The case against real-time PR

At the end of the G8 conference Canadian Prime Minister Harper attacked Liberal opposition Leader Ignatieff for a quote that ended up being from someone else.

How'd it happen? Harper's press secretary Dimitri Soudas was e-mailed the quote from a colleague in Canada; briefed the PM on the fly; and the PM then let fly a verbal pounding against Ignatieff. When it soon became clear the quote that set Harper off wasn't actually from Ignatieff, apologies started flowing from the PM and Soudas.

Harper: "I learned shortly after the press conference this was not a quotation of Mr. Ignatieff," said Harper before departing L'Aquila.

"I regret the error and I apologize to Mr. Ignatieff for this error."

Soudas: "I am upset," and he added later that the prime minister was "clearly, clearly not happy with the fact that he was put in that situation by one of his advisors.

"The prime minister is very bothered by the fact that his press secretary mis-informed him, and mis-briefed him and hence he obviously made an accusation."

I can see where Soudas wanted to use what seemed like a good opportunity to bash an opponent, but this episode is a great example of ensuring your communications infrastructure has the right checks and balances to make sure everything you say is 100% accurate.

For companies, the closest comparison to the speed in which the communications cycle was running in this situation would be a crisis management episode. In crises, events happen quickly, facts can change by the moment and its critical for your reputation that your communications remain accurate.

That means stay open and honest, but also slow down the process a bit to ensure you're providing clear and accurate facts. If you don't you run the risk of a meltdown that could likely compound any reputational damage from the crisis.

Jasmine MacDonnell, Ryan Sparrow - move over and make room for Mr. Soudas.

Going waaaay of message

Bernie Ecclestone owns the commercial rights to F1 racing. In an interview with the Times of London he somehow wandered from discussing racing to Hitler. You can guess where this went.

"It's probably my fault in that I got dragged into something I wasn't supposed to discuss – we got out of F1 into something else," Ecclestone said.

However, Ecclestone said he does not regret praising Hitler's leadership "except as usual things were taken a little bit wrong."

Just a bit.

Pixar grants girl's dying wish to see 'Up'

Even if others say you should, sometimes saying nothing about a good deed is best. A 10 year-old with cancer had a dying wish -- see Pixar's new movie, Up.

"After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

Colby died about seven hours after seeing the film.

Pixar officials declined to comment on the story or name the employees involved."

That is absolute class. And absolutely the right way to communicate the good deed - silence.

"We have a 100 percent recovery rate ..."

This from Honeywell's European President:

"We have a 100 percent recovery rate of all the black boxes that we have installed that unfortunately may have been involved in accidents so we hope that we will be able to maintain our record and be able to shed some light on what happened."

They made the 'black box' aboard Air France flight 447, which crashed in the sea off Brazil. I think this is an example of missing the bigger picture. Yeah, your recovery rate is important to you, but no one else cares. Let's think bigger than that.

He essentially mentions their record twice and puts most of the emphasis on it. Sure, say you've got a 100% recovery rate, but let's focus on what people care about. Put all the emphasis on helping the families of those lost about Flight 447 understand what happened. It's what's important.

What's the point of even calling?

Toronto Star story about one hair salon in Yorkville suing stylists that left for a competing shop. The silliness of it all makes it news, I guess. The salon owner launching these law suits calls the Star because she says she wants to talk:

Until yesterday, Abrahamse had declined comment.

Yesterday, she called the Star expressing her desire to talk on the record.

"There are two sides to every story," Abrahamse said.

She posed for photos in the morning and scheduled an interview for the afternoon.

By 3 p.m., there were two customers being serviced on Glo's broad first level. Abrahamse and two of her counsel sat down in the empty third-floor spa level for the ostensible interview. Instead of allowing his client to speak, lawyer Bob Klotz handed out a one-page statement.

After summarizing the case, it ended with, "That is all we have to say at this juncture."

The alchemy of lawyers and jerking around a reporter invariably leads to a rough ride. Whenever the law bumps up managing repuations and public perceptions, it's incredibly important to have strong counsel that can balance the often competing needs and goals of lawyers and communicators.

When in doubt, blame the reporter

Not that many people outside politics are paying much attention to it, but former Prime Minister Mulroney testified again today about the Schriber/Airbus affair. At one point he started to break down on the stand. His PR team was quick to post on Mulroney's web site:

"...Mulroney struggled to tell the story. As he did, he looked out into the audience and saw the producer of the Fifth Estate, Harvey Cashore and Globe and Mail reporter, Greg McArthur laughing–laughing–at his testimony. It was that sight–not captured by the cameras–that caused Mr. Mulroney to break down. “They were carrying on like a pair of school children,” said Mr. Mulroney after the break. “It just got to me.” What a disgrace."

Note to PR team: If the guy you're representing, who happens to have been Prime Minister, has admitted he's accepted envelopes full of cash from an arms dealer, labeling tittering journalists as a "disgrace" is a bit much.

Sarcasm award

CTV just announced that it's selling three TV stations it had slated for closure for $1 a piece to Shaw Cable.

"I think it's great," said Ivan Fecan, President and CEO, CTVglobemedia, and CEO, CTV. "We've accepted their offer of $1 per station. Cable is rolling in money and can obviously afford to underwrite the losses. Good for them."

Zing!

Why even bother with the window dressing of civility?

Pandemic Communications Planning

Over the past several years, Room 40 has had the benefit of developing a number of pandemic flu communications strategies for public and private sector organizations. While we're not yet at the pandemic stage with the current outbreak of swine flu, it's worth keeping in mind one of the important tools organizations will have should this outbreak turn into a pandemic - social distancing.

Social distancing is a behavioural change that should occur during a pandemic to limit the spread of the virus. The key strategies to consider when integrating social distancing include:

• Communicate information on social distancing to all employees and suppliers.
• Educate customers/clients about social distancing and that staff are using this tool to keep them safe and limit the spread of the virus.
• Avoid shaking hands or other direct personal contact.
• Avoid significant overlap at shift change times to minimize groups of people.
• Use telephone, video conferencing, e-mail or the internet to conduct as much business as possible.
• Allow people to work from home or telecommute.
• Allow staff to arrive early or late.
• Avoid unnecessary travel.
• Avoid gatherings in common spaces in offices – including lunch rooms, photocopy rooms, mail rooms, etc.
• When meetings are necessary, have the meeting in a larger room were people can sit with more space between them.
• Encourage staff to avoid social gatherings outside of work where they might come into contact with infectious people.

Implementing successful social distancing strategies bring sizable communications challenges for organizations, but it's a critical tool in the fight against an influenza pandemic.

Source: Ontario Ministry of Health

Logo dispute gibberish

Lawyers often have a tough time being spokespeople, but in this case, I'm not sure even the best spokesperson could pull off this messaging. A dispute involving a trademark request filed by Rehava Real Estate Store, a small agency in North Charleston has got the attention of Re/Max lawyers, saying the Rehava name and logo design are too similar to its own.

Here are the logos in question.

Here's what Re/Max lawyers have to say about it:

Adam Scoville, Re/Max's legal counsel, said he can explain.

First of all, both names start with "r" and have logos with accent lines near the letter "e," he said.

"It goes beyond that," Scoville added. "If you chop the top off of the 'h,' you (almost) have the 'm' in Re/Max. The next letter is an 'a,' and if you take the 'v' then you have half of an 'x.' "

Okay, then.