Bluegrass Consulting: Blueblog

Tuesday: 08 February

So it took a little while to sort out, but we now know, Labor lost the 2010 election (72 seats to 73) but pulled off a win in the post election negotiations. Despite the ‘win’, 5 months later, Labor still look like losers. And the now infamous ‘Real Julia’ moment, Gillard’s apparent rejection of spin and a risk adverse campaign model, is to blame.

It was a catastrophic and painfully uncomfortable election campaign for Labor, ‘worst in history’ according to prominent Labor identity Graham ‘Richo’ Richardson, with both he and National Secretary Karl Bitar agreeing ‘Real Julia’ was a grave strategic error, in the top three mistakes of the election.

“Labor ran the worst campaign in history. No doubt about that. When Julia Gillard said this was the real Julia, no, this wasn’t a slip of the tongue. It was planned; it was thought to be clever. It wasn’t. It was just plain dumb.” (Graham Richardson)

A founding rule of spin is don’t declare what you are not. Such as Nixon’s famous I’m not a crook. As everyone then thinks, that’s exactly what you are.  In the same way, saying I am the ‘real Julia’, leads everyone to believe you ‘aren’t', or if you are now, you weren’t then. As Bitar said, “(it) was not really about a real Julia and a fake Julia. Unfortunately, that’s the way it came across”.

Statements of this nature, also feed the media beast, providing great material for headlines and analysis.  Mostly sceptical and unfavourable - to be expected.  You don’t have to look further than Four Corners’ first program for 2011, “The Real Julia?”, and this introductory statement “…one of the most remarkable moments was watching Julia Gillard as Prime Minister in an election campaign struggling to explain who she was, having to reassure us she was real, not manufactured”; to see this political hangover continues to hurt.

As this blog goes on to describe, the explanation for why ‘Real Julia’ failed and the consequent lesson for political communicators, is: be careful of saying what you are and aren’t. If you do, make sure you have an agenda, ‘the filling’, action and conviction, not just an empty statement.

Words just words

The strategic error was when Julia stood up and said I am real, but then failed to explain who that was, and what she stood for. “When a leader stands up and says this is who I am, this is about my leadership, they need to follow it up with action,” says online political blog, Pollytics.

Pollytics research shows how former PM, Kevin Rudd’s leadership went up with the Grech affair, because Rudd stood and said, ‘this is about my leadership - this is bullshit’ and went for the jugular. The result, he “destroyed Malcolm Turnbull and was unassailable until he couldn’t get his governance together.”

In comparison, Gillard stood and said ‘this is about my leadership, and I have nothing really to say about it’, the result, an election which delivered a weak government and a hung parliament.

The conviction politician

Till this day we are still asking who is Julia? We know she’s a former lawyer, considered one of ‘Australia’s foremost Parliamentary debaters’, she cares about education and “came into politics predominantly to make a difference to opportunity questions“.

One ‘opportunity question’ is industrial relations, and her work in rolling back Work Choices was well executed; but she remains opposed to other ‘opportunity issues’ i.e. same sex marriage, preferring to sit on the fence, proving more ‘consummate politician’ then thinking, feeling, real. She believes in climate change, but established a “Citizen’s Assembly” to consider it, and she’s a republican but won’t lead on the issue.

In the end, much of this debate comes back to an already familiar political notion, that of the ‘conviction politician‘. John Howard is most famous for embodying this. How often did we hear everyday voters say, ‘even if you hated him, at least you knew what he stood for’.

Policy by polling

As outlined in post 1 of this series, the reliance and often incorrect reading of polling, is causing all sorts of problems for politicians, and has seen the apparent end of the conviction politican. As the article ‘Who are you Julia‘ says: “It’s hard to escape the conclusion that if Julia Gillard has an ideology, it comes from the Labor party’s market research company. The ambivalent feelings she publically presents….reflect the mixed feelings through the community”.

Surely, being the country’s ‘leader’ can’t simply mean ‘following’ the people. Conviction, real or fake, is essential for a politician.  As illustrated by an adviser’s comment to the former leader of the National Party New Zealand; “the secret to success is sincerity and conviction. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made”.

Summary - the future is Bligh

The first blog on this topic, written prior to the election, focussed on the need to evolve the art of spinning, believing it increasingly out of date, so much so it could lose Labor the election.  It looked at Gillard’s public rejection of this ‘traditional campaign model’ including ‘real Julia’, and posed whether this would work.

In finalising this series, we recognise attempts being made to evolve spinning techniques, to strive for honest communication, i.e. ‘Real Julia’. But when only half thoughts, lacking action and content (essential to effective political communication) they fail. Proving in the end, to still be spin. And worst still, ineffective spin which backfires.  Gillard need heed the advice of this cricket fan, “bowl straight at the wicket. Don’t try any fancy tricks.”

However, not all is lost! In recent weeks, we have witnessed political communication at its best. Some even call it a new template. It is indeed the evolution this blogger believes not only more integrious, and for those at-any-cost, hard head spinners, more effective.

According to David Penberthy, this new template is: “Based around honesty, decisiveness and plain speech. It’s been based around saying what government can do, and what it cannot do.” We speak of none other than Premier Anna Bligh, and her handling of the devastating floods in Queensland.

Social media was quickly followed by the mainstream in reporting the contrast between the two leaders in their ability to communicate appropriately throughout the disaster, boosting one’s leadership, and hurting another’s.

No prizes for picking the winner. Gillard, watch and learn. For ‘real’!

Friday: 03 December

It’s 3am. Lawyers and advisors of a takeover target sit squashed in a downtown hotel suite, empty coke cans and coffee mugs litter the room while reams of paper are poured over. Across the hall in a bigger suite the acquirer’s team of lawyers and advisors check emails and wait for phone calls from across the hall for more documentation. This is the mergers and acquisition (M&A) process as described by a bank lawyer friend of mine.

Call it what you will - a friendly takeover, synergy or absorption, this is one of the most exciting areas in business. M&A experienced a massive slump as a result of the global financial crisis when the CFOs clung onto their balance sheets like castaways on a raft. Now as we move into the “new normal” (thank you McKinsey &Co) where money is more expensive but more available, M&A is again on the rise - and a good a communications strategy around the practice can mean short and sharp success.

There have been many cases where poor communications on a merger has led to its near collapse or value depreciation. Financial journalist Steve Lipin uses the examples of Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition of Compaq, Conseco’s acquisition of Green Tree Financial Corp. and Newell’s takeover of Rubbermaid Inc as examples earlier this decade.

These companies’ employees and shareholders experienced long periods of uncertainty with minimal communication from management, executives or the board. They filled the void by circulating rumours and myths about the situation, which either led to the transaction’s collapse or dramatically reduced the acquirer and takeover target’s value. The above organisations relied on their lawyers and advisors to contract out communications. No offense to lawyers but they are best to stick to the detail and shouldn’t be concerned with top line positioning and key messaging.

It is absolutely vital that both the acquirer and takeover target have in place a co-ordinated communications plan months before any announcement to help fill the vacuum and begin to influence the decision makers.

Treat it like a political campaign. You are dependent on a group of stakeholders on your survival - and if you don’t convince them that your way is the right way you will be forced to abort your mission.

At the centre of the campaign are a few must haves:

1.     Do you have a credible story, with clear targets, that can be communicated, accomplished and monitored, over time, by the acquirer and investors?

2.     Does your story remove uncertainty and give direction to the organization so that employees can effectively deliver?

3.     Does your story link post-merger integration plans to the economics of the transaction?

(Thanks again to Steve Lipin for the checklist)

Takeover targets want to know one thing: what is in it for them? Will my job be safe? Can I get a pay out? Will my shares go up or down?

A communications plan will help executives and the board answer these questions from stakeholders. They will uncover issues that are usually an afterthought in the heat of due diligence but are typically the ones that can make or break a merger. These issues usually come from concerns from employees and shareholders so they must be top priority in any communications planning. And don’t forget, most employees are shareholders too!

M&A communications is a beast all onto its own. It can be aggressive or subtle, yet always highly strategic. Getting good advice and a good plan early is paramount for any successful transaction.

Heather Gilmore

Heather is a communications consultant, former Senior Manager at Westpac and media advisor to a NSW Premier and Treasurer. She is also an Associate Account Director with Bluegrass Consulting. Heather’s blog is at hgcommunication.com

Thursday: 27 May

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

Media are not normally invited to participate in round tables, as it is generally one of the goals of the round table to produce content (initially captured in the form of a white paper) which is placed in a wide variety of media outlets. Thus, having one or two media outlets present at a round table can undermine this occurring.

Having said that, there are no rules that can’t be ‘bent’. It may well be that the one or two media outlets noted above are far and away the most influential on an organisation’s target audience. So if this is the case, then it can definitely be a viable approach to take.

Round table - media participation or not?

There is value, and there are limitations, in having a media outlet involved in the round table (RT).

Important elements to bear in mind when considering this question include:

• Do not involve media as a round table participant if it will stop you from gaining the desired coverage from priority media (or any media you want coverage in, for that matter)
• The participating media outlet will want an exclusive on the content - so they get to use it first
• That’s fine, but only if you are happy for it to be the only media outlet that covers the round table/white paper issues
• As I have written before, you can create a campaign for metro media that is based on one article or op-ed being placed and then you can leverage radio and/or TV coverage off that single placement
• The other option is getting a media outlet present that is part of a broader network, so the syndication of the story leads to multiple placements, but just within one media ‘house’ .

Public relations’ media coverage: giving an exclusive - yea or nay?

One approach to apply with securing media coverage is arranging an exclusive/placement with one metro publishing house and one exclusive with a vertical B2B publishing house. This may lead to more than one actual placement in both sectors:

• One is published virtually instantaneously and one takes longer
• Metro is often for a broader audience and B2B is generally for a more niche audience
• Metro media is often more particular than B2B in publishing content so it’s generally much easier to get placement in the latter
• After the content is used in metro media the issues not covered can be value-added to and used as a B2B media relations campaign.

And don’t forget, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush……..make sure you are smart when creating your media placement KPIs. Sure, get it so its business-relevant et al, but you also want to make sure you over-achieve, not, gasp, under-deliver!!

In other words, if getting that single placement is all important on different levels (strategically appropriate to target audiences, makes you look good in front of your organisation etc), then it may well be a prudent methodology to apply. Be smart about this on a variety of levels.

Have you used a round table to produce content that generated media results? What lessons did you learn? Where else apart from media did you use the content that was generated from the round table? Have you ever had media participate in a round table - can you share your experiences?

Craig Pearce

Twitter: @commaim

Thursday: 15 April

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

Op-eds are a valuable part of public relations and media relations strategies because of the media coverage and the positive positioning, through thought leadership, they generate. An additional, and extremely valuable, characteristic of the op-ed is that its topic, and the content that is generated as part the op-ed scoping process, can also be used to generate more than a single media placement.

The thought leadership and op-ed (opinion piece) scoping process will always generate more information than can be contained within a single opinion piece. Two things can occur with this information:

• It can serve as the basis for another opinion piece
• It can be used as complementary information to support an issues-based campaign, aimed at generating multiple media placements, that ‘feeds’ off the initial single opinion piece placement and uses core information from that op-ed.

Aspects to bear in mind for op-eds include:

• Giving the op-ed exclusively to one outlet means they should be, strategically, the most appropriate media outlet to  target
• When it comes to mainstream media, you will only be able to place the op-ed in one outlet. That’s it. The exception being if one media organisation owns a variety of media outlets of relatively state-specific nature
• The timing/coordination of how the campaign is rolled out is important - the op-ed and an issues-based campaign (based on complementary thought leadership content) need to work in concert with each other

Leveraging the thought leadership

Another dimension of these approaches is that once you have confirmed an op-ed is being placed in a print or online media outlet (mostly relevant to mainstream metro media like The Australian), you can use the content to pitch to radio or even TV. You can do this the day before the story goes live or you can do it early in the morning of publication.

Radio producers always skim the newspapers (and their online variations these days) to see if there is anything they can explore further on their shows. This can be leveraged for the benefit of everyone : client/employer, the media.

PR people? We make everyone happy!

So, what are your thoughts on information in this post? Have you applied any of these approaches? How did they go? What have I missed out on that is crucial in undertaking these approaches?

Craig Pearce