In Tune PR’s motto (besides ‘amplifying awareness’) is ‘Putting the right words in the right places’.
Too many times, though, the wrong words go in the wrong places. Sometimes, because it is felt there is nothing to be done.
Two examples.
One, a Waterstones bookshop in a retail park close to our location in the London borough of Bromley closed recently due to differences with the landlord. While unspecified, it is quite likely that a bookshop doesn’t bring the revenues that would sustain a unit in the same way that a Marks & Spencer food and drink outlet in the park. However, one thing that is now abundantly clear is that the shopping outlets and high streets that prosper do so by offering an experience, in an era when so much can be bought online. Since the book shop closed, I haven’t been back to the retail park. I can’t go and browse books news and old. I can’t speak with the personable and knowledgeable staff. I can only look at the bare place where the shop sign once sat. The experience of the retail park has been damaged, and so too has the income of the remaining stores. I don’t want to go back, or go back as often, and I won’t be alone in this. There are no volumes of written words in what was for a long time a right place for them.
Two, the term ‘legacy media’. Wikipedia says, “Old media, also called traditional media or legacy media, are the mass media institutions that dominated prior to the internet; particularly print media, film studios, music studios, advertising agencies, radio broadcasting, and television.” The implication is that these forms of media are redundant, or has-beens. Certainly, attention and advertising money has shifted towards digital media. But regarding legacy media as yesterday’s news and digital media as the new and everlasting King is too simplistic. It also overlooks the dangers that come with the ‘new’ media, which are becoming clearer and clearer, and to which alternatives are needed. One solution might be a refresh and revival of ‘legacy media’.
Good words in the right places need support.
Darren Weale, Founder, In Tune PR
23 March 2025
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