Talking Point

When The Generals Talk

There’s sense in what the senior Australian officer in Afghanistan said this week about the way the military has managed its messaging.

“I do fear that Australians in general don’t understand what we’re doing here,” General John Cantwell told the Sydney Morning Herald. “From the military side, I would contend that we have tended to be, occasionally, too opaque about what we do.”

Senior military officers don’t speak out often. What they say is either heavily couched in qualification or expresses a view designed to prompt action from their political masters.

The good General is doing the latter - and he’s spot-on.

The plausible reason for Australia (and others) being on the ground in Afghanistan – tying up terrorists to lessen the threat elsewhere – has been poorly communicated. How our troops are playing their role, even more so.

 With the benefit of mates who have worked in Australian Defence Force Public Relations (and having contracted to the ADF on the odd occasion), the overwhelming impression is that this is an organisation that spends inordinate energy on preparing to do PR, but ultimately has its hands tied by interference and/or its own closed culture.

Openness and the ADF have been an oxymoron for 20 years, and while only a fool would advocate throwing open the windows and letting the whole world peer in, the balance has gone too far the other way.

Put simply, people can’t form a positive opinion about something that they don’t understand or on the basis of information that looks heavily doctored. As consumers of media, they’ve become much more educated.

Most ADF PR operatives are barred from burping in public without sign-off from functionaries at every level of an organisational chart that has more layers than a late night Elvis Presley sandwich.   

Both sides of politics have been guilty of mandating that the most innocuous of media statements be Ministerially massaged before it sees the light of day. Or worse, they’ve changed captions on photos.

Army PR used to take its lead from the Americans and learned first-hand in Vietnam about giving military correspondents reasonable operational access. Today’s version of embedding reporters rarely goes further than granting Access All Areas passes to bend-the-lines Jimmy Barnes concerts.

The lesson for business and civilian organisation is salutary: Don’t whinge that people don’t understand what you do if you haven’t tried to talk to them.  

Grinning and baring it

It takes about 15 facial muscles to crack a smile and considerably fewer to frown. It’s surprising, then, that media trainers spend uncountable hours working on this aspect of their clients’ presentation skills.

Watching someone through a visual medium like TV, a large percentage of an audience forms general impressions from how a person looks rather than what they say.

A smile can convey openness, warmth and a sense of approachability. We usually like people who smile. It’s important, however, to only smile in all the appropriate places.

Former Federal Treasurer Peter Costello had a habit of breaking into a smug grin at inopportune moments. Of course they’d be the parts of the media conference that the press gallery used as grabs.

Word was that he’d tried hard to work this out with intensive training, to no avail. Nerves – which contrary to what you might think, can be a good thing in front of a TV camera, when managed – were probably to blame.

Maybe it’s not such a big deal when you’re Treasurer anyway – people hate you for putting your hand in their pocket and that only turns to mild dislike when they’re given a tax cut.

I saw an unfortunate example of The Inappropriate Grin a few weeks ago when Virgin honcho Richard Branson was ambushed by an Australian media crew while in SE Asia.

It was at the height of Virgin Blue’s computer nightmare and he was asked to proffer a comment about his subsidiary company’s woes and their impact.

He did so but I can’t recall of word of what he said. I only remember his big, goofy grin - and the way it contrasted with grabs from cranky and stranded (non-flying) customers.

(Who Virgin Blue refer in their own peculiar corporate-speak as “guests”, by the way. But that’s for another blog.)

So next time you’re fronting the media, put on a happy face if it’s appropriate. Just remember the adage about smiles and crocodiles.

If in doubt, remember that we do supply media training services so we’ll be happy to help.
 

Fresh approach to tired old message

Capturing consumer attention with the same old message is often a difficult challenge …

Let’s face it, how many people have ever paid attention to the air hosties safety demonstration after the first flight?

Well the team at Philippine budget airline, Cebu Pacific, have come up with a fresh approach to ensure the airline traveler does take note, by choreographing the safety demo to Lady Gaga and Katie Perry … Check it out!