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April 24, 2006
Gum the Keyboard, Stop The Presses, PR Man is Movie Hero
This has to be a Hollywood first. In an utterly forgettable movie, Fun with Dick and Jane, comic Jim Carrey is cast as Dick Harper, Vice President of Communications for Globodyne Corporation. The company is an agglomeration of 90s fraud machines Enron, Tyco, and HealthSouth, headed by villain CEO Jack McAllister, played by Alec Baldwin, who sells his shares at the top of the market, goosing up quarterly results by using every financial device from earnings cookie jars to off-balance sheet limited partnerships to hide losses. Poor Harper is thrown into a CNBC-like interview in which the Ron Insana anchorman character reveals the fraud, causing the Globaldyne stock to plunge to zero and forcing bankruptcy of the company and ruin for its pension fund.
Harper resorts to a life of petty theft to maintain his lifestyle, then executes the ultimate Robin Hood maneuver, gulling his former boss McAllister into donating the $400 million wrongly appropriated from the company to the bankrupt pension fund. The stirring conclusion is a press conference lionizing McAllister's social conscience, ending with him being hoisted onto the shoulders of grateful workers.
How can we build on this new Hollywood persona, the action-hero PR person? Or better yet, how can we offset the negative images of the mealy-mouthed apologist in the Constant Gardner or the cynical opportunist in Thank You for Smoking? Here are a few ideas, especially for those who are directors of corporate communications:
1) Make the process of communications transparent and participatory. A good example is the launch of a website, desirsdavenir.org, by the French president candidate Segolene Royal. According to the Financial Times, she is "encouraging the public to contribute to a participative forum and promising to adopt the best ideas." A French blogger, Stanislas Magniant, said in the same story, "She is demonstrating that she is listening. . .You have a site and the whole blogosphere of Segolenites are...creating a buzz around it."
2) Move from spokesperson to participant in policymaking. You can bet that Steve Harris, who has returned as top PR executive at General Motors, is at the decision making table along side CEO Rick Wagoner. I am certain that Harris is behind the new policy of speaking directly to GM workers about what is necessary to insure the future of the company, instead of solely relying on communicating to employees through the UAW, the auto workers'union. An effective and trust-based dialogue is critical to acceptance of voluntary reduction in benefits so PR becomes an essential part of strategy.
3) Take the lead on issues that have historically been assigned to other corporate departments, such as Human Resources or Manufacturing. For example, my friend, Jonathan Blum, who runs communications at YUM Brands, has managed issues as diverse as planning for Avian Flu and relations with suppliers (Tyson) and NGOs on poultry slaughter methods. The advantage for a PR person is the possibility of input from multiple stakeholders and a more universal solution to the problem.
4) Help to make change. Note the ambitious plans of Wal-Mart (an Edelman client) in the environmental arena. Saturday's New York Times said, "The sheer magnitude of Wal-Mart's plans to become more environmentally friendly has been enough to give pause to all but the most vehement of the company's critics." There is truly first-mover advantage, where bold actions in the public interest are recognized and appreciated.
As always, I appreciate your perspective about how to improve and accurately reflect the reputation of the PR professional?
I am off to Europe today and will write about progress in the German blogosphere on my return.
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Posted by Edelman at April 24, 2006 9:05 AM
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Comments
Richard,
Whiling away my time in a Heathrow airport hotel room (I'm off to see our new client - British Airways tomorrow) and lamenting the paucity of English television I found myself spending more time using my wireless lap top to watch Australian and US news services. In doing so, I again welcomed the growing development of the new media where we can get the news we want, when we want it and how we want.
What struck me was how the MSM is increasingly beginning to catch up to this revolution and improve its offerings in this regard.
That the MSM is late to the revolution is well known, that they have now recognised the earlier errors of their ways was reinforced just minutes later as I ate dinner in the hotel lobby cafe and read two most interesting pieces on the new media revolution in MSM publications.
The first in this week's Economist (http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6794156) with an extensive survey on the impact of new media and the second in Australia's Business Review Weekly with its cover story (http://www.brw.com.au/fearticle.aspx?relId=17521) detailing how the nation's second largest media company, Fairfax, is positioning itself for the new media revolution.
I suspect you'll not find any of the information in either publication particularly new, as they simply demonstrate what you've been saying for ages - that communication has changed and that it is now about conversations and participation.
Posted by: Tim Grau at April 25, 2006 3:52 PM
Early into my first public relations course at Syracuse, the teacher challenged us to think of a media representation of the public relations professional that was positive. Not a single character or story could be recalled. Gum the keyboards indeed! Thanks for this uplifting post.
To your fourth point, I would like to mention that there is a multi-stakeholder holy grail taking place in October that is being planned as we speak (type? blog?) and it is called the Internet Governance Forum. Anyone can contribute to the planning of the inaugural meeting and the actual meeting itself is likely to be a live multi-stakeholder process. This is an opportunity for anyone, especially those interested in international approaches to Internet communications issues (spam, data protection, net neutrality etc.), to gain exposure to the policy side emphasized by point (2) and participate in an international discussion. The IGF was born out of the UN's World Summit on the Information Society and represents a major initiative to use the Internet for an extremely diverse, multi-stakeholder process. For tech PR pros, one very practical benefit to paying attention to the international discussion is the value in understanding which issues are shaping the global use of the Internet and who the key stakeholders are. The address is http://www.intgovforum.org/ and to the future PR heroes among us, "up, up, and away!"
Posted by: Eric Hansen at April 25, 2006 11:19 PM