PR and business sense

I've long been a proponent of adding some business sense to the PR business. A lot of what, historically, PR professionals have been doing has been fueled by intuition.

More and more, I've been pushing clients to do a lot of research, both before and after major campaigns, as well as on an ongoing basis (with the implication that that has on their budgets). I've also had numerous arguments with colleagues and bosses about the fact that PR has to become more rationale-based, rather than only emotion-based.

Well, an article published in the April edition of The Gauge, published by Delahaye Medialink Worldwide vindicates my point.

In the article, William C. Heyman, President and CEO, Heyman Associates (one of the US leading senior-level communications executive search firms), argues that "mong the items often singled out as absolutely essential for success in today’s environment, especially in public relations, was a strong sense of the business of business (and) the need to be 'measurement oriented.'"

Mr. Heyman also writes:

And that’s where intellect— knowledge and judgment—directly come into play: understanding business, knowing how communications fits into corporate objectives, and determining and measuring how communications can help advance the organization.(...)

Given the corporate environment in recent years, hiring managers and human resources executives are as interested in “what” a candidate knows, as “who” the candidate knows in the media, the investment community, government, community organizations and other audiences. (...)

Communicators today must be able to show how the communications groups, across disciplines and across the corporation, are working together to provide the company with a return on investment (ROI). They need to be cost-effective and efficient in delivering on goals and objectives.(...)

While the idea of having solid research to support communications objectives or the need to find better ways to deliver on objectives, are not new, management emphasis on these needs is increasingly being underscored. Senior management more frequently looks at communications budgets and asks the same type of ROI questions they put to the rest of the company.

Further, the more resource-intensive and important the communications project or strategy, the more a senior executive must show the research and justification behind the decision to support that project. Or not to support the project. (...)

It’s the real-world business understanding, experience, and hard-evidence, case-study research, that hiring managers and others involved in the hiring process—from the executive recruiter to the client—want to see and hear about when they are seeking the top communicator.

Students, in particular, should go read the whole thing.

Two new blogs added to my list

They are Micro Persuasion (Steve Rubel on how weblogs are changing the practice of public relations) and Media Culpa (Incoherent opinions about media and public relations).

Do the 9/11 Commission members comment too much?

Incredible but true, that's what some critics are saying to The New York Times (free registration required).

Quotes from proponents of this new-found openness include:

Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey governor who is the commission's chairman, said he and his colleagues were so determined to be credible with Americans that they decided early on to conduct themselves in a very public manner.

"We made a conscious decision, and part of it was under strong pressure from the families, to make this commission as transparent and as visible as possible," Mr. Kean said.

For his part, Mr. (Richard) Ben-Veniste said, "Our chairman has encouraged us to discuss the open work of the commission, because a large part of our function is to inform the public."

Mr. (Bob) Kerrey said the tough questioning and the television and print appearances had helped shake loose information from the White House that would not have otherwise been released.

Mr. Kean said even if he wanted to avoid the news media, it would be next to impossible in the age of the major 24-hour news networks. "People are going to be talking about us anyway," he said. "We would rather have the commission talking about us rather than talking heads."

The major quotes about or from critics include:

Democrats and Republicans alike have raised concerns about the degree to which commission members are discussing their deliberations on television and, even, in newspaper columns.

The accessibility of the commissioners to the news media, not to mention the openness of their views, is a departure from similar independent commissions of the past. Its members' openness troubles some officials here (Washington).

Former President Gerald R. Ford (says) "I think they could do a better job if they were less public-relations related."

Tucker Carlson, cited on "Crossfire" on Wednesday what he said were Mr. Ben-Veniste's appearances on at least six programs over the course of the last five days and said, "He's destroying the credibility of these proceedings."

Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was on President Bill Clinton's national security staff, said that since this is an election year, "the commission ought to be well aware that too much public exposure will feed suspicion by those who are already so inclined of the commission's political motivation."

Which do you prefer?

Green Media Toolshed Blog

Another blog to add to my list. The Green Media Toolshed Blog (Opening the door to successful communications campaigns for the environnemental movement) has a lot of interesting posts. Check it out.

Two new blogs; both about writing online

The people at Bloglines are going to think I'm crazy. With these two, I now subscribe to 85 RSS feeds.

The first feed I subscribed to today is Writing for the Web, published by Crawford Kilian who says his blog is about "comments and links about the fast-changing genres of Webwriting."

The second one is Contentious Weblog written by Amy Gahran and covers "News and musings on how we communicate in the online age."

Is your e-mail getting through?

Lets say you or your client use e-mail marketing. Let's say it's permission based marketing, and not just spam. You'd think that your emails are reaching your targets, right?

Think again. And it could be your ISP's fault.

emarketer.com writes that Return Path, an e-mail service provider, has studied 18 different ISPs and has found that some ISPs see as much as 37,7% of their emails are blocked (Netzero is the worst). The winner is Earthlink that sees only (!) 7% of their permission-based emails blocked.

The most common reason for non-delivery is that the target's ISPs identify the e-mail as spam (even though it's not) and either block the mail or send it to a junk mail folder.

Various stuff

From Marcus Zillman, a white paper on searching the Internet

From David Sifry, Technocrati's founder and CEO:Technorati Tracks Two Million Blogs: also 12,000 new blogs and 150,000 blog updates every day!

From Easterblog, a funny spoof of an AP story:

BUSH ADMITS MISLEADING NATION

WASHINGTON, APRIL 1 2004. (ASSOCIATED PRESS.) President George W. Bush admitted today that he misled the American people on the reasons for the Iraq war. "No matter what your motives, it can never be right to be dishonest to the public," Bush told a hushed crowd at a news conference. "I am deeply sorry, and will never fail to tell the truth on any subject again."

Yes it is April Fool's Day.

Spin

Some people start really young.

For all internal communicators

Corporate training and coaching firm Franklin Covey released a study (PDF, 27 Kb) last December that covers the disconnect between management and employees.

It looks at employee buy-in from the viewpoints of clarity, commitment, action, enabling, synergy, and accountability.

Some stats include:

Only 48% of workers say their organization has a clear strategic direction
Only 37% say they understand the reason for that strategic direction
Only 15% of workers say upper management actively supports the goals of their work team

Read the whole thing.

Une correction comme on en voit rarement

C'est publié dans The Australian, un quotidien, vous le devinerez, australien.

A STORY headlined "Syria seeks our help to woo US" in Saturday's Weekend Australian misquoted National Party senator Sandy Macdonald.

The quote stated "Syria is a country that has been a bastard state for nearly 40 years", but should have read "Syria is a country that has been a Baathist state for nearly 40years". The Australian regrets any embarrassment caused by the error.

Merci à Trevor Cook pour le lien.

When the CEO is the Brand, But Falls from Grace, What's Next?

Les gens de chez National qui conseillent Guy Cloutier devraient jeter un coup d'oeil à cet article publié par le Wharton College.

Intitulé When the CEO is the Brand, But Falls from Grace, What's Next?, on y discute les pours et les contres de donner son nom à son entreprise et les conséquences de cette décision lorsque le fondateur ne peut plus exercer ses fonction et ce, notamment dans le cas où celui-ci est mêlé à un scandale. On y étudie notamment le cas de Martha Stewart.

Est-ce que les gens achètent des billets pour Don Juan pour ou à cause de Guy Cloutier? Non. Est-ce que, pour certaines personnes, le fait que Guy Cloutier produise le spectacle est un facteur de décision (positif)? Oui.

Une des choses que Guy Cloutier Communications (l'entreprise) devra faire au cours des prochains mois, c'est de démontrer que leurs projets sont tellement bons que ceux-ci "survivront" au scandale de l'individu.

La récente décision de nommer Véronique Cloutier (que je ne connais pas personnellement) PDG par intérim me semble être une excellente décision. Elle a la crédibilité nécessaire à mon avis. Évidemment, le fait de la décrire comme étant la "vice-présidente de l'entreprise" et de dire d'elle qu'elle est "très au fait des dossiers" ne peut pas nuire. Sans compter qu'elle a aussi un capital de notoriété et de sympathie très élevé.

UPDATE: Je viens de trouver le communiqué qui annonce la nomination de Véronique Cloutier. On y apprend qu’Enigma Communications est la boîte qui s’occupe maintenant de Guy Cloutier Communications. On ne dit pas si Roch Landriault (de chez National) continuera de s’occuper de Guy Cloutier à titre individuel.

Blogs covered in Busineek Week

In a recent blog entry regarding corporate blogs and whether they are mainstream or not, Colin McKay asks us to give him a call when Business Week would write something about blogging.

Well, in my 2004 way of giving Colin a call, I thought I'd just blog it.

"Colin, Marc here. Just wanted to tell you that Business Week has written a bout blogs. Yep, a huge story in their June 10, 2003 edition. You can find it on their website. OK, cool. Talk to you soon."

Flack not commenting for her own profile

OK, so the LA Times writes a huge (upwards of 1,500 word) profile of Zenia Mucha, Disney's chief communications officer.

The good news is that "she has carved out a place as one of Chief Executive Michael Eisner's closest advisors in a brutal battle with those who would unseat him." (Always good news when PR gets a seat at the table.)

The bad news is "Mucha declined requests to be interviewed for this story."

The profile is here (free registration required).

Funny tidbit: Tom Murphy (PDF) is quoted for the story. Just not this Tom Murphy.

Cranium. A game or a PR success story or both?

And the answer is "both."

Yep, Al Ries can add Cranium to the PR-driven success stories. And I can smirk about the fact that I found the story in AdAge.

When in crisis, use credible quotes (part 2)

While we're on the subject of crisis and quotes, some of the things that President Bush's team is saying about Richard Clarke are dismaying.

There are two aspects here. In crisis communications, most people espouse the doctrines of "one spokesperson" and "get the truth out".

I disagree slightly with the first part... I think there can be more than one spokesperson. But there has to be only one "voice." And I fully agree with the second part: whatever is being said has to be true.

(I know that this is almost impossible to believe for people that aren't in PR but we really do try to stick to the truth. It goes to credibility and that's one of the most valuable things we have. I know I certainly won't waste my credibility for any reason. But that's a rant for another day.)

Like I said, the Bush team is reacting particularly badly on this issue. They're breaking both of those tenets at the same time.

Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh on Monday that Clarke "was out of the loop" on "a lot of what was going on" regarding terrorism. (Let's set aside the fact that, if true, that's weird--to say the least--considering that Clarke was head of counter-terrorism.)

When asked to comment on the vice-president's comment, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, is quoted as saying "I would not use the word 'out of the loop.' He was in every meeting that was held on terrorism. All the deputies' meetings, the principals' meeting that was held and so forth, the early meetings after Sept. 11."

Children, that is what I mean by speaking with one voice. And being truthful. There not saying the same thing. And only one of them can be telling the truth.

When in crisis, use credible quotes

OK, every one knows about Coke's water (Dasani) having bromate problems in the UK, and about the company's decision to withdraw its product.

Now we learn that Dasani's launch is being delayed in France and Germany. Good decision. "You've gotta make sure everything is ok with the product." Makes sense right?

Well, that's not how Coke is spinning it.

Here are the quotes atributed to the company:

* "the timing is no longer considered optimal"
* the decision was also "due to the publicity issues of last week."
* "We're just doing what we think is right for our company and the brand at this time"

Duh.

The two first quotes are just lame. It seems to me that it goes without saying that the timing isn't optimal and that there's a link with last week's events in the UK.

But the one that makes me want to scream is the last one. Couldn't Coke have tried someting along the lines of "We are confident that this situation will be resolved in a short time. We're just doing what we think is right for our clients at this time"?

Coke? Next time, try presenting confidence in the future and empathy for your clients.

For fans of politics

Disclaimer: I've been part of too many (federal, provincial and municipal) elections and referendums to count. I just love partisan politics.

This article in the May 2004 edition of The Atlantic Monthly is a great read. It's penned by Paul Maslin, lead pollster for the former Howard Dean campaign.

Readers will notice that Maslin identifies a number of reasons behind Dean's fall and not once does he refer to blogs and/or echo chambers. Thank God.

Learning Movable Type

And one of Fast Company's suggestions is that blogs can be used as an e-learning tool. And this is a great example of that.

Fast Company and blogging

Fast Company has a number of articles on corporate blogging in their most recent issue. Click here to read the lead article.

U.S. Team in Baghdad Fights a Persistent Enemy: Rumors

Anyone that dabbles in Internal communications or Crisis PR, should read “U.S. Team in Baghdad Fights a Persistent Enemy: Rumors” in today’s New York Times (free registration required).

Believing almost nothing, Iraqis turned by the millions to the base currency of all who live in closed societies: the whispers of unsanctioned truth. Throw in the natural suspicions now raised by the presence of an occupying power, and you have an almost ideal hothouse for rumors and gossip. (…)

The American civilian occupation bureaucracy is often criticized by Iraqis for hiding behind the 13-foot concrete blast walls surrounding its headquarters. In such isolation, those critics say, the coalition authorities have little grasp of Iraqis who live in what the Americans call the Red Zone — Baghdad beyond the Americans' gates.

When they realised that all these rumours were flying all over the place, the US forces created a group of Iraqis that can go into the different areas of Baghdad and monitor what is being said. The US leadership can then craft their messages and create tools that correct the public’s misconceptions.

Well, I’ve got to congratulate them. This is a good strategy. At least, it’s a good first step.

This applies to all of us in different ways. If you’re in a business, or a non-profit, rumours will fly just as fast if you’re not out there communicating rapidly and truthfully. If you do that, you’ll develop the credibility to be believed.