Feeding the flames

In less than 24 hours there have been seemingly dozens of Labour ministers and supporters telling us that The Sun's campaign to back the Tories in the next election doesn't matter. To use a cliche 'he doth protest too much', if you really don't think something matters, then it's fine to say so, but then you move on to communicate your message and try to get past the negative coverage you received.
The problem is that Labour are the ones who keep reminding us that the newspaper with the biggest circulation in the country has just backed the opposition. They should probably know better than to give the Tories free publicity. Anyway you can watch someone tearing up a newspaper here on the bbc site!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8283549.stm

Airbus' Smooth Operator

Someone choosing his words very carefully this week is Airbus' Chief Commercial Officer, John Leahy.

Panorama reportedly sent a journalist along to a press conference that the aircraft manufacturer were hosting this week "with the sole purpose, it seemed, of extracting disobliging remarks about the Irish motormouth and his airline" according to the Times' City Diary, referring, of course, to Ryanair's Michael O’Leary.

The Panorama journo was clearly out to provoke, questioning Leahy incessantly about reported run-ins with O’Leary. But to his credit, when asked whether it true that Ryanair had agreed, and then walked away from an order, Leahy carefully replied, “yes, but that’s business”. Then, when it was suggested that Airbus would not be accepting any more orders from Ryanair, Leahy refused to be drawn on the subject, nipping things in the bud by telling the reporting not to put words into his mouth.

Although he had to concede that Michael O’Leary "plays hardball”, I think it's fair to say that Leahy did well under such provocative questioning. I wonder if Michael O'Leary would have faired so well had he been in that line of questioning...

The Dark Side of PR

There was a brilliant story in the news a few days ago regarding a ‘Jedi’ in Bangor, Wales, who was asked by staff in his local Tesco store to either remove his hood or leave the store. He claimed that the hood was part of his religion and as such he was being persecuted by being asked to take it off. As a result he is seeking legal advice and planning to boycott that store.

As if this wasn’t enough of a story (although we acknowledge he says he claims staff were rude and of course discrimination should never be laughed at), the response by Tesco’s spokesperson was sheer genius: “He hasn’t been banned. Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor as one who never removed his hood. If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they’ll miss lots of special offers.”

We suspect that this member of the press office might be a (not so) secret Stars War fan as well!

Here come the girls? I don't think so.

I'm disappointed. 'Here come the girls'? Please.

I've just read an article on the This Is Money website that suggests that the real reason women earn significantly less than men is because they are too afraid to ask for more.

I'd previously put this down to inherent sexism in the workplace (sorry) but a survey of 5,000 men and women by the Office of National Statistics (published in women's mag Grazia)suggests that whilst men are continually asking for payrises, women are 'too scared' to even approach the subject with their boss.

'The handful of women who had dared to ask for more admitted it was 'the most stressful thing they had ever done'. But men do not suffer from the same inhibitions' which would explain why 'a typical man who works full-time enjoys a salary of £31,485, which is more than £8,500 higher than a woman's salary of £22,964'.

I'm disappointed because, sadly I think it's true.

We can't blame men for using their initiative to ask for a payrise. But we can blame ourselves if we can't summon up the confidence to do the same.

See for yourself:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/work/small-business/article.html?in_article_id=406287&in_page_id=10

Errrr, can you see the camera?

The BBC have a clip of Cameron and Hague seemingly discussing whether the recent Afghan elections were rigged.

http://tinyurl.com/ls2q9h

Admittedly there is some confusion about whether this is genuine or not i.e. was this a way of ‘leaking’ a story or do they really mean what they are saying but either way it doesn’t look like the best thing to be doing.

Our advice; always assume the cameras are on and always assume the footage might be made public!

Oooops!

Kingfisher had a bit of trouble yesterday when they accidentally sent out their results to the City, almost two weeks early!
Lucky for them they were pretty good numbers so their investors have reacted well. Mind you, we bet someone is regretting the ‘Send All’ button on the email system. Read the whole story here on Times Online:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article6825645.ece

Duelling Gentleman Crowe

Great story on the beeb today about Mr. Crowe:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8237512.stm

It seems that rather than punching the journo who upset him, this time he challenged her to a bike ride! The plucky journo did at least go through with it – and lost, falling off her bike at one point.

Still, just goes to show that even if you get a hard time in the press you can turn it around to your favour.

Blogging Champion

The below link is a very positive story from Business Week, quoting Nokia's policy of not only allowing staff to blog their 'issues' but also how the company thinks this is invaluable R&D.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_25/b4136050146630.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories

All too often we hear stories of companies stopping staff using blogs to get their voices heard but while we would acknowledge there are some potential problems, surely these can be far outweighed by the positives?

Have they heard of media training?

Many of the Telegraph's revelations over the last few weeks have been shocking enough but here at Bluewood, we can't believe the total lack of skill most of the MPs seem to have used during their media interviews.

Admittedly it's been some of the backbenchers under the spotlight this time and they might not have the same experience as some but haven't they heard of media training? It was this gem on the standard's site which surprised us most:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23696605-details/Public+are+just+jealous%2C+says+MP/article.do

Here's a tip for MPs; before any interview you may want to anticipate some of the negative questions!

£260m of new money for training!

In the budget Alistair Darling promised £260m for training and subsidies – is this great news or just spin? Only time will tell what impact this will have but with the skills problem and the number of unemployed growing in the UK the fear is that this is just a drop in the ocean.

Focussed training, can and will make a difference for job opportunities but the real question is whether the government are committed to seeing these policies through in the long-term?

Someone reign him in!

The faux pas(s) of Silvio Berlusconi never cease to amaze me.

First his compliments on Mr Obama's fine suntan, then a reproach from the Queen and his snub of Merkel... ill-mannered and ill-considered; but I can handle that.

This week however he's giving wholly inappropriate advice to L'Aquila earthquake victims to 'see it like a weekend of camping', and in this morning's paper we have news of his flirting with a L'Aquila doctor. And still the Italian press love him.

Please. PR advisor. Somebody. Reign him in.

Booze or medication?

Whether it was alcohol or medicine that did this, it didn't do much for his image or, as it turned out, his career:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWLeWqPOFpU&eurl=http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=japanese%20finance%20minister&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3RNFA_enGB27
Surely he had some advisers there to stop him from going in front of the World's media?

Why no news is bad news for UK Companies

All too often businesses think that to get through a crisis the best option is to keep their head below the parapet. Recent times have shown us that even if companies could once get away with this, they certainly can’t anymore.

On January 26, Barclays wrote an open letter to investors to convince them that their business was in comparatively good health and in fact was about to announce positive results. This unusual step is not often seen in the City, where investors normally have to sit patiently until the company’s formal results announcement. When CEO John Varley and Chairman Marcus Agius wrote "In view of the events in the banking sector last week, we have decided to communicate now with employees, customers, clients and shareholders," what they were most mindful of was the devastating impact of rumour and market supposition. Rumours that Barclays were in serious trouble caused their share price to drop by almost 50%, so Varley and Agius had two choices: sit tight and wait for the rumours to die down and the market to recover or be pro-active and actually communicate with their investors. Such large organisations are often reluctant to behave in a different way than they are used to, so we can surmise that it took some persuasion inside the bank to convince them that this was the right course of action. They were right; rumours of a government bail-out were squashed, the shares rose 73% on the day and haven’t fallen below those levels since.

In a recent article about handling communications in the current crisis in Corp Comms magazine, one PR executive stated: “If nobody from the company talks and clarifies the situation then it allows rumours to take hold, and staff, customers and shareholders will find it hard to believe you when you finally make a statement. They will believe the rumours and speculation more than the facts.”
This seems like good common sense, perhaps even rather obvious, but in reality managers find it hard to apply that sense to themselves. Many companies think they can still batten down the hatches during a crisis, do little or no communication and still weather the storm. In these markets, all journalists assume the falling tide is lowering all the ships, but companies who can generate some positive newsflow – or even stanch the flow of supposition and rumour, like Barclays, are rewarded. It might even be painful – for example, BP announcing record profits but seeing their share price slide as they warned about Q4 and the carry-over of worsening conditions into the new financial year. But again, there is an upside – in BP’s case, making sure their position is known to fend off the spectre of windfall taxes or even consumer boycotts in the face of what might be seen as obscene profits.

So if communicating is the key to handling crises, how should companies go about it? In the same Corp Comms article PHA Media’s Phil Hall is quoted as saying: “The communications team must be allowed to sit at the top table…And where possible companies must agree a consistent strategy and spokesman.” Again this seems obvious, but many companies still struggle to include the comms function in the highest-level meetings and we still see the wrong people, or the right people who have the wrong information or message, speaking to the media during crisis situations.

The lessons we are learning at the moment, sadly mostly from organisations who handle their communications less well than Barclays, ought to lead to more transparency in the industry as companies communicate more and PRs are given the chance to do the job for which they were hired (to give stakeholders the right message, from the right people, at the right time).

Counting the Cost of Credit

Can you really teach people to be better with their money? That’s what a new initiative (launching today) in Wales is going to try and find out. ‘Taking Everyone into Account’ is going to try and help people tackle debt and manage their money better.

Many commentators have partly blamed the huge personal debt we have run-up in this country for the current financial crisis and so it certainly seems wise for the government(s) to help us all get better at our personal finances. But do some people just not get this subject?

As a training company we would hope this is not the case (and the finance courses we run have never come across anyone who didn’t learn how to change the way they look at this area and improve their skills) but we have to wonder if some people don’t want to think about the potential time bomb of, for example, interest free credit. It’s easy to go and buy a flat screen TV for hundreds of pounds on credit and force yourself to try and forget the consequences but I for one very much believe that knowledge is power and this applies to personal finance as much as any other subject/topic.

So we at Bluewood say good luck for the new initiative and hopefully this one will finally do some good!

Spooks and Hacks

Even the Spooks are now, openly, taking part in the media relations ‘game’. According to the BBC today… “Mr Evans, the current director general of MI5, is clearly more comfortable engaging with the outside world than some of his predecessors were, happy even to let some journalists into the inner sanctum of Thames House, MI5's headquarters.”
The reality is that even those traditionally closed doors are now seeing the value of the media to communicate messages. Not taking part is no longer an option!

Read the full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7815435.stm