With the Democratic National Convention coming in a matter of weeks to our hometown of Denver (and for the first time in a century, at that), everything’s a-buzzin’ here.
But buzz isn’t always a good thing. Here are two cautionary tales, submitted for your public relations analysis:
Last week, amidst many more serious challenges facing the DNC and its convention, there was a rather amusing hoo-hah about the food served by official convention caterers having to be lean, green, organic and colorful. In other words, no fried and/or otherwise unhealthy foods will be tolerated. No, said the Denver Convention Host Committee in a press release designed to set the record straight. Merely guidelines that complement the DNC’s green convention initiative with a “Lean ‘N Green” menu option. But the damage was done, and the guidelines, still perceived to be hard and fast rules, are now comic fodder for bloggers (mainly of the red-state persuasion) and late-night television.
Lesson: There is such a thing as going overboard when communicating what appears to be a well-intentioned effort. A lighter and simpler touch was required from the get-go in providing true guidelines for those who choose to follow. Pick your words carefully – often, it’s not so much what is said as it is how it’s said. And for goodness sake, after the controversy emerged, a dose of humor would have been most welcome. The DNC Host Committee’s press release was woefully void of it and came off as obnoxiously defensive.
On a related front, it’s been a very busy summer for October Strategies, even moreso becuase we too are involved in some DNC Convention-related work. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to be involved. However, this week we encountered a second prospective client who wanted us to use our Convention credentials to worm our way into the Convention and shill their product to the media (and presumably also to the delegates) with no regard given to the proceedings.
I don’t think so.
If they do find a credentialed flack or two to follow through on this clueless, terrible idea, though, I’ll be sure to report back.
July 17, 2008 at 2:20 pm |
Actually, the problem was not that the host committee did not pick its words carefully, the problem was the willful distortion of those words by right-wing critics followed by the compliant, uncritical publishing and broadcasting of those distortions by the media.
Read the host committee’s original July 2 release. It states very explicitly that the guidelines: “are not mandatory and do not preclude local businesses that do not adopt them from participating in Denver’s hosting of the convention.” The release also stated — again, very explicitly — that the Lean N’Green guidelines (including the infamous, alleged “ban” on fried foods) were suggested for vendors to consider for *at least one meal option per day.* In other words, the committee made it clear not once, but twice — and in very clear terms — the guidelines were voluntary and meant to apply only to at least one offered meal option, not to every meal served at the DNCC.
If the host committee’s communications people made a mistake it was in underestimating the willingness of the local media to uncritically parrot the misleading and outright false criticisms of the guidelines by sources who clearly had vested interests in making the DNCC look bad. Any reporter or editor who actually read the committee’s July 2 release could have avoided becoming the tool of such misinformers, but clearly most chose controversy — even manufactured controversy — over doing any journalism. THAT’s the real lesson here.