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It’s standard behavior to rush to the call for investigation and change in response to every news item. If a brick falls from a fifth-story window and hits someone on the head, the evening news can be counted on to look into the shortcomings of the brick industry, and ask, “Surely they knew their bricks were lethal. But what did they do about it?”
And so it is in public relations. Following the disclosure that PR agency Burson Marsteller mounted a covert anti-Google campaign on behalf of (at-the-time-undisclosed) client Facebook, we’re all analyzing the behavior of the participants and advising them on how they can do better in the future.
WebProNews writes not only is “Burson’s reputation under assault but also its credibility as knowledgeable and skilful practitioners in public relations is being questioned as a consequence.” WebProNews points out that the Burson executives involved will receive training in ethics, and quotes the WPP (Burson’s parent company) Code of Ethics:
“We will not undertake work which is intended or designed to mislead, including in relation to social, environmental and human rights issues;”
But what is truly learned here? Burson had a code of ethics. Are we to believe the agency really has executives who have never read it, have never received ethics training, don’t understand the importance of ethical behavior?
Or did a couple of people approve and execute a stupid campaign knowing it wasn’t the right thing to do? And if that’s the case, what is the utility of analyzing Burson’s behavior against a backdrop of codes of ethics? What can we truly learn from this approach?
It’s a very simple matter. Let’s not complicate it. My advice to Burson (and to any PR agency or professional):
- Be honest and ethical
- Know your agency’s code of ethics, and consult it often
- If your agency does not have a code of ethics, consult Craigslist and PRSA to find a new agency
What else is there?
 Tags: Burson Marsteller, Facebook, Google, smear campaign
From a communications standpoint, BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward’s statements today on BBC television were absolutely perfect. This is an amazing PR case study and one thousands of communications professionals can learn from. To see it as such in no way diminishes the horror BP has unleashed in the Gulf, or the role that Hayward may have played in letting that happen.
Hayward said he won’t step down over the spill, although many sources believe he may be forced to.
According to the AP, he said:
“We are going to stop the leak. We’re going to clean up the oil, we’re going to remediate any environmental damage and we are going to return the Gulf coast to the position it was in prior to this event. That’s an absolute commitment, we will be there long after the media has gone, making good on our promises.”
This is, in my mind, a masterful statement. First, it goes as far as any public company reasonably could at this point in a crisis. It would be nice to hear how much money was committed to the effort. It would also be nice to hear something like “we’re sorry,” but that’s just not going to happen. But he has certainly outlined a roadmap that’s pretty darn strong compared with others announced by executives and public officials in similar situations. Did we hear anything like this from FEMA officials in the days immediately after Katrina?
He’s also made his leadership position clear. He’s implying responsibility for the spill by clearly articulating a commitment to the cleanup. He’s said he isn’t going to step down, and I wouldn’t either. To do so would obviously be an admission of failure, but it would also be a failure to accept responsibility for his and the company’s mistakes. He is saying, in essence, I helped screw it up, I’m going to stay (as long as I can) and try to make things right. Finally, and this is a very interesting bit and perhaps the most controversial of his statement, he takes a not-so-subtle shot at journalists, saying “we will be there long after the media is gone.”
There are almost as many predictions as commitments in Hayward’s statement. It will be interesting to look back on this six months from now.
Tags: BP, Tony Hayward, FEMA, Katrina, Gulf Oil Spill, cleanup
Within the past 10 days I have told someone “Don’t put into an e-mail, chat, a tweet, a Facebook status update or anywhere else something you don’t want on the front page of the New York Times.” It’s classic communications advice.
And yet, Goldman-Sachs executives are apparently too stupid and too arrogant to show any such restraint. The U.S. government has launched a fraud lawsuit against Goldman-Sachs for, among other things, misrepresenting to the federal government the company’s losses during the mortgage crisis, and according to the New York Times, “creating a (financial) product secretly designed to fail for the benefit of a favored hedge-fund client.”
In email messages, “Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, acknowledged in November 2007 that the firm had lost money initially. But it later recovered by making negative bets, known as short positions, to profit as housing prices plummeted. ‘Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess,’ he wrote. ‘We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.’”
According to the times, Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman-Sachs trader and a defendant in the SEC’s suit, wrote in an e-mail to a friend:
“I’m still stuck at work at 10PM, but it’s been six years since I’ve been functioning on this @!$#@!$@$# schedule, so who cares. I feel like I’m losing my mind and I’m only 28!!”
It’s not as if Americans like the investment community right now, and this sure isn’t helping.
In so many stories of corporate malfeasance, reaction to the facts surrounding a company’s misbehavior (whether alleged or proven) is so often overshadowed by damning information that comes through other, informal communications channels, like remarks made at a company party, or in an e-mail.
In 2003, jurors watched a portion of a four-hour videotape of a company-paid $2 million party in Sardinia thrown by Dennis Kozlowski, then CEO of Tyco, for his wife’s 40th birthday, which included “Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett and an anatomically correct statue of Michelangelo’s David spewing vodka. Kozlowski and his CFO were on trial for looting the company of $600 million. Who’s brilliant idea was it to videotape the party? Kozlowski apparently laughed about the video after leaving court for the day.
More recently, Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, set off a storm of media controversy over global warming when he sent a series of emails with some ill advised (though apparently somewhat true) remarks about the quality of certain research on the topic, giving detractors a golden opportunity to call into question the validity of all global warming research.
It’s hard to give everyone media training, but that’s the only way to avoid these situations. A company must be truthful. It must communicate on a timely basis any circumstances that must be brought to the attention of regulators or law enforcement. But there is no rule that says the company must allow every employee to publicly say anything he or she wishes. And that’s what being careless about informal communications amounts to.
I’m not suggesting cover-ups. The only thing worse than writing a dumbass email is deleting it to hide a smoking gun. In fact, deleting emails brought Arthur Andersen, a multi-billion dollar company, to its knees. Don’t do it! It’s probably illegal. (And deleted emails aren’t deleted any way. Another story for another time.) But save yourself from embarrassing the entire company and imagine every email, every tweet, and every café remark you make is public.
Again, I’m not saying informal communications are the problem. Unethical and illegal behavior are the problems. But companies are compounding the problems with ill advised informal communications that always seem to come out.
A little commonsense will allow you to retain some degree of control over a crisis, or avoid it entirely. As soon as there are emails containing a company executive’s claims that it made billions of dollars when it told the government exactly the opposite, and videos of the CEO’s anatomically correct sculptures with their, um, er, well you know as a spigot, you’ve lost in the court of public opinion.
Tags: Goldman Sachs, enron, email, Arthur Andersen, crisis communications, tyco, party, Sardinia, global warming
We are in the worst economic situation of the past 25 years, and the tech sector in the Valley has been hit hard. I thought instead of commenting on each layoff as it happens, it would make the whole thing more tangible to look at how actual people are affected. I invited a friend of mine, Cathy Browne, to talk about her situation. I hope if you have a kind word, or better still, a lead on a career opportunity for Cathy, you will leave a comment below, or contact her by email or through Twitter. Thank you. - Joel
Guest Post by Cathy Browne
It’s hard for me to write this without tears falling onto my keyboard. Last week I gave my landlord notice to put my wonderful little cottage apartment up for rent. My savings are gone. My visitor’s visa will expire in six weeks. After several years in Silicon Valley, I will have to leave the U.S., my adopted family, my precious cats, my friends and the life I cherish here. This is, and will always be, home to me, and I am broken-hearted.
I’ve been a tech PR practitioner for 25 years. People tell me I’m good at it. I love my profession, working with media and analysts, start-ups and all things geeky. I’m also legally blind, but I manage to fake it until I encounter a glass door or a name tag I can’t read. Besides, you don’t need to see much to tell a good story.
I’ve watched PCs, email, voice mail, fax machines, the Internet and cell phones emerge to become the things we take for granted. Now I’ve embraced social media big-time, and I’m as excited about its potential as anything else I’ve ever seen. I want to help integrate SM into PR programs for tech companies who haven’t even thought of it yet.
But I’m stuck. As a Canadian, I can’t work in the US unless I have a visa – a process that many employers consider too complicated and lengthy to take on. And who can blame them? There are so many deserving, smart people out there who, like me, are looking – and they’re a snap to hire.
I get that. But I am aching to work. And I have to work to support myself. So I scour Web sites for opportunities, I network, I live on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter (my new addiction) and I meet with terrific people. I don’t intend to give up until I’m dragged kicking and screaming onto my Air Canada flight.
Why do I bother? Why don’t I just go back? I love it here. I love the work ethic, the energy and the attitude that pervades this Valley. I love that my time here has injected that enthusiasm, curiosity and desire to succeed into me. I feel 20 years younger. And most of all, I feel I still have something to contribute.
If you are a VC, company or agency out there who recognizes the critical importance of PR and needs help, take a chance on me before I have to leave at the end of January. Let me work for you for a day or two – for nothing – to prove my worth. Throw whatever you have at me, and if you like what you see, hire me. Give me an offer letter and I’ll fly up to Vancouver, go through the usual hassles at Customs, and come back legal. You’ll be happy you did.
If you’re interested, let’s talk. You’ll find me on Twitter, @mscathybrowne, and on email at cb@cathybrowne.com.
Thanks for listening. Happy holidays.
Tags: Canada, Canadian, visa, Cathy Browne, recession, Silicon Valley, career, opportunity, Bay, Area, Tech PR
Yesterday, I jokingly suggested that December 1 be set aside as annual PR Is Dead Day. The selection of the date was totally arbitrary, but had I given it any thought I would have realized that December 1 is Aids Awareness Day and not necessarily the best day for an event celebrating death, even in a satirical way. Lloyd Grosse called me on my gaffe, and when he told me his story, I invited him to respond with a guest post here.
Lloyd’s response:
I have had HIV since 1982 - and am a very long term survivor. In the 80s I was a pretty radical activist and was at the coalface for arguing for the rights of people with HIV. I was one of the first people to be publicly open and appeared in the HIV awareness adverts and articles.
Funny enough as a ratbag activist I saw the power of developing strong relationships with all the people who had a stake in HIV, from my mates close to death in the palliative care through to the Federal Health Minister - and of course the journos that reported on health. This opened my eyes to PR and sharpened my activism which eventually led to me starting my own PR agency back in the 90’s called Out PR (now long gone).
My small community in Sydney had lost more mates (2961 NSW 1996) than Australia lost in the Vietnam war (521). In one week I lost 7 clients and 5 friends. We needed a miracle.
So me as the radical was now in my own PR agency and found myself recruited by a very savvy product manager in Roche and retained to manage their HIV/AIDS portfolio in Australia. It was a time where there was a change in the air - from HIV is a death sentence - to seeing some hope that some of us might survive a lot longer.
We helped Roche launch the first of a new line of AIDS drugs (protease inhibitor) and the new diagnostic Viral Load test onto the Australian market - advances which - to be frank saved my life. We used our position with Roche to lobby for a compassionate access program (before the drugs and test were funded) and clinical occupational therapy service which contributed to saving a load of my mates’ lives and those of people in my extended community.
So I have a very different view of PR. PR is not nor should ever be dead.
At its best, PR saves lives – think of:
- testing for skin cancer & spf sun protection,
- 2×5 (2 fruit and 5 veg in one day) campaign to encourage better eating habits,
- and of course the condom campaign in the 80s/90s to stop the spread of AIDS.
They are just 3 PR campaigns - there are loads more which raise money for the poor, awareness of violence against women, recycling, breast screening, blood donations, fluoridation of water, (do I need to continue?).
Sure there are bad apples but there are in every profession. Dare I say there are examples of bad apples in the blogger community.
It is upsetting to see the funeral stones and proclamations of the death of my profession.
Building relationships is what we do. So when our constituents believe we should die – it hurts!
I wonder if the spray and pray PR people to whom you refer are members of a professional organisation and are signed onto a code of ethics. Does anyone bother to ask these days? Anyone can call themselves a PR professional. Most are not. In Australia it takes 3 years of university in an accredited degree and at least 3 full time work in PR to qualify as a Member of our professional institute. Many journos who are losing their jobs because of contracting media markets are trying their hand at PR and they are all too often crap at it. Strategic communication is more than a 30 second grab or a headline.
Criticising all PRs is ironically similar to what you are complaining about. Unresearched, spray and pray comments on blogs are probably just as bad as bad PR.
In an effort to be entirely transparent - I am the National Information Officer for the Public Relations Institute of Australia and we are guardians of my profession’s reputation in Australia.
Tags: Lloyd Grosse, Public Relations Institute of Australia, Dennis Howlett, Aids Awareness Day
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