1.      German drug firm Gruenenthal issues apology to thalidomide survivors

According to the Telegraph, the German drug firm issued an apology to thalidomide sufferers:

“Harald Stock, chief executive of Gruenenthal, said he was “very sorry”, 50 years after the pharmaceutical company pulled the drug from the market.  In a speech that has caused outrage amongst thalidomide victims, Mr Stock explained: “We ask that you regard our long silence as a sign of the shock that your fate caused in us.”

“We ask for forgiveness that for nearly 50 years we didn’t find a way of reaching out to you from human being to human being,” Mr Stock said at the unveiling of a bronze statue of a child born without limbs Stolberg, western Germany. “Instead, we remained silent.”

Where to start on this blunder?  The three basic rules of managing a crisis are to admit the mistake; apologise and mean it; put right the damage at your own personal expense.

Clearly Gruenenthal has not followed any of this.  And to add an unveiling of a statue without admitting the mistake is – bizarre?  Is this a case of scientists lacking emotional intelligence?

2.       Louise Mensch and Nadine Dorries spat on Twitter

Two female politicians, Louise Mensch and Nadine Dorries, had a very public spat on Twitter this week.  It was personal and unattractive and achieved nothing for either, other than an unpleasant taste for the public.

The most dignified response is – nothing.  Very occasionally a factual statement to correct misinformation is needed but never should it get personal.

3.       Disability activists target Paralympic sponsor Atos

Inside the Games reported this story “Controversial Paralympic sponsor Atos was the target for protests in London by disability activists angry that the French multi-national IT firm carries out “fit for work” assessments on behalf of the British Government.  
“We are doing this to highlight that Atos, a sponsor for the Paralympic Games, is receiving £100 million from the Government in the hope they will assess people with disabilities and get them off benefits,” said Molly Solomons, a spokeswoman for UK Uncut.

Who thought this could ever be a good idea?

4.       And the outstanding PR success

John Humphreys interviewed Nik Dobrik, about the Gruenenthal apology (click on this link to hear the interview – it starts at 1.36 minutes).  Humphreys introduced Nik as a ‘thalidomide survivor’ and started the interview rather awkwardly by asking Nik ‘Do you think of yourself as a survivor?’

If Nik had answered this question he could have spent 30 seconds or more talking about how you describe those affected by thalidomide – which was not what he was there to do.

Very politely he said “Before answering that, I would like to make a comment on the apology”.  John Humphreys rather embarrassed said hastily ‘I was going to ask you that’.  But Nik continued with passion about the apology, the background to this and how he and others feel.  The perfect way to handle this start – he owned the interview.

Humphreys then asked ‘have you gone through your life with a sense of injustice?’.  Nik politely replied ‘I would prefer to talk in general terms’.  But he did quickly give a personal example that he was being asked for – that Woolworths did not want to give him job because the manager felt customers would not want to be served by someone with shortened arms.

And then went on to talk about victims as a whole – the fact that their health is deteriorating rapidly, people have chronic pains and are living in bodies that are 30 to 40 years older than their age.

Anyone studying media training and how to handle press interviews should use Nik Dobrik as an outstanding example of how to answer the question but make sure you get the points you want to make across.

For more examples of what not to do in PR, go to PR Newswires list of top PR blunders.

What PR blunders have you seen recently – or any really outstandingly good examples of handling interviews?

The post This week’s PR blunders – and one outstanding success appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Last week the media was in the midst of a tax avoidance frenzy, with comedian Jimmy Carr the focus of the tirade.

While the headlines were about the tax issues, ‘stars who avoid tax are no better than benefit cheats’, the story began because Jimmy Carr was caught doing exactly what he had slated others for.  He criticised Barclays for paying just 1% tax. (see video clip below)

 So what are the lessons that corporates should learn from this?  How do you avoid a communications crisis – or handle it once the touch paper has been lit?

1.       Don’t campaign if your own house isn’t in order

Sounds obvious.  But even the most intelligent miss this.

Jimmy Carr is Cambridge educated.  You would have thought he had the nous to connect his public criticism of tax avoidance with his own affairs.  But it is amazing how blind clever people can be.

Remember John Major’s back to basics campaign?  Dr Matthew Ashton lists it in his greatest political mistakes. 

“The Prime Minister, John Major, announced that the nation needed to return to classic Victorian values. To be fair to him, he was referring more to issues relating to law and order and economics than public morality, but this was how it was interpreted by everybody at the time. Arguably he could have done more to point out that he wasn’t launching some sort of moral crusade.

“The ‘Back to Basics’ campaign was launched in 1993 and from that point on there seemed to be a serious scandal about Conservative MPs in the news every week. For example:

• Tim Yeo was caught having an affair
• Tim Smith, Neil Hamilton and Graham Riddick were all caught asking parliamentary questions in return for cash
• Piers Merchant had an affair with a nightclub hostess
• Stephen Milligan accidentally died after act of auto-erotic asphyxiation went wrong
• David Ashby sued the press and lost when they ran stories about him sharing a bed with another man
• Allan Stewart was caught waving a pickaxe at motorway protesters
• Jonathan Aiken tried to sue the Guardian and World in Action for making claims about his business dealings with the arms industry
• Jerry Hayes got into trouble with the press over his relationship with a another man”

If your business is about to launch a campaign, do a sense check.  How could it be interpreted?  Are you taking a moral high ground? Where are the risks?  Is your own house in order – really in order?

2.       The public expect higher standards from business leaders

This may not be fair, but people at the top are expected to have high personal and moral standards. 

If your company has any kind of public profile, then you are a target.  It is not just the media – it is now very easy for disgruntled employees, suppliers, business partners to make insinuations or publicly criticise individuals and reveal details that you thought were secret.

On the whole business leaders are risk takers – and often with their personal lives.  Are these risks you need to sort?

3.       Social media makes you more vulnerable

Once upon a time, chief execs thought they could ‘manage’ the media.  Keep their head down and a low profile and the story would go away.

Social media means that ordinary people can now have their say.  Immediately.  And for the media, this then becomes the story.

So even if there isn’t a watertight case for some allegations, the media can now comment on the social media storm as the story – even if there are some details they cannot legally report.  Of course, that alerts people to go online and find what they want.

4.       Defuse a crisis by quickly accepting blame

There is no doubt Jimmy Carr did the right thing.  He publicly accepted he had been wrong, apologised and withdrew his money from the offshore scheme.  He used Twitter to do this – a very quick way to get your message out and the one where he was initially criticised himself.

The rules of good crisis management are

• Admit the problem – Jimmy Carr did not try to deny or defend his tax avoidance
• Accept the blame and apologise
• Put right at your expense.  The public is still waiting to see what Jimmy does – ideally he should repay the taxes he has avoided to the government.  The nation would be stunned if he did but this is what ordinary people would expect.

Chief execs often say that it’s none of the public’s business and they don’t care about the media.   But unfortunately, managing a company and its board’s reputation is now a core part of running a business.

The post How to ensure your chief exec avoids a ‘Jimmy Carr’ appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

Daily Mail - Not impressed: Lord Sugar is unhappy

I am writing this blog as the titles roll at the end of the second  BBC The Apprentice.  And probably like most business people across the country, despairing of this as any kind of representation of business.

Where does it go so badly wrong?

1. Who would go into business with people you don’t know or trust?

Business is about leadership and delegation.  You need to know what the skills of your team are and to get the best person doing each task.

The idea of a new business with people who have never met, don’t know or like each other ….

2. New products and services need proper market research

You only have to watch that other TV stalwart, Dragon’s Den, to know that no matter how brilliant you think your product is, it could not matter less unless people want to buy.

Research doesn’t have to take months, but it sure has to take more than an hour’s brainstorm meeting.

And they never seem to have access to the internet, calling their friends and contacts – how ridiculous is that?

3. The customer never gets a look in

Rarely is there much discussion about who the customer is and checking whether the product will work.  Once in a series, there is a focus group – but the customer is never at the heart of any of these programmes.

4. The competitive element stifles creativity and success

Innovation requires failure.  And competition does not bring out the best in people.  An element of competition is healthy but not make or break.

5. You cannot achieve a new product to market cycle in a week

Zara set the pace by reducing its design to high street time from six months down to a phenomenal 10 to 15 days.  And this is one of the slickest retailers going.

We are all for speed, creativity and innovation and challenging the status quo.  But suggesting you can create, test, manufacture, market and sell a product in 48 hours as the norm is just wrong.

Despite these shocking negatives, there are elements that are worth taking out of The Apprentice

1.       Businesses can be set up quickly and succeed

2.       You don’t need a lot of money – or to borrow – to start up

3.       The focus on results and making money – completely right

4.       All elements of a business matter – the people, the product, the selling, the profit

5.       Recessions can provide some of the greatest opportunities of all – you can set up and do things quicker and better than the slumbering large corporates.

Now that would make interesting TV – get the apprentices to target a household name and find a product to compete in their market.

What have we missed here – or do you think it’s a realistic representation of business?

The post Five reasons why The Apprentice does not remotely represent business – and five places where it does appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.

The headlines were all about Brian Blessed – and you have to admire the fact that this famous actor climbed Mounts Everest and Ararat in his 60s and 70s.  But I felt like the little boy with the Emperor’s clothes – was I the only one not really getting the celebrity name dropping and fairly crude boys’ stories?

Judging by the comments at lunchtime – the answer was yes!  The rest of our table was in raptures about the actor.  But eventually they moved onto René – and clearly a lot were reflecting on points for their own businesses.

Carayol had started with a clip from a TV programme he’d made on BP about four years ago.  Then he had criticised Lord Browne and the company’s obsession with cost-cutting and shareholder value rather than focusing on culture and customers.  Health and safety was suffering in the process.

The programme could have been made today – the company has merely changed its leader, not its culture.  All this reminded me of a blog I wrote a while ago about the lack of emotional leadership at the top of Shell – what is it with these oil companies?

The biggest point for me was René’s belief that we now measure too much ‘stuff’.  He doesn’t think you can measure the good stuff – which is what will make the difference to your company.

He then went on to show that the successful ones are those with personality – created by inspirational leadership.

1. Why is the recession kind to good companies?

Well this is all fairly obvious, but in tough times, it’s good to remind ourselves of this.  The weak companies have not survived, those still in business have got something worth having and there is now less competition.

René looked at what businesses need to be doing in these tough times.  His advice is

Manage less, Lead more

Heritage, not Legacy

Culture is more important than Strategy

While some of this feels old hat, the thing that struck me here was the extent to which he was saying that classic management principles are less important.  Most businesses know the importance of leadership, but he really brought this home by looking at the differences in culture

Management                                        Leadership

Strategy                                                      Vision

Plans                                                         Culture

Tasks                                                        Teams

Process                                                    People

2. Caring for your people

René looked at three Victorian companies who broke the mould of their time : Marks and Spencer; Cadbury; and Co-op.

These three companies started looking after their people – primarily feeding them and in the case of Cadbury, building the Bournville village.  And look how they flourished.

3. Who gets 1m unsolicited job applications a year?

The two global companies getting more than 1m unsolicited job applications every year are P&G and Google.

René’s point was to make sure your company is one of those that people want to work for.

4. Culture of a successful company

Businesses often lose their winning culture as they grow and develop.  René defines a leadership culture as

Fast

Risk-taker

Open

Mistakes – learn from them

Celebrate success

Empowering

5. Businesses with personality

This was interesting.  René put up a slide with pairs of similar businesses and asked the audience to say which was a corporate organisation and which the one with personality and fleet of foot.  Instinctively everyone knew which category to put them into.  I’ve put them into categories here but would have agreed with these?

Organisation            vs                     Personality

Tesco                                                  Asda

British Airways                                    Virgin

Microsoft                                            Google

 6. What are you brilliant at?

I’ve now heard this last point twice in the last two weeks.  We’ve been working with Bradford University School of Management and their Innovation Club.  Foundation helps ex-offenders and their culture is about focusing on the 90% that is successful, not the 10% that is not working.

René talked about joining Pepsi and how they made people feel really good about themselves.  In appraisals, they talked about what they were brilliant at and how to develop that – not what they were doing badly.   He said:  “I’ve been in companies where you have a 40 point action plan to improve all the things you are not good at.  It doesn’t make sense, why all that effort on the things you can’t do well.  Why not look at how you can do more of what you are great at?

This is the point that I’m taking away from the day.   Did you get anything from this?

The post The recession is kind to good businesses – and cruel to the poor ones. What can you do in a recession to be great? appeared first on Northern Lights PR and Marketing.