Category Archives: Working with the media

Five broadcast interview fails

Talking to your customers, Working with the media

No one says doing a broadcast interview is easy. Sweaty and stressful come to mind. But there are some obvious fails that I hear regularly that can be easily eradicated. And in the run up to the general election we’re not short of lots of material.

Of course, the obvious one is making no attempt to answer or even acknowledge the question – the cardinal sin beloved of politicians. There are lots of techniques to handle the questions you don’t want, but none of those techniques involve simply ignoring it.

But for this post, I’m looking at some of the more irritating smaller habits I’ve seen creep in to interviews that, in my book anyway, should have no place in a good interview and are very easy to banish before they hit the airwaves.

These are my top five broadcast fails:

  1. Thanking the interviewer for inviting you onto their programme
    Why thank them? You’re doing the programme a favour by sharing your expertise (and you’re not being paid for it either) so don’t adopt a feeling that you owe them something.
  2. Asking the interviewer ‘how are you?’
    It’s a waste of time and sounds insincere. Most of the time the interviewer won’t respond anyway because they’re too busy working on their opening question.
  3. Using the interviewer’s name
    It always sounds too pally – “Well, Jonathan, it’s like this…” – and frankly insincere. The even bigger offenders are the ones who keep using the interviewer’s name throughout the interview.
  4. “That’s a great question”
    Again, sounds insincere and is almost invariably untrue. In fact, this is a bad habit in any Q&A format where some people preface every reply by praising the question.
  5. Starting a reply with “So”
    It just sounds so

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.

And the winner is…

Working with the media

The problem with industry awards is they’re like Tribbles.

Tribbles? Readers of a certain generation might remember the furry little critters from Star Trek (we’re talking William Shatner vintage here) that looked attractive to have, but which reproduced at an enormous rate, gradually getting bigger and bigger, consuming all before them.

Every week seems to bring another letter or email exhorting you to enter a nomination for another “must win”  award. But, for the in-house comms people they offer a no-win situation. If you decide to enter, then the bulk of the work to put together a slick, compelling entry will fall upon your team. But, all too often, that can mean trying to to make a silk purse from… well, not very much at all. If you win…it’s mutual back-slapping and trebles (Tribbles even) all round for the winning team in the business, while your contribution will probably not be acknowledged. And, if you lose, well, it’s your fault for not getting the entry right.

So, here are my top three tips to make it through the industry award season:

  1. Prioritise the awards: decide which awards mean something to your business. Don’t be pressured into entering everything that’s going.
  2. Prioritise the categories: likewise, only enter those categories that your business has a chance of winning. A good litmus test is if you’re struggling to get enough information together or find a compelling story that usually means your entry will fall short.
  3. Story, story, story: the judges are only human. They like a good story better than anyone. So tell them one.

If all else fails, make sure you at least get a seat at your company table at the awards do and make like a Tribble; consume everything!

 

Boris trips up

Communicating in a crisis, Working with the media

If you missed Boris Johnson get a good grilling on the Andy Marr show, you can still catch it here. ‘Bicycle crash’ TV it might be but it shows how even a savvy media operator like Johnson can fall foul of a savage inquisition.

Mind you, if Johnson had simply admitted he made up the quote (he was young and paid the price), his affair (he’s a politician) and agreeing to let a friend have the contact details of a journalist who the friend wanted to ‘visit’ (nothing happened), then he would have perhaps looked less foolish than he ultimately did.

A suprising lack of candour from the man who normally plays the media game with far more assurance.

What a grind…Starbucks readies itself for the harshest of cuts

Communicating in a crisis, Social media, Talking to your customers, Working with the media

Poor old Starbucks. The 8th December looks like it could be a bad day for the baristas as UK Uncut takes its ‘day of action’ protest to the coffee giant, accusing it of dodging millions in taxes.

I’m sure their PR team will be in full crisis planning mode for what is guaranteed to be a day of less than positive media coverage.

So what’s Starbucks saying about it right now? Well, to be fair, it’s not the radio silence that many a corporation often employs when facing down some bad news. Check out their website and there is at least some blog content addressing the issue. But it’s a bit, well corporate, and frankly still seems to duck some of the issues.

When you have politicians on the radio (Today programme, 3 December) openly talking about boycotting your store, your brand is in serious trouble. If they used the same creativity when it comes to their crisis management as they do to market their coffee, they might have a chance.

A free coffee on the 8th December for any British taxpayer who can show their most recent P60 tax certificate? There’s an idea…