Public Relations: The Art or Science of Controlling the Uncontrollable
By Katharine Delahaye Paine
CEO and founder, The Delahaye Group, Inc.
http://www.delahaye.com
Sooner or later it's bound to happen. You walk into your office one day and run smack into the First Amendment: that pesky little rule that guarantees that the press can write anything it darn well pleases and you can't do a thing about that.
Legal says you can't comment, the CEO is on vacation on a sailboat somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and no one will talk to the media. Or even worse -- you take the big plunge, invest in a company spokesperson and the next thing you know, that spokesperson is caught in a compromising position.
What's a PR person to do? No one likes that feeling of being out of control, but we all face it sooner or later, and learn a lot from the process. After the fact it's always easy to enact a crisis communications plan, media train the spokespeople, etc, etc. but few crisis communications plans can prepare you for the mercurial nature of public opinion.
Which is precisely what happened to Ben & Jerry's, Carl's Junior, Converse and K-mart. Each of these cases was celebrity endorsement-related. Ben & Jerry's, which hired Don Imus to plug its ice cream, ran into some problems when his plug was offensive to the gay and lesbian community. While this is not unusual commentary coming from Imus, it certainly does not represent Ben & Jerry's supportive positioning among the gay and lesbian community. One has to wonder if they truly contemplated the pros and cons of choosing Imus as an endorser. They were, however, quick to jump in and apologize and had Imus apologize as well, although the threat of a boycott was present.
K-mart dropped Fuzzy Zoeller as its endorser after he very publicly and racially offended Tiger Woods. Carl's Junior, the hamburger chain dropped Dennis Rodman after his rude comments about Mormons while the Bulls played the Utah Jazz. K-mart and Carl's Junior were both praised by the media for dropping Zoeller and Rodman, which, given the audiences they were appealing to, was the right decision. Likewise, Converse, given its audience, was equally correct in sticking by Rodman.
And an even more interesting scenario is AT&T's crisis last month, when the spokesperson was a board member. In an unprecedented statement released by AT&T, board member Walter Elisha denounced the heir-apparent that they brought on with such fanfare nine months ago, as having "lacked the intellectual leadership" to run the company. The problem was that by blaming John Walter they neglected to address the obvious point which was "how could they have approved someone unfit for the job just nine months before?"
The lesson in both cases is that no matter what spin you may think you're putting on a situation, the media and the masses that read them will still form their own opinions.
Grade
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Comments
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Advice
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Extent of coverage
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B
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If extensive publicity is what the company was looking for, it got it.
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Rule #1: Be clear about your objectives. If youwant exposure, milk something like this for all it's worth. Converse clearly wanted exposure, and so they did a great job of taking advantage of the media attention.
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Effectiveness of spokespeople
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D for Dennis,A for
Converse
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Since Rodman is the spokesperson, he should be faulted, not just for the offensive comments, but because he's not communicating the company's message. The Converse people were terrific.
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You get what you pay for Rodman may not be Tiger Woods, but neither is his price tag. Converse bought a "bad- boy" spokesperson. However, their internal spokespeople were terrific If you're stuck with an out of control spokesperson, make sure your responses are on the money.
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Communication of key messages
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A
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They're effectively targeting their audience. They want to go after the "bad-boy" image and they did.
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Actions speak louder than words. With one action, Converse changed its image from nice, all-American boring sneaker company to a hip, up- and-coming sports shoe maker.
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Management of negative messages
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A
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Converse did a good job of "spinning" the incident so that its continued relationship did, in fact, make some sense.
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It's called Kung Fu PR - use the negatives to push the positives - Converse acknowledged the negatives but turned it into a positive push.
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Impact on customers
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B
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They may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. The new audience the urban hip will love the fact that they continue to back him. The rest of the world may turn in their sneakers.
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Stay in sync with your audience. Converse listened to the audience it was targeting.
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Impact on investors
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B
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They turned a potentially bad situation into an excellent forum for talking about their strategy for the future.
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If you have a logical, financially sound plan, chances are the investors will stick with you.
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Impact on employees and prospective employees
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D
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No one is going to feel comfortable if they think they work for a company that endorses religion bashing. They have to tread very lightly.
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Be careful of the messages you send. By backing someone who questions authority with as much fervor as Rodman does, you may be sending a message to the employees to do the same.
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Overall score
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B
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Turned a potential disaster into a victory.
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Under the circumstances, I'm not sure anyone could have done a better job of making omelets out of broken eggs.
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| AT&T |
Criteria
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Grade
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Comments
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Advice
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Extent of coverage
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D
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If they were trying to minimize the conversation, the board did exactly the opposite. By being so outspoken against Walter, it immediately made the announcement the talk of the newsrooms for the week.
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The media expects boards to say nothing interesting. Anything else instantly becomes newsworthy. So if you go for shock value, expect a lot of attention.
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Effectiveness of spokespeople
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F
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Where was Robert Allen in all this? The board did the talking, and Allen looked like an ostrich. And did Elisha know what he was stirring up?
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Either media train your board, or if the effect was intentional, provide enough details to make the media go away and stop digging for more. Elisha's comments just teased one's curiosity and did nothing to satisfy it.
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Communication of key messages
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C
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The message that it was trying to fix its problems came across loud and clear. The problem is that the entire incident brought to light problems that many of us might never have known about.
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Rule #2: Take advantage of the media spotlight to get your messages across. But make them concrete. They did a credible job of telling the world that they were making changes to fix a problem.
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Management of negative messages
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D
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The explicit denigration of Walter focused the spotlight on all the bad things that had happened at AT&T all year.
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A little mea culpa goes a long way. The negative messages might have been diffused by the board taking some responsibility. Instead "the let's blame it all on Walter" was the major message.
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Impact on customers
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B
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Chances are that no one changed their long distance service - or for that matter paid the slightest attention.
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By making such an unexpected outburst against Walter, AT&T took what was essentially a business page story and made it into something bigger.
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Impact on investors
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F
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Shares dropped 4.3% the day after Walter's resignation, as investors' concern grew over leadership and strategic direction.
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No matter what, come up with a strong credible leader. What made this an investor relations nightmare was that it raised questions in every investor's mind, who is more inept? The board for letting the disaster happen or Allen for hiring Walter?
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Impact on employees and prospective employees
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F
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Anyplace where politics are so bad that it makes front page headlines sounds like a dreadful place to work.
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Be careful about airing your internal politics at board level. Particularly if your focal figure is talking to the press a lot.
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Overall score
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D
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Boards should not launder dirty washing in public.
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Find a new job. Sounds like PR/IR has minimal influence over what is communicated.
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