Learning from the medical profession in crisis communications

Recently the French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) have come under criticism for apparently using a material found in mattresses in their breast implants. The French authorities decided to advise that patients have the implants removed immediately as they were in danger of them bursting. The rumours quickly sailed across the channel with 40,000 women in the UK being affected and it caused a media frenzy. Conflicting advice left thousands of customers confused and panicking that they were in danger. In the immediate aftermath of a crisis it is important that you try and save some of your reputation by dealing with it clearly and efficiently, this is one of the key things that we teach in our media crisis training.

There was a debate about who would foot the bill and the NHS said they will remove and replace implants that were affected. However not all patients that went privately have had the same help. Women who used the firms Transform, the Harley Medical Group and Surgicare have been informed that they will not be offered free replacement despite the government reminding them that they have a moral obligation to their customers.

Pregnant Asha Rama-Rabone has been a victim of the confusion “Nobody seems to know what the risks are. I’m watching the news for new revelations each day but different experts keep saying different things. It is a total nightmare.”

The Royal College of Surgeons has produced a document in an attempt to clear up confusion. Consultant plastic surgeon Tim Goodacre, head of professional standards at BAPRAS, said: “It has been a distressing time for all the women caught up in the PIP breast implant issue. We hope this comprehensive guidance, for both patients and healthcare professionals, will ensure we can conclude this effectively and with compassion. We must now look at how cosmetic products and interventions are regulated in the UK more broadly so that we can avoid a repeat of this scenario.”

Women seeking advice have had to wait weeks for guidance. The Independent Healthcare Advisory Services (IHAS) director Sally Taber says, “With the current government position remaining unclear, patients want to know the timeline for the further investigations into PIP implants by the MHRA.”. There is now a government review taking place into the PIP crisis led by Sir Bruce Keogh. It has been suggested that a new insurance scheme (like we have for travel insurance) could come in to prevent such a panic happening again “One of the things my review will be looking at will be… something like the Abta arrangement, which means that when a company runs into trouble for whatever reason, the consumer is covered.”

It seems that the unclear guidelines from the professionals at the start caused worry and confusion to thousands and this stress would’ve been avoided had they got some crisis management in place. Private surgeries will now have a lot of negative feelings towards them and will no doubt feel the blow. So get prepared and invest in some crisis management – you don’t have a crystal ball so get a good plan behind you.

Written by Megan – www.bluewoodtraining.co.uk – January 2012

Why PR? Why Media Training?

The benefits of media engagement are widely acknowledged; firstly, it’s generally considered a much more cost effective way of brand building than many other marketing methods (PR Week recently reported that agencies are seeing a boom in enquiries from car firms, as they look to introduce a more economical and creative marketing approach). Secondly, modern consumers are savvy and many simply switch off when faced with adverts (or fast forward if they have Sky+), instead they often look to reviews or commentary from external parties. Thirdly, media communications can help both in the good times by promoting your products or services and in the bad by giving you an opportunity to explain what went wrong and what you are doing to fix it.

While it’s true there are possible negatives or dangers (contrary to what some may claim you can’t control the media) in communicating with the media, these are far outweighed by the benefits of doing so. The best media relations people know they can help to influence a journalist’s agenda but they know that the relationship has to be mutually beneficial to be a long-term, successful one.

Journalists are after stories, the best ones they can print or broadcast, and this is a key thing to understand about the media’s motivation. By having this knowledge PRs can make sure they are putting their best foot forward when it comes to their news. One tool we explain in our media training courses is the ‘So what? Test’ which encourages you to stop and look at your story and view it from the journalist’s perspective – if you read a release and can’t answer why it’s important or interesting to the target audience then you need to work harder on tailoring it, or perhaps in finding a new angle that will be important to the readers.

PR should be a core part of any organisation’s marketing and communications, but thinking the first step is cold calling the Financial Times and setting up an interview is wrong. The first step is looking at what your organisation does, who your target audience are and what you want to communicate to them. This means stepping back from your day-to-day role so you can see the wood AND the trees. This is one part of why our media training is important – we help you to analyse what you stand for and what this means for your stakeholders.

All too often you hear spokespeople on the news falling back on the same marketing blurb that’s on their and probably all their competitors’ websites; ‘customer focussed’, ‘turnkey solution’, ‘multi-platform’, ‘sustainable ROI’. This is partly due to spokespeople falling back on their comfort zone of internal company jargon, but also due to the fact that firms can find it hard to distinguish themselves from the others in the market. Media training can help you shake off the jargon and make sure you have insightful, new, different and interesting things to say instead – this is what will get you noticed and remembered.

Of course media training will also help you to understand the processes involved in news rooms and explain how broadcasters put together their news items. This is all vital to put you in the shoes of a journalist; which will help you to be a better media communicator, but the best media training is also about the practice interviews. Our courses help you know what to expect from your media interactions, whether you are giving market comment or handling a crisis at your company.

The best organisations take PR very seriously, and the PRs that work in them, know that you won’t be a good spokesperson till you’ve had the media training to prepare you for it.

Written by Will Edwards – www.bluewoodtraining.co.uk – January 2012

New Year, New Start

So we’ve all had a nice break and are busy breaking our New Year resolutions already as we sit at our desks munching on Christmas leftovers and ignoring gym equipment bought in the sales. But now would be a good time to make sure at least our businesses are in order and yearly plans in place to make sure that 2012 is a successful one.

Why not focus your attention more to public relations this year? All companies need to make sure their public profile is positive as a good impression can win new customers. You could embrace new technology this year and use it to your advantage – or perhaps try our social media training? Or plan ahead for any issues that might bubble up this year and try some crisis communications planning, to deal with any negative press that might crop up… or you could try our course on media training.

After all fail to prepare, prepare to fail…. lucky for you Bluewood Training are here to help you brush up on presentation skills and get out there impressing your colleagues, new business prospects and media contacts.

Bluewood provides training tailored to you, with expert trainers who have experience in a wide range of industries. Equip your staff fully for 2012 by signing them up to a course with us and let us share our top tips with you… For example, simple cost effective changes can reap the best rewards. By making use of social media monitoring tools like Google Analytics, you can get a fast idea of how successful your media efforts are and keep track of what your competition are up to, all with relative ease. Set up RSS feeds or Google Alerts to keep track of rival spokespeople and where they’re attracting comment or coverage to see how you might be able to get ahead this year. Trending topics can also be handy to help you keep your finger on the pulse and up to date with emerging trends.

Don’t forget that not all PR is good PR: journalists are always after a story and you may need to ‘stand up’ to them at times so perfecting a firm but polite tone is essential. Feeling comfortable in those kind of situations and having practice at dealing with them is the best preparation so that you and your colleagues can enter into difficult or sensitive situations with confidence.

Things are bound to go wrong sometimes but dealing with a crisis and handling a situation can prevent serious damage. You need clear and strong communications and should prepare by training top management rather than hope it won’t happen to you. It’s no good having a plan in place if it’s old and unused. Learn from others mistakes and don’t be put off. For more handy PR tips take a look here. http://www.prdaily.eu/PRDailyEU/Articles/20_things_every_PR_pro_should_know_how_to_do_7822.aspx

Sometimes sticking to plans or resolutions can be difficult and are easily pushed to one side with the pressures and demands of daily business. So let us help you have a happy new year!

Written by Megan – www.bluewoodtraining.co.uk – January 2012

Guidelines for police dealing with the media!

An interesting story from today on Sky News:
http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16142298
Getting drunk with a journalist might not be the best idea when they want to get a story out of you!

Good Post from PRMoment.com

http://blog.prmoment.com/10-great-things-about-pr-and-pr-people/

Press Under Pressure

The British press has recently been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The Leveson Inquiry is currently investigating the effect that phone hacking and media invasion of privacy has had on celebrities over the years. The hearings were opened by Lord Justice Leveson on 14 November 2011, saying: “The press provides an essential check on all aspects of public life. That is why any failure within the media affects all of us. At the heart of this Inquiry, therefore, may be one simple question: who guards the guardians?”

The revelations have thrown not just the News of the World (NoW) into the limelight, but have questioned the way the UK press interact with celebrities. Other papers including the Daily Mail and The Guardian have been accused of stepping over the line between celebrity and privacy. It seems there are a few more people who could benefit from a Bluewood course in dealing with the media to refresh their memories on best practice in the press.

Amongst those giving evidence are Charlotte Church and Sienna Miller who both told of the intense nature of the British paparazzi and how they would go to extreme lengths to get a headline. Sienna spoke of how “I would often find myself – I was 21 – at midnight running down a dark street”. Both celebrities also told the inquiry about the effects of phone hacking on their personal lives. Not knowing how the press got hold of stories resulted in family arguments for the two young women and in Charlotte’s case her mother had attempted suicide “at least in part” because she had known the story was coming out.

The inquiry is also looking out the ruthless way that the press have attempted to gain information in such cases as the disappearance of schoolgirl Milly Dowler and also Madeleine McCann. Milly’s mother has said that she found it “terribly difficult to process” the fact that it was possible that a journalist deleted messages from her phone. Reporter Daniel Sanderson has apologised after obtaining a copy of Mrs McCann’s diary. She told the inquiry that she felt “violated” by the story and how her personal thoughts had been used in order to create a headline. Sanderson said that his public apology wasn’t “just for this inquiry. That’s because I’m genuinely sorry”.

The results of the Leveson inquiry into press ethics are yet to be seen. Perhaps the conclusion will be to form a new code of ethics for the press to follow or even result in outside regulation. The remit of the process is to: “make recommendations on the future of press regulation and governance consistent with maintaining freedom of the press and ensuring the highest ethical and professional standards”. What is certain is that the nature of the media will always generate the need to be press trained; but the inquiry is showing that even journalists need to know how to ‘operate’ and perhaps, a few also need to know the difference between right and wrong.

Written by Megan – www.bluewoodtraining.co.uk – December 2011

End of Email?

The first ever email was sent in 1971 and it is predicted that the number of people signing up for new email accounts will continue to grow in the future. However, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has recently suggested that email isn’t perhaps the way forward while promoting his new messaging platform. With the younger generations growing up with instant messaging on the likes of MSN, Myspace and now Facebook, email use is lower among teenagers. This may change as they mature and progress into their working careers. It’s too close to call whether email is well and truly dead. But just in case…. you can make sure you are familiar with social messaging and social media tone of voice with a social media training course from Bluewood!

TV while you Tweet? Facebook while you X Factor? Social network while you Strictly?

We’ve written about the importance of company-wide digital guidelines and social media training before on this blog. Though with the invention of IPhones and an ever increasingly impressive technology on mobile phones and laptops, it’s rare that we are ever that long separated from the internet – so this is a theme worth revisiting…. I for one admit that I am attached to my phone and feel like it’s become almost like my third hand. I check Twitter an uncountable number of times in one day and am often logged in to Facebook when I am supposed to be doing other things…

We are now all so used to getting a quick social network fix while at home or at work that we have become a nation of multi-taskers without even noticing. If we don’t have internet access at work, then chances are we have a phone or laptop that can hook us up and feed the addiction.

A popular leisure activity that goes hand in hand with social media is watching television and it appears that we are doing both simultaneously. It’s not just the young that are taking to the Internet to have their say. The Social TV Trends Report suggested “43% of British adults commented on or discussed TV shows they were watching using Twitter, Facebook, other websites and mobile phones”. New inventions, such as Zeebox allow consumers to link television and social media with ease. They are also developing technology that will benefit businesses by allowing viewers to buy products in adverts through its app. Founder Anthony Rose says: “We’ll be using video recognition to recognise ads on TV, so for something like Nike you’ll be able to buy the product from your second screen with a few clicks. But this can apply to the songs playing on TV, and links to catch-up content”.

It seems that during this winter the UK are hibernating on the weekend to watch TV shows where not only can they control the outcome of the programme by voting for the winner, but they can engage with other viewers and express their own opinions via posting on social media. A large proportion of the public no longer wait to discuss that weekend’s TV in the office on Monday morning, and voice their views online as they watch. According to Twitter analysis carried out by Diffusion for the BBC News website: “X Factor is the programme shown in the UK that attracted the most tweets written in English over a period of 30 days”. I’m sure we’ve all noticed the Tweets and Facebook status updates on Saturday nights and even partaken in a few ourselves, even if it is just to say “X Factor is rubbish, stop tweeting”.

This current popular trend could be used to a company’s advantage. Why not get involved and use it as a PR tool? Businesses looking for ways to engage with their audience could check the TV guide for the week ahead and plan a few Tweets or updates around the week ahead. If your products appear on a popular TV show, it could be the perfect opportunity to Tweet your followers and get them to look out for them being used by celebrities. If you’re unsure of social media etiquette or how get started why not get in touch with Bluewood and take some social media training. We can get you up and running on all you need to know for the social media world. There couldn’t be a simpler way to stay topical and interact with the general public.

Written by Megan – www.bluewoodtraining.co.uk – December 2011

Old media fights new

Associated Press reporters have had their wrists slapped over updating their Twitter feeds with breaking news before posting it on the wires. This highlights how Twitter is becoming a lead news source and suggests that keeping up with social media can keep you connected with the latest news as it breaks and even give you information the newspapers can’t.

For example, the death of Osama Bin Laden first broke on Twitter. Anthony de Rosa, social media editor at Reuters tweeted that “News agencies must evolve or face extinction.”

Standing Out To Investors

When it comes to seeking investment; it’s no secret that it’s fairly competitive out there; whether you are the Greek government, the US government or a blue-chip company, fighting to get the best deal from investors has never been harder. There is still money there to be borrowed, but if you can’t convince the investors that you are a safe investment then you’ll struggle to get the deal you want.

The Greek government’s borrowing rates are at eye-watering levels (it’s not even worth quoting what they are as they’ll probably be higher by the time you read this) and Ireland, Portugal and even Italy are similarly troubled. The IPO market hasn’t exactly been booming in the last 12 months either but there are still some companies keen to come to market. According to Reuters; the $700 million Groupon floatation “opened the IPO window a crack earlier this month and now companies, including Yelp Inc, Angie’s List and even social-gaming giant Zynga, are climbing through it, too”. So while this may not be the start of a new flood of IPOs it does show that there are investors out there willing to put money into a business when they think it’s got some potential (the Groupon IPO was one of the biggest internet deals for years). In fact one thing the UK banks have been saying in recent months is that they want to lend to businesses but there just aren’t the opportunities for them to do so (this line has obviously come under fire from their critics who claim they are reluctant to take the risks at the moment).

So what can those seeking investment do to improve their chances of success? One answer is to simply stand out. While we don’t teach delegates in training sessions to meet investors dressed as clowns or enter the meeting by abseiling through the window (this last idea does seem to be one that Richard Branson can’t stop himself from doing), we do ask that the people we train do everything they can to stand out from their competition. Rather than gimmicks or stunts this, of course, usually means identifying the basics required (in presentations and Q&As particularly) and then getting these right – the truth is that if you can do this then you will likely already be a step ahead of the competition.

Analysts and fund managers sit through a huge number of company presentations searching for either the golden nugget that will boost their cash or perhaps just the reassurance their investment is safe. Chances are they’ve heard the same lines, in the same corporate jargon a hundred times, so speaking in plain English about the goals, values and strengths of your business is key, as is making sure you grab their interest. Giving them the evidence, illustrations, facts and figures (without drowning them in detail) will not only help to bring your story to life, thus getting it remembered, it will back-up and support your case, and in this environment, anything you can do to ‘bullet-proof’ your messages will make a world of difference.

Particularly in the next 12 months, companies who are in front of potential investors can’t risk winging it. With funding likely to be that bit more difficult to find, it’s going to be more important than ever before to make sure senior teams are prepared and ready to tackle anything a cynical analyst will throw at them – after all, you never know, you might not get a second chance – just ask Papandreou.

Written by Will Edwards – www.bluewoodtraining.com – November 2011