It's all in the image

Melbourne Herald Sun 24th April 2010

We all have an image. It's the picture we present to the world that says "this is who I am" or "this is what my company is". We are each aware of it, we can all see it, but in fact it is as insubstantial as the photographic dye on a film, and as fragile as crystal.

In recent weeks we have seen a vivid demonstration of the lightness of image. A few months ago Christine Nixon was only a short distance behind Mary McKillop in the saintship stakes, retired with honour after having taken a broom to Victoria's musty police service, and welcomed as Chair of the Bushfire Reconstruction Authority.

Now a haircut and a pub dinner later and she's suddenly painted as uncaring, incompetent and unfit. Can this be the same, smart, chubby blonde lady?

Or take Rio Tinto, one of the saviours of Australia's wealth through the global economic crisis. But after the Chinese bribery trials and the stories that are now leaking out, the halo is starting to slip.

We can all immediately recognise image problems. Qantas is still the safest airline in the world but if they don't get their maintenance under control they're in trouble. Nowadays a drop in tyre pressure is enough to put them on the front pages.

Tiger Woods has had the worst winter of his life, while even the Pope is facing a horror trip.

So what is this image? I prefer to call it "a climate of opinion," what the world thinks of you. It's like the weather and as insubstantial and difficult to control. Companies and celebrities love to bask in the sunshine of good opinion but it only takes one cloud to bring on the storms and the chills.

Also in this land of ours we have the tall poppy syndrome. Here you can be hugely successful and still be given a negative image.

Think of the highest-grossing Australian film of all time. Mad Max? Australia? Nope - Crocodile Dundee. Paul Hogan redefined the Australian image and they've been chopping at his stem and roots ever since.

Derryn Hinch has a unique position as both cutter and victim - how many times has he been chopped? But he has been smart enough to turn this public churn into his unique image.

In politics image is everything, so politicians are most vulnerable. They even face a paid, dedicated team of image smashers known as The Opposition, closely helped by the media, forever looking for tomorrow's headline or tonight's news bulletin.

Bill Clinton somehow survived eight years in power with daily assaults on his image. Peter Garrett has discovered the icy waters of Parliament after years in the warm bath of fame and adulation. A decade earlier Cheryl Kernot had her image smashed after she jumped from the Democrats to Labor.

Business has many landmines. Look at Toyota with its tidal wave of recalls and problems - you have to wonder how even such a strong company can recreate its image of a solid, perfectly reliable car.

In the US the Domino's Pizza chain was brought low when two kitchen staff made a YouTube video of pizza being prepared as they messed around throwing food on the floor and up a nose. Domino's quality ratings halved overnight.

How can you protect yourself under such an assault? It's like a fire - if you can't put it out at least try to contain it. And the worst thing you can do to your image is to pretend the problem does not exist.

If you're spending squillions on a big public relations company retainer, you'll find that all they can really do is hold your hand and whisper the following advice:

Identify the problem and respond quickly - don't sit on it and hope it will go away. If you were my client I'd grill you for the truth, the whole truth. There's no gain in deceiving your doctor or your PR man.

You give the story as good a spin as possible: "As soon as the toxic leak was discovered the company put its emergency plan into operation."

Ideally, give the communications task to your top person - the CEO or chairman. The media will want to talk to them anyway.

Whatever you do, don't lie. It will always come out in the end. (Remember "I did not have sex with that woman"?).

Better to tell the whole truth however unpalatable. Say "He was drunk and in bed with his sister" in one mouthful, rather than waiting for the media to pull it out like teeth, headline by headline. "He was drunk!" Then "He was in bed!" and another few days later "With his sister!" Instead of one mouthful for the rabid dogs, you turned it into an ongoing feast.

This was the mistake Christine Nixon made. Instead of declaring all the facts of that fateful Saturday and copping one slap, she allowed it to be slowly extracted, so it became a string of front pages and news bulletins, and weeks of droning talkback hypocrisy.

So after the smoke has cleared, can a tarnished image be repolished? Well yes - especially if you have money.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and helped blow up millions around the world in last century's wars. But judicious placement of his legacy has made his name the world standard of peace.

Locally we have a fascinating study of image rebuilding. Steve Vizard was the darling of both the public and the establishment. Then came the issue of his share trading while a director of Telstra. Controversy exploded, and with it his image.

He is still midway through a 10-year ban from the corporate world but we are seeing his supreme media skills at work as he slowly claws his way back. Selfless donations by his foundation. Art works lent to the state. And now the resurfacing of his human face, and humour, on new radio station MTR.

There's a lot of work involved in piecing together the shattered crystal of a broken image.

Did your children really come from another planet?

Melbourne Herald Sun, 31st October, 2009
Did our children really come from another planet - or under all the clothes, the talk, the music are they really little copies of us?

Putting this in business terms, the questions are: does all our expensive advertising appeal in the same way to each generation, do they use the same media, are they even looking?

A recently published report from Luma Research is bound to draw a sigh of relief. Yes they are different - but not that different.

It’ll come as no surprise that the oldies - 45 plus - spend two-thirds more time in front of the TV than a teenager. What is surprising is that they also spend three times more hours on the internet. So what do those teenyboppers get up to when they’re not in sight? Let’s put a good face on it and hope they are attending to their studies.

You can’t accuse the survey of being too narrow. Over 20 years they questioned 240,000 people in 50 countries. Definitely a representative sample.

But what every business person wants to know is: do people even notice my ads? And what is it that makes them buy?

Teens are more aware of advertising than their elders but this does not make them any more responsive. Uniformly, right across the generations, before the consumer will respond to the ad - and buy the product - they have to develop a relationship with it, what the researchers call “bonding”.

They have to like the ad. Respond to it, feel that it is talking to them. If that happens they will be pulled to your product, they will probably buy it. No surprises there - except for those who think that if they scream loudly enough out of the TV, the customer will be bludgeoned into submission.

Certainly different kinds of ads bond in different ways. If they are buying a car and you have the model they want at the price they expect to pay, a line ad in our classified pages will do the trick. It’s purely information. They will also look on the web, in local newspapers - they are just seeking their goal.

But as soon as you start promoting which car they should buy, and how much they ought to spend - then you are getting into image, fashion, relationship. This is where the emotional bonding comes in.

Our gen Zs, the teenagers, like stories and fantasy - not surprising. Their older siblings Gen Y (under 30s) respond to narration ads, telling a more straightforward message in words and pictures. But in the end it all comes down to the quality of the idea behind the ad, and the skill in promoting the benefits, in other words being creative.

This is where too many of the ads you’ll see on tonight’s TV, or in this weekend’s magazines, fall down. Look at them with a critical eye. Do they have personality? Is there any that makes you laugh or yearn or respond? It’s these emotions that create the bond, that make the ad - and the product - your friend.

Even though you and your kids have different reasons for choosing friends, across the generation divide, the mechanism of friendship remains the same. So it is with advertising, underneath we are no different. This is where the execution needs to be lined up with the age group and their concerns and fashions of the day.

But as far as the choice of the internet as an advertising medium, the surprising outcome of this research is that it is far more effective in reaching the Gen X and Baby Boomers (35+) than their kids. It’s mum and dad that are hogging the data line, while the kids go off onto their own planet.

Ray@ebeatty.com