Category Archives: communications

Lucy Salvage spent more than a decade in local government and after navigating COVID in comms she realised the love she had for her job had been replaced with something else. She has now left the public sector. Her post will definitely chime with many people.

After a digital clear out of files on my tablet, I came across this piece I started writing in May 2021. Very unlike me it looks like I didn’t finish it.

Anyway, reading it back I thought it was rather good and I’m sure it will still resonate with some of you today.

At the time I was still working as media and communications officer for my district council…

**Why I may have fallen out of love with the public sector** (May 2021)

When Dan posted “Working in the public sector despite everything is worth it because…” it was like he had looked into my soul and asked the very same question I’ve been asking myself these last few days.

Fourteen months ago, answering this would have been easy:-

– “I feel like I make a difference in my local community.”

– “The work I do might impact someone’s life for the better.”

– “I’m in a position to lead discussions, shift behaviours and have a positive influence.”

– “I am proud to work in Local Government.”

– “I am valued.”

One global pandemic, three close bereavements, and a semi-nervous breakdown later, and I’m struggling to answer Dan’s question. I don’t know if it is worth it anymore. In trying to unpack why, I’ve discovered that there are two main elements to my shift in thought over this time period.

1. The public and their attitude toward the public sector

2. The value given by others to my profession

Local Government has never been easy, and in the 11 years (nine consecutively) that I’ve been a Local Government Officer, I’ve come to accept that the public don’t really like us much and that’s been fine.

I’ve shrugged it off and still wanted to help people anyway. I’ve always worked to prove them wrong and win them round. We are good people doing good things whether they choose to believe it or not.

In my PA days, my greatest kicks came when riled up members of the public called to complain to the Chief Executive, and instead they got me.

They would spit words of fire down the phone because their bin collection had been missed, or their housing application turned down. By the end of the call I would have them in the palm of my hand, full of gratitude.

Although I dreaded those phone calls as much as I relished their usual outcome, that kind of interaction with the public made me feel valued. There was an equal balance of sh*t and shine. They gave me sh*t, and I shined. Now it just feels sh*t.

We’ve remarked on it a number of times in this group, particularly over the last six months; about how toxic people have become, especially towards those working in the public sector. Gone is the community ‘war-time’ spirit so is the ‘be kind’ mantra which lasted all of a number of weeks.

The online community, once a space that you came to expect and concede a certain amount of negativity from a minority, now feels overtaken by a gargantuan black cloud of hate and bitterness. One that casts an unwelcome shadow on pretty much everything we try and do for the betterment of others.

In a sector which once brought me genuine pride and fulfilment, now just consumes me with anger, frustration and despair on a daily basis and that’s just from having to suffer the members of the ungrateful British public.

That alone I may just be able to grin and bear long enough for the tide to again turn. But coupled together with a growing lack of understanding and appreciation for my profession is gnawing away at me deeper than any troll on Twitter.

I’ve always been very well supported at work, personally and professionally. I’ve been given opportunities in the public sector I wouldn’t have had anywhere else.

I’ll forever be grateful for that, and it’s very much the reason I’ve ended up in the profession I’ve always been passionate about.

However, I’ve always felt that my role as a public relations and communications professional has never been taken very seriously or valued as it should because anyone can do comms right?

In 2020 we were finally able to prove to others what we long knew. Our profession was and continues to be vital to the wellbeing and safety of others. It can be strategic and carefully planned, but also reactive, often in extremely pressurised circumstances.

It makes a real difference when executed by a trained and skilled comms professional. What it is not? An afterthought. I had hoped that the pandemic would shine a bright light on our skill and expertise. That finally, FINALLY, our profession would be given the respect it deserves. That we, as kickass communicators, deserve. Instead, the need to save money following the pandemic inevitably led to more cuts, and the opportunities for career progression that burned bright pre-covid were unceremoniously snuffed out.

**Ends**

Seven months after penning this I did leave Local Government in December 2021. Whilst I miss it fondly at times, I don’t regret my decision at all. It took far more from me that I was able to continue giving it. But it’s still by far the best job I’ve ever had. Keep on keeping on.

There’s been more change in the last six months than the last decade but when was the last time you took stock? 

The Holy Trinity of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have been the three default social channels with the public sector since 2010.

But video is more than YouTube, Facebook has evolved and Twitter is now renamed as X with hate on the platform rising.

It’s high time to take a hard re-evaluation of what you are doing.

‘What should I be doing?’

‘What about TikTok? Or Threads?’

‘What do the algorithms say?’

If you feel slightly overwhelmed by this you would be entirely forgiven. It’s a big world out there and the pace of change is rapid.

I’ve run many social media reviews and it’s my job to look at trends and spot which are relevant for you and which are not. 

I’m running a Zoom session for the Public Sector Comms Headspace group where I’ll talk about how to carry out your own and what to look for. 

DIARY NOTE: The session for Public Sector Comms Headspace members will be on 15.8.23 at 12pm. You can sign-up here. 

Four phases of a social media review

Each review is different because each organisation is different with different resources and audiences.

1. Your audiences

First up is working out who your partners are, your traditional media, the business audience you may have, your minorities. This is the basics around who you’d like to talk to. 

2. Your demographic audiences

Second is looking at your audiences. The age of your audience will dictate what channels they are likely to be using.

If you’re in the UK, you need to look at UK data rather than homogenised global data which is often available. Ofcom is your friend for this and sits on a pile of useful insight you need to dig out.

Your audience is going to be pretty unique to you. If you take one thing from the Ofcom data is that the landscape is very fractured. This part may give you the data to highlight channels you are not using but need to. Equally, there may be channels to dial back from.

A review of your Facebook groups is useful at this point. The data I’ve collected would show that there are between six and 12 Facebook community group memberships per head of population. Facebook groups can be community noticeboards that serve a town, village, housing estate or postcode can often be a vital way to reach people in that community. 

3. Your channel performance  

How your existing channels are performing is also useful. There may be things you are doing well and things you are doing badly. Engagement rates using the Adobe metrics is a good way to see how effective your content is performing.

4. Your report

This pulls it all together with a series of recommendations around the channels you are using, the channels you may need to use, the channels you need to step back from and advice on how to use the channels. 

It’s all based on data rather than powered by fear and what someone has read that morning. It puts you back in charge again, basically. So you can look good in front of your boss and their boss. 

Drop me a line if you’d like to chat – I’m dan@danslee.co.uk – and I’ll see you at the session.

When I was a kid I worshipped The Smiths. 

My younger teenage years were a love letter to the band. I sat in my room Marr’s melodies and Morrissey’s words going round my head. Without them, I wasn’t alone. 

I wrote to Morrissey once and he wrote back. A lottery win would only come near the elation I felt when I opened the letter to find a postcard.

“Dan, the photo was taken in Paris,” a postcard to me read. “The photo was taken in Paris and Mr Peel is the Holiest Saint who ever walked this earth.”

I’d not a clue what he was talking about was but it felt like a communication from a Higher Being.

They split, of course. While my adoration faded and other music came along I never disowned them. But then Morrissey started to go weird. Then the realisation that the love affair was over. Morrissey wasn’t a Higher Being,after all. He was a once-cool uncle who had developed unpleasant opinions. For a while, when Morrissey was trending I’d click to see what he’d said and I’d fall a bit more out of love.

Then there finally came a moment Morrissey was saying something and I just didn’t care anymore. 

I think Twitter – or is it now X – has reached that Morrissey moment.

It wasn’t the spiralling hate, or turning a  blind eye to extremists, or the suppressing criticism of the Turkish government, or the charging £8 a month to reach people or the limit on the number of tweets that truly did it. 

It was when I heard that Elon Musk is now calling the place ‘X’ I realised I’d reached that Morrissey moment with Twitter. 

I just don’t care anymore.

There’s no doubt that AI will have a big role to play with video production but the quality of tool varies.

I’m a big fan of the CapCut editing app and news of a ChatGPT plug-in got me excited.

Here’s what I did with using the tool.

I’m from Staffordshire. So, I decided to make a video for Staffordshire Day which actually happened a couple of weeks back.

The prompt I gave it was to include the landmark of Stafford Castle as well as the greatest British footballer of all time Sir Stanlety Matthews. I wanted a Stoke City reference and the Staffordshire knot. Drive into the county and you’ll see the roadsign welcoming you to Staffordshire the Creative County so I wanted a reference to that.

It produced a ascript for the film.

It also asked me what aspect ratio I’d like the film to be. 16:9 is landscape and 9:16 is portrait. I wanted portrait. I also decided to keep the script as it was.

What the video looked like

It makes sense for ChatGPT to synch with a video creation tool like CapCut. It means that you are able to use the tool to edit and replace elements you are not happy with. However, CapCut does need a minimal level of professional expertise. You can change the images that has been created. You can also do this editing on a laptop or PC.

How good was AI shot selection? Ropey, frankly

Okay, now to the business end. I have to tell you that the choice of images was not great. AI chose around the images I asked for. If you squint you’ll say the images corresponded with what it was asked for by and large. However, knowing Stafford only two of the images were accurate and just one – the shot of Stafford Castle – would pass muster.

The first shot was a shot of a Herefordshire sign (wrong), an image of a horse statue (wrong) a statue that isn’t Stanley Matthews and one that is. Two Stoke fans looking dejected (hmmm) and two landmarks (wrong). The last shot was a red and while image with the word osteoperosis (spectacularly wrong).

Here’s the video

Despite being told the video was 9:16 the images were more landscape 16:9…

As you’ll see if you played the video, the voiceover was in a pretty horrible American accent and the music selection feels pretty lift music.

What worked and what didn’t?

What did work was the process. I asked ChatGPT to produce something and it did.

But the images chosen were poor.

What’s worrying is that the images were copyrighted.

Using tineye I could see the Stafford Castle image was listed on Shutterstock, Alamy and Adobe.

The Stoke City clown was also a Shutterstock stock image.

The statue wasn’t Sir Stan at all but is from Amsterdam.

So, in a crude way, the process works but the images selected here are a hospital pass. Rights holders like Getty are going after those who use images without permission. As ever, if rights holders think you’ve got budget they’ll come after you.

You can export the video and you have some control over the frame rate it can export at. That’s a plus.

What did potentially work for the process is the script. It did produce a workable script after a prompt listing the features. I wouldn’t be using the provided audio commentary. I’d be using someone with a Staffordshire accent if I was making this in earnest.

I’m sure that the results will improve as time ticks on but the ChatGPT CapCut extension isn’t worth using just yet.

A wise man once said that information is the oil of the 21st century and analytics the combustion engine. Here is some information to analyse.

Almost a decade ago when I first started to offer workshops to teach communications people how to plan, shoot, edit and post effective video there were strong signs that this trend was happening.

In 2023, to say that people watch a lot of video is as bold as saying it rains a lot in Manchester. It’s describing the world as it is.

What, however, is still useful is data and insight that paints this picture. This is where Ofcom come in. Buried in the 2023 Communications Market Report is data on video consumption. This is important stuff. It shows what demographics are watching what.

Frustratingly, LinkedIn is missing which now has video as an important strand. So is WhatsApp which has become a video sharing network by default. But there is enough here to

Video consumption in the UK by channel and demographic

Age	YouTube	Instagram	TikTok	Snapchat	Facebook	Twitter
13-17	90	70	66	58	46	30
18-24	85	78	49	58	71	52
25-34	83	66	31	29	74	41
35-44	85	52	23	18	77	42
45-54	74	35	15	8	73	36
55-64	69	26	7	5	69	27
65+	55	13	3	1	63	15

YouTube is consumed across the board by all demographics with even the majority of over 60s watching this channel.

Instagram is strong amongst under 34s with around three quarters watching video here.

TikTok is strongest amongst Gen Z.

Snapchat remains the forgotten channel for older communicators who don’t tend to use the teenage-friendly platform themselves.

Facebook is consistently strong across all demographics but especially older age groups.

Twitter is most used for video by 18 to 24-year-olds.

This data is a starting point for you to understand how best to use video. The fact that your audience is on the channel doesn’t translate to they will automatically be watching your content. You have to earn the right and part of that is to creater content that will work for each individual channel.

I help deliver workshops to teach communications people how to use video. ESSENTIAL VIDEO SKILLS FOR COMMS REBOOTED is your starting place for social video and ESSENTIAL TIKTOK & REELS is the starting place for portrait-shaped video.

It’s true the sad demise of Twitter is leading to a lot of re-thinking right now.

Since 2010, Twitter has formed the third leg of the social media trinity alomng with YouTube and Facebook.

But since Elon Musk’s takeover the channel has struggled.

The latest piece of the jigsaw is this report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate which has research showing more examples of hate speech across the platform.

• There have been 3,876 daily tweets mentioning the racist n-word on Twitter, up 202% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 1,282
• There have been 3,964 daily tweets mentioning the homophobic term f****t on Twitter, up 58% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 2,506
• There have been 17,937 daily tweets mentioning the misogynist term c**t on Twitter, up 33% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 13,514
• There have been 5,117 daily tweets mentioning the transphobic term t****y on Twitter, up 62% on the average daily rate in 2022 before his takeover of 3,159

CCDH, 2023

There are many people who use Twitter and are upstanding members of the community. No question.

But the Health and Safety Executive in the UK are clear that online abuse aimed at staff is classified as violence in the workplace. This can be named individuals or the individual who looks after the corporate account.

It’s unlikely that Twitter will physically fall over. MySpace didn’t and neither did FriendsReunited. But in my social media reviews for six months I’ve been advising public sector people to dial back on the channel.

This is more evidence for that.

Life was so simple as a press officer back in the olden days if you wanted coverage in a local paper. 

You rang them up, organised a time, they’d send a photographer and it would appear in the next edition. Bingo. Job done.

Now the world has changed. Staff photographers are a rarity, papers have become thinner and newspapers have become digital first news brands. 

So what do – let’s call them news titles – want now?

To find out I researched 28 weekly and daily regional news titles across the UK from Aberdeen to Belfast and Cardiff to Docklands. I looked at the print edition and what was posted to Facebook on a single day. Overall, there was 1,300 stories in print and 400 on Facebook.

Why? To better understand and to recommend in training what content works. Anyway, I’m fascinated by this stuff.

Here’s a flavour of the research. 

So, what visual content do local news titles now favour?

Come with me on a visual journey. I’ve split the findings into weekly titles and daily titles who are using quite different content. 

The traditional approach to news pictures

In the days of print, newspapers had their own teams of staff photographers who would cover the patch and produce local images in a house style. At the Express & Star in the Black Country the house style was ruthless. They must be upright, tight and bright. So, happy local faces. Faces so they would buy copies of the newspaper. 

Occasionally, there would be syndicated images from PA but submitted pictures hardly ever and never shoots taken by an amateur unless it was a likeness of a loved one collected from a  ‘death knock’. These macabre visits would be made by a duty reporter after a murder.

I found an old 2004 copy of the Express & Star and found that 73.8 per cent of shots were news pics and 15.3 per cent were submitted from the PA wire.

It would looklike this…

Fig 1. The Express & Star in August 2004

I was curious to see just how much things have changed.

Now, the repertoire of images used is far wider.

The news pic 

This is the classic of the newspaper. There is a full caption from left to right with real people and their names. It is the bread and butter.

The submitted pic 

This shot has been taken by a freelance photographer or maybe an amateur with a mobile phone. Or perhaps its an artists’ impression of a new development. Whatever the source, it came from outside the news room.

The library pic 

This shot comes from the title’s image library. It is generic. You want a shot of the Town Hall or a firefighter in South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue kit? Here it is. Need a shot of the site of the road where two cars collided? Go to Google Street View and take a credited screengrab.

The stock pic

This comes from a stock picture provider like istock. You want a picture of a football? Or a road closed sign? No problem. Here it is. This is more generic.

The full screen grab

Eddie Shah in 1986 pioneered the use of screen grabbing images from a TV screen to appear in print. Since then they have become a mainstay of news content. Did a guest on a chat show say something outrageous? There’s a screengrab to go with the words.

The meme

Internet culture makes it fine to have text on an image or just plain text on an image.

The front page

This curious addition to the visual repertoire feels like a throwback to when front pages were king. Here’s the front. You like it enough to buy it?

The poll

What’s your favourite picnic ingredient? What do you think of Harry and Meghan? Do you think Carlisle United will win the play-offs? ULEZ? Tell us in our poll.

The video 

The algorithm loves video. 

Weekly titles

Visual content in weekly titles: in print 

Fig 2. Images used by print weekly news titles

Here’s the first big hot take.

Content being used in print now is different to that of 20 years ago.

In print, pictures are dominated by submitted pictures with 80.2 per cent likely being sent into the editorial email. No wonder. Newsrooms have been stripped of photographers who could maybe produce a dozen pictures a day at full capacity. 

Library pictures came next on 15.3 per cent. These are the images of the town hall, the library and the beauty spot. They fill space but won’t encourage anyone to buy extra copies of the paper or order a print. 

Finally, classic news pics. At 4.3 per cent they have all but died out. These are the images with the a caption with a list of left to right names and likely taken in-house.

Visual content in weekly titles: online

Fig 3. Images used by print weekly news titles

Here’s where it gets fun. 

Content online is completely different to the content online from the same title.

Images used on Facebook to drive people towards a click are quite different to the print edition. The rule that may have dictated the size and style of an image have gone out of the window. What has replaced it is an eye catching image rather than an identifiable face. 
With newsrooms closing and being hollowed out the speed of getting a library image or stock image overtakes any editorial rule for people. No wonder, as people scroll a colourful image is more powerful.

So, the library picture – at 41.3 per cent – is the most common style of content with weekly titles online. The everyday shot of a landmark or firefighters is what weekly titles are after.

Following this is the submitted image on 29.8 per cent then the stock image on 12.3 per cent. The news pic trails behind on 7.0 per cent.

The screen grab on 3.6 per cent, meme on 2.6 per cent, front page facsimile on 1.8 per cent, poll on 0.8 and video on 0.8 complete the picture. 

Daily titles

 Visual content in daily titles: in print  

Fig 4. Images used by print daily news titles

Library pictures account for almost half of images in print with submitted pics a quarter and news pictures a fifth. There are three times more news pictures in daily titles than in weekly.

This is totally transformed from the newspaper of 20 years ago. 

Visual content in daily titles: online 

Fig 5. images used by daily news titles online

Library pictures win out for dailies online taking up a third of content posted to Facebook with submitted one in five narrowly beating stock images.

Screen grabs provide a noticeable trend with 8.7 per cent with TV and celebrity dominating these images

Video is more of an imprint on daily titles with 5.8 per cent standard social media video and less than one per cent for Reels and for live video.

Conclusions

Review what you do. If you’re still basing the content you send on how things used to be you’re missing a trick.

Add a picture when you send out words. This could be a stock picture you have permission to use or a library picture that you’ve generated yourself. Just add a picture and send it via a a file transfer link like wetransfer or drop box. The reporter will tell you what format they would most like.  

Photo calls are over. News photographers barely exist. Don’t think about booking a photocall with the local title because they’re not there to answer the phone let alone come. 

Submitted images are powerful. But this does provide a gap that can be filled with a submitted image. Having a freelance photography budget is a wise idea for news stories you are looking to get covered. The brief needs to be a news pic but also as many library pics as you can get your hands on.

Video. Providing video is also a sensible idea which can help you get coverage and help the reporter to fill space online. The amount of video being used by local titles is surprisingly low given that half of all time spent on Facebook is spent watching. 

Methodology 

I looked at a news title’s print edition for a given day and the corresponding Facebook page’s output.

Included in the research are the print and online versions of daily newspapers Belfast Telegraph, Express & Star, Evening Mail, Manchester Evening News, Dorset Echo, Glasgow Herald, Aberdeen Press & Journal, Western Mail, Evening Standard, Newcastle Chronicle, Sunderland Echo, Norwich Evening News, Oxford Mail and Yorkshire Post.

Weekly titles include the print and web versions of The Derbyshire Times, Whitehaven News, Tamworth Herald, New Milton Advertiser & Lymington News, Essex Chronicle, Northumberland Gazette, West Highland Free Press, Milngavie & Bearsdon Herald, Ulster Gazette & Armagh Standard, Brecon & Radnor Express, Kidderminster Shuttle, Knutsford Guardian, Tenbury Wells Advertiser, Docklands & East London Advertiser, Bridlington Free Press and Essex Echo.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed a print edition for the study.

Sign-up for the weekly email for more of the research.

If you found this helpful, you’d like ESSENTIAL COMMS SKILLS BOOSTER as well as ESSENTIAL MEDIA RELATIONS workshops.

You can subscribe to my weekly email FREE here.

There’s been a lot said about the new Meta app Threads.

I’ve read a stack of it and here are the key points for you here.

There’s a TLDR summary and a key quote and a link. 

TLDR: Threads is aiming to be less confrontational than Twitter

“Had Meta launched this app in 2019 it seems safe to say everyone would have rolled their eyes. Its big new feature is… logging on with Instagram? Come on… When the competition is an app where ’cisgender’ is considered a slur Threads has an easy time standing out as an oasis of calm and civility.”
Platformer Meta Unspools Threads

TLDR: Threads can be a proper Twitter challenger because it’s linked to Instagram which is already huge 

“There have been challengers to the bird app in the past 12 months. Mastodon, Bluesky, Post are just a few. But the big advantage Threads has is that it is pushing invites to all of it’s 2bn+ active users on Instagram. And Meta have made it super easy to port over existing followers from Instagram, which has created the level of virality we have witnessed in the past 24hrs.”
Simon Baillie, LinkedIn: The 1st 24 hours on Meta’s Threads

TLDR: There’s lots of hype, lets see how it is in six months

“I have a tinge of the excitement I felt in 2012 when instagram launched, because it just seems to make sense, it works, it’s intuitive, sign up took seconds, and because we are instantly connected with all our existing friends and user base, so we a ready-made network, that’s already conversing.”
Dave Burt, LinkedIn Threads… a Master Stroke?

TLDR: With Meta behind it there’s a fair chance that Threads will work

“Almost every influencer, whether they like it or not, or whether they want Threads to succeed or fail, will be hopping on Threads just in case it does succeed,” he said.”There is potentially a small advantage or a large advantage to being an early adopter of Threads – you certainly will have less people in the Threads ecosystem, so maybe you can get more followers quicker or something like that.”
BBC News  Instagram’s Threads: ‘Almost every influencer will be hopping on it’

TLDR: Twitter is now so awful Threads now has a chance

“They’ve definitely got a fighting chance if all of their protections for communities and individuals are firmly in place,” says Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia. “If Threads can displace Twitter’s current toxicity, it may well steal Musk’s crown.”
Wired How Threads Could Kill Twitter

TLDR: If you think Threads will be a discord-free Nirvana think again
“Instagram and now Threads are obsessively designed to shuffle normal users together with brands, encouraging commercial activity at every turn. And while the lofty notion of a virtual public square or town hall is evoked often by social media execs to further the agenda of the day, public squares aren’t just the domain of trade and commerce. Historically, they’re also the heart of culture and a place for political discourse — itself a pesky and unavoidable side effect of existing within a society.”
Techcrunch Meta’s vision for Threads is more mega-mall than public square

TLDR: Threads will navigate towards entertainment not news
“The Facebook and Instagram owner also has been actively embracing an algorithmic approach to serving up content, which gives it greater control over the type of fare that does well as it tries to steer more toward entertainment and away from news.”
Reuters Meta’s ‘friendly’ Threads collides with unfriendly internet

TLDR: Just because it’s new doesn’t mean its good 
“There is an adjustment period as a culture confronts and psychologically adapts to new media and technology, and it’s longer than we realise. This last 24 hours of staring at my phone asking “what am I doing this for?” has me thinking that for all the sassy talk about “digital natives” and the “extremely online”, we are still so in awe of what the internet can do we outsize our deference to it – the way we once dipped our heads before thunder, believing the rumbles came from Thor.”
The Guardian: The launch of Meta’s Threads proves yet again we are too much in awe of the internet

TLDR: Washington knows that Twitter is screwed but is keeping a watching brief on Threads.
“Although Threads has caught the attention of the White House, it’s not clear yet if the West Wing views it as a worthwhile investment. It takes time and resources to set up new official social media accounts and build the same followings that the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter handles currently have.”
Politico To thread or not to thread

One of the powerful things about video is how it can shine a light on the authentic.

If you really mean something it comes over and if you don’t that impression is painted too.

Here are two videos that paint this picture well.

Video 1: Ruben Neves

The first is Wolves player Ruben Neves who is recording a farewell video after signing for a Saudi Arabian club. He’s clearly emotional.

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A message from @rubendsneves_… pic.twitter.com/tWAcfnkp5q

— Wolves (@Wolves) June 23, 2023

It’s the video of someone who really feels it.

Wolves are not my team. Far from it. As a Stoke City fan growing up in Stafford they were the enemy and still are. But I get the emotion in the voice. You don’t have to like football to get it.

As a supporter, I know that he’s cemented a place in his club’s folklore in what he did on the pitch and the way he left. That’s a rare thing.

Deconstructed

As a piece of filmmaking, it’s well put together. The opening shot is an identifying shot of the empty chair that works in tandem with the text ‘A message from…’. We cut to the emotional shot almost as a teaser. We cut back to the beginning of the statement. We know what’s coming and the video doesn’t disappoint.

There’s also cutaways to the good times such as a goal he scores. The strength of a cutaway is that you see it and you hear it. It’s doubly reinforced as well as being visually interesting.

It’s also on the Wolves club account so the club have also endorsed this message.

Video 2: Mason Mount

Compare this now to Mason Mount who controversially moved from Chelsea to Manchester United. It’s a video on his own instagram. There’s less polish. There must be sincerity there but it doesn’t come through.

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As one person comments, it has the look of a hostage video.

It would also be wrong to try and force emotion. Fake tears are fake.

Maybe that’s because someone is not as comfortable in front of the camera and that’s okay. If that’s the case don’t put them in front of the camera.

When Neves left Wolves it feels like the end of a chapter and he’s going somewhere far away. When Mount leaves Chelsea to bitter rivals it feels like a betrayal to many fans.

A written statement would have been better.