Crisis for Maker of Smirnoff Vodka, Diageo

We love hearing about a good ethical crisis over here at PRSugar, as long as it’s not our client making the error in judgement (and as long as no one gets hurt).  This is a good one as it involves not only crisis but CSR and booze.

Here’s the jist:

Who:  Diageo, (the big guy) is the world’s largest distiller, with an impressive portfolio of brands including Smirnoff, Crown Royal, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Jose Cuervo, Tanqueray, Guinness, etc.  Brewdog (the little guy) is a Scottish craft beer maker.

Where:  BII Scotland’s 2012 Annual Awards Dinner (The British Institute of Innkeeping, BII, is a trade organization for the licensed retail profession).

What:  Diageo (sponsor of the event) approached event organizers at the event and threatened to pull their sponsorship if Brewdog was given the coveted “Bar Operator of the Year” award.  (Brewdog’s name was already on the trophy).

Communication:  Brewdog took to its blog where you can see Diageo’s statement admitting guilt.  You can find more quotes from a Diageo spokesperson on the Financial Times website.  Let’s see how Diageo continues to handle this one.

This is a classic CSR case of a company saying “look at how much we give back to the community” and then taking an action that completely counters that mission.  In this case, it’s Diageo saying “We are so nice and involved in our community.  Look, we are sponsoring this awards dinner!” while they’re really scheming to fix the results.

Also, what do you think of Diageo’s strategy in blogging about the incident?

What makes someone good at public relations?

I wanted to share in a separate post Harold Burson’s observations about successful public relations professionals.  At one point in his career, he wanted to create a test that would be able to determine whether you would be successful in PR.  He hired a firm to help him through the process.  They asked that he pick the top 15 people he would “want to clone” and they conducted interviews with all 15 of those employees.  In addition, they conducted “360 degree interviews” of all the people around those 15 including their managers, direct reports, and clients.

From those interviews, the research firm determined that there were four qualities that these top 15 employees shared:

1.  SMART  They were all smart but this smartness wasn’t correlated with a high GPA or great SAT scores.  In fact, two of them didn’t even attend college.  The thing they had in common was that everyone around them described them as highly intelligent.
2.  ENTREPRENEURIAL These people were all self-starters who upon completing a project were looking for the next project.
3.  STRONG WRITTEN & ORAL COMMUNICATION  They also had presence.
4.  WORKS WELL WITH OTHERS  These people were just as effective as a member of a team as they were as a team leader.

Burson said an inability to work with others was the top reason that they let people go.  He said that in certain situations, when someone is truly a genius, there’s the option of sticking them on a floor all by themselves.

Public Relations Manners

I love etiquette!  I’m no expert and I don’t practice all the rules but I love the idea behind it: making others feel at ease in social situations.  People may not remember your alma mater or where you were on your most recent vacation, but they will remember how you made them feel, especially if you made them feel comfortable.

On Tuesday night, I attended a networking etiquette seminar with Jodi R. R. Smith, of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting.  Ms. Smith likened a networking event to the Serengeti filled with wildebeests.  The saving grace is that as networking professionals, we are lions!

If there is a particular wildebeest you would like to network with (perhaps a journalist, politician, or owner of a PR agency), you should go to the food (just as a Lion would stalk a wildebeest near the watering hole).

Here are Ms. Smith’s Top Ten Tips for Painless Networking:

1.  Nametags – wear them…on the right side and closer to the shoulder than to the belly button.
2.  Handshakes – Not too soft, not too firm.  If you contact her, she will give you a tip for clammy hands.  You can always say “my friend…” rather than admit that you are the clammy handed culprit.
3.  Introduction – You only have between 5-7 seconds to make a first impression.  Make it good!
4.  Snippet Starters – The purpose of a snippet is to start the conversation, get the recipient to ask you a question back, make you memorable, and to work toward your overall goal of the evening.  It’s tailored to the event and your audience, so here’s an opportunity to exert your PR prowess.
5.  Your Homework – Know something about the people who will be there, know what to wear (ask the organizers for the dress code and remember that it’s always better to overdress), know how long it’s going to take you to get there and where you can park, know the food situation but don’t go there starving, and most importantly know your goal. (If you don’t know why you’re going, you may want to sit this one out.)
6.  Body Language – Did you know that women tend to face one another with square shoulders while men stand with their bodies at an angle.  Pay attention to your body language as well as that of your partner.
7.  Eye Contact – Make your way toward the wildebeest (preferably near the cheese plate/crudites), make eye contact, and smile with a little bit of teeth.  From personal experience (pretending to be on America’s Next Top Model), this can go terribly awry, so practice with a friend beforehand.  Also, you want to look within the triangle made up by your conversation partner’s eyebrows and upper lip.  Anywhere in the triangle and your wildebeests will think you are looking them in the eyes.
8.  Conversation – Here’s a graceful way to start a conversation: “I hate to interrupt but I came to this event because I wanted to meet you.”  Who wouldn’t be flattered?  As Todd Defren says, “people just want to feel important.”
9.  Graceful Exits
Don’t wait for the conversation to come to a grinding halt and remember that you shouldn’t spend more than 5-10 minutes speaking with each person in a networking scenario.  Here are three options for escaping the conversation with poise:
a.  “It was a pleasure speaking with you.”
b.  “Enjoy your evening.”
c.  “This has been an interesting conversation.  I would like to follow up with you.  May I have your card?”
And if you’re wondering what not to say:
a.  “Excuse me, I’ve been meaning to use the restroom”
b.  “Excuse me, I need to refresh my wine” – They could say they want to come with and you will fail in your attempt to exit the conversation.  Alternatively, they could ask you to grab another drink for them, relegating you to the role of waiter.
c.  “Excuse me, I see so-and-so and I’ve been meaning to talk to him/her” – implies your wildebeest is boring.
10.  Business Cards – Never offer yours first – this is presumptuous.

Today’s Sugar:  Mind your Ps and Rs, kiddies!  You are going to think less of me when I tell you this, but I often pay attention to the way that my favorite characters on Gossip Girl interact at parties.  Here are some of my favorite turns of phrase courtesy of GG:
“If you’ll excuse me”
“May I have a word?”
“Patrick, I’m so glad you finally made it, I’m Serena“

In the Library: 101 Things I Learned in Business School

I am dangerously impulsive in bookstores.  Yesterday I picked up 101 Things I Learned in Business School by Michael W. Preis and illustrated by Matthew Frederick and barely held myself back from buying Easy French Reader (J’espère qu’un jour je peux parler français comme le Parisian). Preis’ 101 Things… shows illustrations and diagrams on the left side, and short bursts of business wisdom on the right.  My goal for this blog is to serve this same purpose by offering short bursts of public relations wisdom, or as I like to call it, PR sugar.

Tip #2 in 101 Things… is that “Business is not a single field of endeavor.”  Accounting, finance, marketing, production and operations, organizational behavior, and economics all play into the field of business.  Similarly, public relations is a discipline that involves many endeavors including marketing, advertising, budgeting, design, organizational behavior, human resources, sociology, psychology, rhetoric and more.

Today’s Sugar (via 100 Things…): #94 “The real purpose of a visual presentation is to get people to listen, not look.”  This is a great piece of advice and directly related to an auxiliary area of public relations, design.  Earlier, I mentioned my obsession with infographics which I love because they do exactly what they are meant to.  They make information look fun and exciting so that people pay attention and ultimately learn something.  I never appreciated medieval art until I understood that it was rooted in iconography and informed, educated, and communicated in a time when few were literate.

Take a Stand!

You know you picked the right graduate program when you actually have fun taking your exams.

My exams asked me to apply knowledge and theories learned in class, to real-life situations that I would likely run into in my career.

I found a theme running through the points off on my exams.  Take my financial & strategic management class as an example.  We were given the details needed to do a simple ROI calculation and additional information about the new line of private-label products for an online gourmet foods company that planned to launch physical retail locations.  The question was whether this private-label brand was a good investment.

I wrote a lovely essay in which I did a cost/benefit analysis, discussed tangibles and intangibles, and mentioned multiple scenarios for how the launch could play out.  What I failed to do was to firmly take a side.  I used language like “this seems like a good investment, however.”  My essay was sprinkled with “could,” “perhaps, and “may.”  I may have had a perfect score on the exam if I hadn’t used such hesitant language.

Today’s Sugar:  Take a stand!  Don’t just show both sides of an argument, pick one and argue passionately and ardently for it. When you are a public relations professional, you want people to seek your council because you are the authority on public perception or corporate communication.  They will not seek you out if you hesitate, flip-flop, or seem unsure.  Yes, situations are very rarely black and white, and you can bring up arguments for and against, but be firm about your opinion.  Your opinion is one of the greatest assets you bring to a company.

Ben & Jerry’s was famous for picking a side and encouraged employees to fight for causes, often taking a bus covered in Ben & Jerry’s branding.  When Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, employees were no longer encouraged to participate in protests and marches under the company name.  Though Unilever continues social responsibility efforts, the company is aware of the legal implications of letting its employees go and fight for whatever they want as a representative of the brand.