All posts by Sebastian

Where’s your bite?

Content marketing, Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

I’m no design expert but it struck me the other day while looking at my phone, how brilliant the Apple logo is. Yes, it’s obviously an apple – I told you I was no expert – but it’s the bite out of the apple that is the really clever bit.

There are all sorts of stories, myths and legends weaving around the web as to why the ‘bite’ is there. According to one media report some think it’s a play on ‘byte’, others relate it to the famous code breaker Alan Turing who apparently died by eating a poisoned apple. The truth is likely to be the more prosaic suggestion that the designer just saw it as a great way of differentiating the logo from a cherry.

AppleHowever it got there, the bite makes what would be a rather routine outline of an apple into something far more interesting. It suggests movement, action, even intrigue.

My point?

Writing can use the same trick to liven up a piece that might otherwise get lost although this time the ‘bite’ could be humour, creative language, a great picture to accompany the piece, or even an Unconvential. Grammar. Approach.

Next time you write something, take a moment to step back and ask yourself, “Where’s the bite?”

Good PR according to Taylor Swift – it’s ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room’

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So, I was at the Taylor Swift gig last Friday at Wembley Stadium – either I’m a fan or I have a tween and a teen who are, or both…you decide.

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It’s called the Reputation tour after her last album and, as she talked about the name, I thought she gave the best definition of public relations that I’ve heard in a long time. Of course she didn’t call it public relations – not many do any more – but she talked about reputation as: ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room ‘.

Most of the definitions of public relations from various industry bodies are quite stiff and go something like ‘the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics’. I’m picking on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations here but you get the point. Not very memorable and quite dry.

Taylor’s version though strikes home the power of PR over other marketing disciplines. Get your reputation management right, get people talking good things about your business when you’re not even in the room and you can avoid all that Bad Blood, get it wrong though, sour your reputation, and you’ll never Shake It off.

Social media – in or out?

Social media

Pub chain Wetherspoon recently announced it was closing its social media accounts. Convinced staff were being side tracked by Facebook and its social media mates, the CEO also added a more general social commentary that too many people spend too much time living their lives online (rather than tucking into a large mixed grill at the Moon and Sixpence in Milton Keynes perhaps?).

Does he have a point? And, as a business is it worth taking the risk?

Pint Beer Glass on WhiteYes, and no. Yes, I’m sure there are many who feel that too much time is spent online but no, in that I’m not sure that switching off one of the primary customer communications channels will do a business any favours.

Ostrich approach
In today’s world, it’s the equivalent of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. You might not be able to hear anything or see anything, but it’s going on out there and you’ve just given up the opportunity to right any wrongs.

There are many positives of having an active social media approach, not least the chance to actively engage with clients and customers but also to help shape your business’s personality.

In the short term, exiting social media might relieve the business of a job of keeping its social media accounts up to date, but in the long term  your reputation might well suffer for your social silence.

Time for ‘Total Communications’ (just like Total Football, but without the ball, and you don’t have to be Dutch either)

Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees

Footballer types will be familiar with the Dutch concept of Total Football, pioneered by the great Dutch footballer Johann Cruyff. It was a method of play that meant any player could interchange with another in any position on the pitch. Characterised by space and movement (he says, channelling his inner Alan Hansen punditry), it was a philosophy that unified the whole team.

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Communications shouldn’t be any different.

If you think about every single touch point that a business has with its customers, suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders, how consistent are the communications? For instance, it’s all well and good publishing a beautiful new website that embodies the ideas of plain and simple English, but all that good work is undermined when a business renewal letter is sent to a client that is full of ‘herewiths’ and ‘thereofs’ and other intelligible dirge.

What do the signs in your reception say about your business? What about the all staff email from the CEO? The language used on a trade stand? Brochures? The company’s LinkedIn profile? Even the sign off at the bottom of each employee’s email? Employee benefit statements?

You get the idea…every single communication point must not only be consistent in terms of its language and execution but must almost be identifiable with another. There is no point the group communications or marketing team pioneering an approach to communication if it’s not adopted by the facilities department, customer services, sales, HR…

Call it Total Communications.

Cruyff turn anyone?

A train crash of a radio interview

Communicating in a crisis, Working with the media

A nice interview yesterday saw the Managing Director of Customer Experience at the Rail Delivery Group – Jacqueline Starr – face-up to John Humphrys on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Well, nice for the beleaguered rail passenger but I suspect that Jacqueline Starr won’t be buying her media relations team their morning coffees and croissants any time soon.

Hauled on to the show to discuss a Times story that found out of 50 rail journeys it was possible to get a cheaper fare on 33 of them than that advertised (and if you haven’t investigated split ticketing before, I’d strongly recommend you take a look), Starr rather walked into Humphrys’ gleeful clutches with a performance big on media messaging but rather lacking in substance.

image for screen-400The alarm bells rang when Starr’s first response was to laud how the “rail industry is very successful in meeting customer demands”.  Things got worse when she then fed Humphrys that awful line about how “customers are at the heart of everything we do”. I can almost see that A4 of key messages given to Starr beforehand.

All well and good to prepare some messaging but you cannot simply hope to paper over a genuine issue with some  platitudes that no one, least of all someone as tuned into PR hogwash as Humphrys, is going to roll over and accept.

Towards the end of the interview, Starr finally admitted to the issue and agreed it wasn’t acceptable. Why not do that from the outset? The rail travelling public is a cynical bunch and is never going to buy some stale soundbites about customer service.

Fair play to Starr for fronting up in the first place but a bit of empathy and, when you’ve been caught out, a good dollop of contrition and a commitment to put things right might have kept things on the rails and are what the travelling public (and John Humphrys and his ilk) want to hear.