Should public relations seek legal regulation?

David Phillips has an interesting post, pointing out how CIPR should seek to include an anti-Astroturfing clause in the Finance Act. 

He is keen to see “a body of law that is practical for the practice of Public Relations” and believes such campaigns (which date back to Bernays) qualify as anti-fair trading activities, mentioned in the Rogers review of Environmental Health and Trading Standards services:

Fair trading (trade description, trade marking, mis-description, doorstep selling) … (where) people become victims of scams.

I think this is an interesting suggestion and support more recognition of existing legislative controls on the practice of public relations (emphasising this in teaching CIPR qualificaitons). 

Demonstrating how PR operates within a legal framework - and pro-actively seeking further regulation - could help counter those who believe that PR in inherently unethical and that practitioners are employed to do whatever their paymasters - or achieving objectives - require. 

Being able to provide strategic counsel on the basis of legislation, not simply moral or professional guidelines, benefits PR and enhance its recognition amongst senior management.  

One concern is that an escalation in regulation might follow - a discussion over controls on healthcare marketing/PR activities in a class a few weeks ago, revealed how everytime behaviour was constrained, new ways were thought up to circumvent these with more “creative” approaches.

Stop-press - lawyer might have told the truth

One of the eagle-eyed CIPR Advanced Certificate students studying public relations circulated this story, also covered in the Times Online. 

David Corker is a solicitor at Corker Binning and a regular lecturer for the LCCSA. The 2004 Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession described him having a “pedigree which stands out by itself”. The 2005 edition as “tremendously bright”, the 2006 edition as “a business crime legend” and the 2007 edition as “having made a massive academic contribution due to his involvement on the lecture circuit”. Colleagues have described him as ‘a complete wanker’.

A quick scan of the company website indicates Mr Corker is something of a self-publicist, but he doesn’t seem to have managed his personal reputation within the company - or found the time to proof read his biography.

Apparently this statement was in a biography sent to the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association, and was included in a pamphlet sent to 1,000 lawyers to publicise a seminar as well as being on its website for two days.

The Times reported that although Mr Corker did not return the journalist’s calls - this addition to his CV was “a marketing triumph”.  As the Law Gazette confirms, the lecture was a sell-out.

It just goes to prove that being open and honest is a good public relations strategy - although most likely audiences are intrigued to see if the statement is true.  I’ve yet to find anything confirming or denying this - so if you know Mr Corker…

Smoking and driving faces a ban

I have never smoked but from a public relations perspective, I find it an interesting issue - with the heritage of Bernays and his Torches for Freedom campaign and other PR activities to encourage smoking, to the more modern anti-smoking public information campaigns - and now enforcement through bans.

In terms of smoking and driving, there are two motivations being cited for bans - road safety and health.  Jalopnik reports that smoking and driving (as well as driving and phoning) are being banned in New Delhi to improve road safety.  Smoking is recognised as a potential road safety risk in the latest Highway Code, but the UK government does not plan to ban it on safety grounds.  This is the topic of an epetition on the 10 Downing Street site - which has attracted 2,000 signatories. 

Apparently, Germany is considering such a ban citing road safety and health concerns.  Australia is similarly looking at this from the passive smoking perspective.   Some organisations already ban smoking in cars parked on their premises.  As of 26 March in Scotland new no-smoking laws came into effect:

Vehicles used for business purposes will also be affected by the new law. These include light and heavy goods vehicles, and public transport such as taxis, buses, trains and ferries. All cars, however, will be exempt.

It is not quite clear whether company cars will be affected by the change in the law in the UK in July - but following the lead of BT, companies will probably decide to enforce a ban on the grounds of dangers of passive smoking for any passengers on company business.

Some of the debate on the issue amongst HR professionals is interesting regarding the finer detail - which undoubtedly PR will then need to communicate successfully with employees.

Should public relations make problems public?

Just trying to get my head around the decision of Renault’s former PR manager, Graeme Holt to go public over the company’s handling of a vehicle problem that had been extensively covered by the BBC Watchdog programme.  His comments reported by What Car? seem dramatic, but powerful coming from a public relations person. 

I have known Graeme for many years as a member of MIPAA.  I have also worked on customer relations issues in car manufacturers myself.  In that role, you are employed to represent your organisation and communicate its perspective on an issue.  Of course, you also have personal perspectives and would commonly express any concerns when the problem was discussed internally. 

Not least from a PR perspective, counsel should be provided on the impact on corporate reputation (and vehicle sales) compared to the cost of any customer relations recall programme.  In this case, the story has been picked up globally and even reported in the Renault Clio’s entry at wikipedia.

I don’t know much about the rights and wrongs of this particular situation, but expect it will be widely discussed in the automotive PR world.  The issue does raise the question over when you might decide to put a personal principle over a corporate decision - and even more importantly, whether you would use your position as a PR person, with access to privileged information, to go public.

Blessed blogging

 Some great advice from Chuck Hester at the Forward Blog - I particularly like “bless don’t curse”.  In public relations terms, Grunig calls this investing in a “communal relationship” rather than just focusing on “exchange relationships” where we do something for a payback in return.  Sometimes the only outcome of being nice is a little internal glow of feeling good - true as individuals and in professional practice. 

In blogging terms, being nice is recognising other interesting posts with links, commenting in support or to add to a discussion, engaging with those commenting on your blog, even taking the time to read the thoughts of those on your blogroll.

However, blogging is also an opportunity to “curse” in public - to grumble at things that wind you up or seem stupid.  So I’m going to try to take Chuck’s advice and remember to bless.  Starting with thank you for reading this blog - and please do share your own lessons from life.

Cleaning cars should be a global issue

The International Carwash Association caught my eye with the news that it had named the Saturn Aura (known in Europe as the Opel/Vauxhall Vectra) as the “Most Washable Car 2007” at its Car Care World Expo.

It wasn’t the award (as anyone who has seen my pathetic attempts at washing a car will testify), but the hint of global public relations that interested me.  However,  from what I can gather, ICA represents only “car wash and car care locations in North America” - and this award involved no international or world aspect at all.

In this case, such global ignorance isn’t serious - neither is the Baseball World Series which apparently derives from journalists labelling Providence Grays as “World Champions” as long ago as 1884.

It is more concerning when publications like Time and Newsweek produce editions with common global covers on issues such as Afghanistan, everywhere but the US, where such hard stories are replaced with softer domestic ones that will presumably sell better.

Doesn’t the fact that there is no attempt to engage other countries in international organisations and world exhibitions link into such apparent lack of interest in major global news issues where the US is playing a critical role?

Meeting publics is public relations

Why isn’t public relations recognised as such?  To quote Autoblog on its report that Ford CEO Alan Mulally spent some time selling cars in a Dearborn dealership:

It’s just cool a CEO would get down in the trenches and actually engage consumers on a showroom floor. There’s no wall of PR behind which he can hide when the tough questions start flying, and apparently he handled whatever came his way with aplomb. Credit goes to Mulally for doing this first, as well. If Rick Wagoner, Tom LaSorda or Jim Press show up to move some product at their respective dealerships, it will smack of a PR stunt and likely backfire. Unfortunately, charm can only take Mulally and his company so far on its path to recovery, so we hope he doesn’t get enamored with a life of retail and gets back to doing CEO-type things quickly.

What Mulally is doing is public relations - establishing dialogue with stakeholders - something that ought to be high up the job description as a “CEO-type thing”.  Isn’t it sad that a CEO actually meeting with publics rather than media, analysts and other intermediaries is seen as a stunt and not an essential part of the job. 

Public relations in poetry

I was not aware of any reflection on public relations in poetry, so was surprised to see John Betjeman had immortalised the PRO in a poem “The Village Inn” published in 1954.

Betjeman’s views on PR may be informed by his work for the Ministry of Information in the films division - this was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda in the Second World War.  Then, as press attaché in Ireland, he influenced public opinion by arranging for the battle scenes in Laurence Olivier’s patriotic 1944 film of Henry V to be filmed in Ireland.

During this time, he realised in order to persuade people of anything it was usually necessary to identify with them. Betjeman had made uncomplimentary remarks about Swindon in 1937 and subsequent correspondence revealed the ”public consisted of real individuals with real feelings, rather than a stereotypical mass”.   This lesson applies to those of us working in PR today.

Anyway, back to the poem - which is part of an anthology being read in my local village hall this Friday (for which I have produced a visual accompaniment). 

“The village inn, the dear old inn,
So ancient, clean and free from sin,
True centre of our rural life
Where Hodge sits down beside his wife
And talks of Marx and nuclear fission
With all a rustic’s intuition.
Ah, more than church or school or hall,
The village inn’s the heart of all”

So spake the brewer’s PRO,
A man who really ought to know,
For he is paid for saying so.
And then he kindly gave to me
A lovely coloured booklet free.

“Twas full of prose that sang the praise
Of coaching inns in Georgian days,
Showing how public-houses are
More modern than the motor-car,
More English than the weald or sold
And almost equally as old.
And run for love and not for gold

Until I felt a filthy swine
For loathing beer and liking wine,
And rotten to the vary core
For thinking village inns a bore
And village bores more sure to roam
To village inns than stay at home.

And then I thought I must be wrong,
So up I rose and went along
To that old village alehouse where
In neon light is written “Bear”.

Ah, where’s the inn that once I knew
With brick and chalky wall
Up which the knobbly pear-trees grew
For fear the place would fall?

Oh, that old pot house isn’t there,
It wasn’t worth our while.
You’ll find we have rebuilt “The Bear”
In Early Georgian style.

But winter jasmine used to cling
With golden stars a-shine
Where rain and wind would wash and swing
The crudely painted sign.

And where’s the roof of golden thatch?
The chimney-stack of stone?
The crown-glass panes that used to match
East sunset with their own?

Oh now the walls are red and smart,
The roof has emerald tiles.
The neon sign’s a work of art
And visible for miles.

The bar inside was papered green,
The settles grained like oak,
The only light was paraffin,
The woodfire used to smoke.

And photographs from far and wide
Were hung around the room;
The hunt, the church, the football side,
And Kitchener of Khartoum.

Our air-conditioned bars are lined
With washable material,
The stools are steel, the taste refined,
Hygienic and ethereal.

Hurrah, hurrah, for hearts of oak!
Away with inhibitions!
For here’s a place to sit and soak
In sanit’ry conditions.

Betjeman’s portrait of the public relations officer is someone involved in a publicity role - which he sees as having a duplicitous nature; selectively presenting facts on behalf of a paymaster.  A function perhaps indicative of the 1950s when the new was presented as better than whatever it replaced - a move away from heritage and community.

The poem may be sentimental and hark after an idealistic British countryside that probably never existed.  Indeed, one of our modern images of a traditional country pub is the Ploughman’s lunch, which was apparently created by Richard Trehane, chairman of the English Country Cheese Council in 1960.

I’m not aware of other references to PR in poems - but if you know of any, I’d love to hear them.

What is the use of an employee survey?

According to Autoblog, Ford is surveying its salaried workers in the US for their views on various human resources matters to give ”the leadership team valuable input” and enable it to “collectively understand employee views on the survey topics and continue to move forward as a team.”

In public relations, we recognise that two way communication is a good thing, but are surveys really the best approach?  In the case of Ford, it saw one in eight salaried staff leave the company in February as part of its Way Forward restructuring.  It may still need to lose another 4,000 workers from the remaining 42,000.  What kind of confidence in the future can employees feel to express their honest views knowing their jobs are on the line?

Apparently, Ford leadership also claims, “More education of the workforce is required as fewer than half of employees say they believe Way Forward will help Ford achieve sustainable business success.”  That sounds more like propaganda, than an open-mind for really hearing, and engaging with what people think.

I don’t know why leaders find it so hard to realise employees - and customers - are just as talented, often even more so, than themselves.  So why do they only seek views in order to persuade others that management is wonderful and has all the right answers?

Are good PR practitioners adrenalin junkies?

If anyone wants to know what it’s like to work in fast-moving product PR, they should check out Mark Borkowski’s blog on his team’s launch of PS3 at  Virgin Megastores. 

This tale reminds me of the dozens of car launches I’ve managed - where it felt like plate spinning and juggling a million balls in the air simultaneously.  The adrenalin is pumping and you’re not quite sure which way is up, but keep on going anyway.

Public relations draws on a wide range of skills and personal characteristics, but if you don’t have common sense and a sense of humour, high energy press launches aren’t for you.  In product PR, you need to be able to smile like a synchonised swimmer and cope with chaos and crises whilst maintaining swanlike grace.

And, since we also tend to have masochistic tendencies, the worst of such high adrenalin projects is that we love them.  These are the best days of our PR lives.  You want the impossible - by when - bring it on….