PR will be crucial at this General Election

AND they're off!

This morning's newspapers are full of the news that the General Election has been called for May 6.

For the next month, all the parties will be presenting their policies in a bid to woo voters.

With so much at stake, none of them will be wanting any slips ups (inevitable though they may be) and will be deploy every PR trick in the book.

Of course, the biggest trick is to engage in PR, but make it look as if you're not and that everything that happens is a natural occurence.

For instance, it was no surprise that just hours after Gordon Brown called the Election, he was having a meet and greet in someone's house in Kent, and also visited a Morrisons supermarket. Both these events will have been prepared beforehand, and the audience will have been carefully selected.

It's quite ironic that at a time when politicians are meant to be going out there to meet the public and canvass their vote, they actually seem to meet very few 'real' members of the public.

The reason is simple; it's every party's worst nightmare to see their leader handbagged a la Tony Blair in 2001 because, quite simple, it a) makes a great story b) is off-message and c) shows someone dissenting publicly.

Elections for parties are about creating a 'feel-good' momentum, so they seek to provide news outlets with opportunities to see their leaders surrounded by an adoring public.

Although we British tend to favour the underdog, that trend doesn't seem to following for mainstream politics. So whereas we may elevate the appalling singer on X-Factor to national fame and stardom simply because of their underdog status, we tend not to, quite rightly, employ the same sympathies when selecting the person you want to run the country.

It'll be interesting to see how each party's PR strategies work over the next 4 weeks, and to a large degree they will either make or break their chances are getting the keys to Number 10.

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The perils of mixed messages

Public relations is all about messages, so what happens when those messages are mixed? Invariably, it ends up in confusion which generally leads to disengagement both internally and externally.

Every organisation has a message, whether it's a guy selling hot dogs on a street corner to the CEO of a large multi national. Sure, the message is different but they each follow the same process to achieve their goals.

For the purpose of this parable, we'll concentrate on the hot dog guy, whose message is 'My product is good, you'll enjoy it so come and buy it.'

But what would happen if on Monday hot dog man started saying 'I sell hot dogs, but won't sell to students or people in suits?' and then on Friday one put up a sign saying 'I'll sell to anyone, especially people in suits and students'? You then go to him for a clarification and he claims he will actually sell to anybody, regardless of who they are or what they wear.

Firstly, you'd probably think he is bonkers for limiting his market, but you'd also wonder whether he knows what he's doing.


In the last few weeks, we've seen the Government playing the proverbial hot dog seller, dividing its market and then doing a complete U-turn a few days later.

At a recent Prime Minister's Question Time, Brown made a jibe about class in relation to a Conservative candidate, and a few weeks later the Party as a whole started railing against what is loosely defined as the Middle Classes.

At that point, the Prime Minister declared that actually, he was brought up in a Middle Class family and he holds those values. The result? Confusion and bewilderment among the party and the public at large who didn't quite know where he stood.

It's not the first time the Prime Minister has been accused of transmitting mixed messages, and it isn't just confined to class. A few months into his premiership, Brown let rumours circulate that there would be a General Election within weeks. More than a million pounds was spent on election material and then, at the last minute, he pulled the plug. The result? The same kind of confusion and bewilderment we saw with the class issue. But when challenged, like the hot dog seller, they claim there are no mixed messages and, like any other party, will infact accept votes from anyone.

Political parties are no different from any other sort of organisation, they are answerable to the public and have to compete to survive. What they are selling does not matter a jot, but how they go about communicating their message does.

As experienced marketing and PR professionals, we see these 'mixed messages' nearly every day. The sad thing is that they're put out by organisations who really ought to be able to avoid these simple pitfalls.

The one piece of free advice we give to any business is that for all the messages you put out, if it's not backed up by actions which reinforce those messages, then they are meaningless.

Or put another way - Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

The genie is out of the bottle on 'free' news - and not even Murdoch can put it back

Google today announced that newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through their website.

Up until now, most news coming via Google was free, but after pressure from some in the newspaper industry (most notably Rupert Murdoch) they are now launching a First Click Free programme, whereby publishers can now prevent unrestricted access to subscription websites.


Murdoch, chief exec and chairman of Newscorp, which owns the likes of the Sun and The Times, has accused firms such as Google of profiting from journalism by generating advertising revenue by linking readers to newspaper articles.

Make no mistake, this is a big move by Google, but one suspects that fear of litigation from Murdoch may have forced their hand.

However, there is a prevailing view that Murdoch's vision is, well, not compatible with the emerging new media business model. Sure, some sites demand that users pay for subsciptions, but they tend to be niche and do not cover general news.

The problem for Murdoch is compounded by the fact that there is no much free general news out there now, people will just look elsewhere. Afterall, it's basic human nature not resist paying for something when you can get it for nothing. And with 24 hour news and the internet, there's no need to even leave the house.

This is a difficult time for news organisations, and some could end up falling by the wayside. Eventually, an accepted business model will emerge, but the key question is will it be to the detriment of the traditional printed product? Perhaps a hybrid solution can be found, but the road to finding it is sure to be very bumpy indeed.

Turning a negative into a positive the Ratner way

The Clear Comms team was delighted to attend an inspirational business seminar at West Lancs Investment Centre last night with guestspeakers Deirdre Bounds and Gerald Ratner.

The theme of both their talks was essentially how to turn a negative into a positive - Ratner with his infamous "crap" remark and Bounds who detailed her journey from someone who was, by her own admission, unemployable to an entrepreneur with stacks of cash in the bank.


The Clear team got the chance to ask Ratner a question in the Q&A session afterwards, and we asked him how come it took so long for him to realise that he could turn a negative situation into a positive (ie - how to 'cash in' on his reputation to make future successes).

His answer was quite interesting, and Ratner said that it was actually his wife who spurred him after "five years of sitting in bed watching Countdown".

Ratner's experience in not realising his own potential is not that uncommon, and he went onto to admit that many people who find themselves in difficulties, having received constant knockbacks, don't realise what they have and, more importantly, how to use it.

Bill Taylor, West Lancashire Borough Council's excellent Chief Executive, followed this up by rightly pointing out that Ratner has a particular USP (Unique Selling Point) and in a saturated market, it is how you use your own USP that seperates the good businesses or people from the great.

As a company, we see this a lot, especially with organisations and smaller businesses (sometimes even larger ones) who don't realise just what potential they have, whether it be a chance to raise their media profiles or how to turn a negative into a positive.

But as both Deirdre Bounds and Gerald Ratner said, you will get knocks in businesses, but it is how you bounce back from those knocks that is the most important.

Finally, a word must go to West Lancashire Borough Council's Econonmic Regeneration team and the team at West Lancs Investment Centre who have pulled out all the stops to give real help to businesses in the West Lancs area and put on a range of free events and activities, such as the event last night.

For more information on West Lancs Investment Centre, log onto http://www.westlancashireinvestmentcentre.com and for Enterprising West Lancs, log onto the link here.