Staying “on message” becoming outdated
22nd April 2007 by Eric Bergman, ABC, APR
To Jennifer McClure, the concept of creating three static messages and repeating them regardless of the question asked is quickly becoming outdated. In fact, she believes it’s an approach that never worked as well as many thought it did anyway.
“The more we move into an age of social media, the more we need to address our communication as conversations, not as a transmission of set messages or key messages,” says Jennifer, who is executive director of the Society for New Communication Research (SNCR). “That’s not a good way to engage in a conversation. It’s not how normal people engage in conversation.”
In her opinion, creating static messages and trying to contrive what the media covers has eroded the relationship that public relations professionals have traditionally had with journalists. But beyond that, the ways that an organization communicates with its audiences and stakeholders is changing as well. Traditionally, the media has been a primary conduit for getting messages to an organization’s publics. But that has changed. Today, the organization needs to communicate directly with its stakeholder groups.
“The public is not going to trust or listen to or be involved in a conversation where there is a contrived message,” Jennifer explains. “The way these conversations are taking place has changed dramatically. The notion that you can call your friend the reporter and have him (or her) transmit that message to the audience is gone.”
If someone were to suggest to Jennifer that they are going to teach spokespeople how to control the interview — which is what the majority of media trainers claim on their websites and in their promotional material — she has a fairly simple response.
“I think that it’s an incorrect approach,” she say. “Even in a traditional media environment, think about the way that you watch those interviews. You can always tell when the person that is speaking is only going back to that key message.”
She questions the impression this leaves with readers, listeners or viewers. It either sends a message that the information is not valuable, so the receiver shuts it off. It may mean that the spokesperson really doesn’t know what he or she is talking about, so they cannot engage in an in-depth discussion. Finally, it sends the signal that the organization has something it’s trying to hide, which is why the spokesperson keeps going back to canned messages.
“It’s not a good way to train someone to have a valuable discussion,” she says. “It just doesn’t work, and it certainly doesn’t work in an age of social media because the feedback can be so much more immediate and so much more global.”
Jennifer believes we need to rethink our role as PR professionals when it comes to controlling messages. We should think of ourselves as enablers of valuable conversations that build strong relationships inside and outside the organization.
This should occur both internally and externally. Through her research at the Society for New Communication Research, she has discovered that those organizations trying to engage in social media initiatives — such as blogging, podcasting, videocasting and wikis — are having more success if they have already introduced and used these tools internally. This means having an open culture of communication within the organization. As part of this culture, employees need to feel comfortable with their ability to communicate with management.
“They know that management is listening and incorporating their thoughts, their expertise and their messages back into the organization’s messages and it’s not just coming top-down,” she explains. “If that is occurring, then the messaging actually becomes much more organic, much more authentic and much more valuable.”
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:03 am
From your post, Eric, and without hunting up her original documentation, it appears that Jennifer McClure doesn’t have — at least, you didn’t mention — research pertaining to effective message delivery in a media relations setting.
She apparently talks about communication as conversation, but your post offers no research-based support for her position, only “her opinion” that spokespersons shouldn’t try to maintain some control over an interview.
Well, there certainly is a significant volume of well-respected research on the other side of this issue, most notably virtually everything done by Vincent Covello, Ph.D.
It would seem that the executive director of the Society for New Communication Research — that’s communication research, right? — would offer something more rigorous than simply, “I think that it’s an incorrect approach.”
Now if Jennifer is decrying unthinking, ego-centric, ham-fisted, artless, mechanistic approaches to media relations, I agree. Those folks give media relations a bad name.
But the answer is not to throw out techniques that work fine when used properly. It is, instead, to train practitioners to apply proven techniques more skilfully. And to learn when “key messages” are appropriate, and when other techniques will work better.
Traditional methodology “just doesn’t work, and it certainly doesn’t work in an age of social media,” she says.
No, what doesn’t work is trying to fit the square peg of “social media” research into the round hole of proper, appropriate, skilfully executed media relations practice.
April 22nd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Hey Rich,
Interesting thoughts. And thanks for the referral to Dr. Covello’s research.
I scanned a report entitled “The Determinants of Trust and Credibility in
Environmental Risk Communication.” Interesting stuff.
I may be taking this out of context, the the report concluded that “strong support” was found for a number of hypotheses, including one that “proposed that activities that enhance perceptions of openness and honesty would increase trust and credibility.”
At this point, we are debating whether staying on message would be perceived as being open and honest. It’s a debate that needs to grow.
I recently listened to David Jones’ and Terry Fallis’ podcast, Inside PR, and this week’s episode focuses on media training. (That discussion starts at the 20-minute point.)
“I think in the last five years, there has been a growing intolerance on the part of journalists — and through journalists our audiences — for the canned message,” says Terry.
“What’s the first role of a spokesperson?” David asks. “The idea is to be believable. If I believe you, I’m going to listen to you. And if I listen to you, I’m probably going to hear what you’re saying. It all goes together, as opposed to jam some messages down people’s throats and think that you’ve done something.”
As my grandfather used to say … sometimes common sense can be anything but common.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Rich -
Thank you for your comment. While we didn’t discuss research during our brief conversation for this podcast, there certainly exists plenty of documentation to support the assertion that organizations would be well-served to focus on better listening and learning to engage in genuine conversations with their constituencies rather than relying heavily on static corporate messages and traditional media relations tactics. Here are just a few resources:
The Edelman Trust Barometer: According to this research, the most credible source of information about a company is now “a person like me,” rather than experts or official sources. In the U.S., trust in “a person like me” increased from 20% in 2003 to 68% today. Opinion leaders also consider rank-and-file employees more credible spokespersons than corporate CEOs (42% vs. 28% in the U.S.).
Richard Edelman, president and CEO, Edelman commented about this research, “We have reached an important juncture, where the lack of trust in established institutions and figures of authority has motivated people to trust their peers as the best sources of information about a company. Companies need to move away from sole reliance on top-down messages delivered to elites toward fostering peer-to-peer dialogue among consumers and employees, activating a company’s most credible advocates.” (Note: Edelman is represented on on the Society for New Communications Research advisory board.) This finding is also echoed in research conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Additionally, though admittedly not a data-driven piece of reading, The Cluetrain Manifesto offers valuable insight from some great thinkers on how we might all think differently about corporate messaging and communications.
The Society is currently conducting a research project called “The New Influencers,” which addresses this topic. The first findings of that research will be available by the end of this year.
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm
More importantly, the idea that you could ever simply deliver a 1-2-3 and be perceived as credible and believable is ridiculous. This isn’t a new trend. What’s new is that more and more people are being trained for media interviews than ever before and have learned not to answer questions. Yes, of course people can see right through it, but not everyone sounds as phony as the media trained Sunday morning talk show politician of the week. I think there is a bit of confusion here. Jennifer says “It’s not how normal people engage in conversation.” Of course it isn’t. But, media conversations are not real conversations. I repeat: Media conversations are not real conversations.
While many media coaches teach that 1-2-3 delivery that Jennifer refers to—good media coaching isn’t just about staying on message. In fact, good media training isn’t just about media. (Read Saturday 4/21/07 NY Times Business Section–whole article about the new media trainers) It’s about helping people condense complicated information into simple terms, weave key messages into interviews or conversations and make those messages relevant to a reporter’s audience so it actually means something. In media, it’s about helping them understand what reporters want and how they can help that reporter tell the story. It’s about learning how to partner in an interview so they are not held hostage to a bunch of limiting questions. As stated in an above comment, it’s a balance. And, spokespeople have every right to try to look good and deliver messages as opposed to simply answering questions. You cannot expect a reporter to ask you specific questions to trigger what you want to say or ask you a question to drive the story outcome that you’d like to see. It is not their job to tell everyone how wonderful you are. And you can’t expect them to ask the questions you would ask because they don’t know what you know!
Perhaps the problem isn’t the delivery of canned messages. Maybe the real problem is how spokespeople are being taught…often, by people who have never written a story, covered a story, produced a story or worked in a newsroom. Please don’t misunderstand. I have learned volumes from my PR counterparts. But I wholeheartedly agree with Rich when he says the answer is not to throw out techniques that work fine when used properly, but instead we should be teaching practitioners to apply proven techniques more skillfully.
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
The 1-2-3 approach also creates a problem for those of us who teach media training and those of you who want your bosses to go through media training.
Executives watch the morning talk shows in which poorly training spokespeople, executives and politicians keep dodging the question, rather than answering the question. Hence, your boss doesn’t want to appear like that and they refuse to go through media training — which then causes them to go into an interview completely unprepared.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
You’re right, Karen, good media coaching is not about staying on message. Effective media training should evolve from communication excellence and the two-way symmetrical model of communication.
Staying on message is rooted in the press agentry or public information models of public relations. As a general statement, these models operate on the premise that if I keep repeating myself long enough and loud enough, some of what I say will eventually make it through to the audience.
IABC’s excellence study drew many parallels between excellence in public relations and excellence in negotiation, in which a win-win outcome is desirable, highlighting that two-way symmetrical communication is the model on which consistent excellence in public relations and communication management is based.
I must apologize, but I disagree that the problem with media training is that it is conducted by people who have “never written a story, covered a story, produced a story or worked in a newsroom.” In fact, the excellence study would support the notion that this closeness to the newsroom may have contributed to where we find ourselves today.
When they “cross to the dark side,” journalists (as would PR technicians coming out of college and university) have difficulty getting beyond press agentry and public information as the primary models by which they practice public relations. You need extensive experience in our business (and/or additional training) to understand the science of two-way symmetrical communication.
In other words, the research does not seem to support the notion that you need to know how a newsroom works to be an effective media trainer. Rather, if communication excellence is your goal, you need to be an excellent coach who understands the science of public relations, and who can evoke the best desired result:
Provide spokespeople with the skills to manage the interview process to a win-win outcome in a dynamic, changing, evolving environment.