wallydownundy

Yesterday Jetstar announced a partnership with AirAsia that starts with joint-procurement agreements and extends to service agreements at shared airports. The deal centres on two similarly aligned organisations looking to reduce costs.

Yet by carefully crafting messages – and relating those to the company’s core values – Jetstar placed its consumers at the centre of this ho-hum corporate deal. To showcase the power of public relations, think through these two different headlines:

JetStar Alliance To Cut Cost (hypothetical)

Jetstar Deal Means Lower Asia Fares (The Australian – front page)

In the front page article, new partner AirAsia said round trip fares between Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur should drop $200 to $600 per person. The ability to demonstrate an immediate consumer benefit means a lot. Consumers will support restructuring, even some job losses, if they perceive an immediate benefit.

Frequently companies seek public relations counsel to manage restructuring announcements. They’ll develop announcements with euphemisms for job losses. Downsizing. Restructuring. Business Process Reengineering. And my favourite, “Rightsizing”.

Author Don Watson developed a handy reference tool for those seeking to understand dense corporate-speak. “Weasel Words” is a collection of “contemporary clichés, cant & management jargon.” There Watson offers this definition to “rightsizing” – Job Eliminations.

When developing messages to support a restructure, think to the end consumer. What’s the benefit? Quicker call times? Lower costs? Better products? If you place the consumer at the heart of your messages you’re transactions are going to be better received.

  (Thanks Mom Blogger for photo)

Now that summer is over in the Northern Hemisphere, millions of school children are returning to school. Along with pencil cases, summer memories and new backpacks many will be coming back to school with Swine Flu - also known as H1N1 Virus. Public health authorities are bracing for a significant outbreak. The World Health Organisation has not lowered the pandemic level. Currently we are at the highest level possible.

Against these incredible odds, like Tina Turner sings, “We Need a Hero!” Enter ELMO!

Yes, the red ragamuffin Sesame Street character with the annoying voice is featured in a series of advertisements in the USA. Elmo is teaching basic hygiene to prevent the spread of swine flu - wash hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze, etc. Elmo will be instrumental to reach children - and via them, their parents.

As Elmo has already taken on Potty Training and the Chicken Dance, countering Swine Flu should be a walk in the park. However if Swine Flu does spread widely I’d hate to see Elmo doing hospital visits in a HazMat suit.

In the immediate aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, AMR Interactive publish a survey of 2,270 people about their views of various professions. With headlines screaming about bank failures and multi-trillion dollar rescue plans, it appears we don’t like bankers anymore.

Bankers rate down there with journalists, politicians and real estate agents. (I still have a soft spot for Annette Bening in “American Beauty” though.)

In this 21^stcentury world we’re in, we seem to hanker for the good old professions. Firemen, doctors, policemen and teachers aren’t what six year olds dream of being. It’s who we appreciate. Little kids don’t dream of being accountants. Well – very, very few have that passion!

So after being battered and bruised by the global economy we revert to our youth. Which is probably a good thing as we’ll need the energy of our youth to return to work as retirement savings are perilously diminished.

Damn – must be those bankers again!

Australia’s suffering one of the oddest -gate affairs. (Since Watergate every political crisis is -gated, like ‘Iguana-gate’ last year). Right now Ute-gate looks set to bring down the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull.

For those in North America, a Ute is short for utility vehicle. In other words, a pick-up truck!

Where to begin? And how to abbreviate?

Earlier this year Opposition Leader stunned Parliament by accusing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of using undue influence to gain a used car dealer priority access to Treasury funds. (When all car financiers left Australia the government stepped in with emergency funding.) Seems this car dealer lent Rudd a used vehicle for electioneering purposes. Influence for mates? How dare he! (Until then I thought that’s what government was - silly me.)

The “smoking gun” was an email in the hands of Turnbull. Seems he failed to check the email’s authenticity before calling for the Prime Minister to resign.

Are you with me still?

Weeks later the Auditor General releases an official report. The email was a fake. Rudd did nothing wrong. Turnbull shot out of the gate too early. (The fake email’s author is a senior Treasury public servant now residing in a Canberra mental hospital.)

All pretty tatty even before you factor in two significant issues.

First - and worst - it appears to validate his claims of “never knowing the email was a fake”, Turnbull released documents. Included was a Q&A script used to coach the fake email’s author before he testified to the Senate. Oops. Seems you can’t coach a witness before a Parliamentary Inquiry. (Again, we’re all learning here!)

Second - and fatal - was the lost opportunity for Turnbull to respond like a…hmmm…national leader. Peter Hartcher from “The Sydney Morning Herald” captures it perfectly in today’s edition:

THE hue and cry over Godwin Grech and the fake email left the Australian electorate with one big question: does Malcolm Turnbull have the judgment to be prime minister?

Yesterday he had a prime opportunity to start addressing that question, to tell Australia what he had learnt from the debacle, how he would do things differently in future.

But instead of trying to restore the confidence of voters, he conducted a narrow, legalistic exercise to exonerate himself. (See full article here.)

Every day innocent Australians are killed in auto accidents. Yet it isn’t every day that a political career is killed by a used car - especially when, at the time of the accident,  that car is garaged a few thousand miles away from the victim.

The Twitter-verse is alive with postings from Iran. With global news agencies blocked from Tehran the world’s exposure to post-election chaos is delivered via Twitter and YouTube. These seem to be the only sites able to escape the tightest Internet filtering system in the world - built by Siemens and Nokia.

If ever there was a public relations nightmare for a company this has to be the daddy of them all.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Iran’s monitoring system is the most sophisticated in the world. It even exceeds the capabilities in China. And it was provided, in part, by European companies Siemens and Nokia:

“The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and NokiaCorp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed.” (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

To be fair the equipment and technology was developed to improve mobile telephone technology in a developing nation. Yet the sophistication of the filtering and blocking system exceeds that of any country in the world. Surely it would have been apparent, at installation, the capabilities could be used for political oppression especially as Iran remains an autocratic state.

I, for one, will be monitoring the response of Siemens and Nokia to these developments.

“Could I try the heart?” asked Canada’s Governor General, Michaelle Jean as she leaned over a dead seal. She was showing her support for the Inuit tradition of seal hunting in the face of an EU ban on seal products. While Inuit cull small numbers of seal using traditional methods, EU members object to the larger-scale killing by commercial hunters of thousands of seal pups.

So after eating some raw seal meat the Governor General tucked into a bite of raw heart. Her verdict? It tastes “like sushi.” She encouraged all Canadians to sample raw seal.

(Side question: Is this now a national duty or merely an invitation? Are Canadians obliged to eat raw seal much like Japanese school children being served whale meat in school canteens?)

During the peak of “Mad Cow” disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) brave British politicans were photographed…enjoying a barbequed steak! Nothing could hold these brave men back as they tucked into a prized British export. (”If it’s safe enough for me…”) Eventually England killed 4.4 million head of cattle.

Now Swine Flu is in the headlines. The misnomer is leading to bans on the export of pork. And while world health authorities have changed the name to “H1N1 Virus” it lacks the same pizzaz as “Swine Flu” especially to the readers of The Daily Telegraph.

Today’s cover features “the first family of swine flu” - now under quarantine to stop the spread of the disease (pictured below: John and Fiona Darcy with sons Jarryd and Nicholas - source: The Daily Telepgraph).

My question: Will they put some pork on their fork? Should Kevin Rudd stop by with a take-away serving of Pork Lo Mein?

In Israel a formal apology was offered to the Ambassador of Mexico. Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman suggested the swine flu be renamed Mexico flu as pigs are not kosher. Says National Public Radio in the USA:

Mexico’s ambassador to Israel formally protested Litzman’s statement. Israel’s Foreign Ministry later apologized, saying Litzman was “just kidding.”

Meanwhile in Egypt some 30,000 to 40,000 pigs will be culled - even though there appears no link between the animal and today’s outbreaks.

Swine Flu was so named as the humble pig was likely the breeding ground of today’s influenza (most accurately known as H1N1). The strain combines elements of swine flu, avian flu and human influenza. Within the pig the cocktail came to life and began spreading from human-to-human.

For reassurance, there is no danger with pork. In fact the misnomer of Swine Flu is causing significant damage to the farming industry. The Australian Pork Council is working to keep the public reassured, according to ABC Rural - “Eating pork is safe, says industry”:

“We need to watch what’s happening, but there’s no risk whatsoever from pigs or pig products in Australia.”

These reassurances are not helping as numerous countries place bans on the import of pork and pig products from nations with reported cases of swine flu. This is leading to a sharp drop in the price of grain - a feedstock for pigs.

For now the name - Swine Flu - is having the unintended consequence of scaring consumers and importers off pork.

The challenge now for producers, industry associations, government and the media to continue providing accurate information in a calm manner. Public hysteria is easily raised through sensational reporting. Each form of communication - from traditional media to social media - can help assuage fears and correct misperceptions. Yet to breakthrough the cluttered airwaves pork producers need some visual-friendly imagery and smart spokespeople to achieve results.

Why not try:

• Eye-grabbing graphics?

• A voice on Twitter and Facebook?

• An up-to-date web site with consumer information?

• Leaflets in stores on smart and safe pork handling?

• Savvy chefs armed with materials ready to speak to television morning shows?

It’s now an obligation to keep consumers informed on the facts and to separate the fiction. Or us little piggies will never go to market…

US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took the role saying he didn’t want to create a cult of personality. Former chairman Alan Greenspan was so well-known and influential that USA presidential contender John McCain, in the race for the White House in 2000, said if Greenspan died in office he’d put sunglasses on him and prop him up in his chair. Bernanke wanted to do things differently and develop the profile of the institution, not the man.

Times have forced a change.

The world faces the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. Poor management will cause further collapses and leave the global economy stagnant for years. The rapid fall-out and global spread of the recession have taken all by surprise. Coordinated, rapid action is mandatory to stave off a downward spiral.

Yet the issues are complex and the solutions hard to understand. Greenspan once famously said, “if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said.” President Barack Obama has his entire reputation riding on the perceived efficacy of his actions. Trillions have been spent trying to stabilise financial systems and auto manufacturers. It needs to work - and it needs to be perceived to work.

Yesterday Bernanke gave a speech in Atlanta at Morehouse College. Here he devolved into a primer on the economy and explained the basic fundamentals. After he sat with students and took questions. The speech and the discussion were broadcast on national television.

The lesson for corporate communications is clear. Financial matters are a challenge for most consumers to understand. “Dumbing down” is not always an option - while it may be simple to explain a term deposit in a 30 second advertisement, you can’t squeeze plans for global economic rescue into so short a space. So instead Bernanke is trying to “smarten up” the populace. He’s taking every opportunity to explain to the American people what is happening and how the Reserve Bank’s actions are helping.

Today “The Australian” covers this and more under the title “Bernanke’s PR Rewrites Fed Script.”

A few weeks back USA media commentator Rachel Maddow aired a segment about AIG and their use of public relations firms (see 11 March blog posting). She then chose to closely examine the track record of one of the firms that AIG uses. The segment led to a letter being issued by that firm’s CEO to all employees. And…you guessed it…another segment on The Rachel Maddow Show.

Here’s the dig. Rachel’s show is really popular. She’s a ratings star, according to Wikipedia:

Since its debut, the (Rachel Maddow) show has topped Countdown as the highest rated show on MSNBC on several occasions. After being on air for a little over a month, Maddow’s program doubled the audience for MSNBC’s 9PM hour.

Clearly Rachel Maddow has made attempts to speak to the public relations firm in question. This is exactly the type of appearance the CEO should have accepted. By failing to engage the conversation is one-way. Rachel is in control. She’d no doubt enjoy a fiery debate with an well-versed professional. Instead she was denied the chance and the story ran another day.

Lesson? Is it “do as I say, not as I do” for clients of that agency?

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has already received a significant injection of taxpayer-funds in the first tranche of emergency government lending late last year. This past weekend The Sunday Herald in Scotland writes that RBS is likely to receive much, much more (”RBS will get ‘billions’ in US bail-out of economy” by Ian Fraser). In Sydney RBS now has a prominent facade as the old ABN-AMRO Tower has been renamed the RBS Building-Tower-Shining Edifice.

So with a big building - and a bigger bail-out - I was keen to learn more when I saw RBS sponsoring a large display in Sydney’s Martin Place.

It was odd to see such a large - bubble - with the RBS logo so prominently displayed. I figured inside would be the legendary “toxic assets” that were the root cause of this global strife. I imagined bio-hazard engineers mopping up collateralised debt obligations and other nasties.

Instead RBS had a sports car that simulated a real “on track” experience. Brochures invite participants to:

Take the Challenge

Using a full size formula 1 show car with a driving simulator, you can test your instincts, nerve and reactions to set the fastest lap (source: The Sydney Challenge hand-out from RBS Martin Place display)

Now people have accused me of being cynical - and I agree. I have been a little biased in past posts. And at first I was horrified. Last year RBS accepted US$30 billion in government funding to continue operations (according to CNN). Today it is in line to receive tens of billions of dollars more. And in Australia, RBS has no retail banking operations. So the RBS Bubble is to keep the brand front of mind with corporations and other banks.

Then the penny dropped. Of course it makes perfect sense. RBS needs its customers to have all the reflexes of a professional race car driver if they are to survive the harrowing twists and turns in the coming months.

Who says the RBS display in the centre of Martin Place is a waste of tens of thousands of dollars?