Do you want my opinion or not?

Like most of us, I receive a lot of emails – but do try to read and respond to most.  I am not too worried about the marketing or PR type of emails I might get either as they can be useful fodder for a blogpost. 

So I was interested to receive a customer service email from Waitrose since I am a fan and shop in my local store.  The email arrived last Friday – the day before a bank holiday weekend.  This morning, I clicked on the link to be informed the survey had closed.

Of course, one of the benefits of online surveys is that you can get “instant” feedback – but if you are genuinely interested in customer satisfaction, then closing a survey within a few working days is ridiculous.  Checking on the terms and conditions link from the email, it says “Entries for the prize draw must be received by end of May 2008″ – well there are still three whole days to the start of June.

Now I’m left with wondering if the company really does want my opinion or not.  If the survey did require immediate completion, shouldn’t it have stated so in the email?  Then I wouldn’t have wasted my time and felt rather negatively towards the brand I normally support.

In fact, I question if this was even a genuine survey or more about collecting information for marketing purposes or one of those token surveys to get data to prove how wonderful you are.

Research is all too often abused in these ways.  If you want to gain someone’s opinion – and expect this for free – then at least show the courtesy of really listening, and preferably taking action as a result.  That’s what I call feedback.

Motor industry and PRWeek

This week’s PR Week has a rare feature on the motor industry – with even a mention for MIPAA.  As a “cut out and keep guide” though, the seven featured PR heads can expect their published emails to be pinging with agency pitches next week.

The article concentrates on ‘lifestyle PR’ highlighting the industry’s focus on launching new models and reaching out to customers who are unlikely to read motor magazines or car features in newspapers.

I’ve never quite bought the idea that ‘lifestyle PR’ is a “Holy Grail” – as it generally means appointing an expensive “creative” external consultants to come up with some wacky idea to get mentions for motors in publications aimed at women in particular.

There is undoubtedly more choice when buying a car than ever before, and as most offer similar features decisions are not based entirely on logical comparisons for example, of fuel economy.  So the focus shifts to emotional connections and persuading people that they need a car to match their self-image or lifestyle.  Moving up the Maslow hierarchy maybe or reflecting persuasion via peripheral processing (Elaboration Likelihood model).

PR Week claims this requires greater knowledge of “consumers than carburettors”.  But is this helpful?  I’ve seen many creative agencies try their hand at delivering “lifestyle” coverage for motoring brands.  Most come up with ideas that have little to do with the actual car being promoted, precisely because their teams know digglysquat about what is interesting about the particular vehicle.  Hence, their creative concepts are distinctly forgettable, with the danger that it is the celebrity or idea that is recalled, but not the car being launched.

Of course, outside insight can be very helpful, but many agencies simply covert the motor industry’s PR budgets and deliver superficial campaigns that may increase cuttings, but do nothing to motivate buyers.

A couple of years ago, I conceived a model for motor industry PR, which identified a need to deliver in three key areas – people skills, product knowledge and PR processes.  Traditionally specialist motor industry PR practitioners have been excelled in terms of their product knowledge, making them mechanics, or when combined with people skills (largely in working with motoring media), they’d be enthusiasts.

I would put the creative consumer PR agencies primarily at the people apex, as socialites. They have good relationships with non-motoring media, but lack sufficient knowledge of what the company needs to communicate.  

Agencies pitching on the strength of their specialist knowledge of new media or evaluation, for example, are dominant in PR processes – they’re bureaucrats, or diplomats if they also offer strong people contacts.  If they’ve knowledge of product as well as PR processes, I’d term them technocrats.

My argument is that it isn’t enough to be a specialist in any of the three key areas – or even a combination of two of them.  What the motor industry needs – and this can be applied to other sectors – are PR practitioners who combine specialist knowledge of all three and therefore are competent ambassadors for their organisation or client. 

It was interesting in the article to see mention of a number of vacancies within motor industry PR – what we need though, is less of the idea that you need to be a petrolhead mechanic to work in house, and greater recognition that the real value of motoring PR comes when a knowledge of consumers is combined with an understanding of the automotive business.  And, by the way, this would involve recognition that most engines today feature fuel injection not carburettors. 

When a logo says too much

I heard a discussion on the radio today regarding a protest over merchandise carrying the Playboy bunny logo being displayed next to similar Disney-branded products – ie clearly aimed at young children.

This raises some interesting issues – which I will come back to.  But in researching the story, I noticed the following headline: Protest Over Porn Firm’s Goods In Stationary Store (from York Press).  Fortunately for the brand behind the headline, Stationery Box, its name has been typed correctly – so why wasn’t the headline proof-checked?

Anyway, the overuse of logos is a topic of discussion at present in respect of the I ♥ NY brand, which has reportedly become devalued by indiscriminate, largely unofficial usage.

On the radio, Playboy provided a comment that it did not condone its products being displayed alongside material targeting young children.  But the company cannot claim ignorance on the issue as the Guardian ran a comment piece last October and reported a similar protest by schoolchildren in 2005.  It was also discussed on BBC Radio 4 in 2006. 

Of course, not everyone sees extensive use of the Playboy logo in relation to children’s products as an issue as shown by the comments in response to a story of a young US girl’s suspension from school for wearing bunny branded clothing.

Some people may argue that a cute bunny is just a cute bunny.  However, from a public relations perspective a logo says a lot about corporate identity and image.  The identity is how the company wishes to be seen – which a brief content analysis of the Playboy website makes clear is as an adult brand.

The brand extension, through stationery and other licensing deals, conveys other messages – whether the company deliberately or otherwise intends it to do so.  That is its image.  So is there really a gap between how Playboy wishes to be seen and is seen?  Probably not.

Here we don’t have a problem over perceptions of the logo – but whether the corporate identity should be restricted to products that match the wider brand.  It is a matter perhaps more of corporate social responsibility.

This also affects the brands retailing the Playboy stationery.  Such products are freely available online, without little impact on the reputation of the retailers.  And, high street retailers like Argos and WH Smith don’t seem too bothered either.  WH Smith isn’t a brand with a good reputation in terms of corporate social responsibility and Argos has been fined in the past for unethical business practices. 

Interestingly the owner of Stationery Box, Theo Paphitis (more famous for appearing on BBC’s Dragon’s Den programme), claims companies do have a social responsibility.  So far, he hasn’t responded to the Playboy and the Vicar issue to reflect this though.

How PR told Bilbo the rescue dog – you’re fired

The story of Bilbo, the newfoundland dog who has been ’sacked’ by the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) was obviously going to be a great media story. 

If you read the Daily Mirror report, the RNLI seems particularly heartless and you wonder about any media relations professional giving quotes such as: ‘He would fail the resuscitation test’ and ‘We can’t employ a dog as a guard. They are banned from the beach’.  Both facts may be true, but miss the point of the emotional element of this story. 

The Daily Telegraph (which has the dog’s age as seven, the Mirror says he’s six), cites an RNLI spokeswoman: ‘The RNLI is contracted to provide a professional lifeguarding service on the beach and has fully trained lifeguards to do this.’  And, ‘Bilbo is a privately-owned dog and does not belong to the RNLI. The RNLI will not be using the dog to save lives at sea but does not have the authority to ban dogs from the beach’.  Fuller statements, but again focusing on the rational rather than the emotional argument here.

The BBC cites Rebecca Kirk, chief environmental officer at Penwith council: ‘If he is on the beach it is against the law.’  It also quotes Steve Instance, the RNLI’s lifeguard inspector the South West, with a longer explanation which draws on safety issues and a slight acknowledgement of the dog’s popularity: ’Bilbo is a fantastic asset and we have told Mr Jamieson he can use him for PR work and safety education in schools.’

This is Cornwall sees the council place the blame for the ban with the RNLI saying it would have reached a compromise.  There is nothing about the latest story on the council website, but a search reveals several links to items about Bilbo written to publicise Penwith or offer safety advice.

The RNLI has nothing about the story on its website – so we have to take the news reports as evidence of  its PR approach to the decision. 

This seems to be an operational decision, which the PR team may only have heard about via the media.  It is always tricky to have to justify logical arguments in emotional situations, but the RNLI reputation is likely to be dented by being seen to fire a dog, especially a Newfoundland, which as I know attract a lot of public attention. 

However, whenever we reflect on these types of news stories, it seems evident that a decision has been made and one-way communication used rather than identifying a problem and working, with the people affected, and the PR teams, to identify if a better solution can be reached.

Bilbo will naturally generate headlines, and the safety at sea message, as well as the role of the RNLI (a charitable concern) is vitally important.  So rather than firing Bilbo, perhaps it would have been better to employ him as a member of the RNLI (or council) PR team and find a compromise regarding his role on the beach, such as how he could qualify as a working dog. 

PR can be much more effective when it isn’t just called upon to give excuses.

The new influencers and PR’s role

Interesting interview with Social Media Maven Paul Gillin (via Judy Gombita) which picks up on two of the themes that emerged during the MIPAA New Media workshop last week.

One of the fictional case studies we considered related to advising an eager senior exec who wanted to blog, be active in social media, etc.  One the one hand, we had participants who felt the recommendation was not to get involved – but others felt more optimistic about the opportunity. 

Unfortunately most of the good examples (as cited by Gillin such as Google and Southwest Airline) are the major global brands out of their head offices (mainly US-based).  This presents a challenge for national PR teams – should they press for country-specific social media or is a global resource sufficient?  Obviously we can’t play a language card from the UK, but there are cultural differences that may not be reflected by a single centralised resource.  And, when the point of social media is to engage, isn’t some local connection preferable?

The one example of a good UK corporate blog – Avis We Try Harder – raises the second issue.  That of where responsibility for social media should lie.  In the Avis example, the blog is run by the customer relations team.  Gillin believes:

the PR function should own it [social media], and has the opportunity to own it because they are the story tellers. They are the relationship experts and these really are about relationships.

But he notes:

That said, in most companies it is falling under the aegis of marketing. For some reason PR people seem to be kind of timid about this whole thing and marketers are more aggressive about seizing the initiative.

This tends to echo my own observations as PR practitioners are definitely interesting, but I’ve not seen many who’ve really grabbed the opportunity within their own organisations yet.

Gillin clarifies the need to have wider organisational empowerment in respect of social media, including senior execs.  This was emphasised by one of our participants who has recently taken up the new role of new media public relations manager at BMW (UK).  His view was that such responsibility requires an ability to build bridges and support initiatives throughout the organisation.

Girl power

Having the confidence to try new things and stretch yourself further than you think possible is a core aspect of the Greenbanana philosophy of continuous improvement (ie if you’re green, you’re growing).

Putting this into practice, today my mum and I are demonstrating ‘girl power’ (well middle-aged woman and old lady power!!) .  We spent this morning putting the roof cover on the gazebo in the garden here in France – which took lateral thinking, some brute force and teamwork. 

My mum is now destroying documents – her first use of the shredder.  And our job for the afternoon is to map out a heart-shaped flowerbed in the garden where my father’s ashes will be scattered.  This is a more complicated task than you might think as we are incorporating five shrubs that have been planted already in honour of departed pets (it’s okay we’re not frightened of recreating a Stephen King novel).

Of course, the shrubs weren’t placed originally with this goal in mind, so I’m flexing my mathematical abilities to map out an appropriate shape, that is geometrically sound and fits the previous planting. 

[We're leaving the digging to my brother and nephew who are coming out in a couple of weeks though, as girl power also means we're not stupid.]

Today is actually my dad’s birthday, so I suppose we’re partly demonstrating that we can do things without him.  My mum has been a star over the past two weeks – even mowing the lawn with stripes and putting up a fence.

So if as a newly-widowed, 5ft tall, 67-and-three-quarters-year old granny, she can stretch herself with new things – what’s stopping you for doing something challenging today?

Now is when Boris may really need public relations

The Guardian prints the full speech of the new London mayor, Boris Johnson (wikipedia entry already updated), whilst there is video available at The Telegraph.  This seems to have gone down well with the media, but it seems media relations minders have been controlling Boris’s communications very closely so far.

Australian election strategist, Lynton Crosby is “credited” with the tight management of the normally gaff-prone Boris during the campaign. 

Interestingly at the start of the year, former CIPR president, Lionel Zetter awarded Boris the CIPR President’s Medal – to some criticism. 

But to avoid the problematic pronouncements, Boris has been curtailed – so if someone is being so controlled can they be considered an effective communicator? 

Online, Boris’s blog hasn’t been updated for sometime and the posts were largely attributed to the Boris Office.  Whereas the unofficial Boriswatch reports a lot of increased traffic today.

Ellee Seymour offers another PR angle on the Boris victory, questioning why few PR agencies backed old blondie.

Now the campaigning has stopped, undoubtedly it will prove harder to control the messages around Boris.  That has to be a good thing though as real public relations should be more about building positive relationships.  Whether the Boris camp, including his media and PR advisors, will be able to walk the talk remains to be seen.