Tag Archives: non-profits

When PR gets in the way of the message

All of us want to be loved.  Well, at least liked.

This is apparently no more the case than with our president.

President Trump is obsessed with what people say about him; what people think of him and his popularity.  This is not a political statement.  He has admitted it and displayed this obsession by watching what seems to be countless of hours of cable television to see what the media say about him.

Obviously, much if not most of it, is not good.  So how does he change that?  How does President Trump manage his own PR so he markets himself in a way that will improve his likability and make him happy?

There is only one way, and it is not through polished statements read off a teleprompter.  (Not his strength.)

The President needs to stop worrying so much about his image and start getting things done.

Certainly much of what he wants to get done people disagree with.  I won’t rehash the list, but we know what they are.

But one thing is for sure.  Everybody wants a stronger economy.  Everybody wants a job.  Everybody wants healthcare  If he can achieve this, and it won’t be easy, then his misstatements and political pitfalls will be easier to forgive.  At least for some people.  For many others there is nothing he can do that will redeem him.

He also needs to remember that presidential criticism is part of the job.  There has never been a president when everything he did received 100% approval.  Maybe Trump is facing more of an uphill battle than prior presidents, much because of his own doing, but he needs to swallow it and roll up his shirtsleeves.

So if he can, and that is a big IF, he should turn off the TV and get to work.  Americans want a better life, not someone who can deliver a pretty speech.  Doing both is better, but people will take what they can get.

And right now, people aren’t asking for much.  They just want to pay their bills, raise their families in peace and have the dignity of a job.

If he can do that, his PR and image will rise.

IF he can do that.

 

 

New marketing terms — “Optics” “Reaching Out” “Space” and more

Just when you think you know all the marketing and PR terms, new words enter our lexicon.

People no longer “contact” one another.  They “reach out.”  Situations don’t “look bad.”  They have bad “optics.”  Having “expertise” in a certain endeavor is gone.  Now it is working in a certain “space.”

Interesting how new terms come about, catch on and then become normalized.  These words have always existed, but never used in the context of marketing and PR as they are now.

It is almost as if you date yourself if you don’t play the game.  You can’t tell a client “doing that would be a mistake. It wouldn’t look good.”  You have to say, “the optics of that would be questionable.”  Makes you appear more contemporary.  And heaven forbid you invite someone to contact you with questions, rather than offering them to “reach out.”

Much of this is fueled by mainstream media where on-camera reporters and anchors want to appear young and with it.  It fuels the language, pushes it forward, and makes everybody feel young.

There is nothing wrong with tweaking English.  New sayings and terms come about all the time.  But with the pervasiveness of social media, with billions of new posts a day, new language can take on a life of its own virtually overnight.

So I guess Farr Marketing is no longer a PR consultancy firm.  We operate in the PR “space.”  We don’t contact press to pitch stories, we “reach out.”

We admittedly are guilty of using these terms and more.

We need to be aware of the “optics.”

White House news “gaggle” block, good political PR or unprecedented PR disaster?

Today the White House held a “gaggle,” journalist lingo for an informal news briefing, but didn’t invite CNN, The New York Times, L.A. Times and other news organizations.  In the five weeks that President Trump as been President Trump, he has made the media his enemy.  Is this a good PR move for the White House?

While this blog is not political in any way, it is an extremely rare occurrence for a president of the United States to purposely block providing information to major news outlets, even though they can get it from other sources.  Press secretary Sean Spicer tried to explain the move as a news pool — where a limited number of media are briefed and they share it with others.  That is not unusual, but this is.  There are literally thousands of news outlets in American and tens of thousands around the world, and the White House can’t fit them all into a room.  So there is a selection process.

However, President Trump is on another campaign, and it is not to “build a wall” or to “lower taxes” or to “repeal and replace Obamacare.”  His campaign is to attack the media, and rally his supporters to this cause.

I think back to my days in journalism school.  We learned that the media don’t always get it right; often have an agenda; are often sloppy; and almost always are critical of the president.  And most presidents don’t like the media because they tend to focus on the negative.  But even Richard Nixon, who was legendary in his disdain of the media, didn’t go so far as to bar major media from news briefings.

It’s been said that Donald Trump is at his best when he is campaigning against someone or something.  He beat 17 Republicans for the nomination and one major Democrat to win the presidency.  He talks about the great things he is going to do for the country, and hopefully they will happen, but he has lost what really gets him going — someone or something to attack.

He has found it in the media, and hopefully it is a passing phase.

It will just be curious who is next.

 

The PR plan: Don’t start a campaign without it

You wouldn’t embark on a cross country car ride (do people still do that?) without giving some thought to a route, would you?  With GPS today, it is certainly easier than in past years, but still, you want to plan your journey.  If you’re going to drive 3,000 miles, why not give some thought to whether you want to see the mountains or the desert?  Landmarks or just open road?

The same holds true when planning a PR campaign.  It is not enough to do PR and marketing just for the sake of doing it.  You need to know your objectives.  What are you attempting to achieve?  Is it to increase sales or brand your company?  Create a reputation or protect the one you already have?  Or, all of the above?

There are two schools of thought when planning a PR and marketing campaign.  You can do lots of things a little bit, or a few things well.  In most cases the latter is the better choice.  Select a few activities that your organization has the talent, time and budget for, and focus on them.  If you take this approach, you will be sure to achieve success in some areas, rather than limited success in many.

Will the press recover?

Thankfully, the presidential race is over.  It was an ugly, brutal, vicious fight of the left against the right, or whatever the other side is called.  And as everybody can’t stop discussing, the outcome was a surprise.  We now have president-elect Donald Trump.

Many would say it wasn’t a fair fight.  However, the person who had the cards stacked against him, won.

The huge part of the “finger on the scale” was the mainstream media who were overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary Clinton.  Clinton got something like 28 editorial endorsements while Trump got two.  Not to mention night after night of critical reporting, that didn’t even pretend to be objective.

In journalism school, which eventually led me to a career in PR, objectivity was king.  There was an era of “yellow journalism” where the press had no problem making their political views known.  That was before my time.  But in the last 40 years at least, the media has lived by the credo that they report the news, not make it and certainly don’t promote it.

This election proved just the opposite.  The media, led by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN and most others, didn’t even pretend to be objective.  They were so pro Clinton that they didn’t even try to mask their favoritism.  They chose partiality over the basic tenants of their profession.

Now that the election is over, my question is will the media ever regain the trust of the American people?  Will it ever again be viewed as an impartial source that reports facts “without fear or favor” as the famous New York Times founder Adolph Ochs said more than a hundred years ago.  How long will it take to regain the trust of the public?

Perhaps the real question is whether the media even want to regain that trust. Perhaps the media is fine being advocates rather than reporters.  Perhaps the era of objective journalism has passed and now the media serve to elect politicians whom they choose, pass bills they like and assure that pet projects are initiated.

Time will tell, and I remain impartial in the recent election.  But I sure miss the days when my local newspaper just reported the facts.

In PR, timing is everything, well almost everything

As a PR and marketing firm that does significant work in crisis communications, people often ask me the best way to preserve their reputation when in a crisis.  I wish there was one “best” way that would apply to every situation, but there isn’t.  Every organization, situation and crisis is unique.

Of course the best way to come out on top of a crisis is to never get into one in the first place.  Everybody knows that, but that’s not how the world works.  Most crises situations occur due to no fault of the organization or company.  But then again, some do.

The overriding piece of advice I give is to be prepared for when a crisis may occur.  The second best advice I give is to allow yourself as much time as possible to think through the situation, consult with your crisis PR team, develop a strategy and then implement at the right time.

I can’t say how many times organizations come to us seeing a difficult situation looming down the road.  It could be two, three weeks or a month away.  They see it coming, and reach out to us for advice and counsel.  Our response is always to begin immediately so we have adequate time to prepare.  But it is amazing how many organizations wait and delay to address the issue and put together a plan.  People are on vacation, out of town, other matters are given priority.  And before you know it, the crisis that was a month away is now tomorrow, and there is no plan.

So first get your crisis team in place, but when you see a difficult situation about to unfold, don’t wait for the day before, thinking your PR consultant will magically take care of it. Yes, we often can work magic, but at least give us some time to polish off our magic wand.

Four steps to crisis PR preparation

One of the most difficult and stressful aspects of the public relations and marketing business is dealing with a media crisis.  But if one works in PR, crisis is inevitable.  Remember, it takes decades to build a good reputation and only minutes to lose it all with a PR crisis.

So here are four quick tips to prepare for a PR crisis.

1)     Create a Crisis Communications team.  This team should include the top person in the organization or company, the PR/marketing head, legal counsel and the person (variable) who may be closest to the crisis itself.

2)     Get the facts.  When a crisis occurs, the first step for the team is to gather the facts.  And I mean quickly.  You can’t respond and act responsibly and strategically if you don’t have all the facts.

3)     Develop a strategy, statements/materials:  Often crises just go away or a problem doesn’t evolve into a crisis.  In that case, be ready, but don’t start sending out materials unless it is part of a well-considered strategy.  You don’t want to publicize a media crisis that hasn’t yet occurred and may very well not.

4)     Act appropriate, cautiously and aggressively.  I know these contradict one another but how you react and respond is dependent on the situation and the facts.  The key is to be ready, and by doing steps 1-3 you will be ready to react and respond.

Last, I would add that in today’s digital world where everything is on video and on the internet, it is impossible to deny reality.  Keep the facts the facts and remember that historically, the biggest crises were cover-ups, not the crisis itself.

Watergate would be a good example.

 

The danger of email and text, especially to a reporter

It is now big news that Johnny Manziel’s attorney, Bob Hinton, accidentally sent a lengthy text message to an Associated Press reporter about his client’s case.  The text was meant for Hinton’s co-counsel, certainly not the media.

When Hinton was asked about the text by the AP, he was unaware he had mistakenly sent it to one of the biggest media outlets.  Further, it contained legal strategy and facts about the case — information no lawyer wants to reveal publicly.

Hinton tried in vein to claim the text was privileged and threatened to sue the AP if they released details of what he wrote.  The AP wasn’t scared off, printed the contents, and it spread throughout the internet within seconds.  A day later Hinton was off the case.

This inadvertent mishap underscores what I have said many times.  In our digital age where information is sent, received and spread immediately via email, social media and texting, everyone must use extra caution when communicating.  We do it so often, and so rapidly, that sending a confidential message to the wrong person is an often and easily made mistake.  Just hitting “reply” in an email and you could be sending a private message to someone unintended.

That’s why we advocate the “three second rule.”  Our “three second rule” is before any email, text or social media post is triggered, we take three long seconds to look at who it is being sent to, whether there are any attachments that shouldn’t be there and the content.  The worst thing someone can do is respond immediately either in haste, anger or because there is a deadline involved.  The odds of making an honest error is just too great — as Mr. Hinton realized.

If you want to be really paranoid, as we sometimes are, when we send an email we do not insert any recipient in the address bar.  This will avoid sending an email accidentally before we finished it or have a chance to think about it.  The worst that can happen is the email system will tell you it can’t send the email because there is nobody listed to send it to.  So we write our emails first, think and examine them, then manually insert the recipient(s).  We don’t forward or reply too often, and when we do, we remove the recipient name then re-insert them manually to avoid what happened to Mr. Hinton, and I am sure countless others.

Give the “three second rule a try.”  You’ll be glad you did.

 

 

Staying on message: A basic PR lesson

You undoubtedly have heard the phrase, “stay on message.”  It is currently being used widely by the Republican leadership to advise Donald Trump who, it appears, will be the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election.

What does this mean in terms of public relations, marketing and branding?  Or is it just a meaningless cliche?

In the world of politics, messaging is tested over and over again, day in and day out.  Pollsters and advisors want to know what issues resonate with certain segments of the public.  When the statistics fall in line, they advise the candidate to focus on those messages — at least in that State or to that group.

Trump is a different animal, it seems.  He speaks his mind to whomever, with some notable exceptions.  Lately, he has been going way, way off message by pounding a Federal judge hearing a case against Trump University.  While one would think capturing the presidency is foremost on his mind, he seems obsessed with this case, which he could afford to quietly settle and make it all go away.

So during precious airtime, when he could be delivering messages about the economy, foreign affairs and a million other issues that impact Americans’ lives, he spends it blasting the judge as being “unfair.”

This has not gone unnoticed by the Republication leadership who are screaming and yelling for him to stop with the judge and “stay on message.”  You only get to be president once, maybe twice in your life, and why squander the opportunity over a court case that is essentially meaningless to him.

But in the case of Donald Trump (our firm is apolitical and doesn’t do political consulting) it is obvious his emotions get the better of him and he simply can’t control his impulses.  When he gets angry, when he feels wronged, he lashes out.  And it is obvious he doesn’t care where the chips fall.

There is a lesson to be learned for all companies and organizations in this.  Staying on message means keeping focused and maintaining a connection between yourself, your organization and your audiences.  By wandering off message, for whatever reason, you are loosening or cutting that connection and losing the attention and support of your audience.

Find out what messages resonate with your target markets and audiences, and when you have opportunities to communicate to them, don’t waste those precious opportunities on trivial matters.

 

The courtroom of public opinion

Ever since the OJ trial, the media has discovered that courtroom drama sells.  Both cable TV and network TV are replete with programs about murder, white collar crime, and everything else you can think of that ends up in a courtroom.

One NBC producer recently said, “murder sells.”  And there is no lack of competition among stations’ like CBS’s 48 Hours and NBC’s Dateline to film and offer up the most dramatic and sensational true life stories.

Case in point is the recent Netflix series “Making a Murderer” which chronicled Steven Avery, a small town, unassuming man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.  When he was released, he sued Manitowoc County, Wisconsin for withholding evidence in his trial.  A year later he was arrested and tried for the murder of a young woman reporter and was convicted.

Every week whether it is a network or CNN, crime seems to sell.  But it isn’t just blood and guts.  The show American Greed is a hit by documenting how people create Ponzi schemes and bilk their friends, neighbors and relatives out of millions of dollars.

What does this have to do with PR and marketing?  Simple.  For every crime story there is a long period between the arrest and the trial.  During that time the media have at it, debating with one another the guilt or innocence of the person(s) at the center of the case.  How the accused can get a fair trial with saturated media coverage is a good question.

That’s why media consultants, or PR pros, are often brought it to get one side of the story told before it goes to trial.  No PR person can convince a reporter to not tell the truth or to overlook facts.  But they can get their side of the story out, and that’s the primary purpose of telling a story in the court of public opinion.