Pants on fire

Ten days before a presidential election is no time to talk about telling the truth. Just ask the candidates.

 

In a widely publicized media moment yesterday, President Barack Obama said that Mitt Romney is “a bullshitter." Romney put things a little more delicately, saying that “…the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true."

It’s certainly nothing new. As far back as 64 B.C., says classics professor Dr. Philip Freeman, we can find a candidate being advised to “promise everything to anyone,” assured by the knowledge that a master campaigner “only lived up to the promises that benefitted him.” These directives from “Commentariolum Petitionis” (literally the “little book of electioneering”), which Freeman translated into “How to Win an Election,” were good strategies even then: Marcus Cicero would apply this advice from his brother Quintus and win Rome’s highest office that same year.

Of course, Cicero never had to deal with social media or a “digital world in which everything is recorded and scrutinized,” said Freeman at a Dallas Museum of Art event on Thursday. “It was a lot easier to lie to voters in the days before YouTube. Even 10 years ago, campaigns didn’t have to send out the spin doctors after every event, public or private,” he said.

Ah, yes. In case we weren’t sure what to believe, the campaigns provide us a spokesperson to explain it all.

“As long as politicians have been politicking, spinners have been spinning,” said Ivor Gaber, professor of broadcast journalism, noted in his “Lies, Damn Lies and Political Spin” research article. “As the politician attempts to stay ‘on message,’ the media advisor stands by ready to ‘spin’ should the politician trip up,” he says.

In other words, they adjust the candidate’s lies to make it something palatable that we, the voters, can swallow.

Call me cynical, but I tend not to believe them. These spokespeople come across as bigger liars than their bosses, the politicians, because they don’t follow the most basic ethical guidelines of their profession. Tell the truth. Act in the public interest. Correct a mistake, don’t cover it up.  

But as sad as it makes me, I have no illusions that this will change overnight. Instead, I choose to view it as a specialized art form—a twisted talent of bending words to fit a unique need. As George Orwell said in his essay, Politics and the English Language, “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

When good meets bad and ugly

Lance Armstrong with a young cancer patient

Today marks the 15^th anniversary of LIVESTRONG, one of the leading foundations of the national cancer community. The organization provides support, resources and inspiration to those who’ve faced this frightening diagnosis. So far, it’s raised over $470 million towards this mission, channeling those funds to 550 research or service groups nationwide. The good it does is incalculable.

The milestone—and perhaps the future of the foundation—has been marred somewhat by the quite public and increasingly ugly disgrace of its founder, Lance Armstrong. Earlier this month, the United States Anti-doping Agency (USADA) issued a report that Armstrong had been part of extensive doping use and “refused to engage in arbitration.” He has been barred for life from cycling and his seven Tour de France wins have been vacated.

In the wake of the scandal, Armstrong stepped down as chairman of the LIVESTRONG foundation. But perhaps more troubling to both the man and the organization, he has lost his corporate endorsements and, thus, his primary source of income (much of which, rumor has it, is donated to the foundation). At age 41, and finished as an athlete, it remains to be seen where he can go from here.  

The problem is not (entirely) that he did something wrong. Nike, for example, famously stood by plenty of cheaters: Tiger Woods through his infidelity scandal, Alex Rodriguez for performance enhancing drugs, even Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault arrest.

The difference, it seems, is that the athletes admitted they made a mistake. They talked to the media. They stood in press conferences and asked for forgiveness. They opened up and told anyone who would listen that, yes, they were guilty. And sorry.

Armstrong, in contrast, steadfastly maintains his innocence—even in the face of overwhelming evidence—and continues to avoid journalists, a tactic he’s followed since 2009.  

“One of the worst things you can do in media relations is say ‘no comment,’” says Megan Wright, who fields difficult questions as spokesperson for ONCOR. “It makes you look guilty, and makes the reporters dig for dirt.”

She and other experts say that the best thing to do is tell the media what you do know. Be as honest as possible.

“Reporters need to be fed information. They’re always hungry,” says Wright. “Even when you do talk with them, they may think you’re trying to spin them, but at least it gets your side of the story out there.”

It’s a tough but important lesson in media relations, one that sports marketing consultant David Carter said in a recent USA Today article said Armstrong must learn quickly, if not for himself then for his foundation.

"Until he comes clean,” says Carter, “it will be difficult for anybody to use him. If he can't be the face of his own organization, how can he be the face of anybody else's?"

 

More go for less dough

My friends are all talking—and by talking, I mean posting statuses and links—about a new Dallas restaurant called Dough. It’s a pizza place at Preston and Forest that is, according to all accounts, really yummy and really popular. Just like nearby Liberty Burger at Forest and Inwood, Dough is building a pretty good business around modern “word of mouth” promotion. People have a positive experience at Dough and tell their friends. We all show up and eat. Then we tell our friends, too. The restaurant has spent almost no funds on paid advertising, getting—in the words of an old gas station sign—“more go for less dough.”

 

Brand advocacy like this is, and always has been, at the heart of public relations. In fact, all we’re really trying to do as PR people is to get others to talk (positively) about our company or service. In this sense, we’ve worked with traditional media to advocate on our behalf and—as digital interaction becomes more and more prominent—we now try to get “citizen journalists” to do the same.

It’s a process that goes beyond simply name recognition or a catchy tagline. The things that gives a brand longevity and power are all the intangible elements that make up an experience with that entity. PR is about working to create and reinforce that experience.

While there are countless tactics which can contribute to the development of brand advocates, three key concepts rise to the top:

1.       Engage

Put simply, you need to have a two-way conversation with your audience members. Think of the last few lectures and presentations you’ve attended. Think about your favorite talk show. The most interesting—Oprah Winfrey or Ellen DeGeneres—were those in which the speaker asked questions of the audience and actively responded to the answers. Even if most of the audience (including you) just listened, they probably felt more of a connection to the presenter and her content because she made an effort to engage.

 

Modern media works the same way. We don’t want information dumped on us; we want to have an interactive experience. And the research backs it up. According to an article on consumer-brand identification in the current issue of International Journal of Research in Marketing, there is a “strong causal relationship” between drivers like “warmth” and “memorable experiences” and a consumer’s brand loyalty. We want to strive to make those connections at every available touchpoint.

2.       Ask

Once we’ve established a positive relationship, we shouldn’t wait for our new friends to endorse us. We need to actively ask them to do so. Dan Zarrella, author of The Social Media Marketing Book, says that tweets containing the phrase “please retweet” are FOUR TIMES more likely to be shared. It’s a simple but deliberate call to action that turns your followers into advocates—and it’s a highly effective tactic on personal media channels like Facebook, where people trust the recommendations of their friends and acquaintances.

Don’t have that many followers? Try influencing your audience’s influencers, says Bill Kula, Director of External Comms at Verizon. Identify the top voices in your industry, whether they be bloggers, industry journalists, columnists at key publications or simply individuals who carry a lot of clout. Then engage with them on driving conversation around who you are and what you do.

3.       Recognize

Finally, as my mother (and Dale Carnegie) always said, make people feel important, no matter who they are. Acknowledge their contribution to the conversation. Show respect for them and their opinions. Feature their ideas, even if it’s just a simple retweet or customer quote. Making a big deal—or even a little deal—out of one person’s mention will encourage others to follow suit. Pretty soon you’ll have a whole bunch of people saying nice things about you.

And, in the end, isn’t that really what public relations is all about?

Keeping it real

 

Artwork (c) Savannah Harper 2012

 Just as a disclaimer, I don’t have nearly this many cats. My friend and grad school classmate Savannah Harper is a chronic doodler, and sometimes embellishes her lecture-note drawings to the point of absurdity. And at first glance, it’s no more than that—a silly representation of a Crazy Cat Lady and her fuzzy companions.

On the other hand, it’s a perfect illustration of contemporary public relations: you might start with a big idea, but you have to make it interesting and personal to keep my attention.

For example, this drawing started with an American Heart Association “Go Red For Women” red dress sticker, provided by our class speaker, Malinda Mason Miller. The principal and proprietor of EmCubed Creative shared insights into her role with the AHA campaign as it entered a second—and critical—year. While her presentation detailed specific challenges and changes, the bigger point was one of “keeping it real.” Heart disease transcends statistics; it touches real people and changes real lives. The campaign had to find a way to do the same.

The AHA approached it just as Savannah did—starting with a core concept (the sticker, the comms basics) and filling in details until I could see myself at the center as an active participant.

I think this notion is core to the rise of social media in the communications field. Technology has finally caught up with our need to be more than “an audience.” We’re individual people, and are looking to be addressed as such. As a consumer of products and information, I love it. As a communicator, I’m a bit out of my league—though, apparently, so are many of my colleagues, as evidenced by the flood of resources now available. For instance, PR Newswire offers a  free downloadable e-book called “Unlocking Social Media for PR.” There are countless apps to organize social media workflow. And major business analyst firms like IDG are publishing articles on the growing role of personalization in marketing campaigns.

Buried in this frenzy is a critical concept that all communicators must remember: these digital connections should facilitate, not become a substitute for, real-life interactions. They’re a starting point for a bigger conversation. Savannah’s drawing conveyed a message, certainly. It took an abstract concept of a stylized dress and made it into something that resonated for me. But it also started a dialogue—in person, face to face—that built upon a bigger relationship and helped it grow. In the end, isn’t that what communications is really all about?