Trevor Cook

Ford's media release is a PR shocker

There can be few worse things in the world of PR than transparently ridiculuous efforts to dress bad news as triumphs of corporate ingenuity.

Today, Ford Australia announced it will cut 1200 jobs.

Bad enough news to draw media comment from the prime minister, deputy prime minister and many others.

This is the headline from Ford's media release: Ford Accelerates Australian Business Transformation.

Worse still, the lead paragraph: 

Ford is transforming its Australian business by accelerating the introduction of new products for Australian customers, enhancing the sales and service experience, and improving its business efficiency and profitability.

You don't burnish your reputation with childish corporate spin.

The effort to do so is insulting to your employees, journalists and the broader public.

If there's bad news, then tell it straight up.

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Has PR destroyed business journalism at Fairfax?

Has PR destroyed business journalism at Fairfax?

Paddy Manning's article in Crikey yesterday that prompted his dismissal by Fairfax goes to the heart of the relationship between public relations and journalism now that the newspaper business model is being destroyed by the Internet.

No doubt it makes a lot of sense to the management of the Australian Financial Review to run a series of 'soft' interviews with business leaders with sponsorship from the Commonwealth Bank. But it is advertising not journalism, because the point of the column seems to be about associating the Commonwealth Bank brand with 'business leadership' rather than holding business leaders to account or at least probing beyond the usual corporate media release guff.

The problem is, as Manning points out, that journalism sells newspapers not the advertising content:

It is reporting with fear and favour. And you know what? Nobody reads it. Educated readers -- The AFR's demographic -- hate it. Ultimately, even advertisers shun it. It's a business model for business journalism that had been tried at both The AFR and The Australian. It doesn't work.Business readers are not fools. Very often they know more about a given story than the journalist. They want the facts, balance and genuinely independent analysis and commentary. Tell it like it is.

Manning also had this broader swipe at the AFR:

The AFR's business journalism is built on a fundamental contract between company and reporter: high-level access in exchange for soft coverage.

Too often -- even for many of its own hard-pressed reporters' liking -- the result is PR-driven "churnalism" which shows up as "drops" (the poor man's exclusive, or as Verrender once wrote, the press release a day early), "herograms" for business leaders, unreadable roundtables and conference-linked spreads featuring plenty of happy snaps of business leaders with a glass of champagne or mineral water in hand.

Manning is no doubt right. The 'creeping advertorial' approach may bring in more advertising dollars in the short-term, but longer-term it corrodes the reputation of the journalistic content and, therefore, the reason why people buy the paper in the first place.

On the other hand, these are desperate times - and short of a miracle, there may not be much of a longer-term for newspapers and particularly titles like the AFR.

Related articles

Social media newsrooms in large Australian companies

Fairfax journo hits out: fear and favour in AFR takeover

Gillard's "cyprus" option on Australian super

How come the Gillard Government is so bad at communication and political management?

Perhaps the Federal Government will come up with some very sensible reforms of the tax treatment of superannuation in May's national budget.

In the meantime, a peculiar combination of prime ministerial 'hints' (long-term sustainability of super) and ministerial denials ('won't rule in or out') has been enough to have the media frothing about a 'forthcoming raid on Australian savings as the government seeks to fill its revenue black hole'.

Sounds like the Cypriot option right?

No doubt the recent events in that european nations will leach into the 'narrative' here.

The Government is seeking to allay these fears by pushing the 'you can trust Labor on super" line.

Have they no idea what many voters think of this government? Trust us? Really?

This is like a repeat of the Government's performance on anti-discrimination laws over the summer months when Roxon and Dreyfus allowed the "government opposes free speech" to run riot in the community.

A storyline that saw the Government's bills dropped and provided useful backdrop for the opponents of its media laws.

You cannot just drop stuff on people, nor can you ignore the way these things get inflamed in the community and in the media.

Especially, if you're way behind in the polls and you've got a track record of 'surprise' announcements.

If it really is a good reform, then give some context, mount an argument, do some real consultation - before the policy change announcement.

PR critical to roman emperors and humble popes

Mary Beard has a delightful little piece in the TLS, here's an excerpt:

It made me think that the first weeks of a new Pope were much more like the first weeks of a new Roman emperor than the first weeks of a new Prime Minister or President are.  It is not a question of going off and making your mark in parliament, winning votes or whatever. It's a question of establishing a relationship with the people/worshippers -- and of balancing that with making the right impression with the elite of the Catholic hieracrchy.

I am right now in Italy. And many people I have met have been dead keen on Papa Francesco. They have loved the idea that he appeared on the balcony of St Peter's and said "have a good lunch". It has also gone down well that he talked to his fellow cardinals as "brother cardinals", and that he rejected the papal limo and went almost incognito to visit a friend in hospital.

My first instinct was to think: what a nice guy. My second instinct was to think: what an excellent PR machine.

My third instinct was to think that the PR machine was well acquainted with the dynamics of Roman imperial rule, and how Roman emperotrs got a good start.

The first Roman rule for a new emperor was to speak directly to the people (and going off script and talking about Sunday lunch would really fit the bill there).

Social media newsrooms in large Australian companies

The concept of social media newsrooms has been around for at least five years now. It seemed an obvious development with the explosion of social media in recent years. People are increasingly accessing news and information through social media, to the extent where these platforms (eg facebook, twitter, youtube) are becoming critically important in terms of distribution as well as content creation.

In these circumstances, it made a lot of sense, or it seemed to, for major organisations to move onto social media platforms - and many have. The ideal of a social newsroom however is integration; achieved by the incorporation of facebook and twitter feeds, and youtube channels, into the traditional corporate media page (or newsroom). 

With integration, a static media page can become dynamic and the organisation move from the old model of supplying ideas and information for media stories to becoming a publisher of those stories catering for audiences well beyond journalists. Becoming a publisher is the promise of the internet, and it is being taken up by millions of individuals and small organisations worldwide.

In Australia, however, there is little evidence that this goal of integration is being pursued by major corporations.

USA examples

In the USA, there are some good examples of social media newsrooms: American Cancer Society, Vail Resorts, Coca-cola, Mastercard, Cisco and Intel. 

The Intel site is one of the best I've seen. It has largely transitioned away from just providing materials for the media to becoming something of a media outlet in its own right. It looks lively and has lots to interest the visitor. Notably, the Intel site also integrates its social media platforms (like twitter and youtube) seamlessly into its newsroom site.

Social media newsrooms

Traditional online news rooms are targeted primarily at the media. They provide access to media releases, speeches, reports and presentations, as well as basic background information on the company.

Social media newsrooms are designed to incorporate social media tools to enable the company to make use of the key, relevant features of social media: endorse, comment (respond) and share.

As well as traditonally formatted content, social media newsrooms include content from platforms like blogs, twitters and youtube.

These features of social media can help the company reach more people in more meaningful ways.

Social media newsrooms have two main objectives:

1. Provide direct access to news for the organisation's key audiences (ie beyond the media)

2. Encourage audiences to participate in distribution of the organisation's information through the tools of social media platforms.

Method

I looked at the main websites of the top 20 ASX-listed companies to find out the extent to which they are using social media to:

- offer content in non-traditional formats (ie other than media releases, reports etc)

- distribute corporate news in new ways

- promote engagement through the distribution of news on social media platforms

This is snapshot research; it provides some insights on what large companies are doing but cannot tell us why they are or are not embracing the concept of social media newsrooms.

General comments

 Telstra is about the only company that can be said to have attempted integration.

Seven of the top 20 companies showed no evidence of social media, the others had some toes in the water, but without conviction.

Top 20 companies

AMP  - Basic - traditional content format only; offers email alerts, RSS and twitter

ANZ - Basic - traditional content format, twitter link

BHP Billiton  - None

Brambles - Basic - traditional formats, some social media links

Commonwealth Bank - Basic - traditional format, social media links

CSL - Basic - traditional format, social media links, photo and contacts for media manager.

Macquarie Group - None

National Australia Bank - None

Newcrest Mining - None

Origin Energy - Basic - rss feeds, image bank

QBE Insurance - None

Rio Tinto - Basic - twitter link, rss feeds, webcasts, photo and video libraries

Santos - Basic - rss, webcasts, twitter, youtube pointers 

Suncorp -  Basic - twitter pointer, image gallery

Telstra - Medium - Plenty of use of social media, some integration

Westpac Banking - Basic -pointers to social media

Westfield - None

Wesfarmers - None

Woolworths - Basic - pointers to some social media

Woodside Petroleum - Basic - rss feeds

Other Australian social media newsrooms

The non-corporate sector has some interesting examples - see below.

Even here integration is often lacking.

It is particularly strange that member based and advocacy organisations (eg ICA, BCA) have been slow to adopt integration

Mission Australia - Medium to high - pointers to social media, twitter feed on home page 

Oxfam - Medium to high - blog integration

Queensland Country Credit Union - a good social media newsroom

Conclusions

Corporations may just be slow in adopting social media newsrooms because they are always wary of any innovations in public relations that involve relinquishing control. Or, it maybe that the early promise of social media newsrooms has not eventuated (yet). Perhaps, more traditional outlets and PR approaches are still much better value for corporations than social media.

Other Sources

Tek Group - 2012 Online Newsroom Survey

Tek Group - 2012 Social Media News Survey

Is 'authenticity' the new authoritarianism?

Authentic feels good and it feels right. It has long been an article of faith on the Internet and elsewhere. But it maybe no more than an attempt to distinguish the rich and powerful from the masses, and in so doing exercise power over those masses. This is the conclusion of an article in the New Statesman:

Yet it is precisely in the marketing of highend brands that we can perceive the key aspect of the modern authenticity mania. Such commodities are sometimes called “aspirational”, because that is now how society has silently agreed to redefine aspiration: as the desire to control more wealth and to own more expensive objects. So what is the implicit bargain when we buy an “authentic” Hermès bag? Or a Hublot watch, a clockwork marvel costing tens of thousands of pounds, which prides itself, like all “luxury” analogue watches, precisely on the amusing superfluity of its engineering? We are being sold the assurance that nimble-fingered workers in a French leather-working atelier or a Swiss horlogerie laboratory have sunk hundreds or thousands of man-hours into its making.

The authenticity of such an aspirational brand’s product boils down to the promise that numberless faceless artisans have lab - oured personally on your behalf. A similar fantasy underlies the ferocious insistence that a coffee shop be “artisanal” and “independent”, the indolent demand for a pre-aged Stratocaster, or the hysterical suspicion that a singer might not have been working hard enough to entertain us. The self-appointed guardians of authenticity, it seems, want desperately to believe that they are at the top of the labour pyramid. In cultural markets that are all too disappointingly accessible to the masses, the authenticity fetish disguises and renders socially acceptable a raw hunger for hierarchy and power.

One striking thing about this authenticity mania is that it is both anti-modern and anti-corporate, the very sources of income and wealth for those elites that crave the status of authenticity the most.

Related articles

Why are we so obsessed with the pursuit of authenticity?

2DAY scandal: welcome to "the process"

The two radio presenters at the heart of the 2DAY scandal involving prank calls and a nurse's suicide have blamed something called "the process".

Tearfully, they proclaimed that they just do this stuff, record it and then send it off  to the process. They are unaware of who or what is involved in the process.

They just know that the process is really to blame, if indeed, as they argue, anyone can fairly be held accountable for the unforseeable tragic consequences of the sort of prank call that radio stations are doing all day every day all around the world.

There you have their defence. It boils down to three key messages much loved by school aged children:

1. Everyone does it.

2. We didn't mean it to happen.

3. It's not really our fault because no-one told us not to do it.

These messages are consistent with the approach adopted by the company in its public communications in recent days.

Part of growing up is realising that we must take responsibility for our actions whether or not everyone does it and whether or not we meant something awful to happen.

But back to "the process".

Their denial of any knowledge of the process is an indictment of station management.

Every company has a responsibility to make sure its staff understand the ethical and legal contexts in which they operate. 

The ignorance of these two presenters means the management has some questions to answer and some work to do.

Related articles

Radio personalities apologize for prank call to duchess's hospital

Royal phone scandal highlights new media risks

Duchess hoax call: radio hosts 'shattered and heartbroken'

Royal Prank Call DJ's Speak Out, Show Canceled

Cardinal Pell's PR mistakes

What a disastrous media conference, where should we start? Some headlines:

1. Tone is absolutely critical. Whatever you say, if the tone is bad you fail. The start of an inquiry is not the time to get all defensive and start talking about media smears and victimisation etc. If you get defensive many (probably most) people suspect you're covering something up. Getting defensive at the start of an inquiry into your activities only confirms these suspicions. Pell should have tried for an open, confident tone by arguing that the Church had made improvements but would welcome any suggestions for further improvements that might come from the Royal Commission.

2. Respect for the victims doesn't extend to speaking on their behalf especially when the victims seem to be universally in favour of the Royal Commission and you're trying to argue that it will make things worse for at least of some of them. This is just patronising and, again, sounds like you're hiding something. 

3. Don't blame the media, especially not at a media conference. No-one, including journalists, goes 'oh yeah fair cop gov it's our fault' in the face of a blatant blame-shifting exercise. Again just sounds like you're ducking and weaving.

Lots of mistakes, what should Pell have done?

The key in a situation like this is to take control - go front foot not back foot.

You do that by being positive and constructive. You've got to make it something you're doing to make things better, not something that is being done to you.

Pell should have set out a suggested constructive agenda (in broad terms) for the Royal Commission, while arguing that he also wants to see victims organisation playing a major role in designing the Commission's terms of reference and processes. A constructive agenda would give the media something to cover, other than your own discomfort.

And you've got to stop talking when you've done that. Journos will try and get you to go negative, as soon as you do you bury your positive story.

Jackson and Wells apart again after two decades

It was one of the longest-running partnerships in Australian PR, and one of the more successful. But 21 years is a long-time and earlier this week they quietly went their separate ways. 

Keith Jackson and John Wells are from different sides of politics. Jackson is a former ALP candidate and head of corporate affairs with the ABC, Wells used to work for John Howard after a long career in Australian journalism. The combination of talents and experiences was formidable. I very much enjoyed my time working with them between 1996 and 2007, and a lot of terrific people along the way. 

Good luck to Keith and John, I'm sure many clients will continue to benefit from their insights in the years ahead.

Media interviews: How not to do it

This clip from a media doorstop done by the ALP's Gai Brodtmann earlier this week is ideal for media training.

Rule 1: know what you're talking about (briefing notes and key messages aren't enough)

Rule 2: be ready to answer follow-up questions from the media (refer to rule 1)

Rule 3: if you don't know the answer, don't make stuff up (refer to rules 1 and 2)