Now I’m a ‘Burson Person’

January 24th, 2010 / 11:30 am

Now that it’s official I will be joining Burson-Marsteller as the firm’s new President and CEO in the Asia-Pacific region, I would like to offer a few reflections about how I got here.

When I elected to leave Edelman (where I served as its North Asia President) after six years of service, Harold Burson was kind enough to send me a personal e-mail message wishing me well. I was intrigued that he should take such an interest in my career trajectory, and I made a mental note to follow-up with him in due course. That I did a few months later, and so on the brisk morning of October 22^nd in New York City, I met the legendary founder of my new firm for the first time.

During our pow-wow at his Park Avenue office, I was blown away by the depth and breadth of his feel for the public relations industry. I was especially impressed by his sense of people in PR and his understanding of what makes them tick. It became clear to me that one key ingredient of his success over the years is his acute awareness of the other person’s point of view and a sensitivity to their needs and concerns. This I found very refreshing, because in the small town that is the global public relations industry, there are a lot of fast talkers but not nearly as many good listeners.

The antique radio in Mr. Burson’s office caught my eye, because I collect them as a hobby. In the old technology of radio, like the new technology of social media, there is a term called ‘signal to noise.’ Let me just say that I left our hour-long meeting thinking that this man has probably more ’signal’ and less ‘noise’ about him than just about anyone else I’ve ever met in the industry.

In many ways, I felt as though I had met Mr. Burson repeatedly during my career through his consistently premium-grade representatives, aka ‘The Burson Person.’ My first PR mentor and a co-founding partner of my old firm in Canada cut his teeth at Burson-Marsteller. When I first moved to Seoul, Burson was the class act in that country and I very deliberately applied lessons learned from its winning ways when I was in charge of Edelman Korea. Later, as I traveled across Asia, I discovered that a large proportion of the region’s top talent earned its spurs at B-M and when I met Simon Pangrazio and asked for his advice about building a business in North Asia (an experience that my predecessor and I share in common), he — like all the other B-M pros I’ve met since then — could not have been more impressive.

Fast forward to New Year’s Eve a few weeks ago, when I first spoke to B-M’s Global CEO, Mark Penn. I had almost signed on with another firm by year’s end, but I found his intelligence and vision most compelling and I decided to pursue the B-M option with enthusiasm. Especially because I’ve been giving these lectures on campus of late about how public relations is becoming more of a science than just an art, I was immediately drawn to B-M’s new, data-focused approach to PR called “Evidence-Based Communications.”

I’ve really enjoyed my 18 month sabbatical, but now I am looking forward to working with a tremendously talented team of the highest caliber and professional character. This is a business that’s going places (for many of the reasons I wrote about in this blog post about choosing the right PR firm).

With a rich inheritance of wisdom and experience gained during nearly four decades of experience in Asia-Pacific, Burson-Marsteller is addressing the future with confidence as we focus on setting a new PR standard of excellence in communications achievement.

Categories: Burson-Marsteller
comments(28) Tags: asia, b-m, burson, careers, penn, PR

Below the radar: stories about subliminal

January 21st, 2010 / 3:00 pm

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about how tapping into the unconscious mind is the next big thing in marketing, thus the emerging term ‘neuromarketing.’ This reminded me about subliminal advertising, which going back to the 1950s has been a controversial and disputed means of persuasion (e.g. subliminal images are shown so briefly that the viewer does not consciously ’see’ them). Every now and then, I stumble upon an article about this area and here are two recent ones:

Subliminal cues do work after all, says study: when subliminal advertising first came to the forefront during the ‘red scare’ 1950s era, people were afraid that the Soviet Union could use such surreptitious techniques to brainwash the public into supporting Communism. Later they were reassured when the results of a much-publicized study turned out to have been falsified. Now, however, with the benefit of MRI ‘brain scan’ technology, there is new evidence that “provided they were reinforced with simultaneous rewards, subliminal advertising could probably influence some of the choices we make.”
Subliminal messages work best when negative: so finds a study conducted by University College London, whose Professor Lavie says that “We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words.” She added: “More controversially, highlighting a competitor’s negative qualities may work on a subliminal level much more effectively than shouting about your own selling points.”

Hopefully this will not give too much succor to those who advocate negative advertising in politics. ‘Effective’ or not in winning elections, I think ‘going negative’ makes our increasingly fragile democratic institutions a loser by increasing cynicism and discouraging citizen participation.

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: persuasion, propaganda, psychology

The persuasive storytellers

January 20th, 2010 / 9:00 pm

Today it was my pleasure to guest lecture two classes of PR students at Toronto’s Humber College. To say the least, I was impressed about the extent to which these bright and engaging students have a contemporary command of the forces of change shaping the future of public relations. Here’s a copy of my presentation deck:

Modern PR professionals: the persuasive storytellers

View more presentations from Robert Pickard.

Categories: blog, persuasion
comments(5) Tags: digital storytelling, persuasion, PR, psychology, public relations, research

Liar, liar: knowing the enemy

January 18th, 2010 / 1:00 pm

I have become instinctively irritated when I hear people say that public relations involves lying, but I get far more annoyed when I hear PR practitioners actually lie. Most of us in the profession value telling and selling a story straight, but there are those — often the ones who talk most conspicuously about the importance of ethics for some reason — who seem to fib far too much. This sort of behavior from a small minority helps perpetuate on the honest majority what I believe to be an inaccurate and unfair ‘liar’ stereotype.

It’s pretty widely accepted that lying is corrosive to the trust foundation of relationships. Every field of endeavor has its liars, but because PR people are in the relationships business (Public Relationships and Private Relationships), the importance of avoiding lying is fundamentally important to our craft. This is especially true at a time when we are achieving a growing traction as an industry amplified by the rise of social media. So if lying is our adversary, then we’d better well understand the enemy so we can prevail against such a formidable foe.

Here’s an interesting video that purportedly shows how to detect lies:

…and these are some of the best sources and links that I’ve seen lately:

Liar, liar | The Globe and Mail
Your brain lies to you | The New York Times
The truth about liars | CBC Television
Artful dodging trumps open evasions, studies show | The Washington Post
Lying: moral choice in public and private life | book by Sissela Bok [1979]

Categories: blog, psychology
comments(0) Tags: ethics, honesty, lying, PR, psychology

Why we learn more from success than failure

January 16th, 2010 / 4:00 pm

According to this article in Science Daily, if you’ve ever felt doomed to repeat your mistakes, researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory may have explained why: brain cells may only learn from experience when we do something right and not when we fail. If so, then no wonder we need to work harder at learning from our mistakes and applying the resulting wisdom to continuous improvement.

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: continuous improvement, lifelong learning, neuroscience

Public speaking techniques

January 16th, 2010 / 3:00 pm

Here’s a BBC News Magazine piece that contains some interesting background on what constitutes public speaking success, together with useful techniques for speech-making, such as:

using three part lists
creating contrasts
drawing ‘word picture’ imagery

If you are into oratory, check out this piece about how Great communicators are great explainers.

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: public speaking, speeches

Apology PR: Asia’s latest export to the world?

January 15th, 2010 / 4:00 pm

When I moved from North America to North Asia in 2002, South Korea was roiled by the horrible death of two young school girls who were run over by a U.S. military vehicle (gruesome pictures of which were posted online). Afterward there were mass anti-U.S. demonstrations around the American Embassy in Seoul, located right next door to the Edelman office where I then worked. Feelings against America were running so high, I made a point of wearing my Toronto Maple Leafs hockey jersey when I went to the office, wading through what at times was an angry mob.

One reason why the anti-American passion was running so high? What some felt was the slow speed of the apology for the deaths from President Bush, pouring fuel on the cultural fire in a part of the world where a timely and appropriate apology is de rigeur.

Compared to the West — and especially to America, where I lived for several years — one of the first things I noticed living in Asia is how rapidly and frequently apologies are offered across a wide range of circumstances. At first, this seemed too quaint and maybe excessively ‘weak.’ Why apologize for something that’s not proven to be your fault? That was my attitude then. But over time, I came to believe that the generous Asian approach to apology ensures more harmonious and friendly relationships between people, contributing to civility in society and helping prevent angry public outbursts that one sees more often in Western societies.

Indeed, I increasingly found my own culture’s approach to apology callous and calculating; a tactic of last resort if there’s no other way out of a situation. I had reflected on this issue before, because in my role as a PR consultant to clients experiencing crisis situations, I have repeatedly fought battles with lawyers who always seem to insist that there should never be an apology if a company does something wrong, lest there be legal liability as a result.

All too often, the lawyers win the ‘apology war’, but it’s a pity because simply saying that harm has occurred and showing that you feel bad or sad about what’s happened evidences human empathy and does not constitute an admission of guilt. The Asians certainly appreciate that, and because the lawyers do not reign so supreme in their societies, PR people don’t need to ‘induce’ public apologies that are already a natural cultural response.

Thus, for example, the reflexive bowing at Japanese news conferences if ‘mistakes have been made,’ which even if sometimes reluctant and slow to happen — often a problem with foreign companies in Japan such as Schindler — is such a humble admission that public acceptance usually follows and the media is likely to move on to something else. Indeed, the media ‘pile on’ that happens to organizations or people who have erred often seems like society’s way of extracting an expected apology.

Does that thinking sound familiar? It should, because during recent years — and I have noticed this change since I returned to North America — the spectacle of public apology has become far more frequent in Western countries. There certainly have been many media stories about this tendency lately and the whole area of ‘apology communications’ has become very trendy in PR circles. In an age when so many people fashion themselves as ‘PR experts,’ the apology as the fast way to ‘get the media off your back’ if something bad has happened is now a commonplace theme.

Look at what happened to Tiger Woods when his apology was slow and selective, rather than speedy and seemingly sincere.

On both sides of the Pacific these days, if you are slow to apologize, then people are less likely to trust the sincerity of the apology when it finally does come. Just ask Mark McGwire or any of the executives bowing at Japanese news conferences who are especially sorry that they got caught doing something wrong (which in many cases they could have sincerely admitted much earlier had they been proactively transparent…).

Early in my PR career, I learned about the ‘CAP formula’ for crisis communications. Show Compassion, take Action, provide Perspective. Nowadays, in Asia and worldwide, I think it has really become the CAAP formula: Compassion, Apology, Action, and Perspective. There are even websites now that specialize in apology techniques.

For so many years, there has been this cultural condescension towards Asia; this sense that Western communications are always more advanced and thus American and European PR methods have been widely imported and adapted. In the area of apology communications, the reverse is true and I think the export of Asian apology sensibility is likely a change for the better.

[If you are interested in the apology element of professional communications, check out this excellent article by my former Hill & Knowlton colleague Boyd Neil. If you can read Korean, one of the top Asian thought leaders in this space with significant material online is the brilliant Hoh Kim, my successor at Edelman Korea who is now doing his PhD thesis in this area at KAIST].

Categories: blog, crisis communications
comments(3) Tags: apology communications, asia, civilization, culture

Are PR people incorrigible gossips?

January 11th, 2010 / 11:00 am

My wife said the other day that “PR people are such gossips!” Is it possible that she could be right?

At first, I pooh-poohed the idea, perhaps reflecting the conceit of a profession where supposedly the ability to keep confidences well is one of our distinguishing characteristics. After all, PR people have historically been the staunch enforcer of the embargo and the trusted custodians of news secrets (the strategic ‘leaking’ of which this article in The Financial Times says may have gotten out of hand).

Now, there is a difference between being a small-time gossip and breaching confidentiality big-time, but I suppose not enough of one to challenge the basis of my spouse’s contention because the two are such interrelated phenomena.

The number of PR people I would 100% trust to absolutely, positively maintain discretion no matter what is fairly compact. On the other hand, I’ve often been amazed at how often I’ve sought and secured solemn pledges of confidentiality before sharing sensitive information, only to find out later on that the secret was spilled to others under similar (in)secure conditions.

Indeed, when it comes to confidentiality in PR, the extent of hypocrisy can be breathtakingly pervasive. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have heard senior PR executives criticize others for a lack of discretion while evidencing a conspicuous lack of it themselves.

Why might it be that PR people are prone to promiscuous information-sharing practices?

One theory is that because we are under so much pressure to always keep information under wraps (until the right time for it to become ‘public’), in private there’s a corresponding need to feel less repressed by acting more liberally. Or maybe it’s because we have grown so adept at sharing stories with others (trafficking information to the right people at the right time), it has become habit-forming and we’ve just become too turned-on when it comes to spreading salacious things around. Another explanation is that there’s a lack of ample formal sanction in PR against such behavior; unlike lawyers, PR people cannot be drummed out of the profession for breaching confidentiality because our industry doesn’t yet have a mandatory professional credential (like attorneys and accountants, for example). That said, if someone is addicted to shooting their mouth off, word spreads informally and the repeat offender gets frozen out of the loop.

Perhaps because PR people have become arguably the world’s most powerful information workers, the information we have — which is scarce and exclusive — might be what makes PR people feel more powerful. Often ignored by media and under the client thumb, I can understand how some PRs seek that sensation.

I think Dr. Robert Cialdini’s findings on the self-interested nature of information-sharing may be the most compelling explanation: “The persuasive power of exclusivity can be harnessed by any manager who comes into possession of information that’s not widely available and that supports an idea or initiative he or she would like the organization to adopt.”

Perhaps PR folks are no different than anyone else when it comes to these modern ‘transparent’ trends. This is, after all, the age of social networks and with rising acceptance of less privacy and more ‘Re-Tweeting,’ I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by a shrinking domain of trusted private disclosure and an enlarged sphere of public information.

Still, what a wonderful feeling when you know — through repeated confidence-building experience — that you can trust certain individuals with your reputation. The good thing is that word of how they can keep secrets well also spreads like wildfire, with such people enjoying all kinds of reputation benefits (e.g. being widely known as an executive of high caliber and sound character).

Categories: blog, psychology
comments(1) Tags: character, cialdini, discretion, management, persuasion, PR, psychology

18 lessons learned after 18 years in the PR world

January 9th, 2010 / 7:00 pm

Lately I wrote an article about 18 reflections after 18 months away from PR. Sticking with the ‘18′ theme, I am posting a PowerPoint presentation delivered to the staff of Edelman Japan in June 2008 that outlines the 18 lessons I’ve learned each year working in the PR world starting in 1990. I began using SlideShare recently and thought this would be a good first deck to upload.

View more presentations from Robert Pickard.

Categories: speaking platforms, thinking
comments(0) Tags: careers, continuous improvement, management, PR

25 moonshots for management

January 8th, 2010 / 2:00 pm

While it is probably better now than it ever has been during my 20 year career, the quality of management in the public relations industry can still sometimes be depressingly mediocre. I hope that PR executives dedicated to continuous improvement in their leadership offer will read this superb article listing ten compelling ‘management 2.0′ concepts plus this follow-on piece outlining fifteen more.

Categories: bulletin
comments(0) Tags: management