Media Whore

This week I've been turning my attention to the PR campaign which will get underway in a few days. Its also indirectly the cause of the delay. I need to have images to go with the press releases I send out, and that means the bus needs to be painted first, and the sponsors logos have to be put on.

The aim was to get all this done by Monday morning and launch the campaign then, but with the ongoing complexity of passing the MOT there's no only a very small chance this will happen in time.

The latest with the MOT is that it needs to eithe have a driver seatbelt, which is very dificult to fit, or it needs to have at least 8 seats so it can be classed as a motorhome. It's a ridiculous formality which has no relevence on the safety or suitability of the vehicle.

Currently there is a drivers seat, 4 seats around a table, and the composting toilet, which can be classed as seats, so we only need 2 more. Wayne is trying to get something sorted. I suggested ratchet strapping a sofa in to the back, or screwing in some garden furniture. Bizarely the rules make no distinction about how secured the seats have to be. But the MOT testing centre are being unnecassarily strict because they know the bus is going to be on telly, and "someone from VOSA might be watching".

In my experience the guys at VOSA are either at work, OR watching TV.

The advantage of a press coverage is manyfold. First of all its quite fun being a celebrity for 15 minutes, but moreover it's the most powerful way to get the message out about the 2-tonne target across and drive traffic to the site.

The trips I've done in the past which have been covered by the media have gone really well, because when people have heard about you, read about you, or seen you on the telly, they know what you are doing and are therefore instantly on your side and obstructions turn into open doors.

We were on the TV in Greece, with the rally last year, and the next day while we were helping ourselves to oil from the bins at a motorway service station, the junior manager caught us and started shouting that we were thieves and she was calling the police. Before we could make our getaway, (and believe me we did try to make a run for it), the other manager came out and instantly recognised us from the TV. Instantly we were transformed in their eyes from thieves to honourable adventurers.

On the Timbuktu trip we were stuck in Tangiers port for seven days, because the customs wanted a financial guarantee we'd exit the country with all the vehicles we'd entered with. They calculated this to be about €50,000, which we had no way of paying. But they said they would accept a letter from the British Conuslate. We went to see her and as soon as I showed her the feature the Daily Mail had run on me, she said "We can't be seen not to help you if you are in the Daily Mail". In fairness she would have helped us anyway but it goes to show the power of the press.

That's really the big payback of getting media attention. It helps achieve things that are otherwise harder or impossible, although I dare say there will be times on this journey where it might make things worse.

Over the years I've built up an enormous media list of journalists interested in following these sustainable escapades, (about 3000 address at the last count). Just before departure, I send them all a press release and then the phone goes usually mental for the rest of the day.

The challenge is writting a press release that makes the adventure sound quirky enough to spark some interest, and yet serious enough that there's a story behind it.

I've found the TV interviews illicit the biggest response from my friends texting to say I've just seen you on the telly. But as a medium for getting the enviomental message across, it's shit. They are just interested in the quirky "and finally" aspect of Man-and-Chip-Fat, and the environmental message is patronised into oblivion. Getting an interview of 1m40 is a really luxurious honour, but then most of it gets frittered away by the interviewer waffeling on about how bonkers I am.

Print can be hit and miss, they cover the enviromental side in more depth, but usually get a few facts or figures painfully wrong at some stage in the process. Being in the papers is probably the most helpful for the expedition, as you can take the cuttings with you, and there is something about cuttings that exude a sense of gravitas, sometimes more weighty than your actuall passport.

Radio is my favourite. They give you time to talk, they have a laugh, they cover all the bases, and you are reaching a lot of people in quite an intimate way. I love doing radio interviews.

But there's always the fear that you get no interest at all, and to some extent all PR campaigns rely a lot on keeping fingers crossed.