The Marketing Blender

How to Ruin your Public Image in 37 minutes

This past weekend, one of the major unions that staffs the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) walked off the job late at night with almost no notice, shutting down the city’s transit system and leaving thousands of commuters stranded.

The strike was ended by government legislation in just 2 days. The damage to the union's image will last much, much longer.

The sudden strike was a PR blunder of epic proportions by a union that had so carefully managed its image in the weeks leading up to the strike, and serves as a lesson for businesses in all industries – goodwill built through positive PR is fragile, especially in its early days.

A little background – the union in question is made up of members who drive and maintain the TTC’s buses and subways. In the weeks leading up the contract negotiations with the city of Toronto, the union had taken great pains to buff up its public image by selecting two very clever key messages:

First, it focused its positive PR efforts on the people of the union, highlighting the stories of the drivers who get up at 4 am to help get people to work, and the maintenance staff who work overnight to keep riders safe. This was a safe choice – instead of a pro-union stance that might alienate some people, they focused on telling the stories of real people to humanize their side of the contract negotiation. It’s easy to dislike a union, if that’s your view. It’s harder to dislike a person you haven’t met.

Simultaneously, they floated stories about the abuse that some of these union employees face from irate passengers, which drew attention to a central issue in the contract debate – benefits for workers injured on the job. Again, this was good messaging – it’s tough to disagree with the notion of fairness.

They even launched their own website – worthamillion.ca – where they were progressive enough to allow comments from visitors (negative and positive). They even had union members reply to some of the more negatve comments to clarify the union’s position on certain matters.

And they made a much publicized promise to the citizens of Toronto – the union would give 48 hours notice of any job action so that the public (the very people the union needs on their side) would be well prepared to make alternate arrangements.

The Union's communications were on message, relatively clear, and helped to further their position in advance of the contract talks, which (as all talks of this nature do) were coming down to the wire.

And then, in an inexplicable public relations blunder, they threw all of that goodwill (and money) away in the space of 37 minutes on a warm April evening.

After their own members voted against the most recent contract tabled by the city despite an endorsement of the deal from union leadership, the union was notified at 11:23pm on Friday that a strike would begin at midnight. By 11:30pm, some passengers were notified over the loudspeaker system in the subway stations. But for the thousands of Friday night partiers enjoying themselves and counting on the union employees to get them home, and the shift workers who rely on the system to get to their jobs, there would be no 48 hours notice as promised - only 37 minutes.

And then the worst of it – Union leadership turtled. The head of the union was nowhere to be seen on TV or Radio in the midst of this chaotic scene. The union was silent.

The website that so effectively told the stories of union employees was taken down – presumably by the union itself.

On Saturday morning, no picket lines could be found anywhere across the city.

Outside of a terse statement that talked about ensuring the safety of employees, the Union said nothing.

The result – an entire weekend of news coverage dedicated to showing how the citizens of Toronto were angry and offended at the union for breaking their much publicized promise. The Union’s side of the story was never told, because they had stopped talking.

All of that careful messaging and goodwill, tossed aside in a span of 37 minutes. The long term damage to the union’s reputation remains to be seen.

The moral - your brand can survive the odd bump in the road when it has established roots in the market and a long favourable history on its side. But emerging brands buoyed by recent PR wins and good messaging are fragile, and must be handled with care. One slip and alot of work can go out the window.

Building your PR Skills

Once upon a time, PR and Marketing were distinct functions.

Today, the lines are blurred.

For marketers, marketing departments, and business owners, PR is becoming an indispensable weapon in the battle for awareness, and ultimately sales. As a result, marketers with PR skills are more valuable to employers and are more effective in promoting their businesses.

Some reasons for the rise of PR as a marketing tool:

• Everybody’s a journalist – there are 112 million blogs online, and the number of reputable news sources that are “online only” has also increased dramatically in recent years.

• TV Ratings are down – your audience is more fragmented than ever, as people turn to their favourite Internet sites for entertainment more than they are tuning in to prime time network TV.

• Nobody trusts advertising – the credibility of advertising has fallen in recent years, as people are increasingly suspicious of the claims they see in paid marketing.

• Nobody sees advertising – well, “nobody” is an overstatement but with the vast number of messages consumers are exposed to every day, it’s getting much much harder to break through the clutter.

PR represents a good solution for some of the challenges noted above:

• If "everyone’s" a journalist, your ability to reach them with good story ideas and positive messages about your brand and your products will determine how much positive coverage you generate in blogs and through traditional news sources

• If TV Ratings are down, go where your target market is by getting stories about your brand in the right online publications

• If nobody trusts advertising, the third party credibility that comes with positive publicity presents a great opportunity to bolster the trust factor that consumers will assign to messages from your company

• While it's true that breaking through the clutter is much harder these days, it's much easier when readers/viewers are finding your message as part of their daily routine of seeking out information on their favourite sites or through trusted news sources         

As PR and Marketing continue to converge, maintaining skills on both sides of the fence is becoming increasingly important for marketers. I would strongly advise marketers who are short on PR experience to get some - it will make you more effective in delivering your message to the market, and can provide a boost to your career/business.

Tell Me a Story...please

The next time you have the opportunity to give a business presentation in front of a group – coworkers, colleagues, professionals, clients, employees, etc – tell them a story.

It’s an overcommunicated society. Your audience is bombarded with messages from morning til night. The odds are radically stacked against you if you are hoping to just dump everything you know on them.

Most people will remember 1 or 2 things from your presentation (if they remember it at all).

It’s up to you to decide what those 1 or 2 things should be, and then present those key points in a way that makes them memorable for the audience.

The day after a presentation, when people head back to work or to their business, the lasting effect from your presentation will be the feeling you created when talking to them, not the content you told them about (since they’ll only remember 1 or 2 things).

So, how do you get people to remember what you want them to remember – and how do you create that feeling that stays with the audience long after your presentation is over?

Give them a "mental anchor" – that’s a (poorly thought out) term I use for anything that helps the audience anchor the knowledge you are imparting to something they can actually remember when they wake up tomorrow.

By anchoring your facts and figures and brilliant thoughts to something they can remember and recall whenever they need to, you’ll be giving your audience a chance to keep your key messages in their memory for a long period of time.

A "mental anchor" could be:

A story – "Let me tell you an amazing story about a lady named Jane Smith that will change how you look at retirement planning."

An analogy – "Fixing this problem is a lot like building a new house – it starts with a strong foundation. Let me tell you about the foundational improvements we’re going to make this year to turn the business around…"

A piece of uncommon logic or a surprising fact – "As the economy slows down and companies look for cost saving opportunities, you should maintain or even increase your spending on marketing and advertising...here's why..."

An unusual comparison – "Our company is the Microsoft of the mouse trap business."

A Well-Told joke – (you’re on your own here!)

An Observation – "With these changes, our company now has the largest R&D department in the industry – twice as big as our larger competitor. It's like having double the horsepower under the hood at the Daytona 500."

Your audience’s capacity to remember numbers and facts is very limited – and facts and figures alone don’t inspire feelings or emotion.

You need to anchor the numbers and facts to something far more interesting in order to be remembered.