21.04.2008 Best of the Blog - Is Alastair Campbell entitled to his "I told you so" moment?

So, Alastair Campbell has joined the queue and had a go at Gordon Brown. Apparently he has written a new forward for the paperback version of his diaries – The Blair Years – his compelling record of life as Tony Blair’s mouthpiece, communications manager and right-hand man – in which he tells the Brownites that it was never as easy as it looked.

He clearly couldn’t resist the opportunity to again remind us of how important his role was both in the birth of New Labour and the subsequent years in Government.

And good for him. This is the man who, every bit as much as Tony Blair, dragged the Labour party, government and politics in general into the modern era when it comes to communication.

Tony Blair knew that Labour had to make a step change in terms of policy. But he also recognised the growing importance and changing nature of the new 24/7 media. He realised that if New Labour was to succeed he would need the media on his side and he would need to handle them skilfully to keep them there. It was this joint dedication to policy and strategic communication that set Blair apart as a modern politician.

By contrast, the book depicts Brown as a firm believer in good old fashioned policy making. His relationship with Campbell was seriously tested by events and through clashes between Campbell and Charlie Whelan (Brown’s press secretary) who Campbell perceived as being a slightly wayward cannon. It is easy to suggest that Brown’s troubles stem from the fact that he isn't a natural communicator and he doesn’t have a Campbell sitting in his corner.

But the media has changed again and the context for Gordon Brown was always going to be different.

So let’s not take anything away from Mr Campbell. As an ex-hack, Campbell understood "Fleet Street" and he worked it relentlessly. In opposition he made the Tory’s life hell. He ensured that they never had a moment to talk about their own policies because they were too busy dealing with the agenda New Labour was setting out. In government, he made sure the journalists always had a story and everyone in the party was tightly briefed on the line to take. And when disaster struck – which it did regularly – he invariably dealt with it in a textbook way.

What is clear when you read the diaries is the astonishing attention to detail - as well as the sheer graft that goes into managing communications for a modern political party. With every conference script, every ‘doorstep’ statement and every press release meticulously crafted, rewritten and ultimately controlled.

In the end, the media turned on Campbell because he was just too good. They also didn’t like feeling manipulated. And in truth, Campbell probably didn’t handle his own PR as well as he handled Tony Blair’s all those years - he openly admits to being exhausted by the relentless pressures and suffering from intense bouts of depression.

But look beyond the “spin” headlines and the animosity that culminated in Campbell leaving Downing Street. Campbell did more to shape modern day PR practices than almost anyone else. He played an enormous role in getting New Labour into shape in the first place and then helping a government communicate as effectively as is ever going to be possible in politics.

So does he deserve his “I told you so” moment? You bet he does!

08.04.2008 Olympic values torched in the name of PR?

The news that Olympic organisers are rethinking plans to parade the Olympic torch through major cities in future can come as no surprise after angry scenes in London and Paris.

The concept of a parade for the Olympic torch dates back to the 1930’s and as a PR tactic it seems to be from a very different generation all together. It comes from an age of deference long since gone when people had respect for the institution and the media dutifully reported events straight.

But this isn’t the 1930s and the thought that you can manipulate the press these days with a meaningless 30 mile detour around London lasting seven hours supposedly en-route between Athens and Beijing is staggeringly naïve.

The media loved the disturbances and relished being able to broadcast the pictures. The press doesn’t like to feel manipulated and if there is a chance to bite back, they will always grab it. And this was no ordinary story – it was jam-packed full of goodness as far as the media was concerned. It had that most beloved element of broadcast news – conflict. Better still, the press had endless images. Images that were also quite intriguing – who were the mysterious men in the blue and white tracksuits and why did the celebrities line up to be part of it all?

But the PR fun and games didn’t end there. The gold medal for spin must surely go to Tessa Jowell. Stood outside Downing Street, she attempted the PR equivalent of the decathlon when she claimed the day had been a success as it showcased the UK as a fully functioning democracy that tolerates protest.

So what PR lessons can we learn from all this? As always, the Golden Rule is; keep it real. The Olympics is an incredible story, it doesn’t need spin, it doesn’t need made up routes and rent-a-celebrity tactics. It needs careful, wholesome treatments that support the Olympic values.

But there is a bigger issue here. The very essence of the Olympic brand comes partly from its scarcity. The Olympics only happen once every four years and as a result it is never over exposed – a fate that can dilute other brands all too easily. If you start making up PR platforms and force-feeding the media outside the natural PR window for the event, it is likely that the media will kick back.

The London 2012 organisers will no doubt be taking notes – hopefully we will see the Olympic brand handled with a bit more respect in future.

28.03.2008 The BA bad news magnet strikes again!

Poor old BA. It seems they can’t help themselves, but they are a classic “bad news magnet” – it just seems to stick to them time and time again.

But you make your own luck in the PR game and the chaos surrounding T5’s first day says much about the superficial PR world of royal ceremony and ribbon cutting versus the hard graft of actually doing a great PR planning job as a business and getting everything right operationally.

After everything that has happened during the Terminal 5 project you could almost smell the light at the end of the tunnel for their battered PRs. “Right guys, the Queen does the official opening and then we open for business a fortnight later…”

Oh dear. The carefully managed images of the royal opening will possibly never be seen again - the PR legacy for T5 will be the queues and images of people screaming at officials or sleeping on the terminal floor after their flight was cancelled. I’m sure the Day 1 PR plan had been rehearsed well in advance – all the cameras were there so it was obviously a major media event. But PR is also about decisions and plans made throughout the organisation as a whole. The PR challenge on Day 1 wasn’t just to cope with the world’s media on their premises – but to make sure T5 worked.

Even then, you can salvage a lot by the way you handle a crisis. In the end, it seems BA didn’t do either very well. They gave the impression of a company not coping well under the glare of the world’s cameras and their reputation will suffer as a result.