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February 23, 2007
Message in a Bottle
On Wednesday night, I was trapped in an elevator at the Harvard Club of New York City for a half hour in very close quarters with a dozen sweating PR people. I was one of the featured speakers at an Arthur Page Society event about how PR should evolve given the rapid development of new media. After a pleasant cocktail hour, too many of us crowded into the elevator en route to dinner. The doors closed and the elevator promptly plunged two floors to a hard landing. Matt Creamer from Ad Age was the control panel of the elevator, managing the static filled communication with the outside world. Blackberries and cell phones were rendered useless in the basement of this place—we were cut off, well and truly.
During our time together, the conversation ranged from the banal (“Can I share your half imbibed drink?”) to the serious (Tim Andree, a former NBA player with a serious height advantage, tried to push the top of the cab open). Nobody became agitated, probably the result of media training or yoga classes. A few of us tried to make more meaningful conversation, with my best gambit being how Israel conducted its press policy during the recent conflict in Lebanon (confirming your supposition that once a nerd, always a nerd). Anyway, the messengers escaped the bottle after intercession by the crowbar-wielding club manager.
Following our elevator debacle and a wonderful dinner, a discussion was led by Jonah Bloom, editor of Ad Age. A few important points that arose during the course of the panel:
1) There must be a better way for companies to respond to press stories they don’t like than to cut off reporters and threaten reprisals. One old approach, the Letter to the Editor, has been updated for the web. The online edition of The Economist engages in rich conversation threads whose starting point is a letter to the editor. If you disagree with a reporter’s rendition of the facts, you post a comment with links to credible sources, thereby starting the discussion.
2) The mix of content from traditional media versus web content has shifted significantly toward the web. Of 100 stories created at Ad Age in a given week, only 18 are for the traditional publication, the remaining 82 are on line.
3) The historic distinction between corporate communications and marketing communications is ebbing, though the separation of chief marketing officer and director of PR/PA remains. In a world of multiple stakeholders and dispersed media, there is no validity to a separation of church and state approach. There is in fact wisdom in using marketing stories to build corporate reputation.
4) We need to create programs that work on both the vertical and horizontal axis. That implies a more open attitude toward consumer generated content, away from messages and towards a conversation. Mainstream media, from the BBC to Reuters, is recognizing the benefits of offering a platform for discussion, not just a “we talk, you listen” approach.
I continue to be impressed by a finding in the 2007 Edelman Trust Barometer: In most markets, business media is the most credible source of information about a company (55% trust in the US, about comparable to findings in 2003-6). In fact, according to our data, radio, television and newspapers also play a vital role in creating a whole picture. We have moved from a time of single source credibility (Walter Cronkite, anchor of CBS Evening News as example) to the present requirement of multiple sources, each reinforcing an initial impression that is constantly iterating with factual updates. Our job in PR, therefore, must be to enhance the position and performance of mainstream media, while simultaneously participating in the discussion constantly underway on line regarding how media platforms are changing.
P.S. Edelman is doing pro-bono work for the 18Seconds movement (www.18seconds.org) that aims to inspire businesses, organizations, government entities and individuals to take steps to be more energy efficient. This is not an effort to get companies to join but instead to make their own commitments, then to promote their activities independently. The most tangible, immediate action is to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) in homes and businesses. The 18Seconds movement launched yesterday in San Jose, California. For our part, Edelman is buying a CFL bulb (at $2.50 apiece) for each of its employees as an incentive to get them to change all of their bulbs at home. That will give a running start to the tool on www.18seconds.org that tracks nationwide sales of CFLs! We need to evaluate other energy saving ideas. Must we really have small refrigerators in each executive’s office holding small bottles of water? Could we not go back to putting water bottles into a single refrigerator in the office? Can we recycle paper, bottles and cans in all of our offices? In any case, thanks to Lauren Cole, Tish van Dyke and Jonathan Adashek at Edelman for making this CFL initiative come to life for our firm.
Posted by Edelman at February 23, 2007 2:23 PM
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Comments
My only problem with Jet Blue is the central communications thesis—the air traveler bill of rights seemed an attempt to deflect attention from the core issue, which is lack of command HQ able to handle difficult air travel scenario and lack of understanding of tolerance of passengers for sitting on tarmac.
Posted by: Richard Edelman at February 26, 2007 4:17 PM
I agree that it deflected attention from a catastrophic infrastructure failure on JetBlue's part. But I see parallels between the customer bill of rights as an attempt to lead/better the industry after a fiasco, and the improvements made after the Tylenol scare (tamper-proof caps, etc.). In the YouTube video, JetBlue's CEO mentions the specific things they will be doing to improve their communications between HQ and the "ground forces" and I can only take them at their word. Having once sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours, I can't bear the thought of sitting for some of the longer times mentioned. And any airline that consistently has customers waiting on the tarmac for that long needn't worry about understanding and anticipating passenger tolerance, because it will quickly find itself out of business. I can understand if your issue with the passenger bill of rights is that at a certain point, no amount of vouchers or refunds will overcome the negative experience of having once spent X hours in a tiny seat on the tarmac. Therefore, it's only part of the larger remedy. From a PR standpoint, I think it was an effective component to what is ideally an operational infrastructure and communications overhaul. However, when customers don't care why they are rotting on the tarmac in the first place — only that they should be in the air — pulling out a bill of rights is preferable to pulling out an updated P&P manual.
Thanks for the quick reply!
Posted by: Eric Hansen at February 26, 2007 5:27 PM
I find #3 particularly true. It also speaks in general to the way large firms are organized by practice areas and how this matches up to client needs. It will be interesting to see how long this model holds up.
Posted by: Leo Bottary at February 26, 2007 7:29 PM
It's great to see Edelman doing the work for 18Seconds. Now if I could just get my hands on a bulb...
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Posted by: Matt Martone at February 28, 2007 12:17 PM