Petrol car Crash TV

Everybody's talking about it. Media trainers will replace the infamous Paxman v Michael Howard interview of 15 years ago with it.

Watching Treasury Minister, Chloe Smith, being brtutally sliced and diced by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight last night (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or4Nq6fah1k) offers the viewer two key lessons in handling media interviews:

1.   Proof that it is your content/ words, not the tone of voice or visual expression, that determines how the audience trusts your communication. Those trainers who say that communication is 93% tone and expression and only 7% the words fundamentally misunderstand Albert Mehrabian's 1960s study and they should go look at it before promulgating such nonsense. Chloe Smith by-and-large maintains her composure during the interview (aside from a couple of suspicious stressful coughing fits!). But it is her completely unconvincing replies - which Paxman repeatedly drills into - that undermines her performance and leaves the audience disbelieving.

2.    Honesty is the best policy - address the question and don't go for slippery spin. She clearly had nothing to do with the decision because she was too junior and clearly it was one taken in response to a growing political argument. As a former Special Adviser, I can confirm that Ministers of whatever rank hate to admit they were out of the loop because they fear the media will belittle their power and responsibilities; governments hate to seen to make U-turns because they fear it will be perceived by the electorate as weakness.

But I wonder whether she would rather now have answered - or been allowed to answer by her bosses - something more along the lines "Yes, this was one of those few occasions when a decision was taken by people above my paygrade - the Chancellor and Prime Minister. It was made following a review of how we could pay for this without adding to the deficit when it became clear that this was how we could best help the hard working families struggling to pay motoring bills. This is good for families and business and reinforces that this is a listening government."

If Paxman rejoins with a weakness argument, then you respond with "No, this shows how confident we are that we can reconsider our position, how successful we have been in reducing the deficit so we can make this kind of carefully considered decision and let's not forget the key thing here - it is a measure that will assist British businesses and families."

Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Martyring Martha

You have probably read about Argyll & Bute Council's treatment of nine year old Martha Payne's 'Never Seconds' blog critiquing the school dinner she is served daily.

Now read this. An entertaining and insightful analysis of the Council's initial press release about why they have prevented Martha from writing her blog. A guide on how not to write a press release:

http://blog.adrianshort.co.uk/2012/06/15/how-not-to-write-a-press-release-argyll-and-bute-council-style/


Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Does social media work for B2B marketing?

Xerox’s recent attempts to engage with Twitter (for example through Promoted Tweets) and Pinterest have been met with a rather lukewarm reaction. The high expectations were simply not met. Christa Carone, Xerox’s chief marketing officer, observed that social media for B2B companies may not constitute the best investment of time. She said: “I know that the CIOs of major companies are not going to be making a $5 million… deal based on their connection with Xerox on Facebook.” So, should B2B companies jump off or stay on the social media bandwagon?

Ultimately, social media provides just another set of channels through which businesses can reach their stakeholders. Just like any other communication channel, some are better suited to achieving certain objectives than others. And some are suited to certain organisations more than others.

As Xerox is quickly recognizing, it’s about using the right channels for the right tasks. Carone says Xerox is highly engaged on Twitter, with more than 50 branded accounts. "Our greatest success on Twitter is when we can help a customer/follower with an issue or concern, or to engage in an authentic exchange of information," she says.

The channels that's had the most success for the company, though, have been blogs and YouTube. Carone says engagement is highest through company blogs and YouTube gets the most attention. Facebook works best for Xerox for communicating with employees, recruits and former employees, Carone says, while LinkedIn "provides the growing platform where we can connect with communities that are informing real business decisions."

Many organisations are still feeling their way with regard to social media, and this is certainly true of business to business operations and corporates. There’s a degree of trial and error, and figuring out what works best to achieve certain tasks such as brand-building, reputation protection, customer engagement or pure sales. As with other communication techniques, the key is to measure and evaluate what works best and amend campaigns accordingly.

There’s no doubt in my mind that social media has an important role to play for B2B organisations. The question that organisations need to answer is exactly what that role should be. Those that come up with the answer quickest are likely to achieve competitive advantage over their peers.

Further analysis of the issue can be found on Ragan’s website http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/44825.aspx

Jonathan Hemus

Not So Innocent Drinks

So here's a little PR lesson that demonstrates what makes news, the potential reputation damage inherent in employee use of social media and how your positioning of your organisation can see you hoisted on your own petard.

It's a silly story in the Daily Mail but it is one of those little stories that can chip away at your carefully constructed brand essence and needlessly consumes your time and effort in issues management.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135085/Not-innocent-Smoothie-companys-joke-selling-smack-response-comment-price-drinks.html

A jokey tweet by smoothie maker Innocent Drinks that they also sell heroin, in response to a customer's joke that the price of Innocent's smoothies bears comparison to that of illegal drugs, generates a 350 word "shock horror" article by the Daily Mail.

It makes news because even joking about such as thing is judged to contrast sharply with Innocent's carefully constructed ethics and values. This provides the reason for and the heart of the story. Maybe the Daily Mail is being humourless but it clearly believes that enough of its audience will share its sense-of-humour failure.

The Daily Mail is also able to justify its tone by linking the incident to Russell Brand's appearance before a Parliamentary committee investigating drug addiction (not often they have something positive to say about him!). This shows the impact of topicality and the 'bandwagon effect' on journalist judgements as to what constitutes a good story.

It is highly unlikely that before the advent of 24 hour online new media news, such a story would have made its way into the print edition (leaving aside that the story catalyst is new media!) but it shows how the online news beast needs to be fed.

It's a flash-in the pan story which required some management time to address; Innocent employees have no doubt received a memo reminding them of the brand essence and the dangers of casual use of social media. On the upside, the Daily Mail has publicised Innocent Drinks' claims about their ethics; on the downside I will be just that little bit more alert to anything else I see or read about the company that more seriously juxtaposes values and actions. And that's where the longer term damage has been done.


Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Toxic And Destructive - Goldman Sachs continued

There was an interesting article by American PR man Richard Levick in Forbes magazine at the end of March, essentially asking whether as a B2B business, Goldman Sachs needs to care about the reputational damage and negative online coverage it has received over the "Toxic & Destructive"/ "Muppet Clients" claims made by its former trader Greg Smith in The New York Times.

Levick argues that for a company owned mainly by institutions, in the old days Goldman Sachs could have smoothed things over with a few phone calls and meetings, and moved on. But today, the power of social media to both disseminate and sustain a story, draws in regulators, politicians and decision makers that Goldman Sachs probably does care about for the longer term; that every citizen's opinion is both aggregated and amplified throughout all the social media channels and which effects the thinking of decision-makers who are as susceptible as any other human.

In such an environment, persistent reputational issues could potentially lead for instance to a persistent public insistence on greater regulatory oversight or an unwillingness by government ministers to listen to their lobbying on a wide range of issues. I would have thought that to say to anyone outside of banking that you work for Goldman Sachs immediately raises negative connotations in the listener's mind. And what will make that go away unless Goldman Sachs communicates more proactively and widely than it does now?

Levick observes that a week after Smith’s New York Times article, a Google search of “Greg Smith” and “Goldman Sachs” yielded more than seven million hits and “as somebody at the SEC once said to somebody at the DOJ, ‘Hey, seven million muppets can’t be wrong.’”

Here in the UK, the persistent political and NGO attacks on all banks (whether they took money from the government or not); the additional taxes and levies a Tory Chancellor has imposed on them; and the media bludgeoning of every pay rise and bonus awarded to a bank worker, should serve as warning of what happens when a sector’s reputation goes into freefall.

While how an organisation communicates with the media and stakeholders rarely leads to a company going under (Ratner being a glorious exception), those that are damaged temporarily or more persistently, are often undone by a mismatch between the crafted brand image (i.e. what has previously been claimed and communicated by an organisation) and its actions. The casualty list (killed off and the walking wounded) of B2B organisations underdone by their reputation mismanagement is long – ranging from the likes of Arthur Andersen to BP and TEPCO to FIFA.

Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Toxic and Destructive - Goldman Sachs v Online Media

When considering customer backlashes, boycotts of products and services or anger spread throughout the media and the internet we tend to focus on consumer facing organisations. These companies are all too aware of the possible reputational risks and most are prepared for the online battle to protect their corporate reputation and brand. They tend to be well-equipped with a social media action plan ready to be used when the crisis hits.

The situation is a little different when it comes to big corporates or business to business (B2B) companies. Their assumption has been that the Internet in general and certainly social media have little relevance to their reputation as B2B businesses operate in a different realm compared with their consumer-focused counterparts.

This belief was turned on its head when Greg Smith announced his resignation from Goldman Sachs in the New York Times calling his employer “morally bankrupt” and subsequently causing crisis of monumental proportions. From an article in conventional media channel, it spread quickly via Twitter, anti-Goldman Sachs Facebook pages and many blogs.

Social Media Influence has thoroughly analysed the Goldman Sachs crisis and their insights are available at http://socialmediainfluence.com/2012/03/15/goldman-sachs-and-the-anatomy-of-a-resignation-letter-that-goes-viral/.

The lesson from this reputational disaster is that no company, be it a consumer brand or a more traditional corporate, is safe from an online vendetta. And thus, crisis preparedness and training – including social media exercises – is a must.

Jonathan Hemus

Claire’s crisis communication response: designed for success?

Claire’s, the accessories and jewellery retailer, has found itself cast in the classic role of corporate Goliath, supposedly trampling over a much smaller rival following allegations that it copied the product of an independent designer (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/feeds/claires-stores-ignores-twitter-criticism-over-copycat-design-claims/4600?tag=search-results-rivers;item0).

It’s an impression unlikely to win friends and one which the company would wish to shake off. Its crisis communication approach has been to keep its head down, presumably in the hope that the storm will pass.

This is not always the wrong strategy: sometimes ignoring online, or indeed any criticism, can be the best approach to avoid turning a minor skirmish into a major crisis. The key though is not to make these decisions on the fly, but to invest time beforehand so that the right strategy can be quickly adopted in the event of an issue.

That means conducting regular reputational risk assessments to identify what could go wrong and then scenario planning against the most likely or most damaging risks. This allows businesses to identify triggers for communication and calibrate their response appropriately.

In Claire’s case, the trigger could have been when online comment reached a pre-agreed level or when certain influential stakeholders joined the debate. Realistic social media simulations can help to further rehearse decision-making and ensure the communication team is fully geared up to respond to an online crisis.

This issue also flags up the need for thorough online media monitoring. We don’t know what mechanisms Claire’s had in place to monitor social media conversations. What we do know is that being aware of what is being said about you as soon as it is said, is the first and essential step in being able to respond quickly to criticism.

Claire’s extremely guarded response to the issue seems unlikely to be in the best interests of its reputation. By absenting itself from the online discussions, it allows others to make assertions, shape the discussion and influence how Claire’s is seen.

The current policy of non-communication and alleged removal of Tweets and Facebook posts only serves to reinforce negative images of Claire’s as an aloof and controlling corporation.

Communicating more pro-actively – whether to stand behind its design and explain its approach to working with small designers, or to apologise and announce actions it will take to address the situation – would help to position the organisation more empathetically and in control of its own destiny.

Jonathan Hemus