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This scheme, of course, pre-dates the recent media-fuelled public outrage at the perceived misbehaviour of the political community, though with Tory leader David Cameron using the whole expenses 'scandal' as an excuse to criticise the alleged "sofa government" system adopted by both Blair and Brown, we can probably expect some media attention to be given in the coming months to the people, advisors and lobbyists who occasionally sit on the proverbial sofa.

The APPC and other interested PR trade bodies have been looking into ways to make the public affairs sector look less secretive and sinister to outsiders since January, mainly in response to calls from within the political community itself, both at a UK and European level, for the whole lobbying process to be more open. The trade bodies - the APPC, Chartered Institute Of Public Relations and Public Relations Consultants Association - are hoping that by introducing their own voluntary scheme to overcome any concerns, whether those concerns come from politicians or the media or the public at large, there will be no need for government regulation of the industry to be forced upon them.

They are proposing the creation of a new umbrella group, supported by all three trade bodies, and called the Public Affairs Council. Political consultancies would be encouraged to sign up to the Council, but to do so would have to agree to a certain code of conduct, and to participate in a common register in which members would list clients and projects. All consultancies in the Council would be able to use the 'kite-mark' as a way of demonstrating their commitment to transparency in the sector.

The working group of APPC, CIPR and PRCA members published their proposals for the Council and kite-mark scheme earlier this month and are now undertaking a consultation of interested parties, which should be completed by the end of next week.

The proposals have had a mixed response from within the public affairs sector. PR Week reported comments from some senior players at consultancies not affiliated to the APPC who were critical. Eben Black of DLA Piper said "We don't think it is a satisfactory response. It is anti-competitive and looks like regulation on the cheap", while Bell Pottinger's Public Affairs chair Peter Bingle added: "At a time when the government has its own problems, the public affairs industry would do well to keep its counsel to itself and focus on long-term solutions".

But one of the practitioners involved in the Council proposals, Foresight Consulting MD Mark Adams, told the trade magazine he welcomed constructive criticism, as that was the point of the consultation. He said: "If anyone has a good reason why it's not the way forward we'd be keen to hear it. The last thing we want to do is put up barriers to peoples' democratic right to lobby".

Confirming the tie up, PRCA boss Francis Ingham told esPResso: "With the PRCA PR Leaders' Panel committed to the importance of media analysis, the right partner is vital for organisations to plan campaigns effectively, respond in a timely manner to unforeseen issues and demonstrate the value of communications to their organisation's success. Precise provides a comprehensive, efficient and quality service that will meet our members' needs as well as addressing the challenges presented by the changing media landscape".

Keir Fawcus, Precise MD, added: "We recognise the importance of the work undertaken by the PRCA and are delighted to be able to assist their members in establishing effective analysis programmes to demonstrate their return on investment in PR, and look forward to continuing to develop our services to meet the changing requirements of both agency and in-house teams".

The brands set to disappear are Abbey (formerly Abbey National of course), Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley, which are now all owned by Spanish banking giant Santander.

The Spanish parent company incorporated its own corporate logo into the Abbey brand identity a while ago, and the bank already uses the strapline "part of the Santander Group". But the latest move will see Abbey and the Spanish firm's two newer British banking acquisitions fully rebrand as Santander. It's part of a move by the Spanish firm to have all its businesses around the world operating under one name.

Branches on the high street will be rebranded and refurbished over an 18 month period, while product brands in all three banks will take the Santander name from early next year. In-branch and media advertising will focus in particular on the parent company's sponsorship of the McLaren-Mercedes Formula 1 team, with a Lewis Hamilton fronted campaign. The bank says its involvement in the sport has already helped boost the profile of the parent company's brand name in the UK.

The Vatican were real innovators when it came to broadcast media, launching their own radio station as long ago as 1931, aided by the Italian who spearheaded the early development of radio broadcasting, Guglielmo Marconi. It now broadcasts on FM in Rome, via medium and longwave worldwide, and over the net.

It is, however, an expensive operation - some reports say the Catholic Church invests over £19 million a year into keeping the communication channel operational. Keen to find new ways to fund the service, the Vatican have employed the services of an advertising agency to help them find sponsors.

The first sponsor will be Rome-based electricity giant ENEL, whose branding will appear on air for the first time on 6 Jul. But the Catholic station is also looking for other potential commercial partners, though only those that fulfil the list of moral requirements which have been provided to the ad agency working on the project.

It's definitely worth considering if your definition of corporate responsibility includes being perceived as a responsible organisation by a higher body than just your consumers, shareholders and the media.

Both PR and advertising experts have declared the paradise job concept as a huge success for Tourism Queensland. Although having to pay to run the job ads, and having to cover Southall's £73,000 salary, the UK-focused campaign has won worldwide media coverage, both when the ads were first posted and once Southall had been recruited. And although the campaign has, in theory, reached its climax, some reckon there are more opportunities to generate press coverage for the promotion as the new caretaker begins his job on the paradise island that is now his home.

Some reckon the campaign won Queensland £50 million worth of exposure for the tourism potential of the Australian region, with coverage as far a field as Canada, China, Germany and Indonesia, not to mention the UK, where the campaign was primarily focused.

Commenting on the mega-PR value of the campaign, achieved on a relatively modest advertising budget, the editor of ad industry magazine Campaign, Claire Beale, told the Guardian: "The joy of it is that you couldn't buy that sort of positive commercial message, especially not for the winner's £73,000 salary".

She continued: "This was an incredibly shrewd, multi-layered marketing campaign. Obviously they had the first bite of the cherry when the ad was placed in January, and they orchestrated a very successful campaign to seed the news in the media. Now that the candidate has been chosen, they can expect more coverage. Plus the opportunities don't stop here - if I was in charge, I would look about making a reality TV documentary about his arrival, and take it from there".

For media relations people, most of whom traditionally focus on newspaper and magazines, the perceived decline of the traditional press is something to watch closely. In the newspaper industry, it's the regional press who are facing the most hardships, though an increasing number of commentators are predicting at least two high profile national daily titles will also disappear from our newsstands in the next five years.

Nevertheless, nearly 60% of UK publishers reportedly reckon their fortunes will improve in the next year, according to a survey commissioned by InPublishing magazine. Despite slumping advertising revenues, only 9% of the publishers surveyed admitted to making a loss, while 79% said they were still profitable. 57%, meanwhile, said they expected the sector to recover, albeit slowly, through 2010. Three quarters said they hoped no more job cuts would be necessary.

Despite the relative optimism for their own companies, many publishers surveyed seem to think more titles - newspapers, magazines and websites - would still disappear in the next 18 months. That, though, would provide an opportunity for those that stay in busines, given that many seemed to think one issue for their sector is that the advertising boom that preceded this recession led to a glut of print and online media.

The report concluded: "The recession is forcing most companies to take a hard look at the way they do things. The repeated hope running through the survey is that recession will force weaker competition out of a market which is simply over-supplied in terms of the number of magazines, newspapers and websites available to both readers and advertisers".

The relaunch was preceded, of course, by a very interesting publicity campaign based around the word 'sorry' - the paper was basically apologising for the editorial slant and attitude it had adopted over the last few years in a bid to win new readers. It was an interesting idea, if somewhat humiliating for Veronica Wadley, the paper's former editor. And she argued that the 'sorry' ads were also humiliating for the paper's existing readership, which Lebedev and Greig are presumably keen to keep.

Speaking to the Media Guardian as the paper relaunched, the former editor was dismissive of the 'sorry' campaign and the paper's new management, saying: "London is laughing at this ludicrous campaign. Saying 'sorry' for the past smacks of a Soviet courtroom 'confession'. 'Sorry' has all the hallmarks of a KGB-style smear campaign. It denigrates the judgement of 500,000 loyal readers. The new management seems to think that a paper should be edited by self serving market research - and the Pravda-style promise of good news is an insult to the intelligence of its readers".

It remains to be seen if she's right, and whether, once the hype of the relaunch has died down, the Standard really can turn round its fortunes long term, and compete with the plethora of online sources of afternoon and evening news, and the prevalent London freesheets.

"I stumbled upon this excellent interview with Larry Light, McDonalds' former Chief Marketing Officer, thanks to Kim Brater. I find McDonalds an extremely fascinating company and have written about their Ten Commandments in the past. The Ten Commandments were at the core of the company turnaround in 2002.

Reading the interview with Light, I couldn't help but think about how some of the lessons McDonalds learnt back in 2002 matter more than ever during a recession. Here are two key quotes which I think are particularly relevant in the current economic climate.

'During the years preceding 2002, McDonald's focused on cost reduction, rather than customer experience improvement. The result was the incremental degradation of product and service quality'.

Managing costs is a major focus at present. Companies are right to look at cost savings when it comes to improving efficiencies, but unfortunately many organisations are cutting off their hand at their wrist in order to save on trimming their fingernails. The majority of companies need to shift their focus from customer acquisition to customer retention. If companies want to improve their customer offering, the best way to do it is by focussing on customer experience improvement. Robin Blandford has an interesting blog post on this topic about how organisations can turn customer complaints to their advantage.

'Effective marketing is essential for enduring profitable growth. It is not enough to renovate and innovate. Customers must be kept aware and reminded of the brand promise. And the brand image needs to be kept up to date. Beginning in 2003, the McDonald's brand reputation experienced a major rehabilitation and revitalization'.

One topic consistently brought up by advertisers is the old chestnut that the companies that profited during the last recession were those that maintained or increased their advertising spend. I think this is over the top, what companies need to focus on though, like McDonalds, is reminding customers about their brand promise. McDonalds took a step back and looked at what was really important to their customers. People go to McDonalds because they want to get something to eat quickly in a clean and friendly environment, so they invested in fulfilling this experience for their customers through clever investments like hostesses to cater for parents with small children.

Competing simply on price is a short term strategy, it only buys you some time before your competitors eventually respond. If you want to build brand loyalty then you have to develop an experience which isn't easily replicable by your competition".

Read Piaras' full blog post on this topic here.

"I have always been of the view that while traditional media is clearly under pressure, it is not going away, rather we are seeing a re-balancing of media consumption.

The oft floated idea that traditional media is 'dead' and that all media will be 'user-generated' is flawed in my opinion because people are busy and therefore want trusted filters on what's going on in the world. Oh, and many of us are inherently lazy.

I believe that the traditional media can find a profitable future in that role, whether it's in print, online or over the air waves.

However, to thrive they need to be focused on adding value to their audience. This can be through news gathering or great opinions and content amongst other things, but trust is absolutely key.

Any ten year old can cut and paste content off the web.

I've written about Wikipedia before, but if traditional media are going to lazily do an internet search, cut and paste what they find and publish it as editorial, then maybe the future of traditional media isn't as healthy as I imagined.

Today I read about how the UK Guardian newspaper included a quote from Wikipedia in an obituary of French composer Maurice Jarre. The only problem was that the quote was made up by a 22 year old student in Dublin and posted online.

Siobhain Butterworth, writing on this snafu for the Guardian, pointed out that: 'Wikipedia editors were more sceptical about the unsourced quote. They deleted it twice on 30 March and when Fitzgerald added it the second time it lasted only six minutes on the page. His third attempt was more successful - the quote stayed on the site for around 25 hours before it was spotted and removed again'.

She adds: 'The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source'.

While I am a passionate advocate of 'social media', I am equally passionate on our society's need for a strong traditional media. However, to survive and thrive, traditional media and journalists needs to take ownership of the value they can offer their readers.

Of course this was just a mistake, and mistakes happen, we're all human, so let's not blow it out of proportion, but I think it's a great reminder of how important it is that traditional media focuses on the value it can deliver.

That 'value', in my humble opinion, isn't mastering internet search and cut-and-paste".

Read more from Tom Murphy's blog here.

What was your first PR role?
Having worked on setting up what has been called the 'Welsh Amazon' - www.gwales.com - I was very aware that there was a lot of work to be done promoting the use of IT in Wales. I moved to a role at my local authority's Economic Development Department urging businesses, in particular, to embrace information technology – so that potential suppliers would consider the region a viable investment opportunity. Even though there was no mention of PR or communication in the job description, I realised very early on that it was a public relations role. Subsequently I strengthened my PR skills, went on appropriate training courses (including the gruelling but rewarding CIPR postgraduate diploma) and moved on to pure PR work.

What have you done since then?
It just so happened that as I was finding my feet in PR, and thoroughly enjoying the work, my sister Elliw had set up a translation and PR agency. Elliw had been working from the spare room for two years and wanted to expand, and I was looking for a business opportunity of my own. Over a glass of wine one Christmas we decided to join forces, become partners in ATOM PR and see how it would go. We have not looked back since! I am now a Senior Account Director on a diverse range of projects, as well as a co-director of ATOM.

London is generally considered the geographical heart of UK PR. What advantages are there of using a regional PR agency instead?
Localisation localisation localisation! You could pay the best agency in London the highest possible fee, but sometimes nobody can talk to stakeholders at a grass-roots level better than an agency that knows them inside-out. Even global organisations acknowledge this fact: we have carried out a project for Microsoft, advising on some local Welsh sensitivities for some of their software packages. We have also worked for national and international PR firms who have seen the benefit in sub-contracting localised elements of projects to regional agencies such as ours.

Find out about more about Dwynwen's career and her daily routine by reading the full interview here.