Facebook vs Google PR smear campaign

                                                                                                  (Picture from: Benchmark.pl)

Burson-Marsteller smear campaign against Google on behalf of Facebook, again brought about a never-ending dispute on a matter of PR ethics. But while some PRs admit the dark machinations of PR are a commonplace activity, and the others try to deny it, the overall sensation is that the swindle didn't shock that much the PR milieu because of the mere fact of it, but because of the most clumsiest way it could have been done.

The bold act of a blogger poured a cold water on PRs, reminding the simple fact that in the Internet-era the entire online activity is transparent and as soon as shared with a third person is out of control. Moreover, it confirms that nobody likes to be a pawn in the game, especially a dirty one, so that those who want to play it, should implement more tactful and legitimate methods of approaching particular people or organisations.

Now, when all sides of the argument: Facebook, Burson-Marsteller and to some extent Google, lick their wounds, the outcome of that unfortunate story is in fact to the advatage of public relations industry, which from now on will avoid any attempts of slandering, with an awareness that in the conditions of an omnipotent transparency it will simply not pay off.

                                                                        (Picture from: SyncStaff.es)

Greenwashing

It is proved that customers prefer services and products of socially responsible companies. An image of sustainable and eco-friendly brand gives a number of benefits to the company, for example: better and stronger relationships with stakeholders, avoidance of the severity of potential crisis, improvement of bottom line, boost in sales, etc. Therefore many companies try to implement CSR programmes only for the sake of having more ‘green’ image, not backing it up with the real action. Such activities called as ‘greenwashing’ have, however, an opposite effect on customers, who can easily determine if the company is genuine or not and develop a counter-productive perception of a ‘deceiver- company’. 

                                                                                   (Picture from: Greenertrends.com)

CIPR, which in 2007 published the best practice guidelines to uphold high standards of corporate social responsibility, describes greenwashing as:

"[greenwash] is a term often used when describing environmental sustainability communications that are false or misleading, generally when significantly more money or time has been spent promoting being green, rather than spending resources on environmentally sound practices. This can be portrayed by changing the name, or label, of a product, to give the ‘feeling of nature’, for example putting an image of a forest on a bottle of harmful chemicals. It is also sometimes used to distract from negative practices in other parts of a company’s business.

Greenwash can lead to a reduction in stakeholders’ trust, damaging reputation and investor confidence. Making false or over-the-top claims only strengthens media suspicions about eco-claims, which in turn damages efforts to improve the environment. PR practitioners should never knowingly greenwash and should take responsibility to question client claims if they believe them to be untrue or inaccurate."

Activists against BP's art sponsorship:

In a bunch of the most criticized companies for greenwashing their image is BP. I wonder what do you think of BP’s involvement in art sponsorship? From one hand the big, rich, oil corporation, whose main stakeholders are local communities and governments in areas where it operates, but on the other hand BP has 20 year long record of sponsoring the art, cultural and educational organizations. A genuine activity or greenwashing?

BP is currently searching for a PR agency, which will promote its sponsorships during 2012 Olympic Games. Here is a brief and the presentation I made for that case, as one of our course assignments: 

Presentation of a brief for a PR agency - BP case study

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Brief for a PR agency - BP case study

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Community has rights and corporation has duties – PR and CSR

CSR origins

Although CSR derives from the nineteenth-century practice of philanthropists, its modern concept is based on the premise that the corporations have a particular duties towards the internal and external environment in which they operate. A stress of that obligation was intensified in 1960s and 1970s by social activists, who criticized large corporations and elites for holding an enormous power within the society, claiming that it should imply increased responsibility and protection for the groups whose interests those may affect.

The nature of CSR

CSR claims to have equal benefits to both its benefactor and beneficent, and is said to be an “enlightened self-interest of mutual benefit to both donor and beneficiary”. However this statement is being questionable on several grounds. First of all, the company’s benefits in form of “either ensuring a healthier economic climate in which the company operates or in terms of improved image and competitive edge for the company” are deemed to be much more higher the recipient’s, and secondly recipients have no autonomy in a decision-making process: “donors choose beneficiaries, activities and the amount of money, resources and the length of commitment.”(L’Etang, Pieczka; 2006).

Role of PR in CSR

CSR is considered as a PR tool as it serves as a technique to build relationships with company’s stakeholders, and influences a company’s image and reputation.

“Public relations practitioners may be responsible for proposing corporate social responsibility activities and identifying relevant publics, objectives, messages. In this way public relations practitioners are directly involved in policy formulation. It is not, therefore, a question of senior management working out their organizational responsibilities and then the public relations practitioner communicating the policy actions, but of public relations actively driving the programme and setting corporate objectives.” (L’Etang, Pieczka; 2006).

Moreover CSR takes an important role in the issues management process. Hence, for the biggest part, issues are arising in the social field, it is vital to monitor the trends and respond to the stakeholders’ expectations by implementing adequate CSR programs, which undermine crisis emergency.

“CSR supports reputation risk management strategies by:

• Managing short term risk by acquiring quality information through dialogue;
• Accessing valuable marketplace and societal trends data;
• Moving towards consensus and away from conflict through better stakeholder management;
• Influencing views and behaviour inside and outside the organisation, with associated performance benefits;
• Enhancing value through socially responsible investment.”

(Regester, Larkin; 2005)

Bibliography:

L'Etang, J., Pieczka, M., (2006). Public Relations. Criticaldebates and contemporary practice. International Thomson Business Press.

Regester, M., Larkin, J., (2008). Risk Issues and Crisis Management in Public Relations. Kogan Page

Communication during the crisis



Chinese saying: crisis may be either a danger or an opportunity

Crisis - coming from nowhere can destroy even the most renowned brands and undermine trust for a long, long time. However, if it happens it doesn’t need to be an end, on the contrary, if managed well it can even strengthen the reputation.

Today organizations are more prone to crises than whenever before. It is in majority caused by (information by Pam Williams):

•        More knowledge

•        Ever higher scrutiny - 24/7 global media

•        Greater demands for transparency

•        Zero tolerance of risk

•        Decrease in trust (in companies, government, science… everyone)

•        Science has lost its impartial and reliable image

•        NGO proliferation and growth in anti-business activism

•        Growth in victim and litigation culture

•        Power of the individual to effect change

•        The internet + UGC + social media 





Communication is a key

At the core of skilful crisis management process stays communication with all of the organisation’s internal and external stakeholders, but the critical group are the media. The five core rules a spokeperson should applied when talking to the media are: 

                                                (Tench, Yeomas; 2006)

1.    Show a true concern about what has happened.

2.    Give a detailed data – what was said at the outset will be repeated throughout the next hours and days.

3.    Take control over the messages, environment and the venue.

4.    Demonstrate confidence, but not arrogance.

5.    Demonstrate competence and say how the organisation will handle the problem.

On the onset spokesperson should be also well prepared for an encounter with  journalists inconvenient questions, which typically are as follow (information by Pam Williams):

•        Details – who, what, when, where?

•        Who is at fault?

•        When will they be punished?

•        When did the organisation know about the problem?

•        How is it responding?

•        Will there be compensation?

•        Has it happened before?

•        Could it happen again?

The worst move is to stay quiet, ignoring the media. Then everyone thinks the organisation is guilty:

• The company chooses to say: 'No comment.'
• The media say: 'The company was unwilling to take part in this programme.'
• Consumers think: 'No smoke without fire.'  'They are hiding something.' 'Guilty!'

                                                     

References:

1.     Langford, M., Crisis public relations management. in: Tench, R., Yeomans, L., (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

2.     Williams, P., MA Public Relations Course Leader at University of Westminster

Spin, PR girls and Public Relations

Public Relations for those who don’t go deeply into the topic is either a light job with lots of fun or on the contrary a mysterious machinations at the top of political and business ladder and media manipulation. That’s because the public perception of PR for is mainly created by it representations in the media and popular culture.

So that from one side we have such representations as of Samantha Jones from “Sex in the City”, Edina Monsoon from “Absolutely Fabulous” or Bridget Jones – the so called 'PR girls' for whom the PR work is all about parties, fun and meeting people.

But on the other side the news media feed us with the examples of mighty 'spin doctors' who have the power over politics, big corporations and media. According to Wilcox et al. (2007) the term was originally “restricted to what often were considered the unethical and misleading activities and tactics of political campaign consultants. By the mid-1990s, however, the media widely used the term to describe any effort by public relations personnel to put a positive slant on an event or issue.”

Probably the most famous spin doctor in UK is Alistair Campbell - Communications Director to the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair until 2003. There is an interesting and worth watching BBC documentary (2000) titled “News from Number 10” where there is shown a lot of Mr. Campbell’s work methods at Downing Street.



Bibliography:

Morris, T., Goldsworthy, S., (2008). PR - a persuasive industry? Spin, public relations, and the shaping of the modern media. Palgrave McMillan.

Wilcox, D., et al. (2007). Public Relations: Strategy and Tactics, Pearson Education.

Activism and PR

The activist groups although without a real governing power, over the years managed to gain considerable power over people’s mindset. They pose a threat to big corporations either by dragging out and highlighting their malpractice or by influencing the law, which consequently impacts on corporations’ business activities.

Perceived as a challenge to corporate PR practitioners, activist groups themselves thrive on PR and its tactics. One of the main threats to big and successful activist organizations nowadays is that they alarmingly start to resemble the big corporations themselves.
                                     

      Some images of activists stunts:

For example Greenpeace has developed over the years such a strong brand that now in many aspects it needs to think and act like a standard company with its all bureaucracy in order to maintain its structures.

Lord Krebs, the former chairman of the Food Standards Agency and current principal of Jesus College Oxford at an parliamentary event on science policy said that "Greenpeace is a multinational corporation just like Monsanto or Tesco. They have very effective marketing departments... Their product is worry because worry is what recruits members," he said. (link to the Guardian article)

Anyway, let’s go back to the most characteristic PR tactics used in activist campaigns, which are: 
1. Stunts
2. Third-party endorsement from opinion leaders, journalists, celebrities, MPs
3. Catchy soundbites and imagery materials for media
4. Social media activity

Prioritizing and understanding stakeholders

To prioritize stakeholders and understand their needs and expectations is one of the core aspects for any organization. Knowing these things we can control their impact by implementing an appropriate system of communicating with them.  

Mapping stakeholders on Power/Interest Matrix is a helpful technique to realize how much influence and interest particular stakeholders have in relation to a particular issue. Accordingly it allows us to determine what steps should we take towards them in order to build good relationships between them and our organisation.



Power/Interest Matrix



The stakeholder’s position on the grid informs us what actions we should take (by Rachel Thompson):

·        High power, interested people: these are the people you must fully engage and make the greatest efforts to satisfy.

·        High power, less interested people: put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message.

·        Low power, interested people: keep these people adequately informed, and talk to them to ensure that no major issues are arising. These people can often be very helpful with the detail of your project.

·        Low power, less interested people: again, monitor these people, but do not bore them with excessive communication.

To get to know how to communicate with our key stakeholders we can ask the following questions (by Rachel Thompson):

·        What financial or emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your work? Is it positive or negative?

·        What motivates them most of all?

·        What information do they want from you?

·        How do they want to receive information from you? What is the best way of communicating your message to them?

·        What is their current opinion of your work? Is it based on good information?

·        Who influences their opinions generally, and who influences their opinion of you? Do some of these influencers therefore become important stakeholders in their own right?

·        If they are not likely to be positive, what will win them around to support your project?

·        If you don't think you will be able to win them around, how will you manage their opposition?

·        Who else might be influenced by their opinions? Do these people become stakeholders in their own right?

References:

Rachel Thompson, Stakeholder Analysis. Winning Support for your project