Strategy for the 'Real' Eamonn Holmes Official Website

A few days ago Eamonn Holmes presenter of Sky News Sunrise and ITV This Morning programmes, tweeted the following to his 74,000 followers.  "Added another little flip cam video to new website - building it slowly. Have a butcher's www.officialeamonnholmes.com"

Never one to refuse an invitation I had a quick look at Eamonn's new site on my iphone and tweeted back rather nervously "@EamonnHolmes there's an awful lot of stuff about Eamonn Holmes! It's your official site but would you consider broadening it out a bit?"

To my delight Eamonn didn't take offence and replied asking for suggestions of what else he would put on there. It's always nice to be asked for your opinion but even more so when it's someone like Eamonn Holmes who remains as grounded as he is famous, who happens to be from N. Ireland like me and not least is a passionate supporter of Manchester United.

I don't know Eamonn personally and I have never had the privilege to meet him, but I find that he comes across on TV as 'real' and grounded - there's nothing fake or plastic about him. He is clearly passionate about lots of things that strike a chord with the average person.

The best insight to the 'real' Eamonn Holmes can be found in an excellent article by Cole Morteton in the Daily Mail. 'TV is poisonous and evil. Audiences are being cheated and treated like idiots by a bunch of intellectuals': The burning rage of Eamonn Holmes

So now to my suggestions, or rather to my personal analysis of how Eamonn's new website comes across and some thoughts on how it could or should come across. So here goes Eamonn, and please don't take offence!

For the first few minutes the site seems fairly slick and polished, but you soon come to the realisation that this is also its main weakness.

I'm afraid that in its present form your new site is somewhat guilty of hitting the lowest common denominator, a fault of modern media which you rightly highlighted in your Cole Moreton interview. The visual imagery on your site is just too polished and sugary and feels more like an extension of SKY or Hello Magazine rather than a 'real' reflection of what Eamon Holmes is all about. Your passions start to come through in the blog, but they don't come through strongly enough overall.

There is too much of the celebrity thing, too many images of you. I know you're still a handsome chappy Eamonn but I'm fairly certain you are not as vain as the top half of every page would make you out to be. Obviously putting a half page image of you on each page was not your idea, more likely a recommendation from a 'publicity advisor'. However you are clearly not that kind of person, at least I hope not!

From my perspective you are in one of the most privileged positions in Britain, and it's all down to your decades of hard work as a broadcaster with a unique mix of charm, wit and intelligence but most importantly your realness and your ability to empathise with a very broad spectrum of people.

Through your official website you have an unbelieveable opportunity to harness the respect and affection that an enormous number of people have for you, to promote your agenda on issues which matter to you and your constituency, to achieve something of value for people and for Britain. That is the strategic objective that I believe should be informing and shaping the look and feel of your official website and its content.

So there you have my considered thoughts. I look forward to hearing your reaction. (I hope!)

Cheers Eamonn,

Tommy Murphy, Creative Director at UK Web Consultants Octoberstone Design