PR Matters

There are occasions when you can only but shake your head in disbelief at the antics played out in our media.

Take for example the reaction by the majority of the media to the suggestion by ACT MP David Garrett that there might be some value in considering paying ‘bad parents’ $5000 if they agreed to be sterilised.

The media went berserk, making it the leading news item of the day. Politicians and every sort of self appointed social or liberal commentator climbed into the debate. Someone even managed to manufacture a link with Hitler.

You could be forgiven for believing that the suggestion was on the verge of becoming law rather than the musings on a blog by a MP who was unknown to the majority of us.

The most poignant comment that I saw was that from the Herald’s Fran O’Sullivan, who quietly pointed out that many middle class parents pay for their own sterilisation once they have completed their families.

Shame on you Fran for effectively killing off the debate when your colleagues were just getting started! And shame on the middle class for following the teachings of Hitler!

Having recovered our breath we then moved on to the Destiny Church’s ‘cash cult’ expose. Not to worry that we have heard it all before, including stories about the extravagant living style of its leader Bishop Tamaki.

It all started because part of the Brisbane congregation did what every right minded person would do if they disagreed with the ‘cult’s’ requirements around tithing and gifting – they walked out.

The only nugget I gathered from the coverage was that TV3’s John Campbell has now adopted the practice of gate crashing other presenter’s interviews (Willie Jackson’s) to get a story if anyone dares to decline his demand that they appear on his show.

Can we now look forward to the day when Willie gate crashes John’s programme?

To mimic the words taken to the world by the late Paul Fuemana, ‘how bizarre, how bizarre’.

If you are anywhere near the creative industries, public relations and advertising, and want a good pick-me-up, go see Art and Copy at the Documentary Film Festival.

Yeah, it’s a review of the early American advertising industry, but there is still freshness about their thinking and their client solutions.  We learned of the irreverence these pioneers had for their clients, but also of the tremendous results that were achieved. This was the golden age of advertising, when people loved marketing and weren’t yet called ‘consumers’.

For me, two comments had particular resonance:

- People make advertising decisions by committee, because it avoids them taking responsibility if things go wrong (this applies equally to other industries of course); and
- If you make a mistake, forget it and move on. You learn nothing from your failures, but lots from your success. Art & Copy featured this ad as an example.

Another thing that I’ve learned about managing communications, and it was only today, from a client who was talking about preparing good briefs: the proposals that clients receive from their agencies are only as good as the brief they’ve been give. Most likely, if the ideas are crap, the brief was crap. I hasten to add that our discussion did not relate to anything that had just been proposed.

Is there a disturbing trend towards tabloid style news items taking precedence over the real news?  Just a few weeks ago the possibility that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had broken up was in our six pm news bulletins.  Don’t get me wrong I have been known to read the odd gossip magazine but a good diet is all about balance, variety and moderation. 

Dee Dee Myers’ piece in Vanity Fair discusses trivialisation of news as she examines the Tiger Woods story.

The entire country stops for Tiger yet when President Obama makes more important announcements the country barely pauses for breath. Her article concludes with the fact that finally the National Enquirer has been deemed eligible for a Pulitzer Prize. Now that is real news.

The Tiger Woods saga highlights the potential crisis we are facing in the world of news – that of tabloid style stories stopping the real news stories taking center stage. Rosemary McLeod’s column in the Sunday Star Times was right on the money.   

Today’s Toyota story relating to their faulty vehicle accelerators is as important as the collapse of Enron, yet was second or third in the morning news items.  The bigger story was a claim that Air New Zealand has a culture of excess drinking despite facts to the contrary being communicated clearly by their CEO. (Declaration of interest here, we do provide PR support to Air New Zealand.)

Given Tiger’s speech and Robin Brooke’s Close Up interview, is Performance Media a new art form?  For audiences this is something we can watch and critique more easily than substantive news? In Tiger’s case we seem entirely focused on how he, and his team, is handling this crisis and how genuine the apology is.  All know his speech was scripted, rehearsed and stage managed. 

If the media and public know this, then who is to blame – why did the media cover it?  For the simple reason they knew they could get an audience because it is just the sort of thing we love to watch.  In today’s commercially competitive environment what will sell is what will make the news.

How can we make sure our media diet is balanced without it being so boring we simply gorge on junk or become undernourished and miss out on essential news and information that could be more relevant to our lives?

Last week the Commerce Commission issued a “warning” to the bookshop chain, Borders, over a misleading voucher scheme which the retailer promoted before Christmas.

This promotion offered $20 in vouchers for every $75 spent at Borders until Christmas.  In the small print, however, it was specified that the customer could redeem one $10 voucher in January and the second $10 voucher in February. The Commission received complaints from consumers saying they felt mislead, and the Commission agreed.

After another Christmas holiday experience, perhaps the Commission could turn its attention to the rental market for holiday homes.

Do you expect a road in front of your Northland cottage, when the promotional site declares “absolute beach front”, and it is clear that all the photos studiously avoid showing the road?  Do you expect the advertised “Sky TV” in your Napier pad to be restricted to the sports channels only? 

And then, there is the $460-a-night Waikehe property… Do you expect access to this non drive-on property, which you’ve been told is a “short 25 metre walk” to the beach, to in fact be 151 metres from the very closest carpark on the street?!  And do you expect this same premier rental to require cleaning, and for the charcoal barbecue to have only one fixed wheel and no charcoal?  If you are interested in this property, we suggest you contact Waiheke Unlimited which promotes itself as the only personalised specialists in self-catered holiday accommodation on Waiheke.

Yes, there is plenty that could occupy the Commerce Commission in this sector, which is crying out for an independent evaluation and assessment vehicle in order to protect our reputation as a tourism destination. When it comes to holiday home rentals, there is too frequently a gap between the blurb and the reality. And of course, prices of these homes well exceed the value of the Borders voucher.

The Government’s handling of the tax changes to be announced in the May budget show a masterly understanding of managing long term communications.

Delegate the task of putting forward ideas to a third party (a commission) and then immediately reject the most controversial (phew, it’s not going to be as bad as it could be!); talk up some of the remaining unpalatable ideas, and then in the first formal statement of the year reject them too (saved again!).

Now we have a pretty clear understanding of what will be in the budget some three months in advance, even if we don’t have the detail. By the time the announcements are made in May all the best emotional and rational condemnations from opponents will be out in the public domain, and Government can fine tune its final decisions to ease back on those that will upset us most.

By the time the changes are finally introduced in October (10 months from raising the issue to their implementation) we will have mentally adjusted, and rather than outrage we will take them in our stride.

It is good strategy, and the Government’s media managers are demonstrating a deft implementation touch.

Cast your mind over some of the other contentious issues – mining in conservation reserves; fundamental economic reform to ‘catch up with Australia’ and even the national standards for primary schools have been on the agenda for months.

When the going started to get tough over national standards, Key & Co showed their ability to up the game aggressively with a ministerial realignment, Key personally entering the confrontation, and outspoken challenges to the teacher’s union and boards of trustees.

Labour will undoubtedly have the skills to win a few skirmishes as we move into the year, but they are going to need to be at the top of their game to outmanoeuvre National.

Annual industry conferences are key communications events for most sectors. The opportunity to hear directly from people who have particular insight or influence in your sector is a particular draw-card for delegates and sector commentators alike.  With this in mind, a small story in The Press last Friday bears some reflection.

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee elected not to be the keynote speaker at the Power & Electricity World summit, an annual industry conference, albeit organised by a commercial conference operator.

Brownlee said that with major reforms going through the select committee process, he did not want to be forming any positions. While there may be a sinter of truth in the Minister’s explanation, the parliamentary process hasn’t stopped the minister boxing Meridian’s ears several times over its comments on the proposed reform, including in his op-ed piece in yesterday’s edition of the Otago Daily Times.

As if to bolster his reasons for not speaking at the conference, the Minister also complained of the registration cost and commercial nature of the conference to which he was invited, as well as claiming he was being used to promote it, as “part of their product”.

Mixed messages, indeed, from our Minister of Energy.  A reluctance to engage in debate while the reforms are before the select committee is not unreasonable.  But why then take to Meridian via the media on the same reforms?  Ministers will often specify entirely valid no-go areas when speaking at events, but it does not preclude an appearance.

While the Minister may now be reticent about involvement in “commercial” conferences, what was his disposition when National was seeking to extricate itself from the Opposition benches? As I recall, any forum was a good one for National MPs, commercially-based or otherwise. 

The realities are: Ministers are expected to deliver speeches almost anytime-anywhere, and although we may bridle against them, commercial conference arrangements are a reality for most industry sectors, largely due to the organisational and associated costs such as venues, catering and speakers’ travel.

Politicians use these forums when it suits them, and it is a bit rich to be railing against such conferences once comfortably seated in a ministerial chair.

The ability of the media to ‘spark’ a controversy, and that of social media to ‘fuel it’ has rarely been better illustrated than the histrionics raging in Australian over the comments made by the new Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, when asked the question:  what advice would you give your daughters about sex before marriage.

The question was posed by The Australian Women’s Weekly when doing a personality piece on Abbott. His response [not to give away their virginity lightly] is, I would have thought on face value, acceptable enough fatherly wisdom.

However, when you are a politician, nothing is taken on face value.

As would be anticipated, the reaction to his comments has been as diverse as ‘a brilliant answer’ to ‘yet another self-acknowledged one-time drug-taking, Vatican roulette-playing, shagabout, white, middle-aged male telling young women not to do what he did when he was their age’ (an Australian comedian).

Now Abbott is an experienced politician, and his media minders are hardly likely to be lightweights, so it’s not unreasonable to assume he knew what sort of reaction he was likely to generate. The decision to answer the question the way he did had to be deliberate, and was designed to achieve a specific result.

Post coverage analysis will tell him whether he obtained what he set out to achieve.

By and large, New Zealand politicians have steadfastly refused to allow or inject their families into media coverage to raise their profile. In Australia, some at least are obviously not so reticent.

I think the Kiwi approach is the wiser.

What is of real interest to those of us who work in the media world is the power social media has to take the initial story, and fragment it into stories about politics, parenting, morality, religion, feminism, manipulation (of the media), hypocrisy and personal choice, to name a few.

For those who have doubts about the power of social media, have a read.

One only hopes that the media does not seek to prolong the controversy by asking Mrs Abbott and her three daughters as to their views on Mr Abbott’s musing. Enough is enough!

1. Where did the man on the street go?

Web 2.0 where? We wondered if the exuberance around the democratising power of the all-access-internet we saw mid-decade hasn’t become a bit deflated in the past year or so. Could the man on the online street have been shouted out by the noisier and better resourced?

With a host of new web tools and loads of corporates, newsmakers, brands, politicians and NGO’s joining in the discussions, there is real concern over authenticity of content.

We need the man on the street to speak out to ensure the balance of power remains fair.  We need genuine two-way conversations, or this fantastic medium will become another advertising forum with one-sided conversations.  Certainly the economic downturn has redirected people’s focus, but we are predicting a comeback of the everyday opinionated. And what a comeback it will be!

2. Will the media make it? 

Of course they will, but in what form? They have copped it with both barrels and boy it shows.  Barrel one – technological change has seen news content migrate online without a viable commercial model. Second barrel – audiences largely want their news ‘without’ advertising at a time, place and in digital format of their choice. Add in the reduced effectiveness of traditional advertising, which bankrolls most media, and ouch.

Some outfits will no doubt falter, but by the decades end we are likely to be paying for quality news one way or another, and we won’t mind or probably even notice. Check out the New York Times who are on the brink of making it pay and they need to, because let’s face it, delivering real news real well costs a packet.

3. Why are we more interested in the fallen mighty than the mighty issues?
 
Despite the scary state of the world (think world peace, climate change and economic upheavals), celebrity news will always win the day.  The value in seeing the private foibles of the mighty such as our media stars, politicians, business leaders and sports stars played out in public is immense.  We think it might have something to do with the fact that it makes people feel better about their own lives, knowing that even the rich and famous don’t get it right all of the time.

To err is human and to recover is clearly seriously divine. Unfortunately the message to the impressionable is that professional success allows for serious personal failures – providing we apologise.  All it takes for those in the public eye who have been caught out is to make a heartfelt mea culpa, fall on their sword or better still, check in to rehab, and all is forgiven – eventually.  While it might take our mind off the real issues at hand, it prompts real concerns for the impact it might have on younger generations.  Do some media not have a responsibility to truly hold these people to account in the people’s court?

4. Is there a journalist in the house?

The principles of the 4th estate are to hold the powerful accountable, to scrutinise and to provide transparent information on behalf of the citizenship so we can all choose how to vote, work, or shop.  This scrutiny requires experienced, thoughtful people working in an environment free of hefty commercial imperatives.  That’s a big ask given an environment where newsrooms are stretched to their limit, and media owners are screaming for more efficiencies to drive profit they now can no longer raise from advertisers.

But never fear, journalists are a nuggety lot, and while it will take some time, we predict the next decade will see the rise and rise of the individual journalist.  Once the true value of their content is understood, and we have a workable way to pay for it, the face of news is set to change for the good.  This new breed will be real life crusaders with massive spheres of influence standing clear of news organisations to become brands in their own right, and they will cover the gamut of political viewpoints, single handed.

5. To Blog or not to Blog?

Our final question is an easy one really and the answer is an emphatic yes! While we may be a tiny drop in the Blog Ocean of billions, we are determined to shine in our own way.  We hope you keep following us and using your people power to ask the questions and pose new issues.

In Ypres, 1914 a Christmas Eve ceasefire became the stuff of yuletide legend.

The truce began when German troops decorated their trenches, the soldiers placed candles on trees and sang Christmas carols. Not to be outdone British troops responded singing their own carols back in English. In no time the two sides were shouting greetings to each other, there were calls for visits across No Man’s Land where small gifts were exchanged. Whiskey, jam, cigars and chocolate was shared and the artillery in the region fell silent that night.

This exceptional outbreak of peace reminds me of the news over the summertime here in New Zealand, it’s as if our world stops speaking for a month. Could this outbreak of ‘nothing happening’ be because all of us in the information exchange business have waved a white flag and sent the news on holiday?

The news goes soft. Not a peep is heard from the courts or councils, the lobbyist and legislators languish. Business leaders too are mute, our captains of industry have headed off in the caravan and so have the agitators and activists. The Beehive itself is silent. Even the sports reporters have given up the ghost.

The papers are scrawny and the news bulletins truncated. They will contain stories from the seaside, teens running amok, cute kiddies frolicking, kooky animal stories, a freak storm perhaps, sunscreen warnings, surf beach rescues and the road toll.

The lifestyle pages will be chocka with recipes for leftovers, anniversaries of other things, musings on the future or the past from famousish New Zealanders and book reviews. The news in other words – will be nice.

This is not a global news-truce, the Northern hemisphere draws a breath for Christmas but their news-machine barely misses a beat. It is us who have a full hiatus of real news and maybe that’s just the way we like it.

While the media still can’t get quite enough of the story, some quarters have gone quiet on Tiger Woods. 

After his ho-hum apology, Tiger is giving the world the silent treatment in a strategy to deal with the ruckus over the snowballing allegations of multiple infidelities. Keeping Mum is not a bad idea, in truth, particularly while the appetite for scandal is still sky high, and anything he says will have news editor eager to keep him selling papers. 

Bizarre indeed was the sight of the feckless cocktail waitress, one of his alleged partners in this concupiscence, publicly apologising to Tiger’s wife on global TV for her part in the dalliance.  Just what Mrs Woods wanted, I’m sure.

But there is another quarter that appears to have quietly turned its back on the sport star – and these are his sponsors.

 According to a report in the LA Times data compiled by the Nielsen ratings company, no Woods ads have appeared on television since Nov. 29, two days after he crashed his Cadillac SUV outside his home in Florida.

This has got to hurt. Forbes have his sponsorships worth $110 million.

Across a range of big swinging brands like Nike, Gillette, PepsiCo Inc.’s, Gatorade and Tag Heur, the sponsors’ response plan appears to be to keep aspirational images of Tiger out of the public’s face until this blows over.  Given their substantial investments in this “property,” brand managers are holding their breath and hoping like mad that the worst is over for the golden boy of golf. Meanwhile golf viewers are switching off in droves – TV ratings for golf down 50% – affecting advertising revenues.

Which reminds me, golf is what Tiger does exceptionally well.  Before he became the pin-up boy for multicultural morality and family values, perhaps we could all return to the real game, please?

* apologies to poet William Blake