Corporate Engagement

Pell's denial doesn't stack-up

Pell denies sex abuse cover-up - National - smh.com.au Pell's explanation is neither clear nor convincing. For a start, he seems to be drawing a distinction between rape and sexual assault which is hard to follow and just seems devious to me. Second, he hasn't answered at all the allegation that he over-ruled the church's own enquiry and he hasn't offered an explanation for doing so. Lastly, if he did make an honest mistake, as he claims, he still has a duty to do something about it but he seems cold about the damage his 'mistake' might have done to it's recipient.

Pell will have to do better than today's effort if he is to avoid the Pope's visit becoming mired in controversy. The Pope's visit to the US in April sparked a lot of revisiting of the Church's problems with sexual abuse and Pell needs to make it perfectly clear that he cares about this stuff, above and beyond what the law formally requires of him.

Bank PR ‘outed’ via Social Media interview

PR Disasters:

"National Australia Bank has distanced itself from a PR consultancy (p’raps Cox & Inall), which attempted to spam post commercial messages on several leading Aussie sports blogs. Local SEO practitioner Jim Stewart tele-interviewed NAB PR Felicity Glennie Holmes who asserted that ‘this activity was poorly executed by our PR agency’. Jim Stewart primarily challenged Felicity on corporate spamming & the ethics of placing covert NAB ads disguised as blog posts. Felicity kinda defended her employers decision. Interesting note to PR practitioners; be wary of responding to a blog query. As you would with a journo query, ask if they plan to broadcast your communication and if you’re uncomfortable with their response, decide if you wanna participate (or not). For eg: Jim Stewart conducts his interview with Felicity, filming himself for vodcast, and putting her on speakerphone - his body language, facial expressions and other non-verbal silently ’spin’ his take on her responses. Judging by Jim’s raised eyebrows in his vodcast of the telecon, he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing from FGH. I’ve called Cox Inall to see if they were involved and if so, to hear their side of the story. Someone called ‘Killingly’ is supposed to contact me; after almost 18hrs, am still awaiting any call or email. Agency head Tim Powell left a voice mail for me around 9am and is happy to speak to me later today…stay tuned."

I'm looking forward to Powell's account.

Largest lobbyists linked to Labor

The Australian:

"TWO companies with strong links to the Rudd Government have emerged as the biggest lobbyists on the federal political scene, dwarfing most other players in terms of staff numbers and client lists. Labor campaign adviser Hawker Britton and government-linked Government Relations Australia are the big two in thelobbying world, each representing companies with billions of dollars in turnover in the corridors of power. The level of their interests has been revealed for the first time in the Register of Lobbyists, created by Kevin Rudd to increase transparency in the political process. It reveals the previously shadowy world of lobbying includes 132 companies employing 370 individuals who make their living attempting to influence government decisions. They work on behalf of 983 clients ranging from small industry associations to multinational mining giants.

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Are PR people really key organisational strategists

News - Public Relations Institute of Australia.

PRIA National President Tracy Jones said the title of the Conference was "The New Communicator". ..."PR professionals are increasingly becoming key strategists in organisations, driving business decisions at the highest level. At the same time, they have a broader range of tools available to them than ever before, and an audience that is consuming more media than ever before."

Really? We've been hearing about this elevated role for PR for a decade or two now and I'm not convinced that it is anything more than a plea to be taken more seriously. Most of the time, I'm thinking well over 90 percent, PR just gets told to 'sell' whatever the organisation decides to do. The main exception would be during a crisis when normally 'in control' managers suddenly start listening to other voices.

To Roxon, wine is good, Bundie is evil

Crikey - Spin watch: My latest piece.

Rudd Government opts for 'limited' lobbying reform

The Warrnambool Standard.

THE Federal Government's new code of conduct for political lobbyists is timid, narrow and will leave the public in the dark...

...the new regime does not cover unions, industry associations, churches and charities or corporate executives who are free to access senior government figures without having to disclose their details or comply with the ethical standard.

Promote your PR agency on Youtube

A cool, and cheap, idea.

Ruder Finn West pitch for Sony PSP (VIDEO)

Not sure why this is on youtube but it's interesting to see the way people 'pitch'. Note, the very strong 'we love your product' approach, a bit of a classic in the public relations industry.

Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs

Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs.

In the tradition of Mack Collier's Top 25 Marketing Blogs and Ad Age's Power 150 comes the Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs courtesy of Julian Cole. Here is the inaugural list. Taking a leaf out of Todd And's book, Julian has included a subjective score -- the Pioneer score which measures the "blog's ability to have pioneering thoughts about marketing".

There are some great blogs on the list -- but many that are new to me -- so I am excited to check them out. Hope you do too!

Have a look!

Sozzled Sonny blows a whistle on the League's crisis management

Drinking confession fuelled Williams' fury - leaguehq.com.au.

SONNY BILL WILLIAMS says he was furious with the Bulldogs for making him confess to a drinking problem, which the 22-year-old says he does not have.

"I got hung out to dry," Williams told New Zealand broadcaster TVNZ yesterday. Williams was fined for urinating in public and subsequently spoke publicly about the incident.

"The CEO says stand here and say that," Williams said. "It's like you've been naughty and that's just the fastest way to make it right. I was very pissed off that I had to say I had a drinking problem because the only problem I had was being naive."

At the time last June, Williams told reporters: "I will be seeking professional help with regard to alcohol." But in the interview yesterday, after being asked whether he had a problem with alcohol, he said: "No, not at all."

Standard procedure when you stuff something up (like dump oil on pristine beaches or piss in a public place) and incur public opprobium is to fess up immediately and quickly  'move on' to what you're going to do to remedy the situation.That is, move the public focus from a 'negative' to a 'positive' - isn't spin clever?

Success depends partly on everyone sticking to the 'confession plus remediation' script.
Unfortunately, Sonny Boy (ya gotta love the name) is not happy with the 'problem drinker' tag and sees the personal effront as more important than any damage the Rugby League's brand might have copped as a result of his public urination.

Sonny Boy is not on his own. A lot of rugby league players just don't get it. And the administrators just aren't tough enough on them.

Crikey - 70% of readers believe the garbage in surveys. Really.

Crikey "Today's media contain a bonanza of survey stories, that ever-popular staple of the public relations tool box. Surveys are great PR because, as well as generating media coverage, they give third-party endorsement to an organisation's key messages." more..

A tool for better media releases

Invitation to Beta Test New PR Tool - Press Release Grader.

Now it's time to try something else new, and we want your help.  We're launching a new tool called Press Release Grader, which analyzes your press release and provides some ideas on how to improve it.

We'd appreciate it if you went to www.PressReleaseGrader.com and evaluated a couple press releases.  We appreciate all feedback and look forward to improving the tool based on your input - so let us know what you love about it and also what you hate about it!  You can either use the feedback link on the report, or just leave a comment on this blog article.

Obama: Americans are tired of spin and PR (VIDEO)

PR secrets and bullshit

Neville Hobson wades in on the question of whether CEOs of start-ups need the help of professional communicators.

Martin Ferguson: What was he thinking?

The Australian has one of those scoops journalists dream about this morning: "In a letter to senior colleagues obtained by The Australian yesterday, Mr Ferguson attacked the Fuel Watch scheme as an anti-competitive waste of money and predicted it would leave battlers out of pocket, despite government claims it would lead to lower fuelprices."

This sort of thing always prompts two questions:

1. What motivated Martin Ferguson to commit these serious criticisms of a key government program to paper and spray some copies around? If its in writing it is after all very difficult to deny and the more copies you send out the more likely it is to be leaked, mainly because potential leakers know that the more recipients there are the less likely it is that anyone can identify the culprit. To take this risk, Ferguson must have felt that a) he was being cut-out of the decision-making process, b) the decision was a serious intrusion into his patch as energy minister.
2. The other question is about the motivation of the leaker. The most likely answers to this question are that a) Ferguson is stilled pissed about it, b) someone doesn't like Ferguson (unlikely because it is the government that looks daft), c) some bureaucrat is outraged by what they see as a stupid policy and wants to undercut it.

Of course, whatever the reasons, this is a bad embarrassment for the Rudd Government as it tries to sell its first Budget. Governments shouldn't look frayed until they've been there for a while.

Update: See also Larvatus Prodeo (Ferguson a captive of interest groups?) and John Quiggin (Labor's first big policy disaster?)

Update 2: Ferguson now says he 'strongly supports' the fuelwatch scheme.

Technorati Tags: Rudd, Ferguson, Fuelwatch, petrol pricing