a result.

So far this year we have launched two lightweight stories. the first, in which we sought heroes of the snow, made two national Radio 4 news programmes. The second, seeking a can of unopened Party Seven Beer, generated interviews with the Today programme and 15 local BBC programmes. It also made The Times newspaper. The cost of such lightweight raids is minimal. Therein lies the beauty of this kind of PR. It is cheap, easy to deliver and usually highly productive.

Serious notes

I would stress that we ensure that running parallel to the lighter work is the more serious, important policyrelated activity. This usually reflects RSC views and stances on vital issues   such as standards in school science, the issue of the science diploma, and funding for research.
In this more sombre work we aim to project as widely as we can the importance of chemistry to the challenges of today and tomorrow in addressing climate change, food security, energy, and health provision.

Journalists often turn to the RSC media office for authoritative comment on science and education policy

I cannot emphasis too strongly our wish to get the voice of the RSC heard in the very crowded PR arena. PR is a thrusting, loud business in which hundreds of organisations try to get their messages across. It is remarkably hard to do it successfully.
But again, the RSC, thanks to its boldness, has shoved to the front of the throng to be heard by government and Whitehall, and time and again makes it into newspapers,   radio news and even on national television news.

So potent has been the RSC PR that five times in seven years it has attended Park Lane national PR awards ceremonies as a short-listed competitor. I believe that no other organisation could match this record and it has been achieved by two elements: readiness to speak out at the right moment and readiness to come up with headline-catching stories that make good pictures and fun reading.
But it is vital that the novel PR and the political run parallel at the same time.

A perfect demonstration of this was last year when on one page of the Daily Telegraph there was a large picture story about the Italian Job competition while inches from it a story with comments from Richard Pike, RSC Chief Executive, on science education. That is how it should work and that is what we will continue to try.

One last thought: we have had to plough our own furrow to some degree as most university chemistry departments and commercial chemistry-based concerns have sophisticated PR machinery that picks up, or should pick up, research-based stories. If the RSC tried to grab those stories – with the exception of those published in its own journals – it would fail as it is forbidden territory.
But where we can make a mark is by being active on national issues and in generating novel PR. That has worked so far and I think it will continue to work to the benefit of the RSC and chemistry more generally.

Towering geniuses were often underappreciated in their day – Picasso, Stravinsky and the like. So when presented with an entry to our Italian Job competition that is so complex as to border on unreadable, I hesitated to immediately label it “bonkers”.

From Mitch Groves (“a.k.a. Mitch Groves”) in Pasadena, California, I received a mind-boggling submission. It seems to include a complex understanding of chemical bonding and fundamental principles. I think. It’s a bit hard to tell.

I reproduce it here (after the jump) in the hope someone with greater cranial capacity than I can make sense of it: perhaps Mr Groves’s entry will be the Petrushka of the 22nd century.

We will be announcing the winner of our competition on or around the 20th January, having searched through nearly 2000 entries for the most rigorously proven hypothesis. Thank you for a puzzling but enjoyable read, Mr Groves.

(more…)

Over a thousand responses into our Italian Job competition and things are getting tight. Many keen mathematicians have applied rigourously Newton’s laws of motion, and any others they can get their hands on, to prove their problem-solving worth.

It seems, however, that their efforts may have been in vain. I had an email from the Leatherhead Drama Festival Organising Committee, reproduced with kind permission:

Sir Michael with the award (picture: Andy Newbold)

“We are at a loss as to why there is so much urgent panic to explain how the bullion would have been rescued. The coach featured in the “Italian Job” (1969) is still teetering on the edge…..of the “Sir Michael Caine Drama Award” trophy, a unique steel construction with an authentic coach which is still rocking, dangerously.  The Drama Award trophy is presented in May each year at the Leatherhead Drama Festival (in Surrey) by Sir Michael Caine himself (aka Charlie Croker).

“The trophy was designed and constructed by ‘Fire and Iron’ at Rowhurst Forge in North Leatherhead. The enclosed pictures show Sir Michael contemplating the coach on the cliff-edge and struggling with the trophy as he prepares to present it to the Winning Drama Group, recently.  How the coach was miraculously reduced in size and whether the gold is still intact within the coach has not been ascertained, but enquiries are still continuing.

“However, the present size of the haul and therefore its current value may render the extraction uneconomic.”

The photo, taken by Andy Newbold, is also reproduced with the kind permission of David Brett of the Leatherhead Drama Festival Organising Committee. Thank you David!

A gratifyingly huge response to our “Save the Italian Job gold” competition has left me deluged by the crazy schemes of wannabe criminal masterminds.

One entry has made a distinct impression – not for its scientific exactitude, but its artistic skill. The image below was sent to us by Piers Mawhood, clearly a talented artist. Many thanks Piers!

Piers Mawhood's watercolour of the Italian Job cliffhanger

We asked the public to provide us with sound mathematical proof that the $4m worth of gold bullion, and Charlie Croker’s crew, can be rescued from the literal cliff-hanger of the 1969 classic The Italian Job.

Featured in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Channel 4 News and on Have I Got News For You – not to mention the hallowed Pete’s PR Hall of Fame – the competition has sparked the keenest intellects in the country… and some less keen.