There have been two hugely different media interviews this week that provide good learning experiences. That of Cadbury New Zealand Managing Director, Matthew Oldham, with John Campbell of Campbell Live, and former All Back and Chief’s No 8 Sione Lauaki, on the main TV bulletins.
Take Lauaki first. Coming out of the Hamilton District Court after pleading guilty to assault, he says: “I’m really disappointed that I let my family down, my mum and dad down, and my team-mates down.” This over-rehearsed apology is now so overused that it is hackneyed. As is the other tactic of flooding the court with team-mate supporters. Chiefs captain and current All Black Mils Muliaina spoke about Lauaki this way: “He’s an outstanding leader in the franchise.”
If this is how outstanding leaders act, then rugby needs to revisit its media training manual.
Entirely more worthy was the interview that Cadbury chief Matthew Oldham had with Campbell. The brand may have taken a battering since being named the No 1 trusted brand in last year’s Readers Digest brand survey, but Oldham was an outstanding ambassador for the brand in the face of a typically hectoring performance from Campbell and consumers.
Oldham was temperate and polished when others, in similar circumstances, may have abandoned their cool. Top marks for fronting in the studio for what was always going to be a difficult interview.
We are all familiar with the substance of the issue – the production of a local icon moves offshore. Hiss, boo from consumers of the product.
The chocolate maker does its best to explain the reasons for this decision. Campbell seeks to portray the company’s management as weak and inept.
Lesser communicators may not have tried to outline the realities in the face of such invective, but Oldham did, and made a pretty good fist of it. While we might not have expected consumers to understand the economic realities faced by a small chocolate business at the end of the earth, we might have expected that some of this would have resonated with Campbell, and his Australian owned channel. There is no future for a business producing a little bit of everything with ancient equipment. Do a few things well and you might survive, just! That is the challenge for this Dunedin business, but it seems that some would have preferred to celebrate the demise of this business rather than report on its survival, albeit with fewer total products.
This interview has some valuable media training lessons. We commend it.
We’ve all heard plenty about the potential threat to the reputations of business and brands posed by new online tools.