Bloghound

People are talking this week about “PR problems” at the Boston Red
Sox and Wal-Mart’s new War Room media strategy when the real problems
are leadership problems.

At a press conference yesterday Theo
Epstein talked to the media for 30 minutes about his resignation as
General Manager of the Boston Red Sox. He never explained the real
reason for resigning, and the rumors about a the nature of the falling
out between Epstein and Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino went supersonic.
Especially since Lucchino didn’t attend the press conference. (All the
other Sox execs were there, including owners John Henry and Tom Werner.)

Sportswriter Bill Reynolds wrote in this morning’s Providence Journal:

You would think he (Lucchino) would have been there for no other reason than he’s
the public face of this franchise, its CEO. You think he would have
been there to send out the message he wishes things could have been
resolved, that he wishes Theo well, blah, blah, blah, the new spin. You
would think he would have begun the first day of damage control, both
to his image and the perception that the Red Sox are going to be fine,
that the organization is strong enough to withstand the loss of anyone,
Epstein included.

Lucchino’s absence and the way the Epstein contract negotiations were handled tell you there are bigger leadership problems.

A front page story in Tuesday’s New York Times, “A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room/Retailer Tries Political Tactics to Help Image,” talked about how the retailer is taking a page from the political playbook to try to sell a better image to the public.

No
PR tactic – or even the best political strategists – can help a company
with weak leadership. And Wal-Mart is flip flopping all over the place.

Last week The New York Times
also reported on a leaked Wal-Mart memo discussing the company’s
strategy for selling its new employee healthcare plans to the public.
The memo said the company is testing the plan’s proposed changes “to
determine whether these investments would effectively ‘move the needle’
on Wal-Mart’s public reputation.”

Here’s what Wal-Mart should do to move the needle:

1. Get
   with the most innovative health care reformers in the country and
   develop a plan that’s good for employees and doesn’t break the
   company’s back (as is GM’s employee/retiree health benefits).
2. Take its huge PR budget and at least half of its advertising budget and use that to fund employee healthcare.

Poor management begets poor reputation. PR has nothing to do with it.

Forget March Madness. It’s Message Madness time. Still smarting from
November’s loss, the Democrats know it and are stuck. In wake of the
Pope’s death Friday, the Catholic Cardinals are tackling it. How to articulate a clear message that is relevant and influential to your audience.

Consider the advice that’s being published:

• “If
  we want to make progress we need to focus on constructing a set of
  clear and concise principles and values that centralizes and
  homogenizes our message, but not our members.” Letter to the editor, New York Times, Sunday, April 3, 2005
• “The church is self-consciously struggling to make its message relevant.” Page one article, New York Times, April 4, 2005
• “The
  major challenge facing the church is to articulate the message of the
  faith in a way that’s actually influential and convincing to people.” Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tuscon, New York Times, April 4, 2005
• “Democrats
  Getting Lessons in Speaking Their Values” Democrats believe that the
  absence of a unifying theme or clear message cost them the election
  last November. New York Times, Feb. 11, 2005

Overcoming the obstacles to great messages

Creating
relevant and influential messages is hard work, which is why so few
organizations and companies have effective ones. My advice to the
Catholics, Democrats and anyone in the corporate world wrestling with a
“message makeover” is this:

Do a listening tour among your most influential and committed members. Then talk with influential former
members. Ask for their advice and opinions. Really listen to their
words and emotions. Why do they still belong? Why did they leave the
flock? Tape record the conversations so you can go back and listen
again for the nuances and language. That the Catholics are locking up
Cardinals in the Vatican to select the new Pope and discuss associated
implications to the Church’s messaging is a bad sign. That the
Democrats are enlisting a bevy of diverse consultants and perspectives
is more hopeful.

Beware of copycats and fraidy cats. When you’re losing votes, members and revenues, it’s time to take
calculated risks to turn around the situation. Don’t try to copy your
competitors’ messages. They’ll still be their messages and
not yours. Ban fraidy cats from the messaging process. At best they’ll
support incremental change; more likely they’ll suck the energy out of
the process. (Note to Democrats: Beware of quoting the Bible and
talking about moral values – despite some of your consultants’ advice.
That’s the Republican angle. You need your own platform. I vote for
“Personal Freedoms. Community Responsibilities.”)

Go to the organizational attic and review the founding vision and values.
You just may find some insights worth re-exploring in context of what’s
most relevant today. While my religious training was quite limited
having preferred Carol Ann’s donut shop to Sunday school, I do remember
being taught that Jesus was forgiving, nonjudgmental, and lived by few
rules. Maybe there’s an angle here for the Catholics if the Unitarians
and Congregationalists haven’t already co-opted that message. As for
the Democrats, remember that Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic
Party in 1792 to fight for the Bill of Rights.

Take a hard look at the issues that are most relevant to your members today.
Map them out to really see what issues are increasing (or decreasing)
in relevancy, and take a look at what issues are most closely
connected. A visual view may help you see informative, new patterns.
Then adapt your message – without altering your values – to today’s
context. (Note to Catholics: preaching against birth control and condom
use makes your organization appear outdated and highly irrelevant –
even in areas like Africa where membership is growing.)

If your
message isn’t relevant, it won’t be influential. As Louis B. Mayer once
said, “If people don’t want to come, there’s nothing that we can do to
stop them.”

I shop at Target because I understand its point-of-view – cool stuff at
good prices. While I don’t choose to shop at Wal-Mart, I understand
what the retailer is all about. Wal-Mart is successful because it, too,
has a point-of-view that people understand: almost everything you need
at really low prices.

But Kmart and Sears? Neither company has a
point-of-view. The merger announced last week is like the bland (Sears)
following the blind (Kmart). What do these retailers stand for? What’s
the shorthand reason to shop there? Beats me. I’ve seen many
new Kmart television ads this fall but they confused me more than
helped me understand Kmart. Why exactly would I shop there? The ads
seemed disconnected from any bigger positioning. And Sears? Aside from
buying Craftsman tools, I’m not sure why I’d shop there.A
point-of-view helps we consumers understand what a brand is all about.
It’s the promise that helps us understand why to buy. Done right, it
drives brand communications so it all adds up to set the brand apart.
(And it makes it easier for marketing managers to plan, prioritize and
really integrate different marekting communications techniques.)

Staples
gets this. Its promise is to “make buying office products easy.” And
they do. Last week I bought cartridges for my home office printers and
received a rebate. Rather than having to fill out forms and mail them,
which I never get around to doing, Staples let me go to a Web site,
fill in a couple of numbers, and presto, the rebate process was
complete. That was easy.But merging two dying brands rarely
succeeds. It would have been far smarter to resuscitate K-Mart or Sears
with some real marketing. I tend to agree with retail consultant Howard
Davidowitz who says that the Kmart and Sears merger will produce one
thing: a cadaver.

Who knew that Travelocity is
much better than competitors like Expedia and Hotels.com? Not me. All
the big online travel sites’ marketing sound alike to me.

A couple of weeks ago I sat in on an excellent presentation by Jeffrey Gulleck,
CMO of Travelocity, at the Sales and Marketing Leaders Summit in Desert
Springs, CA. Gulleck explained that most of the online travel sites
confirm our hotel reservations with, hold on now, faxes back and forth
to the hotels. Travelocity’s technology is far more advanced, which
helps the service provide better deals, better service, more
reliability. “The complexity of the travel industry is our friend,”
explained Gulleck. “It provides a barrier to small companies entering
the category, and helps us compete against the other major players.”

Most
interesting was the strategic work Gulleck has done to create a new
positioning: “Travelocity is the advocate for travelers,” a position
that Travelocity can deliver on better than any of their competitors.
Most disappointing, however, was seeing Travelocity’s new gnome ads,
which don’t pay off the positioning.Why,
we wonder, don’t companies use their positioning points-of-view to
drive all of their brand communications, from advertising and public
relations to sales presentations and Web marketing? If Travelocity
really wants to be an advocate for travelers, it might think about
trading in the gnomes for a Gert Boyle-like campaign. (I’d trust
Columbia Sportswear’s “Mother Boyle” ads before the gnome.) Or allocate
more to a content-driven advertorial campaign. Or get more from PR.

With my work schedule, I really want a travel advocate. Travelocity needs to prove that it is one.