Recently, Maclaren, the leading British consumer lifestyle company famed for its ‘premium’ baby pushchairs, announced the recall of approximately one million buggies in the U.S. after it emerged that 12 children had their fingers amputated by the seemingly innocuous hinges on the buggies.
All Maclaren single and double umbrella pushchairs sold in the U.S. in the past decade, including the popular Volo and Techno models, were voluntarily recalled by the company, who announced they were proactively providing customers and retailers with a kit to cover the offending joint on the hinge mechanism.
Now, product recalls are a fact of manufacturing life and can occur in organisations that have the most stringent and rigid quality control standards. But, for a company that prides itself on manufacturing the Rolls Royce of strollers, this is just about as bad as it gets.
Only one story can claim credit for generating 1,558 news articles, along with countless rants over the past week – French striker Thierry Henry’s skillful double handball during extra time in the match against Ireland on Wednesday night last week.
While the event filled the traditional newsprint and broadcast media’s pages and airwaves almost exclusively for the next few days, some of the more interesting parts of the unfolding drama took place on social media channels.
Last week, I joined forty PRII members on a tour of the Newstalk studios. George Hook waved out at us from the studio, we squeezed into the bunker-like room from where the news bulletins are read and we mingled with presenters and producers. How Claire Byrne managed to look so fresh and speak so coherently fourteen hours after her day began is beyond me.
I digress. The most interesting part of the evening was the Q&A session and particularly the advice which came from Eamon Keane, presenter of the Lunchtime programme.
Apart from sharing what happens when a PR person foolishly calls the programme in the minutes before it goes on air, Eamon told the PR professionals present that it is always better to have your client in the studio for an interview rather than doing it over the phone. If your client is on the phone and their opponent is in the studio the battle is lost before it begins.
That this is true is something that most radio listeners would agree with. Pity then that someone didn’t say it to Ruth O’Dowd who was fired by Bill Cullen on Monday night’s Apprentice on TV3.
So is it time to write the obituary for the once vaunted concept of corporate social responsibility? Do the acronyms ‘CSR’ and ‘RIP’ now fit snugly together?
Well, perhaps not. But there’s no question that the economic downturn has had a bad impact on good intentions. When times are hard, you think of yourself, not the rainforest, the polar bears, the planet, or anything else.
The query comes to mind following commentary last week from the U.S. public relations newsletter, The Holmes Report, on the phenomenon of ‘greenwashing’, where companies let on that they’re a lot more committed to environmental issues than they actually are, through expensively produced advertising and public relations campaigns.
Roy Keane’s star appears to have waned pretty dramatically in recent years. From his status as captain of Manchester United and perhaps the least droppable player in the English Premier League, through the nation-dividing confrontation in Saipan in 2002, he is currently to be found as the coach of struggling English Championship side, Ipswich Town.
However, one adage that he has been noted for quoting, ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’, does resonate in a business context nowadays. The public relations industry, along with every other business sector, has been hurting badly, with tighter budgets and declining margins, meaning that PR firms have to be a hell of a lot smarter in targeting new business opportunities. And preparation matters now more than ever.
Now that the dust is settling on our Lisbon vote last Friday, and we have belatedly exercised co-operation and solidarity with our other 26 club members, it is time to reflect on whether we should ever again let our Little Irelanders and Anti-Europeans dictate the pace and content of debate.
In communications terms, the general consensus of commentators was that the nasty Coir and other Anti posters won the propaganda battle in terms of their public awareness impact, especially that outrageous ‘€1.84 Minimum Wage’ poster.
But is it acceptable that in a matter as important to the welfare of this country and our people (we have been net beneficiaries to the tune of €72 billion since we joined the then EEC in 1973), totally unrepresentative groups should be allowed to peddle their scaremongering lies and racist propaganda from every second lamp post across the country?
When redundancies are announced the media attention seems to focus on the workers who have lost their jobs. But what happens to those that hold on to theirs?
Reassuring them that their future is secure, maintaining their productivity and preventing them hunting for another job is vital, both in terms of protecting productivity but also reviving morale. After all, nobody enjoys working in an atmosphere of suspicion and anxiety.
…and a survey conducted recently on behalf of Comma Consulting, an internal communications agency in the UK, revealed that just four out of ten workers have confidence in the senior management where they work. Despite the fact that there may be slim pickings on the job front elsewhere, the survey also found that only one in five workers was feeling more committed to their employers than a year ago.
On October 2nd, Irish voters will be asked to vote once again on the Lisbon Treaty Referendum. This is one of the most important decisions for Ireland and its people. Do we once again reject the Lisbon Treaty and face isolation from our European counterparts? Or do we reinforce our commitment to being at the heart of Europe?
The current debate is beginning get into full swing, but already it is shaping up to be very different from last year. Most striking is the number of civil society groups who are leading the campaign for a Yes vote. I think we can thank Declan Ganley for this.
People working in public relations are ethical. No, this is not a typo.
According to a study published last week in the U.S., PR people are at the forefront of ethical thinking, compared to other professionals. We’re on a par with journalists and nurses, ahead of accountants and business people, yet below seminarians and philosophers. Apparently, we also rank ahead of prison inmates, which is reassuring.
But there is a legitimate question to be asked - why should such findings be considered surprising? After all, people who work in PR are not dissimilar from people who work elsewhere - you’ll get the good and the bad, the talented and the thick, the straight laced and the deviant, and so on. The fact is that in terms of morals, honesty, or much else, we’re much the same as other folks. No sector has a monopoly on integrity.
Much of the debate around the McCarthy Report has dealt with the swingeing cuts it recommends. Far less consideration is being given to the opportunity for radically reforming and improving how Government is delivered.
That is a very great pity. It seems to me that McCarthy offers a game plan not to just fiscally fight fire but to re-imagine in a reinvigorating way how Ireland is run.
A premise to that kind of blue skies thinking must be an understanding not just of the decisions but of the decision making process that got us here in the first place. There has to be an understanding of the dynamic of Government as well as a knowledge and memory of its decisions.
Looking back over the past decade, there has been a continuing diminution of the role of the Oireachtas and of politics. Nominally, Government has taken up the slack. But, in fact, Government - as in the Cabinet of constitutionally appointed Ministers - has itself significantly diminished in influence and, arguably, in stature.
