Poor People @ #WaitroseReasons

If you have time for some amusement, another example today of a PR department getting it wrong on Twitter:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205975/Waitrose-Twitter-backlash-I-shop-Waitrose--I-dont-like-surrounded-poor-people.html


Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Atos On The Hop

For your message to play out successfully, you want to be able to focus attention on it. Until a few weeks ago, few in the UK would have heard of global IT firm, Atos. No matter. Through its Olympic sponsorship, it would garner headlines about its technological prowess and project management capabilities. Instead, in the words of Mark Borkowski “if people were not aware of Atos, they certainly are now. It is a brand under terrible pressure”.

They got media coverage alright but it wasn’t good and surely it devalued their sponsorship. And yes, this does matter for B2B organisations (for why, see my earlier blog entry of 10th April 2012 about Goldman Sachs).

Atos has a government contract to assess disability benefit claimants’ capacity to work. There have been a very high percentage of successful appeals against its assessments. The Guardian and a Labour MP have campaigned on the issue for months and a Commons Select Committee had lambasted Atos’ handling of the process.

So presumably it was not a surprise to Atos that disability campaigners would juxtapose this with its sponsorship of the Paralympics - and it would gain media traction at this time.

The week the Olympics opened, both Panorama and Dispatches ran undercover investigations that criticised Atos’ assessment process. But no Atos spokesperson. Just excerpts from a statement which could not adequately challenge the journalists’ multiple accusations. When national media covered a disabled protest outside Atos’ London offices, no spokesperson.

Print and online had to make do with quoting an anonymous ‘Atos spokesperson’. Really? When responding to emotional stories about the distress to disabled people caused by your assessments? And no mention or rebuttal on Atos’ websites or Twitter feed of any of this. Although I did find campaigners tweeting that ParalympicGB athletes had hidden the Atos branding on their passes.

And when the media is on to you, they’ll run with anything that supports the narrative about you. Therefore last month a "mistaken comment" in an Atos letter to a claimant with depression justified a BBC Online story repeating of the criticisms of the company. Labour MP Tom Greatrex’s inquiries caused the National Audit Office to criticise Atos’ performance and he secured a debate in the House of Commons that would have been less likely but for the timing connection of the Paralympics which had created the media buzz.

Atos’ statements appeared devoid of emotionally compelling messages for an audience to empathise with: “we meet our obligations in delivering a complex and challenging contract”; “we offer our customers good value for money alongside high standards of service, delivery and flexibility”.

And when others were asked about Atos, they grasped the opportunity to push their own key messages. The British Paralympic Association: "our role is to concentrate on promoting British Paralympians as positive role models rather than to comment on wider, non-sport related disability issues".

Craig Spence, communications director for the International Paralympics Committee, commented that: “I think the majority of people watching will be marvelling at the fantastic performances of our elite athletes as opposed to a small minority who will be protesting”.

No doubt Atos had internal reasons for not engaging on the issue – maybe they feared upsetting their government client. But the public and most politicians care more about fairness than they do about Atos sponsoring the games and showcasing its technology. Its communications failed to connect the two.

Key learning points:

• Acknowledge and address criticisms. Ignoring them makes you look evasive and audiences less likely to recall your positive key messages.
• Use example, imagery and anecdote to humanise your response. Journalists write about how products and services affect people.
• Watchdog, Dispatches, Panorama et al will go ahead with or without you. If you do not give an interview – and there will be occasions when you cannot – the audience will assume guilt. Give an interview and at least get free airtime to make your case. See if you can get an unedited ‘as live’ interview.

Andrew Caesar-Gordon