Just a short one this month, but having just pressed ‘send’ on several thousand hard earned pounds to HMRC (well, it is 31 January), I’m reminded of a recent media trainee who asked us if there was any such thing as a client who is beyond help in terms of positive PR.
The short answer is no, although some are more challenging than others. And what even the best comms professional issues on behalf of a client is always at the mercy of how the media chose to pick it up and interpret the well-chosen words.
In the last couple of years, for example, we’ve helped the family of a convicted murderer (still appealing his conviction after several years in prison), a door to door home credit company and several large companies who were about to shed several hundred jobs.
The basics are exactly the same: keep it straight, keep it honest, and keep it as positive as possible. Even a hundred jobs being shed, for example, can help guarantee the future of a struggling business, and thus save potentially many hundreds more jobs.
And remember, a small investment in professional comms support can be the best money spent in the long run if it helps protect your hard-won corporate reputation