Bluegrass Consulting: Blueblog

Thursday: 14 October

Part 3 of a 4 part series which uses Julia Gillard and the recent Federal Election to examine whether spin techniques developed for the 20^th century media model are now outdated and ineffective in the 21^st century.

This post picks up from previous discussions on how a lack of trust virtually makes political communication ineffective. It examines how ‘controlling the message’ is the essence of 20th century spin and the big mistake being made by communicators is thinking this remains the core of 21st century spinning.

Could social media help build trust?

Old spin controlled the government-citizen relationship by managing what went into the media, thus shaping the environment in which people made political choices.

The new media landscape, however, provides government the opportunity to cut out the media and talk to the citizen directly. This ‘voter-centred social networking’ was fundamental to Obama’s ability to win office.

The ‘corruption of communication’ encouraged these new forms of communication. Social media is defined as ‘media for social interaction’ and sees the creation and exchange of user-generated content, allowing citizen voices to be heard. By its very nature, it represents a greater equality in communication mediums, as opposed to mainstream media.

By choosing to engage in this space, government can be seen to be respecting the nature of the space, that every voice can be heard, and most definitively, that you don’t control it.  This inspires an authenticity that can also inspire trust.

From a purely strategic perspective, spinners should at least understand that social media offers a very effective way of more directly connecting with and influencing the constituency as well as building consensus through government-to-people, people-to-government and even people-to-people communication.

It may just be that a side effect to this 21^st century campaigning is that it also provides an opportunity for politicians to gain back the most valuable of political capital, trust. And, perhaps success in the new media space, may encourage new success as well as rejuvenated techniques in the traditional media space.

Social media in the 21^st century - what spin was for the 20^th century

Using social media in political campaigning is the most obvious sign spin is evolving to fit the media market of the 21^st century. Obama used these tools to help him win office, Clinton didn’t and lost.

Having taken that on board the Secretary of State is now such an advocate she is referred to as the “godmother of 21^st century statecraft”, the program at the forefront of the Administration’s moves to experiment with and adopt new ways to interact with the public including YouTube and text messaging.

See the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking about 21st century statecraft on YouTube here.

Gaining control means losing control

Maybe the ‘real Julia’ gets it, through her apparent rejection of the “very risk averse standard campaign model” in the midst of the recent election and her acknowledgment then, that “…people are right to worry that modern campaigning is too managed and too tightly scripted”.

Perhaps she also understands “the 21^st century is a really terrible time to be a control freak”, wise words spoken by Jared Cohen in the NY Times article Digital Diplomacy. Cohen along with Alec Ross heads up 21^st century statecraft.

Finally, I’ll finish with these wise words in the same NY Times article, where Clay Shirky, a New York University professor says on the issue of whether or not politicians should engage in social media: “the loss of control you fear is already in the past. You do not actually control the message, and if you believe you control the message, it merely means you no longer understand what is going on.”

The final and fourth post will examine Ms Gillard’s apparent rejection of the “very risk adverse standard campaign model” in the context of the election result.

Ruci Fixter

Friday: 13 August

Julia Gillard’s political woes shine the light on the failure of modern day spinners clinging desperately to a political communication technique invented for the 20^th century model of mass media. In the 21^st century, these techniques are proving increasingly out of date and so dangerously ineffective it could lose Labor an election when spin, ironically, should be key to winning elections…

Standard and well known spin techniques such as the ’seven second grab’, key messages, catchy slogans and carefully controlled media management have all backfired spectacularly for Ms Gillard. All of a sudden, these tricks look very dated prompting her to publicly reject this “very risk averse standard campaign model” and re-introduce herself as the “real Julia” in a desperate search for authenticity.

This move was a somewhat startling acknowledgment that the usual spin simply wasn’t ‘cutting through’. Techniques designed to win were, in fact, conspiring towards losing Labor the election.

Focus groups - unfairly dumping leaders for false infidelity?

So how is it the ALP’s crack campaign team, seasoned professionals whose job it is to know the business inside out, couldn’t predict that this ‘old spin’, on its own, wouldn’t work? They should have been even more aware of the dangers, given the current levels of cynicism around how Julia assumed office.

In fact, one almost wonders if there was even a communication strategy in place to deal with how the electorate may have responded to Rudd’s unprecedented and brutal assassination. Or was it so clever we almost missed it…?

Many people place the bulk of the blame for the campaign’s rocky ride at the feet of NSW Right leader Mark Arbib, who both secured and destroyed Rudd’s leadership. It is not only the role he is believed to have played in convincing Rudd to dump the ETS, a turning point for voters, but the risk averse, poll-centric, NSW Labor Right strategy, that he along with long term friend and campaign director Karl Bitar have continued to push as the best campaign model.

But it appears that the result has been panicky politics driven by focus group research, which has seen leaders dumped like 20-somethings dump lovers over false infidelities. Many argue their use of the focus group results is not accurate or effective.

Former staffer in the Carr and Iemma Governments, Mark Aarons, explains their technique involves targeting the least politically committed voters in marginal seats. Their theory is that “…these people determine who win government and their views should therefore predominate in policy-setting. In a bizarre reversal of conventional political wisdom, leadership is redefined as following such people by pandering to them.”

Aarons’ experience was that this strategy “led the (Iemma) government up a blind alley”, not reflecting mainstream voters who hated the policy idea” (in this instance the Kurnell desalination plant).

However, most say there is little wonder the Arbib-Bitar partnership believe in this model. Arguably it has won them office in NSW since 1995 and, maybe, even the Kevin 07 election. Why fix it if it ain’t broke? But election 2010 seems to have broken the mould. Time will ultimately tell.

Old spin doesn’t work for ‘real Julia’

These campaigns have been largely stage managed spin-fuelled fiestas, and none more than Kevin 07. And as Michael Gawenda points out in Business Spectator, Gillard 2010 is in many ways no more or no less stage managed than Kevin 07 was.

However, what is different is that she has only been PM for six weeks and the way in which Rudd was deposed. Going to the polls seems rushed…standard NSW campaigning?

What is interesting and maybe very clever spin, is this point made by Gawenda:

“Gillard had two major problems coming into this campaign: she had been involved in the assassination of Rudd and she was a woman. Gillard and her advisors, it seems, decided that any sign of aggression, of passion or even vision, would be turned against her - she would be seen as an angry, pitiless, female, political executioner. So for the first two weeks of the campaign she behaved as if she was on Prozac.”

So maybe this strategy was deliberate all along.

Play the standard orchestrated campaign cardboard cut-out; let it look like you are being played by the ‘faceless men’, because anything else would make you look like “an angry, pitiless, female, political executioner”.

And then announce the arrival of ‘real Julia’, who it now looks like has been brave enough to stand up to said men, and indulge the electorate with a soft, approachable and benevolent female leader.

Maybe sexist attitudes towards women in power have been grossly overlooked in how this campaign could and needed to be played.

It might actually be very clever indeed - an all together cleverer ‘new’ spin, a planned emergence of the real Julia as a natural evolution of the Gillard personality.

But then, the long term damage to the Labor party, brought about by the scary power of the faceless men, now emblazoned in the psyche of the electorate, still seems a high price to pay for this approach.

Using Julia Gillard and the current Federal Election as a case study, this is the first in a 4 part series examining whether spin techniques effectively developed for the 20^th century media model  are  now outdated and ineffective in the 21^st century. Post 2 looks at the ineffectiveness of ‘old spin’, the role of the media, and the trust deficit. Post 3 examines whether social media can help build trust and how the future of spinning lies in losing control. The final and fourth post will examine Ms Gillard’s apparent rejection of the “very risk averse standard campaign model” in the context of the election result.

Tuesday: 20 July

After 2 months of fierce struggle, highly expensive ads and the election of a new Prime Minister (PM), the Federal Government and the resources industry have finally reached an agreement on the now scrapped RSPT.

One can wonder if it has resulted into a win-win situation or, given the new neutral name of the tax, if the resources industry is not the main winner of the deal. Is the glass half full or half empty?

From a political point of view, the MRRT appears to be the first victory of Julia Gillard’s new role as Prime Minister. Her ability and her efficiency in leading negotiations surely took a weight off the Labor Party’s shoulders for the election now being held on August 21.

The original RSPT was definitely too disconnected from the way market works whereas the MRRT shows far more respect for market conditions.

However, it appears that former PM Kevin Rudd was close to an agreement and that Julia Gillard only had to seal the deal, probably with larger concessions. So her victory has somewhat of a bitter taste for taxpayers.

From Rio Tinto’s, Xstrata’s and BHP Billiton’s point of view, the MRRT is a genuine victory. Indeed, Gillard’s Government has conceded on:

-          Lowering the rate of the tax from 40% to 30%.

-          Raising the rate at which the tax applies from 6% to 13%.

-          Removing the retroactivity of the tax.

-          Applying the MRRT only to iron ore and coal mining companies.

This is good news for big mining companies - especially for those that extract gold and base metals - and testifies of their strong lobbying power on the Federal Government.

On the other hand, medium and small mining companies have lost out given that they were not part of the negotiations.

In the end, the resources industry will have to share a bit more of its colossal profits, logically enough for the Federal Government to help, finance its flagship projects (the national broadband network, climate change, etc.) and lay down a stronger tax base during the resources boom.

The MRRT will enable a better distribution of wealth among Australian people, which was the primary goal of taxing the resources industry. But picking who won the debate seems a fairly simple task - just ask Rio Tinto or BHP. They can hardly contain their delight to have, again, emerged into positive territory.

Arnaud Eard

Arnaud comes from Paris and gained a MA in International Political Economy at the University of Sheffield. He has been interning at Bluegrass Consulting since May 2010.

Monday: 24 May

This is a summary of a post more fully explored at Public relations and managing reputation.

Public relations professionals (including political lobbyists) can be both a positive social force and a facilitator for helping positive social forces take place. Climate change is a perfect example of how public relations can make, and help make, a positive difference to the world.

The core strategic remit of public relations professionals is to identify issues impacting on organisation-stakeholder relationships and undertake three activities:

• Enhance the communication between an organisation and its stakeholders to create the best possible and most business-helpful relationships between them
• Encourage organisations to adapt their processes/behaviour so that they are more in line with stakeholder expectations and wants (leading to a socially-helpful relationships)
• Encourage stakeholders to adapt their behaviour so that they are more in line with organisational preferences.

The easy way out is to brand all public relations practitioners who work for these industries such as power generation, resources and FMCG (with the latter’s love of resource-heavy packaging) as pariahs, but we are all conflicted by contemporary society.

In Australia, especially, we are dependant on coal-fired power stations (a huge emitter of carbon) to live our daily lives. And heaven forbid the politician who tries to wean us off this dependency. The result will be increased prices for electricity, at least some unemployment and plenty of local community turmoil.

Politicians, driven by votes, lack the fibre to make these calls. Voters, driven by financial issues, lack the fibre to support the hard decisions being made. And so life goes on…

It just goes to show what a heavy responsibility business has. It is they who run western democracies, not governments. What public relations professionals can do is peel the scales from organisations’ eyes:

• Identify stakeholder sentiments in wanting to reduce the impact of global warming
• Provide positives for them in changing the way business operates (enhanced stakeholder loyalty)
• Take a strong role in driving corporate social responsibility and leverage the positive stakeholder relationship benefits that result from taking such as approach.

I have said before, public relations professionals are the conscience of an organisation. We advocate stakeholders as much as we advocate organisations. By ‘working’ for both we are more likely to help encourage a win-win outcome for all parties.

Lobbyists, with their ear of both business people and politicians, arguably have a more important role to play than your garden variety PR practitioner. This strain of PR pro needs to point out, to organisations, the benefits to the environment and to society of an organisation behaving in a certain way. This then helps the organisation ’sell’ its lobbying position to politicians, making it a win-win-win situation.

Getting strategic

Go and seek the internal organisation influencers. Present them with data you have found (including through market research) on how an enhanced sustainability profile can benefit the organisation - its business outcomes, its relationship outcomes, its reputation.

“Companies that have built a strong reputation spark positive word-of-mouth,” said the Reputation Institute in their 2009 Global Reputation Pulse. And we all know positive or negative word of mouth impacts on sales and is the most potent form of marketing available.”

Influence these key stakeholders. Create your own internal advocacy campaign. Create alliances internally with those that will help get your efforts over the line. Get external third party support/credibility from those who the big decisions makers (CEO, COO) think highly of.

Yes, we can!

In short, apply best practice communication strategy to your own efforts to make a positive difference to this world. Act local, think global. Can we make a difference? Most definitely, yes we can.

[Tell me other ways in which PR pros (especially lobbyists!) and marketers can make a positive difference to the environment and society. Do you have stories of communication professionals that have been brave in advocating the environment and society to corporate behemoths?]

Craig Pearce

Monday: 14 September

When we think social media for advocacy - we usually think Facebook, Myspace, Twitter… sometimes YouTube… but how often do we think of Flickr?

A picture can tell a thousand words - so why don’t we use them when we’ve got something to say that we want other people to listen to?

With mobile phones these days - we all have a camera handy, so it’s a perfect tool to capture the moments that help make our point.

Not to pass up on the behind the scenes stuff as well. People love seeing what goes on backstage (I guess its that big brother, voyeurism in all of us). Barrack Obama has been doing it since before he was elected. He now allows everyone to come inside the White House and travel on the road with him.

It gives people that insight to the person (or indeed to a cause) that they wouldn’t under normal circumstances get the opportunity to see. The setting up of an interview, a work in progress… it could really be anything. It allows people to connect on a different level than they would if they were simply being spoken to.

It really opens up a new avenue into online advocacy.

You can also ask people to upload photos that relate to the issue you are campaigning on. You can set up a Flickr group, adjust the privacy settings to whatever you are comfortable with and allow people to become part of the campaign by contributing.

The more people that contribute - the more it will naturally spread.

It’s a great tool that I’m sure will be tapped more and more. The possibilities, especially for politicians and specific advocacy groups is enormous and I’m sure we will see it being used more and more into the future.

What do you think? - Also - Check out the Bluegrass Flickr page!