Don't Get In A Flap

Things are looking bad for Bernard Matthews. Their handling of the media has been pretty sure footed so far: plenty of TV coverage of their workers taking action, grisly but necessary, to clamp down on the bird flu bug. Plenty of supportive statements from Government, and even the TGWU, their main union, saying they've done everything right in the face of this unexpected and devastating crisis. But one thing is missing. Old Mr Bootiful himself. Suddenly the tide has turned against the Bernard Matthews organisation, with claims that they've not been totally open about the business they've been doing in Hungary, where the outbreak is thought to have started. Where is the reassuring face of Bernard to convince us that he has our welfare at heart? Now he's getting on a bit - no spring turkey he, at 80, but the personal appearance of the man who personifies the company is necessary, and notable by its absence. There's no escaping the golden rule of media handling in a crisis: get on the site, get before the cameras, be seen to be in charge of putting things right.

Hold The Front Page

“People ask me how we can sell them at such a low price. I say, because they’re c**p!” – Gerald Ratner, just before his multi-million pound company went bust.

“I have nothing to say to you” Sir Clive Thompson interviewed by ITN the day after Farepack collapsed.

All it takes is one unguarded quote, one foolish remark, and reputations can be destroyed overnight. Why do senior directors, so clever and bullish in business, make the most basic blunders when speaking to the press? Why don’t they keep their mouths shut?

The reason is of course that company spokespeople have one thing in common with terrorists. They need the oxygen of publicity. Keeping quiet about their achievements is not an option, because businesses cannot survive without reputation and profile.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that company spokespeople who know how to handle the press can achieve more than anyone else in boosting the company’s bottom line. Think of Virgin – a brand almost exclusively based on the personality of its boss Richard Branson which has even survived running the railways, because, dammit, somehow we like him.

On average three times a week I spend a day with some private company or public sector department or other, in every part of the UK, teaching them how to handle the press. Two things are always apparent – they are highly defensive in their approach to the press, and they can’t understand why the press appears to be out to get them. It never seems to dawn on them that the two are linked.

They also fail to implement the key principle that they always adopt in business – give the customer what they want. When I explain that the customer, in this case the press, is there to represent the interests of the public, they quickly realise why their release announcing the introduction of coloured paper clips in the office won’t get on to the front page of the Record.

So the message is put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Ask yourself what they want to hear about you. And you may find yourself wearing Richard Branson’s shoes before you know it.