How to fix Ed’s communications problems
In case you missed it, a week and a half ago I wrote about the latest of Ed Stelmach’s communication’s gaffes. I almost felt a little sad in writing the post because social media was sort of Premier Ed’s last frontier of communication tools. He had tried speeches, scrums, Question Period, interviews, television specials – and I’m sure there was a long suffering carrier pigeon or two involved – all to very little success. So he turned his attention to the latest trend: social media. His last great hope. And I lambasted him for his hollow effort that missed the mark almost entirely. It felt like I was kicking a puppy. The man and his team are trying their best, but failure to effectively communicate their message has met them regardless of what medium they’ve tried.
And while I am 100% confident this is entirely coincidence, the day after I wrote my condemnation of their last ditch chance, the Premier’s director of communications decided enough was enough and it was time for him to step aside.
I can’t really blame him. Paul Stanway is a long-time journalist who, I imagine, understands two things really well: the newspaper business and the way public relations have been conducted for the past forty or fifty years. Sadly, neither of those two things are very relevant anymore. Newspapers are dying and public relations is a completely different game than it used to be. (Case in point, my entire AskEd argument.)
But talk is cheap. So I figured, why not give some free advice to Stanway’s replacement?
Lord knows they’re not going to ask me to fill the job, so I might as well give away the farm here for free. Besides, I’m just some punk anyway, right? Well, I suppose it’s true that my actual real world job is marketing and communications and I am a member of IABC, which does make me more qualified on paper than Stanway or Tom Olsen were before they started with the Premier’s office. But let’s put that aside. Despite the fact the Alberta PC party is the only party I’ve ever joined, I haven’t held continuous Tory membership for the last thirty years so I’m confident the job is NOT coming my way.
None-the-less, Mr. Premier, I want Alberta to be as great as possible. Right now you are our leader and I would be remiss if I didn’t don’t everything to help you succeed. (I’m post-partisan and don’t care who leads Alberta so long as they lead it with wisdom and to somewhere great.) I don’t profess to have all the answers or to be better than anyone else, but if I was your director of communications, here’s what I would do to get things back on track and restore the premiership to its former – and rightful – place of respect.
1. Ditch the suit – You’re a farmer for crying out loud. Surely you don’t feel comfortable in that tie and matching jacket/pant combo. I’m guessing you don’t because you don’t look comfortable. (And that’s kind of the problem.) We need to get back to what you know best – what you feel most confident in. We need to get your wife dressing you again; as she no doubt has for the last however many decades of your political career. Put some jeans on. Sure you can still wear a nice button-down shirt and sport coat but let’s go shopping for some new boots!
No doubt there will be a time when you will have to wear a suit. People will understand that. But guess what? The guys working in the downtown Calgary skyscrapers only wear suits when they meet with you because you’re wearing a suit. You are the trendsetter in this situation. I know that’s crazy, but it’s true. Besides, many of them don’t wear suits on regular days anyway. Most of them don’t like them either.
2. Start talking with people – I know you’ll protest “but I do talk to the people!”, but please hear me out. I know YOU know the difference between talking with people and talk to people. But a public relations person who can differentiate is a rarity. You’re staff has been having you do the latter, when what you need to do – nay, what you’re best at doing – is talking with people. Communications is a two way street. It’s time to open you up to the public more and start emphasizing the two way part.
Another benefit this creates? It allows you to stop the double-speak. People ask questions because they want answers. Reporters ask questions because they need info to fill pages or minutes of video. You can get away with dodgey answers with reporters if you run them in circles enough. The public on the other hand get seriously pissed if you do that. Personally, I think this is a much better benchmark to hold yourself against; because having the public leave a conversation satisfied means you’ve connected. Having the media leaving satisfied means you’ve either said something dumb they can nail you on, you’ve just spent a couple million dollars, or you’ve simply filled up a tape recorder. Which would you rather accomplish as leader of all Albertans? I vote for connection.
3. Don’t put your head in the mouth of a hungry lion – It may hurt to hear, but it goes like this: you are terrible in front of a camera. Sorry, but you come across as a babbling fool who is out of his depth every time he’s asked a question that requires an answer. (And yes, that would be every question.) So why keep go in front of cameras like that? You’re just punishing yourself. I know this might be hard to hear, but it’s not the media’s fault their method of operating is so different than yours. So why keep playing their game? I hear from people all the time that you are GREAT to have a conversation with. I’ve had more than one person tell me you are a completely different man in person than how you come across on television. So let’s get you out of that Legislature office and start meeting people face-to-face. As a matter of fact I’ll even go as far to say, what you are planning on doing with all those AskEd questions, is EXACTLY the kind of thing you should be doing every single week.
I don’t mean you should stop doing interviews. What I really mean is stop talking the language you think we want to hear and start talking your language. If you’re awesome in one to one conversations, do the majority of your work like that. Let’s get out there in town halls. Let’s invite people to the Leg to have lunch with you every single day. Make AskEd and ongoing thing for crying out loud!
Another added benefit? Because people will have connected with you one-on-one, when you do stumble over your words in front of a camera they will be WAY more inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.
4. Talk for yourself - Please forgive my language but I think it is important to underscore the importance of this point: No one gives a flying fuck what Tom Olsen thinks. People don’t want quotes from him, they want quotes from you. I’d bet 90% of Albertans don’t even know who Tom Olsen is. So why have him talking to the media? At the same time 90% of what Olsen says in the paper would sound WAY more convincing if it was coming from someone with actual power. Namely you.
You are the Premier. You’re the guy in charge, so get out there and show them that not only are you in charge, but you’re attentive and present on all matters. You can’t defer both the “listening” and “talking” parts of your job. Even if you don’t think this is what you’ve done, I’m telling you it’s what’s happening when a communications director speaks for you. It creates a barrier between you and the voting public. Why would you possibly want to purposefully create barriers like that?
5. Ignore your communications people – Yeah, yeah, I’m basically saying ignore everything I’m telling you too. But I hope you can see a theme in the previous four points: be true to yourself, be open and transparent. If that sounds familiar it’s because it’s what you promised Albertans after you became the Premier. And we feel like we’re still waiting for that. You’ve let us down and that’s surprising. You’re Honest Ed! You’re the guy everybody likes! You’re the guy who can tell us the truth and expect us to handle it. That’s what you used to be known for, so don’t run away from it. It’s not a weakness, it’s your advantage!
Besides, we already know honesty works in Alberta. Just ask your predecessor’s polling numbers after any time he was, perhaps, a little too honest. Trust your gut. You know what the right thing is to do. So do it and stop letting PR people synthesize everything into an over-thought puddle of communications goo.
So there you have it; five points to think about off the top of my head. I know there are many others, but I have my own boss to make sound good. You are welcome to take the advice for what it’s worth and what you’ve paid for it. Or you’re welcome to start implementing it and see where it gets you.
If it works, ‘where it gets you’ will probably be the opposite of where you are now. And judging by how things are going with your communications tactics up until this point, I’m guessing the opposite of what you have now would be a weight off your shoulders.
Alberta Health Services has an image problem. Again. (Still?)
I don’t know much about the current state of Alberta healthcare. There are people who are much more knowledgeable in this area than I. All I really know is what has been reported in the press. As a result I don’t feel I can comment one way or another on these two recent stories coming out of Alberta Health Services (AHS). I do however know a little something about marketing and branding. And this is not good for them or patients.
Yesterday the Calgary Herald ran the main article on the front page with this headline:
Alberta health board to close 350 beds
On the exact same morning Metro Calgary ran the main article on their front page with this headline:
AHS under fire over CEO bonus
Do you see the problem here?
On the exact same day, two publications in the same city are running their main article about you. In addition both articles are negative. AND they’re not even the same story! With this as evidence I think it is fair to say that clearly there are some major problems afoot in AHS.
I don’t think you need to be an expert marketer to read between the lines on this one and come up with what the problem is here. Or at least what the perceived problem might be.
What makes for good marketing is the same thing that makes for good business: consistency. Or, synchronicity. (As a matter of fact, good marketing is nothing more than effective communications about good product.) This is where AHS is having a breakdown. The board is handing out bonus packages while cutting back services. These two items are not in sync. They are not consistent.
And people are going to get angry because of it.
So what do I recommend?
First off I recommend asking someone other than me for the answer to our health woes. But secondly I recommend when following through on whatever great advice the first person gave you, you apply that approach to ALL areas of the organization.
AHS has tried all kinds of reorganization; obviously that is not the problem. The issue is far deeper than that. It’s more fundamental. It’s time to get deeper into the organization and start your rebrand from the inside out.
- Step one: Set some basic goals using triple bottom line expectations.
- Step two: Work with the ground level service providers to find ways for them to achieve those goals. (This approach always works better than a top down system because the ground level people will always know more detail regarding the barriers they face than the top level people.)
- Step three: Don’t be afraid to change EVERYTHING, especially the most precious and basic assumptions or institutions.
- Step four: Repeat until reporters can’t find anything bad to write about you.
Do this instead of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and AHS could be the most efficient health system in the world. The only thing stopping them, is themselves.
A Challenge: prove you are more clever than the average advertiser
Also available on the Calgary Herald’s Q.
I’ve been ridiculously delinquent here on this blog lately, haven’t I? Well, here’s why: about a month ago I took a new contract working with Lunchbox Theatre here in Calgary. The extra work has been cutting into my blogging time – aka “the workday”. (Lunch hour, naturally.) But I’ve got something fun for us all to participate in that makes everything worth it.
A little back story first. If you work in downtown Calgary you’ve probably heard of Lunchbox Theatre. For the past 33 years they have been providing professional “one-act” theatre (mostly comedies and musicals) over the noon-hour out of their theatre in Bow Valley Square. Shows start at 12:10, run for 40 to 45 minutes and then you are back at your desk by 1pm. (And yes you can eat your lunch in the theatre.) Tickets are $16 for adults. It’s been a pretty sweet deal for 33 years.
The problem is for the past couple of years Lunchbox has, in my opinion, relied a little too much on their core audience and haven’t done much advertising. Or, really, any advertising. And thus their audience has dwindled a little. This dwindling is further compounded by the fact that they will be moving theatres this summer. (No need for me to get into the details as to why here. What’s important is they are opening a brand new theatre at the base of the Calgary Tower!)
This is where I come in. Fix the problem, get the word out. So I’ll be kicking out a full on awareness campaign this August; the primary focus of which will be transit advertising. On the sides of C-Train cars and inside C-Trains and buses, that kind of thing. (Here’s an example on the right.) I plan on doing the ads as a throwback to what I think was Lunchbox’s most successful ad campaign of the past.
Those ads were funny and had sayings such as:
- If Romeo and Juliet ended after act one everybody would be much better off
- We write three acts and throw out the worst two
Pretty entertaining stuff for to read during your commute to work. (Better than the standard addiction counselling and continuing education ads that populate the bus roof now at least.)
So here’s where you come in: Do you think you can write a better Lunchbox Theatre slogan? Then go for it! Make sure you take some time to think about it because the best one will receive tickets to Lunchbox Theatre and if it is really good I may even use it on a bus. Either leave slogan(s) in the comments, or email me at blog@djkelly.ca.
Here are some of the ones Lunchbox staff have come up with lately for more inspiration:
- Play with your food?
- Do you have time for a lunch hour quickie?
Now it’s your turn. Prove you’re more clever than the average advertising copy writer. Shouldn’t be hard, right? We’ll see!
Know your customers
Knowing your audience and being able to target your potential customers gives any business a major advantage. During my recent trip to Asia I couldn’t help but be struck by how well one airline apparently knows its customers.
From Mandarin Airlines‘ official in-flight magazine, in an article titled “Mandarin’s New Aspect”, we are presented with the following insightful tidbit of info about Mandarin’s customer base:
The highly conveient flight schedule makes Mandarin Airlines the best choice for businessmen and Vietnamese brides in southern & mid-Taiwan.
Now that is customer specifics.
I wonder if the businessmen and Vietnamese brides normally travel together. 
A Vision of Students Today
I meant to post this video earlier. (Maybe I saw it before I started this blog…)
I think it is important viewing for anyone who considers themselves a “teacher”. I also think it is important to anyone who considers themselves a “marketer”. It is just a glimpse inside the lives of everyday students, which is something I currently see everyday. And I can tell you this much: this video is accurate. It’s pretty much spot on right.
How do we reach 18-25 year olds? (BTW soon that number will grow to 18-30 year olds then 18-35 year olds.) Certainly the old style of teaching and marketing will not work for much longer.
I’m inspired by the fact that at least I see some instructors changing their ways and getting more involved with students. Speaking to them rather than at them.
Marketers are leading the way on this trend. Especially the ones that do it with no condescension. Those are the successful marketers. And hopefully the successful teachers.
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