Hill+Knowlton Strategies

It has just been announced that former front man of The Smiths, Morrissey will have his libel case against the NME heard before a jury.

 The case is based on an interview given by the singer to the magazine in 2007, which he claims was “twisted” to make him appear racist.

The case is not expected to he heard until next year, but what struck me in light of these developments was the likely process to best select an objective jury panel. Clearly, this is no slur on juries per se, but an illustration of the feelings aroused in most of us by artistes and their work. The questioning of potential jurors could be hugely entertaining, but largely inconclusive. It will probably be easy enough to weed out those who have strong views – either way – for the singer, but what of those, and I include myself, who are burdened by what I’d call our cultural prejudices? I know nothing about One Direction for instance, who are most probably a likeable and hard-working bunch, but there’s something in the name that strikes – pardon the expression – a wrong note in me. I would do my best to remain impartial if the poor things were in the dock, but they occupy a place in my heart alongside the likes of Steven Seagal and Pixie Geldof which I’m afraid to say consigns them to a perennial state of irrational dislike.

The libel hearing will make for great theatre; I hope they manage to find the right reviewers.

This may come as some surprise to people who know me but for once I have been loath to enter a debate and share my opinion, but this afternoon my will broke and I could no longer hold back. Yes I am going to share my view on the issue of Blackberry and their ongoing outage.

Firstly I have to declare an interest; I am a Blackberry user and have been for over nine years and despite it taking over life, I am a fan, they do what they say and despite the hard life I give them they don’t tend to let me down. Equally I am not an Apple or Android knocker – to be honest I have more important things to argue about.

What I am passionate about though, is how issues are managed and the study of how people react to them. With Blackberry you have a perfect storm, a technology company that has courted some negative publicity recently is constantly doing battle with another fruit based technology company and prides itself on its security systems.

The last couple of days have seen a clamor for Blackberry to talk more, respond more, be more open etc.  – but who is asking? The cry would seem to lead by social media and technology commentators. Why is this? Well I believe it is down to certain groups believing they have an inalienable right to know everything, not for any reason other than they just deserve to know. The reality is RIM suffered a switch failure which resulted in a backlog of emails clogging up their system. To be honest it’s not very exciting, a bit techy and sounds like a reasonable explanation, which the majority of fair minded people will understand.

Building on this we are seeing ongoing comparisons with Apple in terms of how open they are and how they would have managed things better. Now I don’t have the best of memories at times, but I seem to remember it took an awful lot of persuasion to get Apple to admit there may be a problem with the reception on the iPhone 4. I don’t think anyone would agree that that was handled in a very efficient way.

Finally I think it is fair to say that whatever RIM said over the last couple of days would have been criticised and picked apart by the same aforementioned people  - what would that have achieved?

I say the following as someone who uses their Blackberry a lot and does rely it on for my job, in reality my Blackberry hasn’t worked reliably since Monday lunchtime. But all that has meant is that when I went to get my sandwich at lunchtime I couldn’t check my emails and likewise when I get home tonight that little red light won’t be flashing at me all evening. Do you know what? My world has kept turning; after all I can still make calls and text which are pretty useful ways of communicating, especially the first one.

Oh, one last thing… What this has proved categorically is that technology people should not make jokes, they really should leave that to the experts.

Figures from the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations would suggest that the tough times are proving to be a healthy catalyst for our mental wellbeing.

As a nation, we appear to be jettisoning the ribaldry of the lads’ mags for a different form of stimulation, as extended by those titles, WH Smith would collectively label, Current Affairs.

What’s the evidence? Weekly heavyweight, The Economist grew circulation in every region it operates worldwide in the first half of the year, while news ‘collage’, The Week saw growth of 6.7% year-on-year. Furthermore, David Goodhart’s Prospect enjoyed a jump of over 10% compared to the same time last year. What more, Private Eye posted a 0.5% increase year-on-year, while The Oldie showed growth of 9.1%.

Meanwhile, in the more tabloid corner, trade is positively sluggish.  Bauer Media’s, Zoo, was down by 27.9% year on year. Its older stable mate, Loaded lost 26.3% of its sales year on year, while IPC’s Nuts had wilted by 22% over the same time period.

So, there you have it – we’re swapping girl bands for Milibands, or are we? It is, of course, something of a specious argument, but probably holds a grain of truth in light of the usual pattern of self-improvement at times of uncertainty.

If you’ve got two minutes to spare, Charlie Brooker and the Newswipe team provide a brilliant insight into just how a news story gets packaged for TV:

Charlie Brooker on How To Report The News

Contains some strong (but brief) language. As if the words “Charlie Brooker” didn’t give that away.

As if the concurrent enquiries into the Iraq war and financial crisis weren’t enough to keep the world’s media busy last week, we also watched as the Caribbean nation of Haiti was devastated by a massive earthquake.

This has been a massive humanitarian tragedy and our thoughts are with all those affected by the disaster.

Events and news cycles such as this one usually come as a shock purely because they’re unexpected. However, that shouldn’t be taken to mean “uncommon”. The nature of news media is to find the newest, most exciting stories to tell, so there will always be a bias towards covering the unexpected. Particularly in the case of major disasters where every story is a very real human interest story.

From a purely academic perspective the past week also serves as an important reminder for spokespeople (and marketers) that regardless of how important you are, or how interesting you think your story is on a normal day, sometimes…stuff happens.

Across the world last week, dozens of spokespeople who got out of bed early to front up for interviews will have arrived at studios, or sat waiting sleepily by the phone waiting for it to ring, only to have been stood down by broadcasters.

Stories that were “scheduled to run” were been pulled to make room for more pressing news.

This is one of the quirks of the game of media relations. If you want to participate in making or contributing to the news then you have to be prepared for things to not go your way – every time you saddle up. That includes not actually getting the opportunity to get on the horse. You don’t have to like it, you just have to accept it, and that goes for the rest of your campaign as well. It’s literally nothing personal.

That said, there are a few things you can do to mitigate the effects of a hijacked news cycle, some of which you may have heard from Catherine Cross in our media training. But be warned – most of them involve a bit of extra work:

• Be available generally. The media doesn’t care about your day job, and from a journalist’s perspective if you’re not available then someone else probably will be. If you want that headline, you’ve got to make the time for it. If your job doesn’t allow you the time, maybe you need a different job. Or maybe someone else needs yours.
• Take your medicine. If you’re an official spokesperson then sometimes you’re just going to have to be the face of a company that has to take some constructive criticism. Like being bumped from your interview, it’s nothing personal. It’s all part of managing your own relationships with the media.
• Do more media. There’s no value in scarcity for the vast majority of spokespeople and playing hard to get is just annoying. Only the very top people in a company get to play the “I’m important” card, and it’s rarely appreciated by journalists who are covering your business. Far better to be the go-to person not just for your product, but your brand, and if you can swing it, your industry. That’s one of the things that leads to thought leadership, and it’s a powerful tool in strategic issues management (which we’ll deal with another time).
• Don’t blame your communications team. It’s not their fault that earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes or terrorist attacks happen. Of course there’s also something to be said for campaign scheduling, i.e. know what’s going on before you try to pitch an interview in the first place.
• Don’t put all your eggs in the one basket. A big scrapbook full of splashy media coverage makes everyone feel good, but realistically why do you want everything to appear at once anyway? You don’t have your life savings in one bank account (I hope), so take a balanced approach to your campaign planning as well. Think about how political campaigns, or grassroots movements work – they all start small and build to a crescendo. Ok, we’re not all launching iPhones, but for the right audience, tapping into the right media, the principle still applies.

There’s been much wailing about the promotional airtime afforded by the BBC to Chris Evan’s new breakfast show on Radio 2.

The latest critic has been former Capital Radio and Virgin Radio presenter, Steve Penk.

You can read more here.
 
While I have some sympathy with Penk’s misgivings about the BBC’s cross-promotion, the debate does highlight the preciousness of editorial coverage, especially for the BBC. Fundamentally, we arrive at the question of whether Evans’ move in the schedule constitutes a new story?

The BBC’s news outlets, including BBC 1 and BBC News Online, previewed the presenter’s arrival with expansive reports.

Is this wrong? For many of the audience it is.

As is the case with reports pertaining to the latest Hollywood blockbuster, or a much publicised product launch.

However, for many individuals there’s a greater significance in football’s transfer market than the machinations in Westminster, and affairs in Albert Square, rather than Tiananmen Square.

This, of course could be overlooked if it wasn’t for the numbers who are interested, and any discerning television editor will be keeping abreast of audience engagement in such stories. Marry that interest with the fact that viewers are paying their licence fee and you have a difficult call to make.

As of next year, it seems that teenagers are going to be able to turn their Tweets into UCAS points, with The Daily Telegraph reporting today that an exam board is set to launch a GCSE called ‘English Studies: Digital Communication’.

According to the paper, this will require students to be able to “read, analyse, critique and plan…industry made or user generated examples of advertising, audio podcasts, video/moving image, websites, social networks, wikis and blogs”. In other words, social media.

At the same time, The Independent, which has long-targeted a youth audience (in particular students on campus) and always been something of a pioneer with regards new ways for people to read its newspaper, is embroiled in a potential minefield with its readership over the possible appointment of a new editor, Rod Liddle.

Within hours of Media Guardian publishing the story that Liddle was being lined up as a potential recruit, a Facebook group had sprung up opposing the move. At time of writing, that group has 2,732 members, which is nearly 1,000 more than it had this time yesterday. This is only one example of a string of unpopular decisions by prominent organisations that have resulted in a large number of people registering their dissatisfaction within a short space of time in a similar way.

For comms professionals, social media can be a powerful tool provided you can harness it. For crisis practioners however, it presents a different challenge – how do you communicate sensibly, clearly and effectively with this type of audience, who are clearly pushing for change, whilst protecting your company’s reputation?

As my colleague Grant notes in his blog post today, monitoring and listening to social media channels is a great place to start, but it should only be a start. Actually being in a position to effectively engage with this audience requires an understanding of what motivates them, what their goals are, how you can acknowledge these and crucially, how you can best communicate your key message to them in a way that they will listen to, understand and accept.

In other words, before you can apply the basic principles that drive your crisis comms to these groups, you really need to know and understand your audience first. Sounds familiar? It should do, because it’s something that we do with other audiences and channels already. It’s just that new learning is required with regards to these groups and it is this that can appear daunting at first.

Training can help immensely in this regard, but it also still requires a lot of hard groundwork as well in order to succeed.

One of the biggest problems crisis managers face is that by definition you’re on call 24/7. Of course, thankfully, that’s not to say most of us actually get the dreaded 2am phone call on a regular basis.

Being on call is a cost of doing business, and if you weren’t prepared to do it you wouldn’t work in crisis management. But, being permanently available is untenable. We talk about the “holiday season” because it’s just that – a time of year where people take scheduled holidays.

So, there are two implications for crisis managers. The first is obvious – make sure you have the people available to manage a crisis if and when one arises, because your usual team will probably be affected by holidays. If you’ve read either of the last two posts on this topic you’ve probably seen quite a lot of reinforcement of that particular message!

But the second implication is easily over-looked by busy crisis managers, and it’s this: take time out for yourself as well. You need to recharge your batteries as much as the next person – probably more, in fact, if you’ve spent most of the last 50 weeks with your phone perpetually on.

You have a crisis management team in place (or should do) specifically designed to take account of scenarios where particular individuals aren’t available. Surely you’ve got a designated alternate for your own position – take advantage of having them there.

Likewise, tap into your agency’s resources. For example, at Hill & Knowlton we have a sufficiently large enough Issues & Crisis team that we rotate availability over the holiday period – specifically so that there’s always someone immediately available in case of a client call.

None of this is to say you should take your hands off the wheel completely and let fate do its worst. Rather, spend an hour mapping out your alternative contact strategy for the next few weeks and ensure that responsibility for managing any crises is suitably delegated. This shouldn’t be an issue – if your crisis management plans are already solid then you’ll have taken into account the possibility that your unavailability is a legitimate issue in its own right.

Likewise, ensure you and your team are clear on how your agency support will be staffed over the period.

(If you’re reading this because you’re looking for immediate crisis support during the holidays, click here to contact us directly or call our switchboard on 020 7413 3000)

It sounds like a no-brainer, but a trip to Swindon this morning reinforced the importance of being prepared to work around your technological limitations. For example, making the very wrong assumption that one can get a decent wi-fi signal on a train network.

This becomes even more critical during the holiday season because in addition to having to contend with the vagaries of technology, we face numerous compounding problems.

Inconveniences such as support personnel being away on holidays en masse, suppliers not necessarily being available, and the occassional snowfall can all conspire against crisis managers at the most inopportune time.

For this reason, it’s essential that crisis managers, your organisations, and your support network (yes, including your PR account team) are all prepared well in advance for the possibility of a Christmas crisis.

Here are five things you can do this week to improve your organisation’s ability to handle a crisis that springs up over the holiday break:

1. Ensure your escalation procedure stacks up for the holiday period. Your day-today crisis management is (usually) predicated on a best-case scenario, i.e. you have access to the people and resources you need, or their alternatives. However, it’s not practical to work under that assumption at this time of year – check with whoever manages holidays for your crisis team and see if you’re actually going to be covered for “business as usual”.
2. Provide every member of your crisis management team/network with the must-have materials they’ll need if a crisis happens over the holidays. In most cases this will simply be a copy of your escalation or call-out process and relevant contact details. While it’s really simple, it’s also important because most of us rely on having these things available electronically, and that’s not such a good thing if the crisis is a technical one that means you can’t access this kind of information. Print off a few hard copies and run them through the laminator just to be on the safe side.
3. Consider whether you need a Virtual Control Room. Most on-the-day crisis management takes place in a central meeting facility, but if your team’s spread across the country then that’s no good to you. Streaming video is great technology, but an old fashioned conference call facility is better – more accessible and more reliable. Include the dial-in details in your printed information pack.
4. Get your crisis management team to identify their own back-up facilities (and test them on it if you need to). For example, if I’m at home and lose my internet connection, I can connect to a local unsecured network, I can walk 10 minutes to an internet cafe, or at a stretch I can hole up in the hotel that’s two miles up the road and use the hotel business centre (or check into a room if I need to – whatever it takes to get plugged in).
5. Check whether your team is actually equipped to manage a crisis remotely. The recession has seen many companies cut back on what look like perks, but in actual fact are business-critical insurances. Things like corporate credit cards, travel restrictions, or providing new employees with wi-fi enabled laptops, for example (connection issues notwithstanding). It only takes an event like last winter’s infamous “snow day” to let you know your technical capabilities aren’t what they should be – save yourself the headache and fill the gaps before it becomes a problem.

There’s a bonus tip for this last point – make sure your team is competent in the use of anything remotely technical. Wireless internet is brilliant, but if your team don’t know how to connect to a wi-fi network then it’s going to make life increasingly difficult.

In his second post for Media Insights and Crisis Expertise, Senior Associate Director, Peter Roberts, reflects on the impact of floods currently affecting parts of the UK, and the role business continuity planning can play in minimising the impact of such disasters.

The extreme flooding that has struck England’s North West in recent days has underlined the variable nature of crises. The situation is also a sharp reminder to all businesses, wherever they’re located of the importance of business continuity plans.

Quite simply, business continuity is about anticipating the crises that could affect an organisation and then planning for them. It’s also something we spend a lot of our time doing at Hill & Knowlton.

So, how best to develop a robust plan? Fundamentally, any company is only five steps away from ensuring that they’re in a far better position to withstand a critical situation, with appropriate planning.

• Step 1: Analyse your business and get an understanding of the processes involved.
• Step 2: Assess the risks to your business. Threats come in different forms, from power cuts, to staff absenteeism.
• Step 3: Develop how you’ll combat such risks. Principally, what needs to be done and who will carry out the actions.
• Step 4: Develop your business continuity plan (BCP). This can be as simple as you want and will contain all relevant contact numbers, resources and procedures.
• Step 5: Test and update the plan. It’s vital that your plan is tested and that staff are familiar with their roles.

It’s a common misunderstanding that business continuity is only a big organisation issue; this is, quite simply, not the case. The size of any plan will depend on the risks facing a business – it will be as large or small as needed.

Ultimately, experience demonstrates that organisations are more likely to survive a crisis if they have planned for one in advance. – Peter

For help in reviewing or developing your organisation’s business continuity or crisis communication plan, please get in touch with us by clicking here. – Grant