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The EBA Should Stay Non-profit
The European Business Association's staff wants to get into the lobbying business for individual companies. It shouldn't.
There are two reasons for this:
1.) It shouldn't compete with its own membership.
2.) And, there is a better than even chance that being paid by one member to lobby on an issue will be contrary to the interests of another member.
From the outset, I have a conflict here. My company, Willard, has a governmental relations division. We have combined press relations with governmental relations to pursue agendas for clients for the last dozen years or so.
It might sound disingenuous but I don't worry about competition from EBA lobbying for individual companies. It doesn't do what we do, or the way we do it. I also don't know of any of our competitors in this realm-from law firms to public affairs companies -- who would be overly concerned.
It simply just isn't right. With one-toe in the profit arena, you can bet the entire foot will soon follow. What is to stop the EBA from getting into the real estate business, the lawyer business, the accounting business or, another one close to home, the PR business?
The second point is probably the crux of the problem. Regardless of how judicial the EBA staff might be, lobbying for individual companies will sooner than later pit one or more of EBA's 700 members against one another. The EBA should not use its combined membership weight to lobby on behalf of specific and individual company issues.
EBA has an excellent staff. When I served on the board, I was constantly impressed by their energy and thoroughness. Additionally, the EBA board is made up of knowledgeable business leaders who graciously donate their time. Good people all.
I don't believe the board really wants to walk where the ice is so very thin. When a non-profit group with a diverse membership gets into the profit making business-whether it's a religious organization or a business association-it jeopardizes the overall goals of the organization.
The EBA has its hands full lobbying for the common and general interests of the entire organization. At this, it has been effective, and that in itself is worth the price of dues.
My company is a member of both EBA and The American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. The Chamber was recently faced with this question, and made the decision not to jeopardize its non-profit status.
It was a wise decision. The EBA board should do the same.
A Seat At The Table
Carlos Gutierrez blames the CEO for corporate communications people so often being kept in the dark. Gutierrez is a former U.S. commerce secretary and former CEO and chairman of Kellogg Co. Since he worked in both government and business, he knows both landscapes.
In his view, the government communications people tend to know a lot more about policy and are simply better informed than their counterparts in corporate communications.
"It's no your fault," he old a gathering of business PR pros at a meeting a few months back in New York. "It's the CEO's fault. It is the CEO's responsibility to see communications as a strategic tool."
He's dead on. When I worked in government, I sat next to my boss in meetings with Kremlin leaders during Soviet times. As Senate leader he often met with cabinet officials in his office. I had a seat at the table.
Rarely do you find such access for corporate communication executives. It's just the opposite. Depending on the corporation, some communications people are seen primarily as mouthpieces and not strategic thinkers.
"In government, communications people are policy people-they know policy with a high level of detail," said Gutierrez, who was in President George W. Bush's administration.
He told the PR people at the seminar that they should be with their CEO in every meeting.
"My sense is that in the corporate world PR people walk around not knowing why the company may have dropped its dividend by 10 per cent or why a new product was launched," Gutierrez added.
He called President Barack Obama one of the best communications presidents. "
"He can not go a full day without talking to his top communication's person because he understands how strategic communicators are."
This is not that different from my old boss, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd. He wanted to know how a certain policy decision would be played in the press. He often said:
"If it's not on radio, if it is not in the newspapers, and my wife Erma Byrd didn't see it on TV, it damn sure didn't happen."
Governmental Relations in Ukraine: An Oxymoron?
On most levels, the field of governmental relations, as it applies in Ukraine, is an oxymoron. It is about money, bloc voting, and realizing that most officials (everywhere) will do what they perceive is in their own interests.A client of mine once used the slogan: "My only special interest is you." In an age where politicians were going to jail in my home state of West Virginia for accepting bribes, it resonated and he won.
But, at Willard, we have governmental relations as one of our disciplines. As I looked over our history in preparation for a pitch, it became evident that most of what we did - including current work - involves some governmental relations.
However, we have made a point not to be in any political camp, and never to work as a consultant to a Ukrainian political campaign. This, of course, goes against my nature. I was a political consultant in the United States for many years.
As the saying goes, what goes around comes around, and that applies five-fold in Ukraine where historical memory is digital and in Dolby Sound.
We have, though, as a company, been rather successful in this field. In fact, I listed 22 clients with whom we had worked that had interests with the Ukraine government, and in most but not all cases, victory was the result.
How did we do it?
Other than being seen as "an honest broker" not owned by any politician or official, I believe there are three reasons for this:
1. We don't go to a government official with hat in hand. Our strategy is to offer value to the government contact in exchange for getting our client's messages heard. This, of course, is legal value, not wads of cash: training, information, facilitations. We once volunteered to help a ministry publish a public service magazine. In fact, we have media trained elements of several political parties in Ukraine without compensation from the party.
2. We believe information has value to our clients. We gain this information from public or back-channel sources, analyze it, and help put the client in the best position to make the right choices. We realize that even the word "lobbying" in Ukraine is a pejorative, and often significant intelligence gathering is the most honest way of conducting governmental relations.
3. We believe education campaigns go hand-in-hand with governmental relations. If the press and public have been sufficiently convinced of the rightness of a client's position, it softens the ground for governmental relations. We have used this technique for 15 years in Ukraine.
Finally, that fourth reason: |We don't give up. We recognize that every victory can be over-turned and every defeat with new tactics can be turned-around. In other words, we never raise the white flag of surrender
Soft Whisper, Big Bang
When the folks at Google do something, I watch and learn. Google's an incredible company, and it has grown, and grown wealthy, by staying ahead of the curve and displaying an unbelievable grasp of human nature - I mean, marketing.
The Googlers understand marketing as well as they understand the Internet, which is really saying something. When their Gmail product was first announced, I yawned. After all, there were plenty of free email options available on the web. I had even been one of the earliest people to trade mail.com stock when that first was floated on the market. Today, mail.com has been acquired by the son of famous American race car driver Roger Penske and is part of a growing media empire.
Google's Gmail has become the standard by which online mail service is judged. It's sleek, efficient, easy to use, reliable, and the ads that support it are unobtrusive.
What initially drew me to Gmail was a bit of snob appeal. During the initial rollout, the service was only available by invitation. Theoretically, it still is, though I can't imagine not being able to get an account if you want one.
Apparently, I'm not the only one who wants to be at the head of the queue for new products. Earlier this month, Google 'accidentally' let slip that they're testing a rival to the iPhone, and today I learned that they're preparing a new product, Google Wave, for release. Google Wave was launched softly, very quietly to a couple of hundred developers at a conference, each of whom were able to invite friends to try it as well. Before long, the web was buzzing and invitations to ride the Wave were hotter than tickets to a White House state dinner.
Google Wave is a pretty interesting new service that may revolutionize the way we look at email, social networking, instant messaging, document collaboration and the like. But what is important to marketers is how Google rolled it out: Quietly, almost furtively, and with a limited number of personal invitations to try the product and comment on it.
Google's marketing people know that the harder a club is to join, the louder people clamor to gain entry.
It's not a new concept, but it is one that is overlooked far too often. As Mike Willard likes to say, it's Biblical.
Back then, it was fruit that was forbidden, rather than a web application. It makes one wonder whether there's a snake in Google's garden as well.
A Tiger Comeback
Tiger Wood's bimbo eruptions make a former U.S. president's escapades appear amateurish by comparison. By last count, it was 14, and the majority of these ladies suggest Bill Clinton's Paula Jones was a classy lady in comparison.
So what to do with the greatest celebrity meltdown in U.S. sports history? Tiger has chosen a path to redemption that strands his sponsors, the golf business and the television ratings in, at best, purgatory.
On the nuclear scale, Tiger's scandal is Defcon One: He was a serial cheater and not merely the victim of a one-time misfortunate liaison. With his beautiful young wife, he has an infant child and a two-year-old. It was so shocking because we all thought Tiger was better than, well, us.
Instead, he outdid the outrageous bad boy of golf, John Daly, who called Tiger and tried to offer advice. Daly, who has had an alcohol problem and has had a history of abuse, has managed four marriages in his 43 years.
Many of us have led, at times, soap opera lives, and some of us have been marriage challenged. We have done things that today make us cringe with regret, and wonder why - surely Tiger's feelings today. From a distance, he always seemed stoically aloof while at the same time vulnerable. During interviews, even while smiling, we wondered if he were about to cry.
That's why writing about any course of action Tiger should take seems so awkward, such an invasion of his space, his right to privacy after his umpteen-car personal pile-up. In reality, though, he doesn't have that right. He forfeited it.
We find out now that Tiger wasn't really the man-child in the bubble, the laconic and reluctant interview, the father of his own foundation that focuses on, according to his website, character formation. Was he a raunchy version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? We wonder. What was he thinking?
Whatever the answer, Tiger needs to get with a program. Going AWOL is not a strategy. It's a cop-out. One doesn't mend a family by running out on responsibilities for which he has been paid a billion dollars over the years.
Forget the sponsors. You don't abandon your fans. Tiger gets absolutely no points from this writer for calling an "indefinite" suspension to his career to concentrate on mending his family. Tiger, have you ever heard of multi-tasking?
My advice as a crisis counselor, for what it's worth, is to take some time off; but first, announce a definite time for returning to the game. The Masters in April would seem a sufficient period for the comeback.
In the meantime, hunker down for a few weeks of soul-searching and family mending. Do your best to be a world-class husband and father. If it works, you're one lucky guy with a sweet girl and have a lot for which to be grateful.
If it doesn't work, you can still be a world-class dad, and winning back any straying fans and sponsors will come with the golden swing of that golf club.
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