Turning Bad News Into Good PR

A hotel was recently exposed by the local newspaper because their contract cleaners were paying below the minimum wage.

They reacted with classic examples of the wrong and right way to handle bad news. The first reaction by a ‘spokesman’ was, “It is standard practice that all outsourcing suppliers are required to sign … a requirement to honour all required statutory obligations to staff.” That gave every appearance of squirming on the hook, when what people wanted to know was: are you an ethical company or not? Are you sorry? What are you going to do about it?

The right way to limit the damage came two whole weeks later, by which time one sensed the hand of a good Public Relations company in the response. The hotel had “taken the decision to terminate all contract agreements” with this particular cleaning company. They went on to reassure us that they took their staff responsibilities seriously and that their policy was that “all employees be paid a minimum wage”.

The lesson is, when there’s bad news, it needn’t be a disaster provided you admit straightaway that you were wrong and let people know you’re putting things right. The hotel in the end strengthened its reputation. On the other hand, if you try to cover up, blame someone else or simply prevaricate, you can do untold damage to your company.

Ethics are Good for Business

These days more than ever we expect ethical behaviour from the people to whom we give our custom. Woe betide the company that’s found out getting its £70 trainers made in a far eastern sweatshop for 40p or including GM ingredients in its organic produce.

This even applies to marketing, a profession often thought to lack scruples. You may be surprised that the American Marketing Association commands “Marketers must do no harm.” (And, no, I don’t know if people who advertise cigarettes are allowed to be members!) “Honest, truthful and decent” are the watchwords of British advertising. Even my small consultancy finds it sensible and proper to vet clients and try to avoid those who appear to act unethically.

Bigger companies need built-in controls. I was surprised earlier this year to encounter a Board of Directors who let their Chief Executive do whatever he wanted, including on employment issues, without questioning the moral basis for his decisions. Boards should be concerned about more than the bottom line. They should set ethical standards for their management and enforce them.

Behaving ethically may be good Public Relations but behaving unethically is bad for business.

Booking Fees: Irish Good, English Bad Marketing

Back from a short trip to Ireland. I could go on about the friendly people, the beautiful country and the superb food at Man Friday in Kinsale, but this is supposed to be a blog about marketing and PR. So, instead let me tell you that advertisements for Riverdance show the full price the customer pays for the ticket including booking fee. I don’t know if this is a legal requirement or simply an ethical promoter but it is absolutely how prices should be displayed. The customer has no interest in what part of the ticket is the cost of the seat and what is the fee taken by the ticket seller. We just want to know how much we will be paying.

UK legislation requires that the original price or ‘face value’ of the ticket be given as well as the fee applying. I know this is an attempt to clamp down on excessive fees by agents but where the primary seller is charging a fee, then frankly the distinction between ‘face value’ on the ticket and extras is meaningless.

A more distressing distinction between ticket price and booking fee occurred recently in our area when a G4 concert was cancelled. The Manchester-based agency Ticketline gave a refund on the ticket price but not the booking fee! What a way to treat a customer. It’s like John Lewis saying we’ll refund you the cost to us of the faulty furniture but not our mark-up. The Office of Fair Trading have said that refusal to give back additional fees in the event of cancellation constitutes unfair terms. Any self-respecting promoter should not deal with Ticketline- and ticket buyers should avoid them whenever possible.

Is It Art? Marketing Modern Art

Southampton City Council’s Art Gallery has just bought a painting by Bridget Riley, one of our greatest artists. It will fill a gap in what is the finest collection of 20th century British art outside London. From an art lover’s point of view, it would have been nice if the reaction from the local paper hadn’t been ‘Is this really worth £¼m of your cash?’

It’s not that questions like Is It Art? and Is It A Waste of Money? aren’t worth asking- they may even sell newspapers- but, after 50 years, I wish they’d change the record!

Of course there’s no such thing as bad publicity in the sense that at least the purchase got high profile coverage. If nothing else, it shows the Gallery is important and it will lead to more visits. But good publicity is better. This story could have been about the benefits of modern art to the community (Tate Modern has shown the way). We could have read about the extra visitors to what is already a major attraction, the added appeal to investors of a city of culture, oh and the art itself- the opportunity for we locals to see a major work of modern art and get emotional and intellectual stimulation from engaging with it.

As an art-loving PR person, my advice to any regional Public Art Gallery which buys a new work of modern art is- get in first with a sympathetic journalist who will write a positive story before the local government reporter gets hold of it and makes it a story about the crazy spending Council.