Foreign Office to court youth on YouTube

The Foreign Office is to launch a public relations offensive in the
spring targeted at British and foreign youth, with the help of a
redesigned website and its own YouTube video channel.

The Foreign
Office channel has been functioning experimentally since September,
broadcasting the off-the-cuff thoughts of the foreign secretary, David
Miliband, observations from ambassadors and junior staffers alike and
vivid travel advisories for would-be tourists. But in the next few
months Britain's diplomats will follow in the steps of Buckingham
Palace, devoting cash and staff to making YouTube central to its effort
to court a younger audience at home and abroad.

"We're basically relaunching the website in March-April," a Foreign
Office spokesman said. "There will be a total revamp of the web
presence and that includes a presence on YouTube because of the
particular segment of the market YouTube is targeted at, the 18-25s."

Unlike the Royal Channel, the new Foreign Office presence on YouTube, Foreign Office presence on YouTube,
will not show past ceremonial highlights. It will focus on making
British diplomats appear more modern and approachable. In one of his
video blogs, Miliband said he hoped the initiative would open up the
"secret garden of diplomacy" to the public.

Some of the effort
will be aimed at Arab and Iranian youth in the hope of undoing some of
the damage to Britain's reputation in the Islamic world done by the
Iraq war. But a lot of the material will be aimed at Britons planning
holidays, as part of a Know Before You Go campaign, after a report last
year found record numbers were arrested or hospitalised during drinking
binges abroad.

Via Gurdian


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