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

Churnalism and social media

The journalists’ fast-paced style of work, reduction in journalistic teams and more and more advertising space to fill, make journalists more susceptible to use PR materials without any criticism. There was even a new term coined for such an automatic copy-paste articles making from PR press releases - churnalism. Recently a charity the Media Standards Trust has created a website where anyone can check how much of a genuine press article was copied from a publicity text.

That's how a 'churn engine' works

The director of the trust said for Guardian that “journalists often have a valid reason for using press releases, and will often need to copy and paste significant chunks, such as official statements and quotes. But on many occasions reporters appear to be lifting press release text verbatim and adding little or no additional material.”

In the book Flat Earth News, which reveals secrets of hacks and flacks’ work, there is mentioned a study of Cardiff University researchers’ team, titled: Quality and Independence of British Journalism. Tracking the changes over 20 years, which reveals that in British quality press 80% of stories derives from PR materials and only 12% of stories are written by reporters.

See how easy is to sell a fake story to the press:



Guardian’s media and technology specialists comment on that situation: “This is not the journalism of the Libyan revolution, the WikiLeaks cables, or the New Zealand earthquake, but it is a market for news that the public relations industry has spotted. This is the terrain of the unnecessary "sponsored" survey, where "brunettes make the best wives" according to a survey of men on behalf of Philips sensual massagers, and where Asda kindly concludes that "families are £13 a week worse off".”

Apart from the copy-paste activity, there is also another, bigger problem, in the modern journalism, which considers a phenomenon of infotainment (information + entertainment). In pursuit of interesting, funny end wacky stories, hacks more often then ever search for them on the Internet and rarely check their sources. Once a material appears on the Internet and is picked up by one traditional media channel, it spreads all over the news.

The fact of such an activity has been for several times proved by Chris Atkins, an independent film director, who have had many media titles, not only tabloids. His documentary Starsuckers, shows how easy it is to create a false history about celebrity and sell it to the press. In one of his interviews Atkins says: “If u want to do something true in the media all you have to do is put it on the internet.” and his four tips on how to sell a story to the press: “1. It needs to by funny. 2. Not too nasty. 3. You should have a name for it. 4. Telephone number to the journalist.”

Chris Atkins on how to make a fake story for the media:

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

Award winning;) Social Media webcast

Hello! This is a webcast I created to explain in simple and engaging way what is social media, what are its benefits and how to use it.

I hope that you will enjoy it and your feedback is very welcome :)

Update: Lots of thanks to everyone for good words about this video!

[It was done in Windows Movie Maker.]

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

Audiences, stakeholders and publics

These three terms make us confused very often. What's the difference between them? Is there any?

When we talk about audience we think about those people whom we send our message to. In other words, they are receivers of our message. Therefore, we often tend to connect that term with such determiners as ‘active’ and ‘passive’. A passive audience refers to those receivers of a message, who don’t engage with the media content they receive. An active audience, on the other hand, represents those, who engage with the media content. The clear example of passive audience may be the TV/radio/newspaper audience, and active audience are social media users.

Term stakeholders is related to those subjects (individual people, employees, organizations, communities, companies, customers, suppliers, media, government, distributors, etc.) “who have a stake or interest in a particular organisation, i.e. they depend on the organisation to fulfill their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends”. (Tench,Yeomas; 2006)

                                                                                                            (Picture from: watchdogwag.com)

Difference between stakeholders and publics is very blurry, but when publics are distinguished they are meant to be “stakeholders that face a problem or have an issue with the organisaion. Thus stakeholders are potential publics, the critical factor being the arrival of a problem or issue. (…) when such a problem or issue arises, stakeholders organise to  become publics and are able to affect the interests of the organisation.” (Tench,Yeomas; 2006)

Bibliography:

1.     Tench, R., Yeomans, L., (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

If your presentation sucks wear red!

The key to successful communication lies in good recognition of the context we operate in. The context consists of: characteristics of people we are talking to (what is the environment they live in, what are their beliefs, attitudes and motivations) and the situational factors within we communicate.

While we can’t do much about other people’s believes and attitudes, we can however take a partial control upon their perceptions during the communicational process. Our perceptions of others strongly depend on type of the medium we communicate through.

The most famous example of that is a case of American presidential debate in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard N. Nixon. The debate was broadcasted by both television and radio. After the debate it turned out that between the radio and TV audience there are remarkable differences in the candidates’ appraisal.

People who were watching debate in TV better rated Kennedy, whose appearance was simply better that his opponent’s. He was younger, more handsome, his behaviour was smooth. Nixon was acting unsteadily, he didn’t have make-up, couldn’t stand in one place, was sweating. However people who were listening to the debate on the radio, gave the higher ranks to Nixon, whose speech was more convincing for them than the Kennedy’s.

It is a clear proof that the observers’ perception is strongly connected to the medium of communication. It indicates that we should tune in our way of communicating to the medium – maybe if the debate was only transmitted by the radio, Nixon would have won the elections.

The differences which determine our perception on the type of the communication canal we can explain by the psychological theory (Petty and Cacioppo (1981) of two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral.

Persuasion is only effective when the receiver’s attention is respectively direct either to the power of arguments (verbal communication) or to so called peripheral indicators (non-verbal communication).

Directing the attention to the appropriate rout depends, in turn, on the conditions of message reception. When a person is focused on considering  the arguments – for example when is reading an article, then he focuses on the merits of the statement. But when his attention is distracted and he doesn’t recognise the substance and logics of the arguments (which most often happen during TV watching) then the person concentrate on superficial aspects and simple signs which in psychology are called as heuristics – for example if the person is attractive, if is an expert, or if others agree with his view. Drawing on this mechanism we can explain why in 1960’s debate for TV audience won Kennedy, and for radio listeners won Nixon.

So the next time if you don’t have time to prepare your presentation well, at least wear the best clothes you have, or put something red on. According to the central and peripheral theory of persuasion you will divert your audience’s attention from your arguments to the peripheral aspects of your appearance.

References:

Extracts from my BA dissertation (2010): 'Selected methods of building a personal image in the media’

Public Relations and Propaganda

PR is often charged with accusations of being propagandistic communication and media manipulation. It is very interesting issue, as by examining the literature of PR we can find out that even among theorists and academics of PR there is a considerable dispute on the problem of a genuine nature of PR.

Historically the ‘public relations’ and ‘propaganda’ were interchangeable terms and there was no difference in meaning. The concept of these phenomena was a mere response to the popular opinion makers (Gustave Le Bon, Walter Lipmann, Harold Laswell, Edward Bernays) and psychological discourses of that time, that the masses of people in a system of democracy are not able to think and act rationally and need to be guided by elites, as Edward Bernays wrote in Propaganda (1928), in the first chapter titled: Organising Chaos:



Edward Bernays - the father of PR

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

The attitude towards the word ‘propaganda’ had changed after the II World War when it got negative associations due to its use by hated regimes and consequently the term was permanently changed to ‘public relations’.

Many PR academics point out that actually many definitions of propaganda could cover definitions of public relations: “many basic definitions of propaganda could be equally well used to describe public relations.” (J. L’Etang, 2009).



Morris and Goldsworthy (2008) ask what if there was nothing what could differentiate PR from propaganda and they respond: “Our contention is that there are no real moral distinctions: both practices are essentially amoral, capable of serving any cause.” Authors however propone three ways of differencing PR from propaganda, although their nature is more connected to the context in which they operate (democracy vs. regime) and to the potentially available techniques, than to the moral capital:

1.  It [public relations] has far few levers of influence to pull on.

2.  It exists in conditions where many competing persuasive message are communicated.

3.  The public relations practitioner, unlike the propagandist, does not have effective powers of censorship or any lasting control over the media.

To get the bigger picture on how the discipline of public relations was born I recommend watching the documentary Century of the Self:


Bibliography:

1.     Fawkes, J., Public relations, propaganda and the psychology of persuasion. in: Tench, R., Yeomans, L., (2006). Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.



2.     L’Etang, J.,(2009). Public Relations: concepts, practice and critique. Sage Publications.



3.     L'Etang, J., Pieczka, M., (1996). Critical perspectives in Public Relations. International Thomson Business Press.



4.     Moloney, K., (2000). Rethinking Public Relations: The Spin and the Substance. London and New York: Routledge.



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



6.     Theaker, A., (2008). The Public Relations Handbook. 3nd ed. London and New York: Routledge.