Companies forging global mergers or alliances shouldn't expect to find a kinder, gentler regional press just because they're in your backyard.
In the soon-to-be-released "International Image Study," Delahaye Medialink's a review of international stories about global merger deals found that coverage in a company's home country is more negative than overall coverage on a global scale.
That's a breakthrough finding for communicators, considering that mergers and acquisitions are as red-hot in PR as the bandwidth issue is in ebusiness. The study will be available after June 22 at http://www.delahaye.com.
Based on its dissection of nearly 2,000 news stories churned out by the business press in markets worldwide, Delahaye concludes that businesses which are growing through acquisitions and integration may "meet resistance in certain media."
Case in point is its analysis of the proposed marriage between Hoechst AG, Germany, and Rhone-Poulenc SA, France, (to create Aventis). It reveals that media coverage of the deal in Germany was 22 percent negative versus seven percent in the rest of the world. Hoechst didn't return our call.
But the study also examines news surrounding two other pending deals: British Airways PC and American Airlines' announcement to buy a stake in Spanish carrier Iberia, and the DaimlerChrsyler merger (Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler).
In the case of British Airways, press was 25 percent negative in the U.K., but only five percent in other global pockets. In the case of Chrysler, nearly 15 percent of the coverage in the U.S. had a negative slant, compared to just six percent elsewhere. Neither company commented.
The Delahaye study could prove to be watershed for media relations execs who have been apt to treat merger/acquisition news in evenhanded - yet highly homogenized - ways.
The study does conclude that financial strength and corporate strategy are boilerplate issues explored by media outlets (despite regional influences) when they're digging into M&A-related stories.
But the study also finds that media outlets may vary in their interpretation of these events.
That's proof that certain messages might win the image war with press outlets in other countries, but be more scrutinized by the journalists next door.
Determining how you communicate multinationally will require probing what drives the media in certain nations. Labor relations is a much larger issue internationally than in the U.S., the study shows. In Spain and France, for instance, the issue was a topic in nearly one in 10 published articles.