Media firm gets the message out

UNDER THE RADAR:Jack Murray, Mediacontact.ie

THE MEDIA industry has been changed forever by the internet, blogs and social networking sites, all vying for attention with television, radio and print. For organisations chasing precious coverage, access can be a mystery, and knowledge is power.

“I’ve worked in marketing, in journalism and in politics, and what’s struck me repeatedly in all three has been the locked-in value in knowing exactly how the media works,” says Jack Murray (35), managing director of Mediacontact.ie.

Murray, who also runs public relations firm JMedia, set out to unlock that value by buying the 15-year-old Irish Media Contacts Directory from former RTÉ London editor Mike Burns in 2006 – with the aim of dragging it into the 21st century. “I suppose I was a bit like Victor Kiam, the guy who bought Remington in the 1980s after his wife gave him a present of an electric razor. He used to do a TV ad saying, ‘I liked it so much I bought the company’. Well, that’s what happened to me,” says Murray.

“The directory was already a well-established brand name within the media sector. My aim was to revamp it, to plug it into all the changes in terms of technology and new outlets, and to make it accessible online – something we spent the next 18 months doing.”

The online version of the directory is called MediaDirect, which went live last February.

Murray has since used it as a springboard to add MediaExpert, a list of media “performers” across 50 disciplines; MediaFlash, a weekly online newsletter; and MediaTraining and MediaJobs.

“The changes in the way people deal with the media have been extraordinary, and extraordinarily rapid,” muses Murray, a former spokesman for the Progressive Democrats and later adviser to Tom Parlon at the Department of Finance. “Twenty years ago, people were writing press releases using a typewriter and posting or faxing them to journalists. Much more recently, media monitoring still meant cutting bits out of the papers with a scissors.

“I kept thinking to myself: there must be a way of adding technology to this equation and marketing it as a sophisticated, added-value product for people involved in communications – and that’s what we’ve done.”

Not only does MediaDirect give customers access to some 200 media lists – contact details for “everyone from Charlie Bird to a reporter on the Western People” – but they can also generate their own press release on the system and distribute it from there.

“There’s a user-friendly format with a place for the headline and another for the body of the text. You can also upload any photographs you want to include. And then you click on the groups you want to send it to. It arrives at the far end from your e-mail address, not ours, and replies go directly back to you.”

For those to whom access to traditional media is something of a mystery, new media such as social networking sites and blogs pose even greater challenges.

“How quickly we forget that TV and radio were once new media, and that people were at a loss about how to approach them. The same thing is happening now with social media,” says Murray.

“Seasoned professionals in the communications business are saying, ‘What am I supposed to do about this?’ On the other hand, they know it’s too powerful to ignore . . . which is why we’ve been getting involved in training with an emphasis on social media.”

Staying ahead of that technology curve is hugely important. “The economy is difficult. But when you’re innovative and selling a cost-effective, high-tech solution, it’s a bit easier. If I was still trying to sell the media directory in book form, then I’d really be in trouble.”

On The Record

Name:Jack Murray.

Company:Mediacontact.ie, www.mediacontact.ie

Job:managing director.

Age:35.

Background:Graduated from University of Limerick in 1996 with a bachelor of business studies, followed in 1998 by a postgraduate diploma in journalism from DIT.

Joined the PDs as press officer at 25 and was adviser to Tom Parlon at the Department of Finance in 2002 and 2003.

Set up PR firm JMedia in October 2003 and won the Public Relations Institute’s award for best corporate communications in 2005. Bought the Irish Media Contacts Directory in 2006 and set up Mediacontact.ie that November. MediaDirect went live in February 2009.

Challenges:"Convincing people of the merits of using new technology to reach the media, though this, ironically, is being made slightly easier by the fact that economic times are hard and businesses need all the help they can get."

Inspired by:"My parents, who taught me the value of hard work and the freedom of being self- employed. And Gerry McCaughey, founder of Century Homes, my first PR client and now a great friend and mentor, who's one of the most talented entrepreneurs of his generation."

Most important thing learned so far:"Keep improving your business by listening to customer feedback and taking it seriously."