Steve Bowen of Burson-Marsteller

June 21st, 2010 / 1:00 pm

One of the key influences in my recent PR life is Steve Bowen, who joins Burson-Marsteller on July 1st [from Edelman] as our new regional Managing Director for Marketing & Training in Asia-Pacific.

I first met Steve in 2002, when he was the head of international public relations at Kia Motors Corporation (KMC) in Seoul, Korea. At that time, Kia was looking for its very first global PR agency, and as the brand new Managing Director of Edelman Korea, I was keen to put a few wins on the board.

For all the credit I’ve received in my career for building PR businesses in some very challenging circumstances, I always remind myself of the people who helped create the winning conditions along the way. It was Kia’s confidence in selecting my old firm — when the great Mark Juhn was KMC’s COO — that really jump-started the rise of “The New Edelman Korea,” and Steve was the best kind of client whose support and encouragement I will always well remember.

As my customer, Steve provided thoughtful and clear feedback and well educated the agency about his company’s business. He was the exemplar of excellence, a champion of quality, and a factory of new ideas. Better yet, he valued listening and thinking before just talking and doing.

Today international PR for the rising Asian multinationals is becoming an important part of our business, and Steve’s pioneering experience and track record in this area from his Kia years will help take our game to the next level.

I’ve blogged about the benefits of working with friends before, but in Steve’s case the new wrinkle is that while many people think of him as an Edelman guy, in fact he is a ‘Burson Person’ who is now returning to the consultancy where he first cut his teeth in the PR business.

Categories: friends
comments(1) Tags: asia, b-m, bowen, friends, PR

PR videos in Australia + India

June 1st, 2010 / 12:00 am

I’ve been doing a lot of videos lately, so let me share a couple of recent ones shot this spring during my pan-Asia introduction travels.

Here I am speaking with Glen Frost of Australia’s The PR Report about Burson-Marsteller’s approach to Evidence-Based Communications:

A few weeks earlier at New Delhi, here I was interviewed by Ashwani Singla, the CEO of Genesis Burson-Marsteller, India’s premier public relations consultancy. Of particular interest to PR industry types is our tackling of the procurement trend in communications services.

Categories: Asia, Burson-Marsteller, blog
comments(0) Tags: asia, australia, b-m, genesis, india, PR, procurement, video

Asia’s PR powerhouse

April 5th, 2010 / 2:00 am

When I was in Seoul last week meeting with B-M colleagues, clients and communities, I was pleased to meet with Mr. He-suk Choi, an engaging journalist who asked me some really original questions about PR in Asia generally but particularly in Korea.

Here is the resulting article that appeared in The Korea Herald:

Categories: Burson-Marsteller
comments(1) Tags: asia, korea, PR, Publicity

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

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

Guest lecture to PR students in Hong Kong

November 26th, 2009 / 3:00 pm

On November 10th, I was honoured to address PR students in the Communications School of Hong Kong Baptist University. I was invited and hosted by the distinguished Dr. Flora Hung as well as the wonderful Dr. Regina Chen. The theme of the speech was “Building modern PR campaigns and telling digital stories in the age of social technology.” Feel free to download a copy by clicking the screen shot below:

It was my best effort to ‘connect the dots’ between my own two decades of communications consulting experience and the ideas of thinkers like Gerald Zaltman (re. metaphors tapping into the unconscious mind), Martin Lindstrom (re. neuromarketing and ‘unconscious’ storytelling), Dale Carnegie (re. making people feel important in conversations) and Robert Cialdini (re. the psychology of persuasion).

These are the key points made in the presentation:

No brainer: the mind is the key issue when it comes to PR.
The unconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious mind.
The emotions of the unconscious mind determine PR success, not the rational logic of the conscious mind.
Metaphors communicated through storytelling tap into the unconscious mind where people make decisions.
PR pros need to design and conduct campaigns accordingly.
Unfortunately, the ‘storytelling zone’ of news journalism (which has also been the province of PR people interacting with reporters) is shrinking as the traditional news media business plummets.
So marketers and their money are migrating to the entertainment media and social media spheres, where stories can be told directly to consumers.
Nowadays every company can create its own content and tell its own stories, like a media company.
Digital is now changing narratives; new stories are actually being co-created via conversations with people online.
Understanding the ‘psychology of persuasion’ within networked contexts is a key skill for modern communicators.
PR people of the future must think like story writers and media content programmers.

Categories: blog, speaking platforms
comments(2) Tags: asia, carnegie, cialdini, digital storytelling, edelman, hong kong, journalism, lindstrom, media, persuasion, PR, psychology, social networks, zaltman

A revolution coming in Japanese media relations?

November 23rd, 2009 / 12:00 pm

Yesterday’s edition of The New York Times contained an interesting article that caught my eye: “New Leaders in Japan Seek to End Cozy Ties to Press Clubs.”

When I was building a communications consultancy in Tokyo from scratch in 2005, I remember being told repeatedly that one reason foreign-owned PR firms would never be successful in Japan is the unique press club system of that country, where the mainstream media continues to loom very large with newspapers reigning supreme.

Like a lot of the dire predictions I heard in a discouraging way in those days (e.g. “Japan is too expensive for a profitable business,” “You will never find talented employees,” etc.), it proved to be grossly overstated, but I did experience the power of the press clubs and saw their critical role in making or breaking successful media relations campaigns.

I remember one time [2007] we issued a news release announcing the new CEO of a company. We distributed it via e-mail, with a picture of the new leader attached. We also dispatched one of our team to the relevant press club (who needed to seek permission to do so beforehand), and she distributed the release by hand, which was accompanied by a hard copy of the CEO’s picture (on photo stock). As the newcomer to Japan, I was surprised how much of the resulting coverage came from the hard copy material circulated via the press club rather than via electronic means.

These press clubs have been analogue anachronisms in a digital age, but that is part of the challenge and the charm of PR in Japan. This is a country where press releases are still credible, where large-scale press events remain commonplace, and where PR agencies still send faxes to reporters. It’s also a land where through ‘desk-side’ briefings, there can be a more friendly relationship-rich approach to media relations.

Neighboring Korea also had a similar system of press clubs, but with the propagation of e-mail addresses several years ago came the ability to communicate with media point-to-point, thus breaching ‘the wall.’ Things can take longer in Japan — often for the better, sometimes for the worse — and now that there’s real reform coming in the ‘news cartel’ system in Tokyo, the pent-up demand for modern communications consulting will rapidly boost firms able to compete on consulting quality, not just media relations quantity.

Categories: blog, media relations
comments(1) Tags: asia, japan, media relations, PR

Creating a new company from scratch in Japan

November 3rd, 2009 / 5:00 pm

It is well known in the global PR industry that Edelman tried but failed on a few occasions to enter the Japanese market — still the world’s second-largest — dating back to the 1980s. When the firm asked me to lead its latest charge into the country in 2004, I was not at all convinced that this would be a good idea and worried that Tokyo could be a career graveyard. It’s true that I had been playing a ‘hot hand’ with my colleagues making Korea Edelman’s largest Asia office from 2002, but the Edelman organization wanted me to replicate that success in Japan and I knew that would be a much harder thing to do from scratch (thus I was able to secure a 49% stake in the Japanese company for what I knew would be the toughest job of my career).

A lot of outsiders to Asia think that because Korea and Japan have a lot of things in common, then you can follow pretty much the same cookie-cutter approach in both countries.

Well, that may be true sometimes, but more often than not distinct approaches need to be pursued to achieve ’societal alignment.’ For example, in Korea digital technology has rendered the press club system obsolete, whereas in Japan it still reigns supreme as an information cartel. Korean PR is more visual and vivid, but in Japan the use of text unaccompanied by images is commonplace in PR and while it’s OK in Seoul to send large e-mail attachments, in Tokyo that was often found rude.

Koreans are in a hurry to get ambitious things done, so speed is their thing and it doesn’t matter sometimes if the journey is a bit harried as long as the destination is reached. The Japanese, I find, are more inclined to take the time to ensure that every last detail of quality is mastered. Far better to take longer creating something of the highest quality than to rush things and be sloppy.

That was the key for me, aiming to create a premium brand for Edelman in a country that values quality, and to ask staff to be the best they can be in the spirit of Japan’s kaizen business philosophy. Still, while I did try to tap into this vein of national sentiment, we were actually able to grow so fast by acting completely different than all of the other PR firms. In Japan, where it’s important to ‘fit in’ and be like the others, we decided early on to aggressively differentiate ourselves by being completely different than the other firms in a range of areas.

This involved:

positioning the firm as aiming at a new PR standard of excellence competing on quality rather than price (in a country where there are a lot of frustrated and patient clients suffering one mediocre ‘commodity’ firm after another who crave a PR firm that can think, fearlessly advise and execute rather than just ‘follow instructions’)
ensuring the prominent role of Japan in the global Edelman network and showcasing Japanese accomplishments internationally (in a global industry where Japan really does seem to ‘punch below its weight’ and many practitioners working at firms in Tokyo regard English interactions with overseas people as a necessary inconvenience, thus making the overseas colleagues wonder about their Japanese co-workers’ commitment)
relentlessly promoting Edelman Japan’s accomplishments in the PR industry (in a country where modesty can reduce the motivation and effectiveness of overseas marketing, but in a network where shameless self-promotion is a sign of PR virility)
massively educating the staff with accelerated learning programs so as to increase the value of our primary product — the employees’ time — and thus help keep the premium quality promise with stakeholders

Just about every person I spoke with forecast the doom and defeat of a new Edelman Japan created along these lines, and some days when it was me living out of my suitcase after one discouraging meeting after another, I wondered if a unilingual Canadian expat could get the new firm off the ground. I later discovered that compared to optimistic Americans, Japanese can seem pessimistic and seek a greater degree of tangibility before corporate boasts are taken seriously.

Before I set up shop in Tokyo, Dan Edelman — who like his son Richard was a strong supporter of the new Japanese organization — sent me all of his files which chronicled Edelman’s dealings with Japan since the early 1980s. They arrived one day in large binders labeled with well known Japanese PR names like Dentsu, Kyodo, Hakuhodo, and Ozma. When I flipped through the hundreds of pages of material, I was stunned to see with my own eyes the extent of cultural misunderstanding (on both sides) which must have played a role in stymieing the success of the earlier failed attempts to win allies, forge affiliations, or precipitate acquisitions.

I guess we were able to make a success of Edelman’s Japan entry because — financed by the confidence of early foundation clients like Microsoft and Nissan — we just built the place one person at a time, sharing the entrepreneurial thrill of co-creating a company with a very courageous group of Japanese colleagues who wanted to make a career in modern public relations.

Categories: work
comments(0) Tags: asia, edelman, japan, PR