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Issues Management Lessons

Posted in authenticity/credibility, Business, communications, public relations, Trevor Campbell, Uncategorized on January 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

What’s the PR lesson from Conan O’Brien’s battle with NBC?

O’Brien’s emotionally charged jokes and attacks on the network bosses have been poignant and hilarious at times. Last Friday’s Tonight Show was no exception as O’Brien didn’t pull any punches:  ”In the press this week, NBC has been calling me every name in the book. In fact, they think I’m such an idiot they now want me to run the network,” O’Brien said.

The Hollywood publicity game is certainly different from corporate PR. For starters, publicists tend to trade on softer news. That said, handling issues such as the O’Brien vs NBC fight provides some good lessons.

Boardroom battles can be influenced by headlines and often repeated sound bites. O’Brien has mastered this truism via monologues delivered to a growing, captive audience.

It’s easier to identify with someone we know and understand. The NBC execs are basically faceless while O’Brien has repeatedly told his side of the story. Even if you didn’t watch the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien before and just started tuning in, it wouldn’t take long to decide if you bought his message or not.

Of course it helps that O’Brien is at the top of his game; a talented, funny pitchman can make people buy just about anything.

The third lesson, which is a good reminder for big businesses, is Main Street and mainstream media are wary of corporations. If your company’s credibility is suspect in light of an employee or customer complaint then be prepared for an issue that may blow up.

No matter what the NBC leadership says and even if their decision to juggle their late evening talent was the best solution for a ratings problem, the big corporation is looking bad and we get to watch.

Lastly, working with big personalities requires a strong communications lead who can bring smart ideas to emotionally charged situations. O’Brien looks to be making the most of his decisions on his way to victory. However, not every client or lead spokesperson can as effectively operate in the eye of a storm. Communications teams need to be prepared to offer wise guidance.

Of course the network is also reaping the benefit if big ratings while its dirty laundry gets aired and NBC and its shareholders may get the last laugh. However, if O’Brien starts another show on another network and NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno returns to mediocrity, then the O’Brien fiasco may be another example of how bad communications and issues management are bad for business.

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More Growth for PR

Posted in authenticity/credibility, communications, Corporate, public relations, Trevor Campbell on January 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

It’s always good news when a well-respected publication such as the Economist writes something positive about your industry.  Much has been said and written by many marketing communications insiders about the challenges and opportunities faced by our industry. This navel-gazing is necessary and a lot of smart points have been made.

However, the tips, tricks and top-10 lists offered by so many thought-leaders don’t resonate as widely as the always coveted third-party, on-message endorsement. It’s golden when someone else sings your praise, especially when that third-party is influential.

Additionally, I think the big companies  alluded to in the Economist article could have avoided or limited negative publicity and the associated costs by choosing to include PR as part of the organizing principle for their business strategy and decisions.

I’m glad that the Economist is once again reminding us of the power of PR.

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Tribalism, Bias and Climategate

Posted in advertising, blogging, journalist, media, news, social media, Trevor Campbell, Uncategorized on December 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

The current battle between climate change believers and deniers provides great reminders about the realities of media and tribalism.

The climate change skeptics have gained considerable momentum as illustrated by the heated debate concerning emails hacked from servers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. I wonder what motivated the hackers.

The hundreds of pages of hacked emails apparently contain some very persuasive content. More persuasive than the radio campaign launched by the Friends of Science that I commented on here. As I said, the climate skeptics needed to collaborate and use social media instead of attack ads. Well, they certainly have developed some good partnerships and Climategate has ignited a lot of social and traditional media discussion.

Much of the discussion concerns the alleged scientific biases in the hacked emails; apparently some of the climatologists may have manipulated some of their research.

Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote a compelling article about the Climategate coverage. His conclusion:

“Now is a good time for journalists to reassess their coverage of climate change, weed out any bias from their reporting strategies, do what they can to disentangle politics from science, and be more aggressive about covering what many scientists, business figures, policymakers, and activists think is the most important climate story of this still-new millennium.”

This isn’t an indictment of journalists but instead refers to the complexity of the issue and, no surprise here, the dwindling resources that traditional media must now cope with. According to Brainard:

“As with business and political reporting, there is a tendency for science journalists to become too reliant on and close to a limited number of sources, which can lead to ideological bias in terms of accepting the sources’ statements uncritically… In addition, the mainstream media tends to abhor complicated stories on areas of scientific uncertainty about the causes and consequences of climate change. This tendency is not exclusive to science reporting—most editors tend to prefer distilled and simple news bites.”

As a member of a tribe or community it’s hard to imagine not becoming too close to and reliant on friends, colleagues, sources, etc. The close connections are valuable, the give-and-take is rewarding and biases hard to avoid. Shared biases might actually be part of the glue that holds communities together. Given this reality, it’s important for citizen journalists and traditional media alike to not be unfavourably influenced by their prejudices.

As online communities and social media continue to flourish, it will be interesting to see how opinion and biases continue to shape journalism and conversations.

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Rotman Commerce Brand Blitz

Posted in advertising, brand, communications, social media, Trevor Campbell on November 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I had the pleasure recently of participating as a judge at the University of Toronto’s Rotman Commerce Brand Blitz. Championed by Nicholas Austin, VP and managing director at Segal Communications, which sponsored the competition, the Brand Blitz is a marketing exercise for young business students to learn about advertising and communications. It’s also an opportunity for them to learn about giving presentations.

The students had to develop a plan to market UofT to Europeans thinking of studying abroad. However, with the goal of learning about brand attributes, the UofT brand had to be linked with the attributes of one other world-leading brand.

I was impressed by how well these young people presented their very well conceived ideas. Highlights included this positioning statement: “Relax, you’re at UofT.” I also laughed on cue at one group’s smart repurposing of Apple’s Mac vs PC ads.

Surprisingly, only one of the five teams included social media as part of its marketing program. I would have thought that these students in their late teens and early 20′s who I assume to be immersed in SM would have included a medium they know. Maybe the fact that they were presenting to a panel of marketing vets made them lean towards more traditional advertising.

That said, it’s good to see business students learning how to use marketing. Also, for a change, it was fun being pitched instead of having to do the pitching.

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The new letters to the editor

Posted in news, newspaper, public relations, social media, Uncategorized on November 21, 2009 | 2 Comments »

As I read the letters to the editor in the Globe and Mail this morning I’m reminded of how social media has super-sized our ability to respond to what we see and hear in the media.  The letters are poignant and insightful and offer a variety of opinions regarding Richard Colvin, the diplomat who exposed the alleged Canadian torture of Afghanis and regarding Peter MacKay, Canada’s Federal Minister of Defense.

Before SM, only a handful of the public’s voice would be heard in response to the news of the day. Now, so many other smart points of view can be shared and further discussed. SM also offers the opportunity for the Globe and Mail, Canada’s Federal Government, Richard Colvin and anyone interested to check the content of what people are saying about this issue in Canada and around the world.

In this way we can all decide for ourselves which direction public opinion is flowing and if Colvin is righteous and/or if MacKay is right to attack the credibility of this whistleblower.

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Friends of Science

Posted in authenticity/credibility, public relations, Trevor Campbell on November 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »

The Friends of Science may be focused on the “shift in recent years away from the important emphasis of previous decades on continual reductions in air and water pollution.” But it’s not clear to me why any group concerned about the environment would choose to challenge the climate change movement which is also concerned about the environment.

How about collaborating instead of using these political-styled campaign attack ads which can be heard here and here. When I first heard the radio ad I was suspicious about who would make these claims. Perhaps FoS and their advertiser want this response.

This group needs to make better use of social media if they want to challenge the popular climate change movement and bring focus to the things people should really know about climate change.

Build consensus through discussion and the sharing of less self-serving information. Finger-pointing through radio ads will only work with existing climate change skeptics. Which seems like a waste of money for the FoS and its backers.

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Public Relations: Customer Service Experts

Posted in authenticity/credibility, brand, communications, customer engagement, public relations, stakeholder, Trevor Campbell on November 16, 2009 | 2 Comments »

CustomerServicePublic relations pros are the best customer service reps. Of course there are many great and helpful CSRs working in various client-side customer service departments dedicated to solving problems.  However, it’s been my experience that when customers call the PR team, after not getting any satisfaction through the usual CSR routes, their problem gets solved.

Here’s why, CSRs historically are incented to sell, not to solve.  How do I know this beyond the occasional frustration I’ve experienced with some, not all, CSRs?

A few years ago I was at a large client’s internal all-team meeting for the quarterly pep rally. One of the CSRs asked the leaders at the front of the room, “how can we do our jobs when we’re trained to sell more services instead of being trained to deal with the questions and problems most of our customers call about.”  This question led to a lot of murmured agreement that threatened to hijack the meeting.

Trained to sell and not to solve? No surprises there, but that meeting certainly confirmed suspicions that still linger.

Conversely, over the years my colleagues and I have taken calls from the customers of a few clients who found our names on a news release after being unable to contact the CS department.  We’d listen to the customer’s problem, provide answers, give relevant CS phone numbers and email addresses, promise to contact our clients if needed on behalf of the customers, and also point out that even though we were the client’s PR firm and not connected to the customer service department, we would make sure the customer’s problem was solved.

Based on my firsthand experience with PR/customer-service-problem-solving, I’ve told a couple close contacts struggling with defective products and poor customer service to call the manufacturers’ PR departments; which they did, to finally get their problems solved.

Good PR pros are many things: strategists, anthropologists, psychotherapists, media junkies, problem solvers, etc. We also know the importance of stakeholders enjoying positive brand experiences. Based on this undeniable fact, PR pros are the best brand ambassadors and customer service reps.

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Mixed messages, H1NI and the flu vaccine

Posted in communications, Health care, public relations, Trevor Campbell, Uncategorized on November 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

needlesIf I was planning the communications campaign for H1N1 and the flu vaccine I would have done things differently than what I’ve observed since the virus emerged as an issue.

While there are obvious challenges to managing a national/international issues campaign, I think too much focus was put on the deadly implications of the virus. The messages should have focused more on the importance of preventing colds and flu, in addition to preventing H1N1. Given that people tend to be far more reactive when it comes to health – e.g. take vitamin C when sick as opposed to before – focusing on prevention may have fallen on deaf ears. However, since the prime objective is to save lives, then I’m sure that broader prevention (hand washing, etc.) needed to be the number one message. Of course the vaccines are an important preventative tool but there has been too much focus on vaccinations which, given the current distribution method, has created a terrible bottleneck.

My communications plan would have touched on the following:

  • focus on proactive health promotion to ensure people do the right things to fight and prevent colds and flu
  • brief media about the fact that the H1N1 vaccine, when combined with other flu fighting tactics, helps protect people
  • brief media about the benefits of proactive health prevention and the critical need to focus on the proactive health promotion message (media can’t help but use the killer-virus message and really only know what they know;  helping them to focus on the right thing as opposed to the sensational thing would have helped)
  • define high-risk groups and tell them what to do to protect themselves (messaging for this group should also help educate lower risk groups and media)
  • highlight what the actual risks  are (relatively few it seems) for the majority of people who are low risk (note that public health officials are now trying to push this message in an effort to calm people)
  • use a message matrix to educate key influencers who will help to ensure message consistency at all levels across all regions
  • ensure all levels of government are aligned (this last point might be impossible)

I know hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy for me to sit in front of my laptop and comment but protecting people and saving lives shouldn’t be so confusing.

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Will this apology make a difference?

Posted in authenticity/credibility, communications, Corporate, news, public relations, Trevor Campbell on September 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

FL-WA_GruppeSIGG CEO, Steve Wasik, is sorry. SIGG, which is, or was, a leading maker of reusable water bottles recently admitted that prior to August 2008 and contrary to what consumers believed, its popular bottles contained the chemical Bisphenol-A. BPA can leach into water and apparently poses health risks.

As most people know, SIGG was forced to admit that the company’s bottles in fact contained BPA. Prior to this admission, SIGG chose not to correct the misconception that its products were BPA-free.

Certainly the August letter from the CEO does well to show that SIGG’s intentions were noble as it voluntarily weaned off BPA liners while the FDA and scientific community continue to debate the chemical. Unfortunately, this initial admission appears far too self-serving and evasive. Or at least this is what consumers and media concluded during the backlash following this first letter from Wasik.

So, as much as it’s good that the CEO did a better job of apologizing in his second letter, it’s hard to believe that this late mea culpa matters much. SIGG profited nicely from consumers believing they were buying a BPA-free product.

This type of corporate profiteering, while bad at any time, looks worse given the public’s preference and demand for credibility, especially from companies that call themselves green. Additionally, SIGG should have known that the dialed-in, socially connected people who buy its products would make a lot of noise. Not that a good corporate citizen would want to take advantage of even the most unsophisticated shopper but you’d think that Wasik and his communications team know their customers better.

Wasik’s first message, more or less, should have been, “I am sorry that we did not make our communications on the original SIGG liner more clear from the very beginning.” I know that this statement isn’t perfect but the company would have found itself in a better position with less damage to manage.

There are a few guiding principles when managing a crisis. One that stands out for me is to determine what will end the problem and work towards that solution. SIGG should have confessed (as much as its legal counsel would allow, I suppose), apologized, stated how it would fix the problem and prevent a repeat and then put its words into action.

Instead, this once green, reusable water bottle leader is now another example of how not to treat customers.

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PR and marketing as powerful as trusted peers

Posted in communications, public relations, social media, Trevor Campbell on August 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

DSCN1255I just read a great post by Shel Holtz that lists the powerful roles that PR and marketing continue to play.  As he puts it, “I’m calling bullshit on the notion that trusted peers are more powerful than marketing and PR. It’s not an either/or situation; it’s not a competition. PR and marketing, done well, inform and influence the conversations trusted peers have with their friends, colleagues and families.”

In addition to his 10 ways communicators can be as powerful as trusted peers, I’d add that it’s the job of communications to integrate all aspects of the communications mix so that marcomms/social media, etc. are working in unison. If  ”the communications function in any organization is the only function that is 100% dedicated to protecting and enhancing the company’s reputation,” then whoever leads this function needs to work effectively across the mix.

Additionally, the C-suite needs to see the value of this integration and reputation guardianship, and they need to buy into it of course.  And buy into it they must if communicators successfully do the 10 activities listed by Holtz.

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