One day after a "shellacking" in the congressional election, President Obama acknowledged Wednesday that he needs to improve his relations with business."As I reflect on what's happened over the last two years, it's one of the things that I think has not been managed by me as well as it needed to be."
Read the story here.
It's mind-boggling that he's saying things like this. Who is managing his PR strategy at this point? Anyone?
All that matters right now - or for the past two years really - is jobs. So the last thing Obama should be saying is that the one thing he didn't manage well was the very thing that creates jobs, that being the business community.
But it runs deeper than that - Obama's flaw was treating all business as one amorphous entity and having a one-dimensional messaging strategy as it relates to business.
The reality is that some businesses are good, some are bad and others are neither here nor there.
What Obama needed to do what restore confidence through accountability and drive that message home over and over. To do that, from a PR perspective, he needed to:
1) Throw some bankers in jail
2) Have some PR ops with visuals showing how money the gov dished out is now being paid back to the government or how it's created jobs
3) Every single press briefing should have started with Jobs
But they didn't do this because, in my opinion, governments generally don't understand business and are fearful to talk about it for fear that business leaders will admonish something they say. So they tip toe around the issue or play to various populous themes that work well in the short-term, but not in the long-term.
Instead Obama's PR campaign since becoming president has been highlighted by things like Health Care, his trip to Asia, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, removing troops from Iraq, the BP oil spill, etc.
All of these things were important events, but it seems like at every turn there was always something grabbing the spotlight other than the administration's efforts to support job creation.
The lesson in all this is from a PR perspective don't spread yourself too thin, especially in a crisis. Know what your stakeholders care most about and speak to that - make it your #1 messaging priority.
Most organizations have this issue. They tend to speak to what they consider important and not what their publics are currently concerned about - which makes them appear disconnected from the reality of their customers or the voting public.
It's sort of like when Apple had the issue of their phones disconnecting during a call if you cradled the handset a certain way. Jobs downplayed the significance of the issue - which was a big mistake because regardless of whether it was a minor or major issue, to Apple customers it was the ONLY thing they cared about.
And sometimes organizations will address an issue once or twice and consider it put to bed, but they have to realize that just because they spoke about an issue once or twice doesn't mean they've reached all their publics. As long as an issue is front and center with the public, you have to keep speaking to it.
Failure to do so severely weakens your brand over time. We are seeing that with Obama and I'd argue we've even seen some of that with Apple.
So what should they do now? Simple, what they should have done in the first place. Make everything about Jobs.
They need to launch a PR blitz that drives home to the public that Jobs are the only thing on their mind. Otherwise they are going to see more and more satirical attacks like the following YouTube video.
Read the story here.
It's mind-boggling that he's saying things like this. Who is managing his PR strategy at this point? Anyone?
All that matters right now - or for the past two years really - is jobs. So the last thing Obama should be saying is that the one thing he didn't manage well was the very thing that creates jobs, that being the business community.
But it runs deeper than that - Obama's flaw was treating all business as one amorphous entity and having a one-dimensional messaging strategy as it relates to business.
The reality is that some businesses are good, some are bad and others are neither here nor there.
What Obama needed to do what restore confidence through accountability and drive that message home over and over. To do that, from a PR perspective, he needed to:
1) Throw some bankers in jail
2) Have some PR ops with visuals showing how money the gov dished out is now being paid back to the government or how it's created jobs
3) Every single press briefing should have started with Jobs
But they didn't do this because, in my opinion, governments generally don't understand business and are fearful to talk about it for fear that business leaders will admonish something they say. So they tip toe around the issue or play to various populous themes that work well in the short-term, but not in the long-term.
Instead Obama's PR campaign since becoming president has been highlighted by things like Health Care, his trip to Asia, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, removing troops from Iraq, the BP oil spill, etc.
All of these things were important events, but it seems like at every turn there was always something grabbing the spotlight other than the administration's efforts to support job creation.
The lesson in all this is from a PR perspective don't spread yourself too thin, especially in a crisis. Know what your stakeholders care most about and speak to that - make it your #1 messaging priority.
Most organizations have this issue. They tend to speak to what they consider important and not what their publics are currently concerned about - which makes them appear disconnected from the reality of their customers or the voting public.
It's sort of like when Apple had the issue of their phones disconnecting during a call if you cradled the handset a certain way. Jobs downplayed the significance of the issue - which was a big mistake because regardless of whether it was a minor or major issue, to Apple customers it was the ONLY thing they cared about.
And sometimes organizations will address an issue once or twice and consider it put to bed, but they have to realize that just because they spoke about an issue once or twice doesn't mean they've reached all their publics. As long as an issue is front and center with the public, you have to keep speaking to it.
Failure to do so severely weakens your brand over time. We are seeing that with Obama and I'd argue we've even seen some of that with Apple.
So what should they do now? Simple, what they should have done in the first place. Make everything about Jobs.
They need to launch a PR blitz that drives home to the public that Jobs are the only thing on their mind. Otherwise they are going to see more and more satirical attacks like the following YouTube video.
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