Dress like a leader
This piece of cheap clip art comes from a Four Points Sheraton hotel ad, (Niagara Falls, Canada. 905 - 374 - 4142; call 'em up and make a reservation.) but it makes a good point, underlining something else I saw today. As I was looking over evaluations of a major corporate presentation, I noted that one of the audience asked that, next time, the executives wear suits and ties when presenting. This person, as do most employees, want to be lead by a real leader, and if Crowns and Robes are not available, at least wants vice-presidents and managing directors to look the part. 
In today's Globe and Mail there's a shot of GE's Jack Welch and the boss at Honeywell, both tieless, announcing the GE takeover. They just don't look professional, regardless of the move toward casual dress. 
PR LESSON: When the deal matters, dress like it is important.

Presentation advice from Comfort Inns
On a recent TV commercial I see a guy awakened by the room phone in a Comfort Inn, and the voice reminds him of his presentation that day. On his way down the hall to the meeting room, a chambermaid gives him the best possible advice.

"Ditch the slides, and talk directly to the audience" is pretty much what she says. For most presentations, most of the time, she's absolutely right.

Maybe presentations will improve if we hold them at Comfort Inns instead of The New York Hilton, and other fancy places..

A great employee recruitment program -- 
Toucan profit from a new job. 

MARCH 2001: Looking for stories about bogus numbers?
The story Joe Flint complained about. 
A good story by me about a good story by Lisa Bannon 

On a slightly different topic: A Research In Motion stock price story.

Below are stories from earlier editions of BAK's Report

November 1
Bill Gates and his toy railroad. Turns out it's a real railroad. While kids like to spend their money on model trains, few can grow up to be rich enough to buy a railroad of their own. Bill Gates has bought about 5% of Canadian National Railway. We don't have inside info on who owns the most shares, but at 5% he's up there with the largest shareholders. CN used to employ my wife, we still wave at the engineers, still own some shares, and it's one of the best, if not the best, managed railroads in the world. 

PR LESSON? When the story broke that Bill owned this much of the real life train set, the CN stock rose a couple of bucks. The point? All kinds of news can make a stock move, so be very, very careful in your media relations program, and always, always, always think about the effect on the shares, especially in view of new U.S. laws about disclosure.

Sunday, October 22
intel doesn't believe in capital letters
you'll find this piece hard to read. that's because i've followed the style intel used in an ad last week in the wall street journal, where capital letters were not found. 

PR LESSON? the folks who invented english knew what they were doing when they invented capital letters. there is no good reason to pay to develop an ad and pay to run it, if the words in it are deliberately made hard to read.

intel can't read this stuff, either. as a public service to my readers, i managed to get to the penultimate  sentence of this ad, run on October 19, and read, in the future tense, "on october 11th and 12th intel will bring together more than 400 independent software vendors ... ."

 

Late October:
Xerox, has it got a clue about communication?

The other day a magazine editor in Wisconsin, of all places, commented that public relations people don't care about advertising, and visa versa. He's wrong, and here's an example of why.

A big Xerox ad in today's Globe and Mail (B8) says "In fact, 26% of the key knowledge in most organizations is still stored on paper."

Over on page B11, there's a big story about failing finances, poor sales, etc., etc. 

Maybe the bad finances are because it runs ads that cause cynics (or realists) to say, or at least think, "Xerox can't be trusted to tell the truth," when they read a very specific number, i.e. 26% --  not 25%, not one out of four, not one quarter, but the very specific 26% -- coupled with a vague phrase like "most organizations." To anyone with a brain, it's clear this phrase is nonsense. How can you do this study?

So, why trust Xerox? Hmmm....

Friday, September 13 -- Sunday, October 15; it gets worse at CPRS Toronto. See green type further down in this story.
CPRS can't manage a decent web site. Does it matter?
The importance of the world wide web may be uppermost in the minds of investors, journalists, and even the 200 or so delegates to the International Association of Business Communicators Next Wave conference I covered (see Next Wave), but it's alien to the Canadian Public Relations Society, at least nationally and in Toronto, Canada's biggest city. (Some of the other chapters have pretty good web sites.) UPDATE: Since this was written, CPRS Toronto has been working hard on its site, and there are major improvements, so this version of the stroy now has negative comments about Toronto deleted.

You can go see for yourself how out of touch CPRS is, at www.cprs.ca for the CPRS national site, (To find the president's words, you need to click on the "Canadian Public Relations Society" link; imagine two front pages and you'll get the idea) and http://www.cprstoronto.com/  (this link seems to not work all the time, but try typing it in and see what you get. It works for me when I copy it from here and paste it into my browser) for the ugly Toronto site. (The colors are based on army uniforms, I think.)

Does it matter? I think associations of professional communicators should use professional communications tools to communicate with their members and with all their other stakeholders. CPRS Toronto has fewer members today than when I was president a decade ago, while IABC Toronto has at least 300 percent more, so CPRS Toronto is not doing such a hot job. And I believe CPRS National is about to die, although I thought the same thing six or seven years ago, so who am I to say?

Below in the serif type are some extracts from the two sites, and in the sans serif face are some of my comments. (If you aren't a communicator who knows this stuff, serif faces have feet, and sans-serif have no feet.)

Over at the CPRS National site…
From the page you get to by clicking on "The Canadian Public Relations Society" link, on the opening page of the CPRS web site you can read:
1999 - 2000 National President - Sarah K. Jones APR

She wasn't. She is the 2000 - 2001 president.

I mentioned this to Ms. Jones in an e-mail a couple of weeks ago, when I told her the message from the president section on the site was blank. She put some words up, but didn't bother to fix, or get anyone else to fix, the date stuff.

From the same intro page:
The Canadian Public Relations Society is a professional organization with 1,700 members across Canada.

From Sarah Jones' "A word from our president" page:
Welcome to the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS), Canada's only professional association representing more than 1 500 public relations practitioners across Canada. (That's 1 space 500, with no comma -- apparently French Canadians don't like commas.)

So, which is it? 1500, according to the prez, or 1700 according to the opening page? I'd put my money on the declining figure.

The CPRS National site has a link to the CPRS Students' Page, which has a link to the CPRS Toronto students' page, which says:
Please feel free to browse our site: we welcome feedback! Your comments and suggestions will be incorporated when the 1998/99 Student Steering Committee returns to the classroom. Check back with us next fall for further information and updates.

Seems to me the 1998/99 students have not only returned to the classroom, they've probably graduated.

This is only a small selection of stuff from two sites well worth mockery.
Does nobody at CPRS care?

 

From September 29
Pierre Trudeau, a former Canadian Prime minister, died yesterday. 
Canada's newspapers knew the death was coming, and have many, many pages in the biggest obituary I've ever seen. 

I met Trudeau half a dozen times, and he's one of only a handful of people I've ever asked for an autograph. And then a second one, for our babysitter that night. I've never been professionally political, but as a public relations man I watched Trudeau's mastery of the media, simply by being himself.

I think we can find some PR LESSONS when we think back about this man.

- He thought about the impact of his actions. He knew many would not like what he did, but knew that his actions would advance what he believed in, so his bias was to action, not withdrawal. Backing off was not in his lexicon.

- He was straightforward. When Trudeau talked, you knew what he was talking about, something you can't say for a lot of politicians, or business executives, for that matter. From a pr perspective, by being clear, he owned the debate, regardless of the topic of the debate.

- He valued his colleagues. Last night a former associate talked about how much Trudeau respected the Mounties who were his bodyguards. My observations of him, as a public relations professional with a fair degree of government relations responsibilities, was that this respect translated into great loyalty to him from his colleagues. Not a bad standard for CEOs to set within their organizations. And not a bad policy for pr people to put into place within their organizations, perhaps as part of one of those "Vision and Values" statements that are so popular. 

- He valued, and he trusted, and he constantly presented challenges to, his public relations advisors. Pat Gossage is probably the most famous Canadian public relations man. He's the one the networks always ask to comment on pr issues, and they always introduce him as "Former press secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau." Geeeezzz... That was a million years ago, and Gossage is still dining out on this gig. But deservedly so, for Trudeau was a creature that we have never seen since, and Gossage helped make this image known to us all. In today's papers I saw at least a dozen photographs of Trudeau, all at least two decades old, that were as familiar as yesterday. And one shot, from Ryan Remiorz of the Canadian  Press, taken in 1998 with his former wife Margaret, at a memorial service for their son. Trudeau and Gossage were a team, taking what I believe was the reality of the man, and searing his image, his personality, his standards and his love of Canada, into the hearts of all our citizens, regardless of our politics.

Trudeau drove a Mercedes 300SL, and that, by itself, says so much about the man. This isn't his car, but I remember thinking of Trudeau when I saw this Mercedes. Again, an image seared upon my brain of Trudeau driving away from parliament Hill in a 300SL, top down, waving.

R.O.B magazine is a winner
Several years ago I photographed Douglas Goold to help publicize one of his books, and since then I've paid more attention to his work. Back then he was a newspaper columnist on the Globe and Mail, and then was named editor of the paper's business section, The Report on Business. I noticed an improvement in quality in what was already a great business paper. Then he was switched over the Report on Business Magazine, a monthly. Today the first of the Goold Generation of R.O.B magazine came out, and it's a winner. (Which is more than I'd say for the previous version.)

The type is readable. The photographs are sharp, and show respect for the subjects. The story list is an excellent mix of lessons and gossip and insight. Doug's own picture shows what he looks like. (The previous editor's photo showed her without a nose.) And the magazine comes free with a 75 cent newspaper that's worth a buck just by itself.

From September 21
Charles Pizzo, chairman of the International Association of Business Communicators, speaks in Toronto tonight. I'll be there, and report back to my readers.

IABC is hosting Night of a Thousand Ideas, 
several hours from when I'm typing this.

In the IABC promotion materials, they suggest some of the questions to be covered. Here are their questions and my version of an answer. Tomorrow BAK's Report compares my answers with the real ones.

Q: What is your biggest professional challenge? How can IABC help?
A: Getting communicators included at the strategy sessions developing a company's overall business plan. We're left in the dark, and assigned tasks too late, with our opinions and expertise all to rarely sought until it is too late. IABC can help by instituting an externally oriented program that compels CEOs and other executive management to invite the top communicator to the same table as the legal counsel, the CFO, the exec. v.p. of marketing, and the other senior executives. (See First Principles, at the bottom of this page.)

Q: How can we make our organizations appreciate us?
A: Keep coming up with initiatives that change behaviour to the advantage of various executive managers and their departments. Cut turnover. Improve recruitment. Build demand for new products. Put executives in front of employees all across your company. Introduce politicians to middle managers. Predict regulatory problems, and decide how to prevent them. And since most of this requires OK's from the top management, IABC needs to build senior executive confidence in communications and communicators, so that we are allowed to try our ideas.

Q: What is the impact of technology on our jobs? Where will the profession be in five years? 
A: Impact? Nothing, really. Where will we be? If IABC does its external relations job, we'll be spending more time, earlier on, with the top management of our organizations. We've always typed, so computerization means nothing. Sending a release by mail, courier or e-mail is all the same. A digital photo is quicker to process than a film-based picture, but setting up the shot and convincing editors to run it will be just the same. Typography matters just as much on the www as it does in a brochure, so design remains the same. If we want our memos read, we still need hard copy instead of the un-read e-mails that pervade business. The mobile, wireless web is pretty much an entertainment device. We might get wireless ways of sending written words around the world; this would be nice but we've heard of this for years and it is still glitch-filled.

Q: What do you see on the horizon that will impact the profession?
A: Internationalism combined with increased corporate centralization. Our companies here in Canada (and the United States, for that matter) will start to think more about communications in Europe, Asia, Africa (a little bit -- Africa still scares North America) and the Middle East, and will become more outward-looking. However, a variety of stockmarket-related issues will concentrate even more power at head offices, leaving us to communicate by remote control and at a very long distance. Technology will help us deliver content more quickly and maybe for less money, but the content will remain largely the same. The general quality of communications in Canada will decline as US head offices of Canadian organizations pull responsibility from the north down to the south.

Q: If IABC was an e-business to help you do your job, what would it look like?
A: e-business is vastly over-rated and misunderstood, says I. Remember, or note if you didn't know this, I'm the founding editor of ebizChronicle, and I know about this stuff. (Plus BAK's Report is an e-business, except there's no income stream.) Juniors may feel that downloading templates for a business plan or a business card is some big deal, but the really useful e-business attribute would be electronic mailing lists, which privacy rules and anti-spam attitudes will forbid We'd be better off if IABC gave us discounts on hotels and car rentals, rather than setting up e-commerce sites so that we could spend money on even more books and brochures and case studies, regardless of whether they we delivered by e-mail or the post office. One out of ten members may use IABC e-biz to get some info it couldn't have received the old fashioned way, and the rest of the members will pay the high road tolls demanded on the information superhighway.

But, we'll see. It's great that the IABC board is in Toronto. A million years ago (a bit more than a decade, really) IABC Toronto and the Canadian Public Relations Society, Toronto each had about the same number of members, and I was president of CPRS. Now CPRS is down to just a few hundred members, and IABC Toronto is somewhere in the 1300 - 1500 range. Wow.

New September 20
PRSA and IABC speak out (finally)
I've been pushing the Public Relations Society of America and the International Association of Business Communicators (along with the Canadian Public Relations Society) to take a higher public profile. I want them to educate senior executives about the importance of corporate communications, and they need to show public leadership in order to be heard, respected, and listened too. That's why I'm pleased to reproduce a statement issued jointly by PRSA and IABC yesterday. -  BAK

Communication and Public Relations Leaders
Voice Public Safety Concerns at Conference
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 18, 2000) – During a Strategic Public Relations Conference, sponsored by Ragan Communications Inc., a statement was issued today in Chicago regarding the ongoing media discussion of the public safety concerns caused by the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall. An afternoon session, titled “Meeting of the Minds,” was led by two leaders in the profession: Stephen D. Pisinski, Chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, the world’s largest organization for public relations professionals; and by Charles Pizzo, Chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), which is a global network of professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication that is integrated and interactive. The following statement was released at the conclusion of the meeting:

 Joint Statement 
“The public has a right to information relating to public safety.  In an environment that is becoming increasingly transparent, corporations and institutions have an ethical responsibility to communicate the information the public needs to make informed decisions regarding the products it purchases. 

“Recent efforts to publicly communicate essential information are to be applauded.  The reported delay in getting important information to the public has already cost the companies involved far more than it should have. 

“Companies that find themselves in a credibility crisis need to remember to communicate openly, accurately and in a timely fashion.  Communication, not legal obfuscation, is what’s called for in these situations.” 

IABC is an international network of professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication that is integrated and interactive.  With more than 100 chapters and a growing electronic community, IABC serves more than 13,000 members from close to 60 countries and 10,000 organizations, including many of the leading global Fortune 500 corporations.   

---

September 15
I could whack Research In Motion's stock if I wanted, 
and was an "analyst"
If I was a stock analyst I could whack the stock price of Research in Motion, a Canadian company that makes high-tech pagers and internet e-mail devices you can put in your pocket. What's ridiculous is how easy it is for analysts to drive down the stock price. Or drive it up, for that matter.

All I would have to do is write a few words, and then send out a news release via PR Newswire or Businesswire in the United States. The words I could write, in boldface, below, which, incidentally, I believe are accurate but should never be given enough weight that they drive down the stock price, are:

Research In Motion, the Kitchener, Canada, (Kitchener's about an hour west of Toronto) company that makes those great little pocket-sized Blackberry combo e-mail and paper gizmos, has reportedly said it needs to gets its marketing costs in order. (Fiscal first quarter saw profits of about $388,000US, down from a million eight a year ago, so it's got to start watching its pennies.) So what's it doing running side-by-side half page ads in the Wall Street Journal, like it did on Wednesday, September 13, 2000, on pages A22 and A23?

Sure, the ads are arty, with lots of white space, but the "sell" message could have fit on a single half-page, and still been designed so well that they caught the readers' attention.  Buying half pages one at a time rather than in pairs would let RIM run its messages more often, in more publications, and still put some more money onto its bottom line. Where's RIM's management, anyway?

Now that RIM has a new Chief Operating Officer, Don Morrison, ex. of AT&T Canada, (he started at RIM last week) maybe there'll be a review of advertising expenditures. About time. Getting profits back up is one way to control the roller-caster stock prices, which has hit both $260 and $34 in the past year, and is slowly creeping up, at about $123 today. (In US dollars, that's $175, all the way down to $23.25, and back to $83 today)

Or I could goose the stock, by writing:

Research In Motion, the Kitchener, Canada, (Kitchener's about an hour west of Toronto) company that makes those great little pocket-sized Blackberry combo e-mail and paper gizmos, has reportedly said it needs to gets its marketing costs in order. (Fiscal first quarter saw profits of about $388,000US, down from a million eight a year ago, so it's got to start watching its pennies.) It's running side-by-side half page ads in the Wall Street Journal, (See the WSJ Wednesday, September 13, 2000, on pages A22 and A23.) Great looking ads, aimed at the senior execs who need these handy gadgets or approve buying them for more junior people, and published in the newspaper which investors read.

Sure, the ads are arty, with lots of white space, but the "sell" message is there, easily understandable, and the ads caught this reader's attention.  My six year old saw the paper on the table, and thought the Blackberry was "cool."

Now that RIM has a new Chief Operating Officer, Don Morrison, ex. of AT&T Canada, (he started last week) maybe there'll be a review of advertising expenditures, and they'll combine the two halves into one half page, letting them run twice as many ads for the same money, and selling more of their gadgets. 

Getting profits back up is one way to control the roller-caster stock prices, which has hit $260 and $34 in the past year, and is right now climbing back up, at about $125 today. (In US dollars, that's $175, dipping down to $23.25, and already back to about four times that low, all the way to  $81.75 today)

Yesterday's (Friday, September 15, my birthday) Wall Street Journal ran a full page ugly ad from AT&T, and a story in the Media and marketing column by Suzanne Vranica about how the loser of a telco (at least a loser as far as the shareholders are concerned, with stock trading about about half it's 52 week high) has a new $50,000,000 ad campaign. The ad yesterday was dull, boring, and terribly written. A man, poorly lit, outside some office buildings in the dark, with a fuzzy AT&T logo beside him. Wow! What creative craft!!!  Page A5 if you've still got the paper handy. And this gem from the "sell" words on the page. "It's a global techno group hug with your company operating in the middle." Yeah, sure.

Lessons: If I'm thinking about wasteful advertising, so are the real financial professionals. Keep the relationship between your financial and investor image and your marketing expenditures constantly in mind. And if your advertising sings, it can help impress your investors.

First, if your company is in trouble, don't waste your money on huge ads that don't work significantly better than smaller ones. Just about every full page ad can be cut to two thirds of a page and still dominate the page, and capture the reader. In the RIM case, half a page would be more than adequate, especially if it was as well designed as RIM's two-page special.

Second, think beyond the obvious audience when doing any form of corporate communications. Employees can feel unfairly pressured when forced to cut back on their department's expenses, only to see the money they save wasted on unnecessary advertising space. Remember that analysts may seize on your waste. Shareholders can revolt when they see the sloppiness. And customers are not too pleased they need to pay inflated prices to cover the ad costs, when they also think the ads are a waste.

And finally, I wanted to raise the specter of the unleashed analyst -- in the past few months we've all seen stocks jump all over the place because of rash reports from 'analysts' that restate the obvious or are based on nonsensical thinking -- and cause wild swings in the fortunes of well meaning investors.

Don't let bad advertising give analysts an excuse to insult your management and downgrade your stock.

Ugly, or what? 
General Motors has announced that it sold about 30% fewer Pontiac Azteks than it planned in the United States in August. Sales reached about 1500, instead of the projected 2000. Maybe the lousy sales are because this is the ugliest car General Motors has made in the past 40 years.
PR LESSON: It's really hard for PR people to influence product decisions, but there must have been several times during the development of this monster that some PR person could have said "Pardon me guys, but have you noticed this is as ugly as the 1960 Chevrolet? Can we scrap it instead of building a genuine loser?"

On the other had, my automotive treat of the week was spotting, and slowing down and creeping by, and telling stories to my little boy about, a 1958 Chevrolet Biscayne four-door sedan. This one was red and white, (ours was gold and cream) and is owned, according to the careful handlettering on the trunk, by Pat (driver's side) and Barb (passenger side). Maybe it was just my pride in my father's choice of model years, but I always thought '58 looked better than today's favorite old Chev, the '57. (There was no light when I saw the '58, or there would be a photo of it here, too.)

Wednesday, October 3
David Frum doesn't check his facts, but he does try to show off.
In today's Wall Street Journal, there's a cartoon showing two women on either side of a desk, with one saying "I'd introduce you to the head of public relations, but he hates people." 

I don't hate people in general, but for some reason I dislike David Frum, who also writes today in the WSJ. 

Today he wrote "On the day in 1979 when he retired from politics for the first time, Pierre Trudeau ordered his vintage Mercedes sports car to be wheeled up to the door of Canada's prime ministerial residence. A mob of reporters waited for him. As he stepped toward the car's gull-winged door, ...." (You can read the rest on the Wall Street Journal.)

There are no gull-winged doors on Mr. Trudeau's 300SL Mercedes Benz. It's a convertible, and looks just like the one in my photograph here. TV footage clearly shows Mr. Trudeau waving from the open cockpit of the car. Ah, but David pretends he's a car guy, cuz he knows there's a gull-wing door somewhere in Mercedes-land, and he thinks being a car guy is cool. (The gull-wing door is on the hard top version of the 300SL.)

UPDATE: A similar piece by Frum ran in National Post on October 5, but there was no Mercedes reference. I have no idea if the Wall Street Journal told him about my observation.

PR LESSON? I'm using one of the tricks of the trade. Sow a seed of doubt, and people will start to wonder about everything else a writer writes, a spokesman speaks, and so on, when you want people to not trust your opponents. 

August 17
Developing op-ed and opinion pieces
I work closely from time to time with Tim Armstrong, Q.C., one of Canada's foremost experts on the relationships between Canada and the nations of Asia. Mr.  Armstrong, now counsel with McCarthy Tetrault, Canada's largest law firm, is a former deputy minister with the government of Ontario, and was Ontario's Agent General in Tokyo for several years. He's just back from China, and wrote two opinion pieces based on his trip. The first, which appeared on July 21 in the Toronto Daily Star, Canada's largest circulation newspaper, was about Beijing's chances of winning the bid to host the 2008 Olympics. Toronto, our hometown, is making the same bid. 

Read Beijing is well able to host 2008 Games by Tim Armstrong, from The Toronto Star, July 21, 2000.

 Next week we'll publish the second piece, scheduled to run in The Globe and Mail in the next few days. It's about China's accession to the World Trade Organization.

New August 8
Bogus numbers --  a sign of dishonesty or stupidity?
If you are a public relations person who cares about the perception the public has of our profession, you won't know whether to laugh of cry as you read "Do You Believe Birding Is a Bigger Business Than Moviegoing?" in today's Tuesday, August 8 issue of The Wall Street Journal. It's written by Lisa Bannon.

The story covers the bogus numbers dot-coms (and other companies) tout while trying to sucker investors via sending news releases to gullible editors. The birding reference talks about how Farmbid.com told editors and investors the birding business was worth, take your choice, $250 billion (yes, with a B), then $350 billion, and then $850 billion. 
There are other examples, too, and anyone with half a brain can find more, every day, in their local newspapers and on their local television news casts. We can, or course, assume lousy editors will print this crap without questioning the source.

But what happens when, finally, some analyst or editor challenges the number? People seem willing to buy from liars, so maybe sales won't drop. Besides, "billions" is concept people can't get their head around. They think $4.6 billion is just a bit more than $3.8 billion, unable to comprehend the difference is one buck more than $799,999,999. But, once people start thinking, they catch on the $0.8 billion is an awful lot of money. 

After they catch on that estimates of a market are just plain nonsense, and are given in an attempt to con the investors out of their money, investors can decide they'd rather buy someone else's stock. 

FOR ETHICAL PR PEOPLE, it's a problem. Do you try to be honest, so your client suffers in comparison to the bogus-boys, or do you play the game, perhaps with a little footnote blaming the number on someone else? Forrester Research gets a lot of "credit" for numbers I can't believe.

 

My resume suffers-- Shandwick and Weber merge
(updated on Sunday morning, September 24 -- see red words at bottom of the story)

(Warning: I make a bit of a sales pitch here)
On my resume I mention my time with Burson Marsteller, writing "Prior to establishing his own firm, Mr. Kilgore was Client Services Manager and a member of the Toronto Management Committee at Burson-Marsteller, the world’s largest public relations firm, where he sorted out a national communications crisis for Labatt’s Breweries, managed the communication for the interprovincial merger of two of Canada’s most prominent law firms, and oversaw the communications efforts of Canada's pioneering High-Technology incubator organization." 

Today I had to add "then" in front of "the world's largest public relations firm, ..." with the merger of Shandwick and Weber, as part of the Interpublic Group holding company's empire. Weber executives should polish their resumes, prior to being squeezed out and replaced by lower-priced people. Just a prediction. Those left at Shandwick after a post-Interpublic-purchase purge are probably safe for a while.

Big agencies have their advantages. Clients can get service, albeit expensive service, just about anywhere in the world, and the big agencies tend to have some very good specialists who can be brought in to solve a special problem. On the other hand, if a client pays my fees (which are fairly close on an hourly basis to the big agency fees for experienced counsel) all they pay for is my expertise. With the big agencies, vast amounts of billable time are spent while Bob tells Joe, who tells Sally, who tells Mort. I remember lots of $500 an hour meetings at Burson, where three or four of us, at between $100 and $150 an hour each, figured out, (and charged the client for our time) what we would next try to sell to the client.
Update -- Sunday, September 24: Maybe it is not all that bad as far as my resume is concerned. Jack O'Dwyer has interviewed a bunch of PR guys,  and on www.odwyerpr.com reports that buying and merging your way to bigness doesn't count. Harold Burson, for one, says you gotta grow yourself to make the whole PR team integrated and effective. 

---

Bogus Wall Street Journal NBC - Olympics numbers:
In a piece today Joe Flint reports in The Wall Street Journal that an average NBC Olympics audience of about 25 million for four days means "So, far, more than 111 million viewers have watched at least some portion of the Sydney games."

Well, no. Some unknown number of people have watched the games, and many of these people have tuned in two, or three, or even all four nights. 

Does the difference matter? Yes. The numbers should be accurate, on general principles, but they also supposedly cover the reach half of the "reach and frequency" mantra chanted by ad executives. Reach is supposed to be the number of viewers, readers, listeners, and frequency is the number of times each of them is exposed to the message.

Just guessing, I'd say the reach is maybe 50 million, with 25 million of these watching for several nights and the other 25 million tuning in for only one night.

Unmentioned is just how long these folks stayed tuned on each visit. Maybe they changed the channel just before your commercial came on, but you are getting charged as if they were all there watching breathlessly. Or maybe the 25 million is the 12 million who watched the whole show, and the 13 million who only watched anywhere from two minutes to two hours.

GREAT BROADCASTING: Full marks to Bob Costas and his NBC colleagues covering the men's triathlon, who shut up near the end of the race, and just let Canada's Simon Whitfield run, and run, and run, without any commentary except Whitfield's own elegance and exuberance.

 

 

The "new" Globe looks good
The Globe and Mail, Canada’s first or second best newspaper, depending on the mood I’m in, has been redesigned. It’s evolution, not revolution, the editor says.

Here are a few excerpts from scattered points throughout a column by Richard Addis, The Globe’s editor:

"The starting point was to ask what our newspaper stands for. This couldn’t be clearer. The Globe and Mail newspaper stands for quality. Above all, it stands for good writing. 

"Nothing causes us more grief than to get something wrong. Nothing offends us more than to look slapdash. And nothing is more important than telling you what is going on in the world, without fear or bias.

"… we addressed the question of trust. More information is now available free to all of us, on the Internet and over the airwaves, as well as in print. In this feverish cacophony of voices, what The Globe and Mail offers is judgment – what we call editing.

"… But we also employ many columnists and editorial writers and believe it is vital that the difference between reporting and opinion is kept absolutely clear."

For  a public relations person, the quality of the media is at the heart of much of our success. Ignorant members of the great unwashed all too often sneer, without rebuttal, (see below) at the public relations profession, accusing us of manipulating the media to put our clients in the best possible light. In truth, what we need most, and value most, is ethical, competent, fair reporting of the stories, events, products and personalities we represent. 

If reporters and editors are so weak in the noggin that they fall for the supposed tricks and pressures we have been accused of applying, readers and listeners and viewers will eventually catch on that newspapers and magazines and radio stations and television stations are run by stupid liars who can be manipulated and perhaps even bribed. As soon as the public thinks this, we in public relations lose the impact of reaching our stakeholders via the conduit of "the media." Good newspapers, like The Globe and Mail and its arch rival National Post, serve the public relations profession well by ensuring we get our stories out in a manner that builds trust and confidence that our stories have passed through a rigorous editing process.

Re: "without rebuttal," above. I can't find any sign of a formal program by the official associations supposedly representing public relations to cleanse the public mind of its misconception about our profession and craft. But I have a bit of hope. The Public Relations Society of America has a new PR woman. The International Association of Business Communicators has a new PR man. Both started their jobs, I believe, this month. IABC chairman Charles Pizzo is an outward-looking fellow, too. The Canadian Public Relations Society, as near as I can tell from trying to read a garbled, ill-designed, out of date, ugly, elcrappo web site (http://www.cprs.ca -- go see for yourself) did a survey/study, and it learned that the number one want of its members was a more proactive, externally oriented approach by CPRS. To give CPRS a tiny bit of credit; there's a section on the site that reports on some official reaction by CPRS, (and more unofficial reaction by real PR people) to a really bad opinion piece slamming public relations that ran in the Toronto Star a few months ago. On the other hand, the site tells you to go read a message from the CPRS president, Sarah Jones, an Ontario government employee, and there's nothing there. She's been president for several months, and tells me her words are lost in cyberspace.

But I'm getting off-track. The new Globe looks good.

September 7 

Op-Ed means recognition as an expert

 Here's the first few paragraphs (the whole article is here) of an op-ed piece published across Canada in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday, September 6. Written by my colleague Tim Armstrong, it's of interest to anyone who cares about international business and its relationship to politics, but it also has some lessons for PR people. I mention some below the excerpted paragraphs below.

Hold the champagne
Many of the concessions China has made in pursuit of WTO membership may be unattainable

TIM ARMSTRONG
The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Why has so little attention been given in Canada to the ramifications of China's predicted accession to the World Trade Organization later this year?

In the United States, the bilateral accession agreement with China -- and the subsequent debate in Congress over the granting to China of most-favoured-nation trade status, now called permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) -- were front-page stories. President Bill Clinton enlisted the support of former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, as well as such fading luminaries as Henry Kissinger, to eke out a majority for PNTR in the House of Representatives. (The Senate is expected to give its approval next month.)

The subsequent "me too" Canadian-Chinese bilateral agreement, announced in mind-numbing bureaucratese by International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew last November, prompted little interest -- regrettably, in view of the scope of the Chinese trade and investment concessions and the potential economic opportunities for Canada.

Note the lessons and tips for Public Relations Professionals that can be gleaned from this. Let's assume you and a client can prepare a serious, well-founded op-ed piece, of course. Don't waste your time if there's no depth to the article.

1/ An op-ed piece lets your stakeholders know the author is a respected expert.
2/ This is written with style and a bit of an edge --  i.e. "mind-numbing bureaucratese" to describe a politician.
3/ A piece has a life outside of the paper. We're distributing reprints of this to men and women we know are interested in free trade, China, and related issues.
4/ Placement was based solely on quality. Mr. Armstrong sent the piece, via e-mail, to the Comment editor of The Globe and Mail, with a well-written note asking if the paper was interested, and explaining that the Globe was his first choice because of it's national scope. After a little back-and-forth by e-mail regarding length, the technology of computer files, and timing, The Globe and Mail researched "art" for the piece, and selected a graphic, not reproduced here, from the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, by artist Barbara Cummings.

 

 

September 12 Three approaches to tears at Bridgestone Toronto's three daily papers took different approaches to a Reuters story today about senior level  Bridgestone Japan reaction to the tire crisis. I was intrigued by how Canada's three biggest papers treated the same story today. All were based on a Reuters story from Tokyo. I've added the color in the quotations below. First, I read The Globe and Mail, which said, "Breaking his silence since the company announced the recall of 6.5 million tires in the United States, Bridgestone president Yoichiro Kaizaki unveiled plans to send technical, quality control and production teams from Japan to overhaul Firestone by the end of the year." Then I read The Toronto Star, which said, "Breaking his silence, tearful Bridgestone president Yoichiro Kaizaki unveiled plans to send technical, quality control and production teams from Japan to overhaul Firestone by the end of the year." And then I read National Post, which not only wrote, "Breaking his silence since the tire crisis began, a tearful Yoichiro Kaizaki unveiled plans to send technical, quality control and production teams from Japan to overhaul Firestone by the end of the year," but ran a three column photo of Mr. Kaizaki wiping tears from his face. Credit for the photo goes to Toshiyuki Aizawa, Reuters. The story, before the Canadian editors got at it, was written by Reuters' Edwina Gibbs. Omnicom and the Automotive industry Two parts of Omnicom, one of the giant advertising, PR and various other types of communications conglomerates, is surrounding itself with clients and projects that will inspire sneers and snorts, but may make a buck or three. It's Ketchum division, a long-time and well-respected PR company, has accepted the challenge of the year, taking over Firestone's public relations following the resignation last week of Fleishman-Hillard. Last week BAK's Report carried some info on the resignation, scalped from The Wall Street Journal. Click to see what we said. BE A JERK-- DRIVE A MERCEDES  And one of Omnicom's advertising agencies thinks making younger Mercedes drivers look like jerks is a good way to boost sales of the least expensive cars from Chrysler's German parent company. Apparently Merkley Newman Harty thinks it can sell Mercedes cars with an ad where a Mercedes driver, just to show how young and with-it he is, swerves into a puddle to splash a dark-suited businessman. Sounds like the kind of commercial to inspire dark-suited businessmen to remove their keys from their pockets while passing new Mercedes cars in a dark parking lot. Research apparently shows the median age for buyers of bottom of the line BMWs and Mercedes differ by a decade, 40 to 50, and Mercedes is trying to drive their number down. I've never owned either but driven both (smallest BMW, very big Mercedes) quite a bit. A lottery win would take me to the BMW store -- they are great cars to drive.    VISION HAS A MORE POSITIVE VIEW OF PR While the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Wendy Mesley is complaining about PR another much smaller Canadian television network is teaching PR to its viewers. Vision, a semi-religious, quasi-spiritual cable channel is running a show I caught part of tonight. Called "Gaining a voice," it appears to be a four-parter, aimed primarily at community, charitable and other non-profit and special interest groups, telling them how to handle publicity. People interviewed include reporters and editors from The Toronto Star, CJOH television in Ottawa, the Ottawa Citizen, and PR people from Pollution Probe, the Alzheimer's organization, and others. One tip from a reporter on a major paper; -- keep trying, keep in touch with us on an ongoing basis. Maybe nine out of ten calls won’t result in a story, but the tenth one will. Regarding controlling who speaks for an organization (and it’s why Firestone does not want local dealers talking to reporters) a guy from Pollution Probe told viewers: "We don’t want anyone not fully aware to talk to the media" and he went on to explain that he was often the spokesman, but mentioned certain scientists who would instead be the spokers, depending on the topic, water quality being one example. Michael Enright, a CBC radio host, had one main piece of advice: "Don’t lie to me, because if I find out, I’ll come back at you like a freight train." He has the advantage of his own radio show that’s always looking for content, whereas most newspaper reporters don’t have as ready an opportunity to skewer the fib-tellers. My final note from watching the show; -- when you are planning the content of an announcement or working on what a speaker will say, always explain how it (whatever "it" is) will affect the people at home. All in all, a good show, putting PR in a positive light.   August 28 Our news release got published There a little story about BAK's Report in today's issue of longtime PR industry journalist Jack O'Dwyer's  internet-based publication, O'Dwyers PR Daily. It's based on our recent news release, and Jack came pretty close to getting the story right. He's almost got our name right, and in the original story headline called me a "publicist" which is really only a very partial description. (I sent a note asking the word to be changed. It's been done, after Jack and I had a long chat about a lot of PR issues.) Jack homed in on the paragraphs about my discontent with the lack of an external view by the major PR associations as his lead. Makes sense to me. You can read the short story at www.odwyerpr.com, and you can read our news release here, in its entirety. While you're at O'Dwyer's, ... You might read the PRSA accreditation story and note the name Arnie Huberman. Arnie's a NY headhunter, and also a source of excellent PR career advice in the Compuserve public relations and marketing forum. You can find this at http://www.BusinessFor.com and then clicking on PR and Marketing in the yellow left hand column. Watch what you say in a crisis Firestone's U.S. PR woman has been called to court by a Texas judge, along with a smattering of other U.S. Firestone executives who have made public statements about the current tire problems. Up here in Canada, we look at Texas with a certain puzzlement. On the one hand, it's a modern, effective and efficient state, with big cities and smart people. And on the other hand, it's hicksville with a capital H (especially to hear some politicians describe its school system.) So is this judge a warped character out to extract frontier justice on some ferrin' tire company with it's branch is Yankee-land, or a judicial ground breaker and justice profession leader in the search for sworn-on-a-bible accuracy in tire discussions? We don't know.

THREE GOOD EXAMPLES OF PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATIONS HP gets it right with a television ad. Yesterday I picked on a lousy Hewlett-Packard ad. (see green box below) Today, I tell you to keep an eye open for a HP television commercial aimed at smart young people looking for a job. Three kids invent stuff; a musical instrument made of cutlery, electric glasses, and 24 hour sandals. It's fun, it's to the point, it's cute, it catches your attention, it appeals to smart big kids who invented stuff when they were smart little kids... All in all, one of the best commercials on television. Ford improves an ad Ford Canada's latest tire recall ad is a significant improvement. See an update attached to an earlier BAK's Report story. Understanding the Japanese ways of business And, reprinted below is an editorial from today's Globe and Mail, with a dozen lessons for public relations people hidden between the lines. Part of my practice is devoted to explaining Japanese businesses to Canadians, and the other way around, and this editorial hits many nails on their heads. Mitsubishi switches gears Friday, August 25, 2000 The recent trials of the Mitsubishi Motor Corporation have revealed something intriguing about the changing cultural context of public mistake and private self-blame in Japan. Mitsubishi has had to admit to both the Japanese government and its customers that it has deceived them for more than two decades about defects in its vehicles. When customer complaints came in to the company, they weren't -- as was required by law -- forwarded to the government as an early indicator of a possible design flaw. Rather, the company consigned more than 60,000 of them to a secret file, the existence of which was uncovered only after a whistle-blower alerted government inspectors. Now Mitsubishi will recall 612,000 cars in Japan and 200,000 overseas at a cost of about $70 million (U.S.). The reason for the systematic flouting not just of the law but of every standard of business prudence seems to be rooted in the traditional Japanese fear of loss of face. For Mitsubishi to admit that something was wrong with a car was to risk a recall. To have a recall was to be forced to publicly admit that it made an inferior and dangerous product. Rather than risk the subsequent public humiliation, Mitsubishi officials, including those at high levels, decided to fix individual cars and hide systemic failures. Ultimately, the fear of potential humiliation was transmogrified into today's actual humiliation -- and perhaps something more, as the Tokyo police are now investigating Mitsubishi with an eye to laying criminal charges. What is most intriguing in this classically Japanese play of manners is the action of Mitsubishi president Katsuhiko Kawasoe. In a country where an abject resignation is often the minimum -- and suicide sometimes the maximum -- personal act of abasement that disgraced business leaders indulge in, Mr. Kawasoe, who says he didn't know of the complaint-hiding practice, has taken a different path. He has accepted a salary cut, but insists he won't resign. Rather, he will stay on to enact the institutional changes that will ensure similar cover-ups can't happen again.  What is bracing about Mr. Kawasoe's general approach is that it is in many ways the road that many Japanese businesses will have to go down if they are to regain their once pre-eminent position in the world. While the fear of humiliation may be an effective goad to encourage people to do their best, it is self-destructive after something has gone very wrong. At that point, a modern company and its customers need someone with the courage to stick around and fix problems he or she may not have created. Mr. Kawasoe deserves applause for having the courage to refuse to commit the ritual hara-kiri his culture often demands.

Worth a pittance of what it costs -- HP's lousy ad That's not the real headline in the worst ad I've seen in a while, but it describes the economics of the ad. Hewlett Packard, a company that does not use its name in its ads, ran a terrible ad in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. (Page B7, if you've still got the paper kicking around.)  In a space about 11 x 14 inches (half a page) it floated in the middle of white space a 1 x 1.25 inch photo of a laptop computer,  a few black circles, one with $2999 written in it, and some body copy words in type so small (6 point, I think), in a face so light and narrow it was almost impossible to read.  Think about the fine print with the leasing details in a car ad, and then make it even harder to read. My printer won't produce type as small. The headline, in 14 point bold, said "Costs a pittance of what it's worth." If you could read the damn specs, you might agree. I wonder what Carly thinks of unreadable ads?

New August 22 Wendy has a pretty negative view of PR Wendy Mesley, who is not only a popular subject of gossipers (including lots of reporters and editors -- Canadians obsess on her hair, and how thin she is, and her love life, and on and on) across Canada but also a respected television journalist, does not like those of us in public relations. Or at least she doesn't like lots of us. Here's part of what she says in the Globe and Mail's free television listings magazine. Page 8, Broadcast Week, August 19 to August 25. "We (she's speaking of a tv show called Undercurrents) do a lot of stories about how politicians and particularly corporations are trying to turn journalists into extensions of their public relations departments. They are constantly after the media to help them sell their message. But funny, they are not too keen when we want to talk about all the tools and tricks they use to spread those messages. The who's-zoomin'-who angle, so to speak." The whole article's worth reading. Near the end she writes "Everything is about image and marketing. No wonder so many journalists have been seduced by high paying jobs in public relations." She uses the Zurich Insurance company -- famed for using Wayne Gretsky, that well-known insurance expert -- in its promotion, as a bad example (well, a good example, from her point of view of tarring us all with one brush) as a case study about a company avoiding speaking in public about an issue that would embarrass it. I'm willing to talk to her about at least some of the tools and tricks of the trade, rather than simply "tricks," we in PR use. Her use of "tricks" is one of the reasons we don't trust lots of reporters, of course. I wrote her this note: Dear Ms. Mesley: I saw your piece about PR in my free television listing magazine. I write about public relations and corporate communications for a web-based publication I've started. I've spent three decades in the PR business, and I'm willing to talk about PR. If the CBC wants to talk to a PR person other than Pat Gossage, it can talk to me, and I'll probably answer. I won't know exactly why someone did something to someone, somehow, but I'll be able to offer a very educated guess at the PR strategy behind the action. I'm at 416 - 604 - 1566. My writing is at www.BrianKilgore.com, and the first page of the web site is the start of BAK's Report. I've done a little story about your story for BAK's Report, and I've also done a piece about your piece for Compuserve's Public Relations and Marketing Forum. If I get any interesting comments from other communicators, I'll pass them on to you. And if you have any comments, I'll update my web site story. Brian A. Kilgore President Brian A. Kilgore Communications Consulting Toronto If I hear from Wendy (probably 90% of Canadians think of her as Wendy, rather than Ms. Mesley. People like her) I'll update BAK's Report. I've had to send the note to the Globe and Mail, because the CBC switchboard is so awful you can't get a human being to provide an e-mail address, so it may be a while, if ever, before we hear anything back about this.

 

 

September 1
Will PR WEEK cover my news release and site announcement? I talked with writer Chris Daniels on Thursday afternoon, and expect there will be some mention of me in next week's issue. Don't know if it will be about the site, or about my idea that the Canadian PR market can't be measured. Here's my thinking on industry measurement. It's impossible until someone defines the parameters. Do lawyers fees, when they're stomping on our turf running news conferences, count? How much of the fees charged by ad agencies to produce corporate ads like those Firestone and Ford monstrosities and their more recent improved versions would be counted, since that's PR? And do you count the price of running them, or just the production costs. And on and on. We'll see.

There's a story about BAK's Report on Jack O'Dwyer's public relations publication's web site. Scroll down the opening page until you see my name in the middle column. Start at http://odwyerpr.com 

---

On David Letterman, Thursday, August 31: #2 on his top ten list of the worst jobs. Public Relations spokesperson for Firestone.

Makes sense to me.

August 31
Do you believe this research?

A research company called QuickTake,.com, which has a fairly good web site at that address, was quoted in the paper last week reporting on 500 people surveyed using its technology and methodology, answering questions about Firestone Tires.

Of some unreported number out of the 500 respondents (X out of 500) who had never bought Firestone,  14% said they would never buy Firestone in the future, either.

Of some unreported number out of the 500 (500-X out of 500) who had bought Firestone tires in the past, 16% said they won't buy them ever again. That leaves 84% suggesting they would buy Firestone again.

Do you believe this? I don't. 

I can't image 86% of the people who had never bought Firestones deciding to buy them sometime in the future, following this mess. And I can't believe 21 out of 25 people who had bought Firestone's tires still have enough confidence in the company that they would put Firestone rubber under themselves, whipping along the highway. 

Any comments from BAK's Report readers? e-mail us at BrianKilgore@BrianKilgore.com

Update, Thursday evening: I put this same message on the Compuserve Public Relations and Marketing Forum, and so far have one response. This guy doesn't care about reputation; he'd buy Firestone Tires if he could save a buck. Go figure.

The headline reads: Web ads have short life, short reach: study

I saw the story in The Globe and Mail today (September 7), originating with the New York Times Service, and written by Susan Stellin. The story said that AdRelevence, a unit of Media Metrix, an internet measuring service, had reported that the majority of internet ads run less than three weeks; 23.7 percent run one week; 16 per cent two weeks, and 11.9 percent run for three weeks.

It sure beats me how you'd measure this. Imagine making the big list of ads on all the sites in the world, and then coming back a week later to see if the ad was still there. And back the week after that, and so on.

But these are not the stats that caused my eyes to roll.

Here's the mind-boggling sentence: 
And most advertisers reach a very small audience, the study said, with a huge majority getting less than a 0.01 percent share among all on-line advertisement running at a particular time.

I wonder... If you buy an ad in the New York Times, what percentage is this of all the ads running in print around the world on the same day, and who cares? 

0.01 percent is one ad out of 10,000. Considering the number of web sites around the world, I suggest this number is very, very low, too. But it's accurate, I guess. Less than 1 in 10,000, or she could have written less than one in 1000, or less than one in 23, and it would have been accurate.

The 0.01 figure is just another example of non-informative information.

From Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Goof du jour
Weasel words and writing that looks as if it was done by committtee highlighted the "apology" from the Royal Bank for its stock trading antics. In the Globe and Mail, editors thought their story about the apology was worth plastering page wide, above the fold, on the front page. A genuine full-fledged news story. The Royal Bank brain trust, still forgetting it lost its merger because it ignored customers, buried the apology in the business section. The result? More editorials making fun of Royal Bank CEO John Cleghorn.

From Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Tip of the week - TRADE MAGAZINES MATTER
How many of your senior executives have had their names, photographs, insights and expertise showcased by your industry's trade magazines in the past year? Here's just one idea. Think of trade magazine stories as a way to solve some investor relations problems. If distribution is a problem in your industry, (and you have distribution under control), a positive case study in an logistics magazine, reprinted and mailed to financial analysts and fund managers, can go a long way toward proving your company's a winner.

New July 26
DaimlerChrysler CFO needs BAK's training.
We tout a communication theory we call Thinker, Feeler, Censor, Intuitor, Analyzer (It's outlined here) which says you should hone your presentation to meet the information absorption style of the most important members of your audience. Here are some Wall Street Journal words, from Wednesday, July 26, 2000.
... in a management board discussion on how to account for cash flow .. CFO Manfred Gentz launched into a 15-minute disquisition on proper accounting procedures. Mr. (Robert) Eaton, then co-chairman ... piped up; "Manfred, I just want to know what time it is. I don't want to know how to build the watch."

July 28
Branding: company or product line?
Royal Doulton has been dinged for twenty grand in B.C. Supreme court, because a customer, Coast Hotels, wanting the prestige of Royal Doulton on its tables, ended up not with an easily readable "Royal Doulton" on the bottom of its plates, but instead with the word "Capitol," which is the name of one line of the china maker's products.

Lesson? The Globe and Mail reports Tony Volpe, a R.D vice-president, isn't too sorry about losing the case, because at least it shows, from a public relations point of view, just how important the Royal Doulton name is. At your company, are you diluting the corporate name, in order to let some product manager push his special interests into the spotlight, to the detriment of the company's overall reputation (and "brand")?

Tip of the week - TRADE MAGAZINES MATTER
How many of your senior executives have had their names, photographs, insights and expertise showcased by your industry's trade magazines in the past year? Here's just one public relations idea. Think of trade magazine stories as a way to solve some investor relations problems. If distribution is a problem in your industry, (and you have distribution under control), a positive case study in an logistics magazine, reprinted and mailed to financial analysts and fund managers, can go a long way toward proving your company's a winner.

From August 3
BAK's Prediction -- Crisis communications to be needed by volt guys

Newspaper reference: Today's Globe and Mail, page B10, reproduces Rebecca Smith's Wall Street Journal story about Californian electricity.)
Electric utilities usually have pretty good crisis communications plans in place for physical and operations messes. If the tornado rips up the power poles, Ourtown Electric knows how to notify the radio, television, and, in some cases, even the local internet news sources, so customers can learn when the lights will come back on.

My prediction is that the next big electric crisis will focus on management competence in the electricity delivery industry. Names will be named. Careers will be destroyed. Customers have already found their rates going up, and their lights dimming. Computers crash, and industries send people home, instead of having them running electricity-guzzling machines. And the spotlight of the media, (let's hope they've got batteries to run it since the wall sockets will be dead) fueled in part by opposition politicians, so far, is on events, not the men and women at the top rungs of utilities and regulators, who "deregulated" the industry without very careful thought. In addition to the WSJ piece by Ms. Smith, there was an earlier one this week about Ontario municipalities finding their work getting ready for competition may be for naught, as the government changes the deregulation rules part way through the game. 

In a Toronto-based story was a piece of revisionist history, reported without comment. The driving force behind deregulation was reduced electricity prices, we've been told for years. But now the story changes, and the "benefit" will be "a slower rate of price hikes."

Reductions you could measure. Slower rates of increase can't be measured.  So far, the articles are not personalized, but wait for it. Pretty soon the reporters will be looking for villains. If you've got utilities or regulators as clients, start thinking if whether your public relations loyalty is to the CEO, or the organization, because someone's going to be swinging from the gallows. (The electric chairs will brown out.)

September 8
Globe and Mail runs crisis management editorial 
WSJ inside info on Firestone & Fleishman split

Globe and Mail
In Canada, the Firestone - Ford mess has generated an editorial in today's Globe and Mail newspaper, including this gem of management wisdom: " Dealing with the crisis first, and then deciding where the legal responsibility lies."

It seems to me that's what is going on. Ford has a recall. Firestone has a recall. Goodyear and Michelin are making extra tires. Big ads run telling people they can get their tires replaced at Midas and Costco. 

The crisis is being dealt with, and legal responsibility is still unsettled.

To read the whole Globe and Mail editorial, go to www.globeandmail.com and judge for yourself the wisdom of Globe editorial writers. (Non-Canadian readers - think of the Globe as a cross between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, distributed across Canada. A Globe editorial is a big deal.)

Wall Street Journal 
South of the border, the Wall Street Journal (today, Friday, September 8, 2000) has, on page B1, inside info on why Fleishman-Hillard resigned the Firestone business. In a few words -- "... the giant public relations firm grew disturbed with Firestone's refusal to communicate the breadth and seriousness of its problems." These words sound like F-H wasn't happy with the external communications. Inside, Firestone to F-H communications had its problems too, the WSJ reports, saying "As the crisis unfolded, Fleishman executives concluded they were receiving incomplete and questionable information from Firestone executives in the U.S." 

Christine Karbowiak, the Bridgestone/Firestone U.S. vice president of pr, takes issue, sort of, with this. (We really do need an English teacher to parse what people say to find out the precise meaning, assuming people are careful about what they say.) Here's what the WSJ says she said: "to the best of our ability, we provided information." She says the "integrity" of the information provided to the Fleishman executives "has never been an issue."

And Fleishman would not speak on the record to the WSJ.

The WSJ goes on to say, "In any case, Firestone did not follow most of Fleishman's advice, relying instead on the cautious counsel of its lawyers, individuals familiar with the matter say."

Speaking of parsing, Firestone made a "clarification" (CK's word) to an announcement it made offering to replace tires the US government thought were dangerous. The original announcement apparently sounded like "Bring in your old tires if they're the ones the government is complaining about, and we'll give you new tires, for free." 'Twas not to be. The clarification said "If the tires are subject to our Bridgestone/Firestone warranty program, the tires will be adjusted and processed accordingly." 

"Adjusted" in tire-talk means "we measure the thread, and if there's 10 percent left, you get a ten percent discount of the new tire."  "Subject to" probably means your warranty has expired, anyway.

There's more in the WSJ about what firms are trying to get the Firestone crisis communications business, who has refused it, the history of crisis communication in the US, etc. It's worth buying the paper to get the whole story.

In BAK's First Principles, a philosophy that guides most of my work,   I say "We are only as good as our employers allow us to be." (It's the last point on the First Principles list, which you can read by clicking here)

 

 

July 29
"Scythed" is the word of the day. Fiber optics took forever to gain it's profile. Are you maximizing your displays and demonstrations?
I'd never noticed "scythe" is a verb, but my dictionary says it is. I thought the lead sentence in Carolyn Leitch's piece in today's (Saturday, July 29,2000) Globe and Mail was great. She wrote:

Investors scythed profits from the high-flying shares of fiber-optics companies yesterday amid a widespread sell off in the technology sector.

I've been involved in the fiber optic business, including the public relations side,  for a long time. More that 15 years ago, the government of Ontario set up Future Pod as part of Ontario Place, (a tourist attraction in Lake Ontario, at Toronto) and I  took responsibility for designing and installing a Northern Telecom (now Nortel Networks) display to be seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors. I was public relations director, and seconded our marketing department's trade show people to build me a giant display. But PR was in charge. For the fiber portion, we had a Samsonite Classic attaché case with a miniature fiber optic network inside, in a display case where you could reach in and block / unblock the light, so people learned how light can carry electronic-based information. We used a closed circuit tv camera, so they could see themselves on and off a television screen, via light signals. Lots of other Northern Telecom futuristic stuff was on display too. ---  earliest digital phones, speaker phones, and more.

PUBLIC RELATIONS LESSONS? We made a point of letting our employees know about the Ontario Place Future Pod demonstration area, and hundreds of Northern Telecom families came to visit, so spouses and kids could get a good idea of what was going to happen in high technology at the company where mom or dad worked. They were proud of their company. We invited politicians of all stripes to see the displays, because we were on a research and development tax incentives kick at the time. If it was today, we'd have financial analysts there, too. Question: When your company's latest and greatest imagination is on display, does the CEO bring the governor or premier to see it? (Even at a trade show booth, perhaps.) Why not? For that matter, do you invite your employees to your trade shows, so they can see the newest stuff?

July 27
Xerox needs BAK's training.
Both the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail Report on Business are carrying a story today by the WSJ's John Hechinger about the dismalness at Xerox. The paragraph we like, because it illustrates the importance of employee communications, a specialty of ours, is this:

Xerox president Anne Mulcahy said the company also was moving to stem defections in the company's sales force, which is still rankled over a poorly executed reorganization. ... "Xerox people have lost confidence in management," she said. "There is a feeling the company has lost its sense of direction."

In Canada, Xerox used to have a dynamite CEO, Diane McGarry, who provided so much leadership, profile, direction and inspiration, inside and outside the company, that the Canadian Public Relations Society (deservedly) named her CEO of the year. She made a great acceptance speech, and showed how many hair styles a woman CEO who made sure many of her presentations were video-taped, can have in her career. But she left (a promotion because she was good) for the United States of America, to be replaced by the invisible Kevin Francis, who only seemed to emerge from hiding the day he resigned. Who's running Xerox Canada today? We will investigate.

THE LESSON FROM ALL THIS: See the fifth item in First Principles, below. When your staff lose confidence, everything's affected, including stock price and the corporate longevity of the CEO. 

 

August 1
Media training lesson in the Global - Hollinger merger
Note for our U.S., other foreign readers -- reduced to the simplest terms, Global, Canada's third largest TV network, is taking over much of Hollinger / Southam, Canada's biggest newspaper chain. 

Leonard Asper, the President and CEO of Global,  ran a very good news conference the other day. Everyone in the audience either was about to work for him, or works for his competitors, and he handled himself pretty well. But he missed one question, or tried to slide by it, leaving us wondering if the answer was based on ignorance or dishonesty or just the pressure of being on-stage, and on TV, at the center of  the biggest business story in Canada this year.

Asked about changes in the editorial stances at the newspapers, he said, twice, that the content of the newspapers was determined by the editors and publishers, and not by the chain owners. What he either tried to slide by the reporters (and he would be unsuccessful in this, making reporters think he was just being dishonest) or what he may not have known, is that shortly after Hollinger took over the Montreal Gazette, the Hamilton Spectator (since sold by Hollinger / Southam to the Toronto Star's chain) and the Ottawa Citizen, head office sent in new editors, and in at least one case, a new publisher, with the requisite Conrad Black - approved (he's the king of Hollinger) views. So, yeah, it's up to the editors and publishers, but the editors and publishers get changed by the owners.

LESSON FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS PEOPLE: When you are doing your media training in a merger, make sure you involve long-term employees with deep "institutional memories" from both sides of the merger, to vet the answers on the test questions. This was an obvious question; the answer was not good enough.

August 3
BAK's Prediction -- Crisis communications to be needed by volt guys

Newspaper reference: Today's Globe and Mail, page B10, reproduces Rebecca Smith's Wall Street Journal story about Californian electricity.)
Electric utilities usually have pretty good crisis communications plans in place for physical and operations messes. If the tornado rips up the power poles, Ourtown Electric knows how to notify the radio, television, and, in some cases, even the local internet news sources, so customers can learn when the lights will come back on.

My prediction is that the next big electric crisis will focus on management competence in the electricity delivery industry. Names will be named. Careers will be destroyed. Customers have already found their rates going up, and their lights dimming. Computers crash, and industries send people home, instead of having them running electricity-guzzling machines. And the spotlight of the media, (let's hope they've got batteries to run it since the wall sockets will be dead) fueled in part by opposition politicians, so far, is on events, not the men and women at the top rungs of utilities and regulators, who "deregulated" the industry without very careful thought. In addition to the WSJ piece by Ms. Smith, there was an earlier one this week about Ontario municipalities finding their work getting ready for competition may be for naught, as the government changes the deregulation rules part way through the game. 

In a Toronto-based story was a piece of revisionist history, reported without comment. The driving force behind deregulation was reduced electricity prices, we've been told for years. But now the story changes, and the "benefit" will be "a slower rate of price hikes."

Reductions you could measure. Slower rates of increase can't be measured.  So far, the articles are not personalized, but wait for it. Pretty soon the reporters will be looking for villains. If you've got utilities or regulators as clients, start thinking if whether your public relations loyalty is to the CEO, or the organization, because someone's going to be swinging from the gallows. (The electric chairs will brown out.)

From Sunday and Monday
A prediction, made Sunday, about Monday.
The stock price of Chapters (the biggest Canadian book retailer, will drop at least 15% within half an hour of the Toronto Stock Exchange's opening on Monday, following a gang-up on the book chain by National Post and The Financial Post on Saturday. A public relations nightmare, at least six stories in the papers (The Financial Post is the financial section of National Post) attacked the chain, including two stories on the front page. Irony. If you spread the paper out flat, you'd see two attack stories on the front page, and a full page Chapter's ad on the back page. Updates, Tuesday evening, Wednesday noon: apparently Chapters has decided to sue National Post. Bad move, because it will keep the story in the public eye. It seems to me the stories were pretty accurate, based on my knowledge of publishing and book selling (I know something about this stuff) so I'm guessing the case would hinge on the difference between "pretty accurate" and "utterly accurate."

FLYING CONCORDE WITH BLATCHFORD --Best writing on the weekend  
National Post's Christie Blatchford takes a trip on a British Airways Concorde, from New York to London, and deftly, with emotion and her own extraordinary style, tells readers of the love Concorde crews have for their plane. (next sentence was written Sunday night) I'm trying to find out just how big a part BA public relations played in arranging the trip.

UPDATE: (I wrote Blatchford Monday morning. She wrote back almost immediately) The British Airways public relations portion of this story was zero. The story was the paper's idea, and Blatch (we're on a first-name basis through the miracle of e-mail) has the left over portion of the genuine, full-fare paid, ticket in her possession as I write this. She got on the plane, just like any other traveller with enough money to buy the premium ticket, and then ... "no one knew i was on board until i handed my card to the senior flight attendant and asked if i could go up to the flight deck, where the flight officer, mr. tye, and the pilot and flight engineer to a lesser degree (they were busy flying the plane and i was happy to leave 'em to it) was most helpful, as you can see."

In her e-mail to me, she makes the point  that "i don't take freebies, do freebies, ever, in 25 years plus in the business." 

It's a point many in public relations can learn from. And some editors could learn, too. There's a huge range of journalistic views on the acceptance of free stuff; just because some entertainment and travel writers will take just about anything offered doesn't mean the same policies abound in other departments, even at the same papers. Political reporters pay the political parties large amounts of money to ride on the buses and planes with the candidates, but automotive writers borrow cars to do reviews, and keep them for weeks while buying groceries. The most stringent reporter I ever met worked for the Toronto Star. We did an interview one day in the Toby's restaurant in the basement of First Canadian Place,  while my client and I had lunch and she had a coffee. She insisted on a separate bill for the buck or so the coffee cost.

Cynics (and employers and clients) who think the media can be bought are, at least in the world of the good papers, wrong. The Star now runs little blurbs at the end of some stories, explaining if there were freebies offered and accepted. It helps us all if readers know what's going on, and other papers could learn from this. Editors, keep telling us the story behind the story, please.

REPORT ON THE CHAPTERS PREDICTION: (10:50 Monday morning)
I was in the ballpark, but it gets complicated. Chapters has two stocks, one for the main retail company and another for the on-line company. Chapters, Inc. was down 12.5 percent at 10:31 Monday morning, and Chapters On-Line was down 18.4 percent by 10:22. But it was down more earlier in the morning, dropping from Friday's close of $9.20 to $7 before a half hour's trading was finished this morning. By 21:37, it was back up from the day's low, to $8.10, still well below Friday's close. By 12:43, Chapters On-Line had recovered a tiny bit from the earlier drop today, but was still 14 per cent under Friday's close. (5:30 update -- it closed the day at $7.95.) Update: By Wednesday noon, stocks up to just a few percentage points below Friday's close.

Chapters is front page news, with two stories (including a "We told you first" piece) in the Globe and Mail Report on Business. Over the weekend, Chapter's denied the gist of the National Post stories, and today the Post reprints the entire taped interview on which the story is based. It's fascinating to read, and would make a useful reference to public relations people who may be drawn into a crisis. 

And, co-incidence or premonition? The Starbucks at the Runnymede Chapters store in west-end Toronto, where I often drink coffee at 9 a.m., was closed when I got there today. Staff confused about who was to open, or recognition by Starbucks that the store is a loser and nor worth staffing? Hmmm. Update: It was open again on Tuesday morning.

Monday, August 7
 Screw-up, or art? What's with the pictures in the NTT DoCoMo ad?

On Page B7 of the Monday, August 7 Wall Street Journal there's a half page ad for NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile communications organization that's supposed to be at the cutting edge. All ten pictures in the ad have a strange lace-like pattern over them. Is this the latest in Japanese avant Garde visuality, or just an old-fashion moiré pattern, the result of mediocre creative and production management?
PR Lessons? 1/ Experience counts. 2/ Don't get too far ahead of the curve because it just looks as if you are behind.

Friday, August 4, with Saturday update
Years of lousy PR means it's a lot of trouble to do business without interference. Air Canada tries to dig itself out.
Air Canada is the largest airline in Canada, and it has a terrible reputation with everyone except those shareholders who care only about money.
It used to be owned by the Canadian government, but now is a shareholder-owned corporation. Recently, it took over Canadian Airlines, the number 2 carrier in the country.
This week the federal government appointed an air travel complaints czar, (remember Bruce Hood? A National Hockey League referee.) mostly because Air Canada has alienated so many, for so long, in so many ways. Air Canada is trying to appear socially responsible.

Robert Milton, an American-import president, is on TV talk shows trying to appear like he cares about his customers and not just their wallets, and Air Canada ran this ad in today's papers: There a little picture of Milton, talking to three people. We only see the backs of their heads. And here's the body copy:

"We're integrating two companies that have been in a dogfight for generations.

At the same time, we've got to serve our customers;

Work with our employees;

Hire and train staff;

Preserve 16,000 Canadian Airline jobs;

Hold down domestic fares;

And report to shareholders.

Right now, some of our customers are upset and I don't blame them. But in 180 days we'll have it done. You've got my word on it."

Robert Milton
President and CEO
Air Canada

After watching Milton on CBC TV this morning, I'm left wondering if I've misjudged him. I had no respect, thought he was a lousy manager and a border-line anti-employee, anti-customer goon. But this morning he seemed sincere in wanting good service. Is this an example of great media training, poor image building for him in the past, or what? We shall see what we shall see, but this is a story BAK's Report will follow. On my last Air Canada trip, which was admittedly almost two years ago, Air Canada couldn't even figure out how to organize a line so that people moved through it quickly.

Saturday update: Toronto Globe and Mail, A4-A5 spread. The left hand page is filled, except for one small ad, with horror stories about lousy service on Air Canada. The right hand page is a full page Air Canada ad, with a fuzzy amateur picture of Milton shaking hands with an un-named ground crew. The ad was written by a lousy copywriter, or a committee. "Effect these changes"???? Spare me. Each sentence is a paragraph in the ad.

"We're integrating two of the world's largest airlines, while keeping 31 million customers on the move. This is a unique industry. To effect these changes we can't temporarily shut down. We've got aircraft in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Right now, some of our customers are upset, and I understand. But in 180 days we'll have it done. You've got my word on it.

And, as before, Milton's name is typeset, but not signed in longhand, at the bottom.

There's no indication what "it" is that will be done half a year from now.

Lessons: Failure to communicate corporate quality values to all employees during a merger results in reduced performance on the part of many employees. PR managers usually have a tough time convincing the accountants and the HR types not to fire people, but firing leaves most jobs understaffed. Employee communication has never been more important, but the message the employees usually hear is "We can fire hundreds, or thousands of people now that we are merged, and this means, of course, that our employees have been lazy bums up to now, and a reduced work force can do everything it took more people to do before the merger. In the Air Canada case, Milton's only concern was raising profits, and his employees lost interest in backing him up. Example from the Globe story; Baggage handlers went home, rather than looking after a plane load of passengers who had waited on the ground 4 hours to get off their plane. 

 

New July 26
DaimlerChrysler CFO needs BAK's training.
We tout a communication theory we call Thinker, Feeler, Censor, Intuitor, Analyzer (It's outlined here) which says you should hone your presentation to meet the information absorption style of the most important members of your audience. Here are some Wall Street Journal words, from Wednesday, July 26, 2000.
... in a management board discussion on how to account for cash flow .. CFO Manfred Gentz launched into a 15-minute disquisition on proper accounting procedures. Mr. (Robert) Eaton, then co-chairman ... piped up; "Manfred, I just want to know what time it is. I don't want to know how to build the watch."

New August 9 (update at bottom of story)
Ford's in more trouble than Firestone
Tomorrow's front pages are going to carry today's business page (WSJ, Globe and Mail that I saw, may be elsewhere, too) story about how Ford decided to replace Firestone tires on Ford Explorer and Ford pickup trucks in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Malaysia and Venezuela, but leave them on the vehicles driven by its customers in the United States of America, and, (I assume) Canada.

Whether the tires are really killers is beside the point. Some of the deaths could more likely be attributed to a father who did not bother having his family do up their seat belts, but that's a pretty hard case to make if you're the poor sap doing damage control at Ford.

Firestone will get some sympathy, since it's pretty hard to think the company deliberately made tires that kill people. Which is, if my recollections are clear, not quite the same ethical position as a couple of decades ago when Firestone 500 tires caused crashes, including the stock price of Firestone.

But Ford... well, Ford apparently cares more about foreigners than it does about citizens in its own country. At least that's what you'll be reading in editorials, opinion columns, and even "news" coverage tomorrow.

Hint; don't drive fast on hot days if you, too, have an Explorer shod with Firestone tires, unless you're reading this in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Mid-afternoon update: Apparently Firestone has announced a recall in the United States (Canada does not count, apparently). My prediction still stands; Ford will be the villain, not Firestone.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Ford Canada is recalling the tires, because Bridgestone is still dithering about what to do in this country. Ford's immediate opening of the kimono, so to speak, may protect6 its image.

August 14
More thinking about tires

The yellow box below was written last week, and developments over the weekend have prompted me to do some rethinking. 
Reporters have been canvassing PR people, asking about crisis communications, and been getting some poor advice. One PR guy said Bridgestone should have put its CEO out front, instead of an executive vice-president. Bad advice. The good advice is to save your CEO until there's a solution to announce. And Bridgestone's recall is no solution, for many reasons, not the least of which is that there are no new tires yet on the majority of affected vehicles.

In addition, when you operate in a foreign country, don't put some head office guy from far away in front of the cameras, except, (and this may not even always be the best thing) to announce the solution. Use someone from the country where the problem is. The United States of America is just a branch plant country for Bridgestone. Don't use a Japanese spokesperson. Too many Americans are still whining about Pearl Harbor.

Anyone advising on putting a Bridgestone U.S. -based non-American into the spotlight should have a better idea than I have about just how Americanized this CEO is. I don't know the Bridgestone facts for sure, but I think the CEO is a Japanese import, with Japanese values, and probably speaks English as a second language. Putting him in front of U.S. reporters is just asking for misunderstanding.

I've changed my view that Ford will get the worst of the PR drubbing. Bridgestone will. Ford gets full marks for telling reporters the timing and sequence of events, and for the way it is making Bridgestone look like it's dragging its feet.

In Canada, Ford said it will replace tires, while Bridgestone Canada just waited for some slow thinker in the US of A to even notice it had worried customers up here. I swore off Firestone years ago, when some idiot at a Firestone tire store didn't bother tightening the nuts on all four tires on my MG, leaving me with wobbly wheels another Firestone store refused to fix.

Ford's ads should tell you how to set the tire pressure in your Firestone tires, but the lawyers have probably forbidden this, since Ford and Firestone disagree about what pressures should be. 

Journalists have finally started to note that the accidents might not be the fault of the tires. Maybe it's up to drivers to put air in the tires and obey the speed limits and wear their seat belts in case there is a blow-out. One Canadian drew comparisons to the lousy journalism that just about killed Audi in North America. The bomb that will blow up soon will be the strike-breaking labor that made some of the tires in question. 

QUICK LESSON ON VISION: Amateur and inexperienced designed think people can "read" pictures mixed with type. They can't. Take a look at the latest Ford ads (WSJ today, for instance) and notice how you don't understand what's different in the captions for the two pictures. The type is the same, yet readers are supposed to look at a fuzzy image of lettering on the sidewall of a tire, and then link that to the real type, in order to understand the message. Try it for yourself. If you run an ad with your logo as part of a slogan,  you're making a mistake. Run the logo beside the slogan, but include the name in the type-set slogan. i.e. write "Acme Widgets don't blow up!" beside your logo. (Minor update on Tuesday: in a Ford Canada ad today, the boxed graphic was changed so you didn't have to try to "read" the photograph.)

Update on Saturday, August 26: Ford Canada's run a new version of the ad, but did not bother fixing the tire pictures and captions. However, this one tells people to do up their seat belts, and alsexplains where to find tire inflation info (on the driver's door post) and when to check pressure (before driving more than a kilometer). Good additions to the ad.

GOOD NEWS; MAYBE WE'LL STOP TALKING ABOUT TYLENOL EVERY TIME WE DISCUSS CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS.

August 15
Professionalism and experience matters
In today's National Post, there's an appointment announcement for Marc P. Tellier, the new President and CEO of Sympatico-Lycos Inc. Apparently Sympatico-Lycos is "Canada's leader on the internet," according to the announcement.  Then the ad goes on to say, just in case we missed it  a couple of lines earlier, "Sympatico-Lycos is Canada's leading Web Communications and Media Company." (Their caps)

But that's not why I flagged the ad. The picture of young Mr. Tellier (the ad tells uses the pretentious honorific with his first name and middle initial to tell us he's a Mister, and that he's 31) is covered by a moire pattern because Sympatico-Lycos doesn't have a good professional PR person on staff; someone who knows even a little bit about reproduction requirements. At the top of the ad there are the words "appointment notice," just in case we are too stupid to tell it's an appointment notice. The version in The Globe and Mail at least had a decent picture.

Free mag design lesson in Globe and Mail
The Globe's got a great letter from long-time Canadian journalist Howard MacGregor, where he, with good humor, rips apart the layout and typography of the Coucher's Corner / Shirley Knott column that runs in Broadcast Week, the Globe's television guide book. MacGregor's letter runs on page 10 of the August 12 - 18 edition, and Knott's column runs alongside, so you can see what he's writing about.

LESSON: One quote: "And tell them that the second leg of type is far too wide for its point size. It's a daunting chore to read -- physically -- on a Saturday morn."

What he's getting at is this; any good designer knows there should be a maximum of about 10 - 15 words in a line of body copy type. That's the optimum for how the eye and brain scan and transfer the words from page to intellect. I'm going to write more about this in the future, but you can try to read the type at the bottom of a Dell ad to get an idea of what I'm getting at. (It's not just the tiny size that's at fault.) On most computer screens, depending on how you've got it set, you probably can see for yourself that this paragraph is harder to read than anything else in BAK's Report.

 

Monday, August 7
 Screw-up, or art? What's with the pictures in the NTT DoCoMo ad?

On Page B7 of the Monday, August 7 Wall Street Journal there's a half page ad for NTT DoCoMo, a Japanese mobile communications organization that's supposed to be at the cutting edge. All ten pictures in the ad have a strange lace-like pattern over them. Is this the latest in Japanese avant Garde visuality, or just an old-fashion moiré pattern, the result of mediocre creative and production management?
PR Lessons? 1/ Experience counts. 2/ Don't get too far ahead of the curve because it just looks as if you are behind.

Friday, August 4, with Saturday update
Years of lousy PR means it's a lot of trouble to do business without interference. Air Canada tries to dig itself out.
Air Canada is the largest airline in Canada, and it has a terrible reputation with everyone except those shareholders who care only about money.
It used to be owned by the Canadian government, but now is a shareholder-owned corporation. Recently, it took over Canadian Airlines, the number 2 carrier in the country.
This week the federal government appointed an air travel complaints czar, (remember Bruce Hood? A National Hockey League referee.) mostly because Air Canada has alienated so many, for so long, in so many ways. Air Canada is trying to appear socially responsible.

Robert Milton, an American-import president, is on TV talk shows trying to appear like he cares about his customers and not just their wallets, and Air Canada ran this ad in today's papers: There a little picture of Milton, talking to three people. We only see the backs of their heads. And here's the body copy:

"We're integrating two companies that have been in a dogfight for generations.

At the same time, we've got to serve our customers;

Work with our employees;

Hire and train staff;

Preserve 16,000 Canadian Airline jobs;

Hold down domestic fares;

And report to shareholders.

Right now, some of our customers are upset and I don't blame them. But in 180 days we'll have it done. You've got my word on it."

Robert Milton
President and CEO
Air Canada

After watching Milton on CBC TV this morning, I'm left wondering if I've misjudged him. I had no respect, thought he was a lousy manager and a border-line anti-employee, anti-customer goon. But this morning he seemed sincere in wanting good service. Is this an example of great media training, poor image building for him in the past, or what? We shall see what we shall see, but this is a story BAK's Report will follow. On my last Air Canada trip, which was admittedly almost two years ago, Air Canada couldn't even figure out how to organize a line so that people moved through it quickly.

Saturday update: Toronto Globe and Mail, A4-A5 spread. The left hand page is filled, except for one small ad, with horror stories about lousy service on Air Canada. The right hand page is a full page Air Canada ad, with a fuzzy amateur picture of Milton shaking hands with an un-named ground crew. The ad was written by a lousy copywriter, or a committee. "Effect these changes"???? Spare me. Each sentence is a paragraph in the ad.

"We're integrating two of the world's largest airlines, while keeping 31 million customers on the move. This is a unique industry. To effect these changes we can't temporarily shut down. We've got aircraft in the air 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Right now, some of our customers are upset, and I understand. But in 180 days we'll have it done. You've got my word on it.

And, as before, Milton's name is typeset, but not signed in longhand, at the bottom.

There's no indication what "it" is that will be done half a year from now.

Lessons: Failure to communicate corporate quality values to all employees during a merger results in reduced performance on the part of many employees. PR managers usually have a tough time convincing the accountants and the HR types not to fire people, but firing leaves most jobs understaffed. Employee communication has never been more important, but the message the employees usually hear is "We can fire hundreds, or thousands of people now that we are merged, and this means, of course, that our employees have been lazy bums up to now, and a reduced work force can do everything it took more people to do before the merger. In the Air Canada case, Milton's only concern was raising profits, and his employees lost interest in backing him up. Example from the Globe story; Baggage handlers went home, rather than looking after a plane load of passengers who had waited on the ground 4 hours to get off their plane.