Advice To BP That It Didn't Ask For / from MediaPost

Dear BP,

Here's some advice you haven't asked for.

Yours truly,
The PR Industry

That's the column I would have written if I hadn't decided to take another tack. You see, writing a column can be a solitary affair, and exceptionally polarizing when tackling big issues. The impulse to take a position -- the more incendiary the better -- and hammer it home is powerful when composing in a vacuum (I imagine this is how, say, Ann Coulter feels on a regular basis).

But it's an inherently limited process, and yields a limited viewpoint. So with something as topical, heated and broad-reaching as BP's Gulf Oil Spill, I decided to open up the dialogue by inviting other brains to take part in what I consider an important discussion about a substantial PR crisis. Though there are significantly more pressing issues surrounding the spill (ask an Appilachicola oyster or the guy that makes a living farming them), this column will focus solely on BP's handling of the spill from a PR and communications perspective.

I invited PR industry and marcomm experts to share their views on the BP's actions -- good and bad. The interviews printed below were insightful and well-reasoned, but the overall result of my invitation was disappointing. Of the 46 responses I received from PR experts, only these four PR professionals offered meaningful commentary. The rest were either incoherent or self-serving babble -- no wonder BP hasn't solicited any advice from those "experts."

But they would be well served by listening to Brad Burns, Mark Tardiff, Rene Henry, and Dan Baum.

Brad is a principal at Revoltion and a former SVP of Corporate Communicaitons with MCI/Worldcomm; Mark is the Associate Director of College Communications at Unity College; Rene is the author of Communication in a Crisis, and Dan is CEO and Creative Director of DBC PR+New Media. My interview with them begins:

Gentlemen, how do you think BP is handling the current crisis, from a PR perspective?

To read their responses, click here.

Why the PR industry must embrace mobile

As just about everyone knows – and as absolutely everyone who reads this publication knows – we are living in the mobile era.

Mobile is the defining communications channel of our time, improving upon – and in some ways eclipsing – the online channel.
As might be expected, many businesses and other organizations have been quick to capitalize on the marketing opportunities presented by mobile. But in the area of public relations, mobile has yet to become a dominant force.

Certainly mobile Web-enabled programs such as Twitter have left a mark on the PR industry. However, the fact remains that most PR professionals are not leveraging the mobile channel optimally, or even scratching the surface.

Tweethearts
As the PR industry continues along the path of commoditization, it becomes critical that PR agencies begin to embrace mobile, not just because of the channel’s immense potential – although that should reason enough – but because mobile communications are some of the most direct, immediate and actionable communications available.

These attributes are what make the mobile channel so effective for marketing and sales, and what can make the channel an invaluable tool for PR practitioners.

That said, marshaling mobile for the service of PR is not as simple as it might seem.

While some aspects and outcroppings such as Twitter are accessible, getting the most from mobile on a PR campaign will almost certainly require partnerships with industry experts and knowledge.

As regulations and best practices continue to evolve as the mobile channel matures, there is a great big grey area of protocol to follow, largely unknown by anyone outside the immediate industry.

This, in turn, presents a major hurdle for PR firms trying to use mobile in a similar way to how they use voice or online communications in their strategies and tactics.

Most agencies do not have the technical capability to implement a large-scale mobile campaign, and fewer would find a positive return on the infrastructural investment necessary to develop that capability.

But assessing the value of mobile in this way is truly counterproductive. Instead, the process of developing mobile partnerships should be viewed as a great opportunity.

The more conversant PR professionals become with mobile, the more services they will be able to offer clients.

Becoming a mobile-capable PR firm through strategic partnerships with mobile solutions providers is a very good way to carve out a profitable niche. More importantly, it is a good foundation for the future.

We time
Why is embracing mobile important for PR firms? Click here to find out.

Why PR, Start-Ups Don't Always Mix

During a recent discussion with a partner, we talked about early-stage start-ups and whether PR was the right tool to promote their business and help find new business. The issue, we finally agreed, was not how early in the process they were, but rather how mature they were. Did they have a true business plan? Had they researched their target market? How mature was their product, or was it still a concept? These are all very important definers of whether or not PR can help an early-stage start up. Or, in fact, any company.

Having been part of two start-ups in my early days, I'm only too familiar with the teething pains, sleepless nights worried about development loans and bridge funding, product deliveries not showing up, promised orders not coming in from buyers, not knowing where to find new customers, not having enough cash to advertise, market and PR the business -- instead, being able to only choose one. In two words -- living nightmare.

Of course, every business has business "concerns," but within the context of a start-up, these concerns can be so acute, so all-consuming that it becomes hard to see the forest for the trees. And especially foggy for those start-ups that haven't mapped out a proper vision, strategy, what if scenarios and an exit plan if the proverbial crap were ever to hit the fan.

It's not that I don't like working with start-ups. To the contrary, it is thrilling to be part of new innovation, to see your hard work and ideas propel a company's success and that smug sense of satisfaction in knowing that you helped a start-up realize its goals.

The reality check
But more often than not, it doesn't go like that. With little cash, sometimes not more than two or three months of "emergency funds" in the kitty, many start-ups look to PR as THE sales/business development/lead generation do-it-all lifeline, and expect far more than PR can deliver within an extremely short lifespan and budget. This is where it falls apart.

Click here to continue reading.

ABC and FOX vs. Lane Bryant / Insensitive Censorship?

This morning, RetailWire discussed the double standard imposed by FOX and ABC in their decision to restrict retailer Lane Bryant from airing suggestive ads featuring overweight women.

It is discriminatory to exclude overweight people from the mainstream - especially as proportionately (no pun intended) they represent the majority of Americans at the moment. I'm not talking about glorifying ill health or irresponsible self-care, but this is the same media that has glorified ill health and irresponsible self-care by promoting the other end of the spectrum, the very thin - fueling the trend of eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia which now affect not only our girls, but the boys as well.

We live in a land that touts free speech to the rest of the world, I would think denying the placement of these ads would be not only hypocritical but also unconstitutional.

Thoughts?

On Media Bias and PR Spin

The content of this post comes courtesy of my colleague, Sam Burritt. Thank you Sam!

A brilliant mind, a brillant writer and all round brilliant thinker. Glad he is my team.

On Media Bias

"I think it's too easy to blame the obvious political bias in the media on the temperament most often personified by opposing ends of the political spectrum, though as a good lefty that's my first instinct. I tend to view the sound and the fury emanating from those bastions of right-wing vitriol as- rightly, I feel- signifying nothing, and thus not worthy of my serious attention. But this sells short the sheer power of it; Rush and Fox et al pay their audience with the currency of fear and passion, and it earns dividends. As a PR guy, I know people respond to these emotions much more viscerally than to a well-reasoned argument, and that perpetuates the echo chamber. The left has actively ceded this position- even Air America and the Daily Show rely more on nuance than bluster- and it has its efforts compounded by conservative programming that paints it as too effete and intellectual to appeal to the average american.

Speaking again from a PR perspective, everyone has an agenda, including those that gather and report the news. And while the Woodward and Bernstien generation of reporters is reaching their lion's status, the media conglomerates that pay them are becoming larger, more corporate, and more Republican. This isn't a universal trend (see NYT, editorial board, Sulzberger family), but the correlation between the big business-ification of news gathering and the right-leaning trend of editorial boards is hard to ignore. It's only at single-ownership papers like the Times, or at newspapers that give the newsroom some ownership control (like the St. Petersberg Times did, at least until recently) that you see true impartiality and even sometimes a leftward slant.

The rest of the left is relegated to the blogosphere, which is powerful and ascendant, but ultimately still reliant upon traditional news sources. "Old" media still beats the blogs to scoops by more than 2.5 hours, according to recent statistics, which means that even though online news is usually more opinion-driven, it still receives news first gathered by sources paid for by gargantuan business interests. And let's not forget that the internet isn't the sole purview of the left (maybe if Al Gore had actually invented it...); conservative voices come through loud and clear.

Neither an internet teeming with competing perspectives nor a traditional media structure balanced, in a sense, by equal numbers of Keith Olbermann-Sean Hannity news-opinion hybrids will replace the need for a robust, independent, unbiased fourth estate.

What may serve the left better than breeding a generation of Rush competitors would be encouraging the rise of ideology-impaired newspeople. But then you have to ask: who's going to pay them? And has the right succeeded in polarizing American society to the point that such professionalism is unattainable?

PR at its worst specializes in inducing spin; is that what we're condemned to?

The Dropout Economy, Innovation and More…

Two great reads today, one in today’s NYT courtesy of Thomas Friedman called “Just Doing It” and another, The Dropout Economy from the March 22nd issue of TIME.

What’s so special about these two articles? They both talk about the new, next wave of innovation in the United States. Born out of necessity, frustration, need and, well, pursuit of the dream that anything is possible – the American way, right?

From all walks of life and backgrounds, we are being forced to look at new models, invent new ways and eek out a living for ourselves. Unemployment be damned!

The past two years have been awful, to be sure, but they’ve given birth (or rebirth I should say) to a dynamic innovation culture that had fallen off the bandwagon.

Not innovating yet? Get out there and start doing it!

Can smart PR deliver public absolution for the pope and Vatican?

A Web 2.0 world is watching as scandal rocks the Catholic Church, all the way to the Holy See

Writing about the Vatican, the pope and religion—today or at any time—without mention of politics or moral judgment is a hard call. Hard because religion, morality and politics are inherently intertwined, whether we like it that way or even realize it. And that is why discussions about these topics are polarizing, divisive and downright destructive in so many ways.

So this article isn't going to take on those issues prima facie but instead will look at the Vatican and its current PR crisis—perhaps the most damaging, but really just the latest in a long series of PR crises.

The differences between the PR crisis arising from the sex-abuse scandal and previous scandals—think indulgences, celibacy, and female laity—are twofold. First, it is taking place in an information-dominated era, in which previously effective mitigation tactics such as stifling inquiry and withholding pertinent data are impossible. Second, the current crisis has trust (or the breaking thereof) at its very center, which makes any sort of response inherently suspect.

Same story, different era

I recall the stories I heard as a youth about numerous Church scandals detailing cover-ups of abuse and unspeakable acts made by local priests all the way up to archbishops and the Vatican itself, hushed up to protect the sanctity and reputation of an institution that has sought to teach mankind to act in exactly the opposite ways of its clergy and representatives.

That's a very big PR quandary. How can the Church or Pope Benedict XVI hope or begin to rebuild the public's trust through any PR effort when the institution’s very mission is the codification and enforcement of morality? In other words, how does a moral authority, stripped of its authority through moral failing, regain either?

Click here to continue reading.