Clarity Blog

Should public agencies use public relations firms?

Recent publicity about a PR firm’s plans to promote the San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies’ yellow call boxes (which aren’t used much anymore) would indicate the answer is no. The newly launched San Diego Watchdog column in the Union Tribune writes of the PR firm’s plan:

The marketing plan features a cookbook with on-the-go recipes. “Drivers are always concerned when traveling to parties about making dishes that will travel well in the car,” says the plan from [the PR firm].

It suggests Tupperware and Igloo ice chests with the call-box agency’s logo and a giveaway of a road trip, hotel stay and theme park visit.

For April Fool’s Day? “Have you pranked someone’s car before and have a photo of it? Show us! Only legal pranks please.”

The $130,000 marketing program is on the agenda Thursday for the San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies board, which has come under scrutiny in recent months for storing millions of dollars of reserves even as the number of calls into the system plummets.

Update:  Just after we posted this item, the PR agency, which had been working for the San Diego Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies since 2007, was canned.  Here’s the news item.

We confess at the outset we have little empathy for PR plans that require expensive give-aways like logo-adorned ice chests.  If you’re popping $20 or more for each decent ice chest you want to give away for free, how do you hope to get a positive return on investment?  Conversely, if you’re only proposing to spend $5 each for a cheap Styrofoam cooler that will fall apart the first time it’s used, how do you expect to communicate quality for your client’s brand?

But that’s not what bothers us the most about this proposal. It’s this: The client is dealing with criticism for charging too high a fee for a service that’s of too little use, and for holding too much in reserves.  How does this public relations proposal address the issues the client faces?  Simple: It throws gasoline on the flame with an expensive, out of touch program.

Consumer public relations firms, which often are overly driven by the need to be creative, are more likely to make a mistake like this than a public affairs firm like ours, because we are more attuned to public perception and more aware of downside risks.

Doing it Right

Please don’t get us wrong, though.  We believe public agencies are justified in using professional communicators.  In fact, because agencies typically deal with important civic functions (yellow call boxes notwithstanding) we think they frequently have an obligation to.

Issues are increasingly complex.  People are busier than ever and have less time to absorb information.  The channels of communication are both broader and more cluttered than ever.  This is not a safe place for amateurs.  Professional communicators, whether they be in-house or consultants, are increasingly necessary for effective communications.

More importantly, agencies need to listen.  As a strategic communications firm to several public agencies, we place the importance of incorporating “feedback mechanisms” into outgoing communications right below the need to make outreach programs goal-focused and measurable.  When incoming communications are a part of a campaign, they yield information that can be shared with the agency’s leadership, so they better understand the public’s perceptions, concerns and expectations.

A good communications consultant also will work hard to promote and ensure transparency.  A few years ago, we argued for our public agency clients to post board agendas and minutes, staff reports and budgets online for public viewing.  The practice is now the norm, and staff and board compensation information now also is available.

There’s one more thing, one very important thing.  Consultants who work for public agencies need to respect that they are being paid with public money – our money, as taxpayers.  That means we need to be careful to use it wisely, which gets us back to coolers with logos.  Is that where you want your tax dollars to go?

We didn’t think so.

Our sympathies go to the North Koreans we’ve seen on YouTube bawling inconsolably at the passing of Kim Jong Il, their “Dear Leader.”  We truly hope some day they will have a chance to understand how duped they were by the man who drank $700,000 worth of cognac a year while they slaved and starved.

That said, we found out we do owe a debt to ol’ K Jong – he bequeathed the world with ten management secrets, detailed very humorously by Constantine Von Hoffman in Inc.  We were particularly amused by the dictator’s second secret:

Communication is overrated. He only made one broadcast to his nation. In 1992, during a military parade in Pyongyang, he said into a microphone at the grandstand: “Glory to the heroic soldiers of the Korean People’s Army!” Even so, North Koreans wept on the streets like Elvis fans when they heard of his death.

As with all things K Jong, this management principle is just a tad extreme.  We recommend it only for leaders who own all the media outlets in their entire country and have legions of creative publicists inundating the entire populace with propaganda, like the claim he played a 36-under-par round the first and only time he played golf.

Most of us face a different reality, so it’s not likely our communications will have quite the effect Dear Leader’s had.  But still, there is something to be said about holding back the chief, so when he speaks he’s listened to.

We learned the power of this approach while ushering a very controversial project in Moreno Valley through seven Planning Commission and six City Council hearings .  The project manager, Steve Eimer, sat throughout nearly all of the 13 hearings without saying a word, always deferring to his consultants – until the last minutes of the last hearing.

Just before voting, the City Council added a new very expensive and utterly unreasonable condition to the project.   Eimer stood up, walked up the podium, waited to be recognized, and quietly said, “If you require that, we will not build the project.”

He returned to his seat without saying another word, and the City Council members started thinking about their re-election prospects if all the jobs and money the project would bring the city disappeared.  Then they quickly withdrew the provision and voted to approve the project.

So, yes, a few carefully chosen words delivered at just the right time can be very powerful communication tools.  K Jong got one thing right. But only one thing.

A recent survey conducted by the Municipal Water District of Orange County found that 93 percent of the 500 respondents feel Orange County’s water supply is somewhat reliable or very reliable.  That’s big news to us in the business of influencing public behavior, because a similar question asked in the agency’s 2008 survey found that only 27 percent felt OC had a reliable supply.

So can us communicators take credit for the nearly four-fold jump in public perception?  After all, our water supply is just as reliable today (or unreliable depending how you look at it) than it was three years ago.  We humbly say, “not so fast.”

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Laer Pearce & Associates’ Twitter feed on water-related items, @LPAWater, just got its 1,000th follower.  (Actually, it now has 1,001 followers, but that would make headline writing more complicated.)

We’ve learned some lessons along the way.

• Tweeting can be good for business.  We have one new water client from our tweeting – without those tweets, we would never have met each other.  And we’ve helped a number of water districts develop their social media strategies.
• Tweeting can be good for your brand.  A state senator recently told me he loves @LPAWater’s tweets, and at this week’s ACWA conference, many folks complimented me on @LPAWater.  Our followers include many clients, potential clients and water industry opinion leaders.  What does that mean?  It means people recognize that Laer Pearce & Associates stays on top of water issues and has a fun time doing it – which is exactly what we want our brand to communicate.
• It’s not easy being “Tweet.”  Our @LPALand and @LPAGov Twitter feeds never found an in-house champion (ahem!) like @LPAWater did , so they’ve languished, with 200 and 156 followers respectively.

@LPALand will eventually find its pace, I’m convinced, but in retrospect, we probably launched @LPAGov before we should have.  Yes, we follow government stuff as closely as we do water, and yes we want to expand our brand recognition in that portion of our practice.  But there are so many questions about our ideal position in that segment that it’s never been clear enough what should be tweeted at @LPAGov.

On the plus side, at no cost, Twitter showed us an area where we have some branding work to do.  That’s one of the wonderful things about social media – you can experiment, adjust and improve without have to throw away 1,000 brochures that no longer mesh with your identity.

As one of Orange County’s leading public affairs communications firms, our own experience with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media has helped us to realize the good, the bad and the under-realized power of the phenomenon, and that’s made us much better at designing social media strategies for our clients.

Here’s some free advice from the branding pros at LP&A:  If you’re running an ambulance service, particularly if it’s called “Lifeline,” don’t use a logo with a heart monitor motif that flatlines under your name.  It just might kill your business.

Your logo deserves more thought than goes into the average cocktail napkin sketch.  If this company had just taken the time to run their logo idea by a couple of their key publics – emergency medical technicians, fire fighters, doctors, nurses – they could have easily come up with a logo that’s a bit more … alive.

Yesterday morning after outlining our 2012 PR plan to senior managers at The Management Trust – the largest community management company west of the Mississippi – I got a good lesson in the unintended consequences of bureaucratic meddling.  It wasn’t from one of the TMT guys – it was from a food vendor in the parking lot.

He was one of those guys who calls on office buildings with a cooler full of goodies.  His employer is a business that ’s been around for at least 20 or 30  years, as I remember them from my early days in the public affairs / public relations business in Orange County.

He said there were only three of these businesses left in the county, not because they weren’t good businesses – he had hoped to start his own after learning the ropes – but because of the actions of bureaucrats.  Specifically, the Health Department worried that conditions in the coolers might not meet standards set by other bureaucrats further up the government pecking order, so they stopped issuing permits to new from-the-cooler food vendors.  The three existing businesses were grandfathered and continue to operate, dividing the county between them in neat little territories, but no new competitors can enter the market.

Was this move necessary?  I’ve read of dozens, hundreds, of food poisoning cases stemming from food bought in restaurants and grocery stores, but never one about food poisoning from a from-the-cooler vendor.  Why, then, are permits still issued to restaurants and grocery stores, but not to these vendors?  It seems like unjustified bureaucratic over-kill.

Then the vendor complained that his company won’t take ATM cards, which he figures is costing him about 50 percent of his potential sales.  “People just don’t carry cash any more, so they can’t buy my stuff,” he explained.  I was on an American Airlines flight the other day and tried to give the stewardess cabin attendant a twenty for some pitiful food, but she turned me down, saying they only take ATMs.  If American can refuse cash at 40,000 feet, how can this guy’s boss continue to refuse ATMs at ground level?

Could it be that government has created a near-monopoly by eliminating new competitors, thereby removing any motivation for the owner to invest in improvements?  A new competitor taking ATM cards – and thereby taking away sales – would cause the stodgy company owner to rethink and offer services customers want, but there is no new competitor.

It seems no matter where you look, you just can’t find an example to illustrate how replacing a free market with a government-controlled or government-directed economy works out better for consumers.

The following article by Laer appears on today’s Daily Caller website:

It should come as no surprise that the leftist legislators and authoritarian bureaucrats who run California are vehemently opposed to fireworks shows. After all, the shows are always fun and usually patriotic.

And against them they are. The California Coastal Commission has led the charge with a multi-year assault on the Sea World theme park in San Diego, which blasts fireworks over Mission Bay every night. That effort shipwrecked on the rocks of Sea World’s considerable political clout and even more considerable legal budget, so the Commission looked for a more vulnerable, less wealthy target.

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Dogs bite men all the time.  That’s why headlines like “Man Bites Dog” tend to grab readers’ attention.  In today’s anti-everything society, that rabid dog often takes the form of fringe environmentalists, and Californians have grown numb to their vicious gnawing (er, brainwashing) of unsuspecting students.  So we yawned when we heard a high school teacher in uber-green Malibu had his ninth-grade class write letters to the California Coastal Commission regarding a controversial proposal to light the school’s football field, which opponents say will scare away critters.

But then our ears perked up.  The teacher advised the students to research the topic, come to their own conclusions, and write a letter opposing the lights or…sit ubu sit…a letter supporting the proposal.  Imagine that.  Here’s the assignment.

From the LA Times:

“The teacher saw the lighting issue as one directly relevant to students and thus appropriate for students to learn how their voice can be heard,” the school’s principal said. “The fact that this issue is relevant to students only enhances motivation. It is reasonable that our students, who are affected by decisions regarding lights, be afforded the opportunity to lend their voice to the discussion.”

…The assignment, he said, was for students to write a business letter, but students can write a letter objecting to the lighting plan if they don’t support it.

We couldn’t agree more.  Today’s youth need to be taught there’s more to public participation than playing online video games against strangers in far away towns.  And it’s refreshing that students in Malibu are learning this lesson the right way – with objectivity, not by being spoon-fed green Kool-Aid.

But don’t let the fair-minded efforts of one teacher get you too warm and fuzzy.  The greeny Malibu parents are none too thrilled that both sides of the issue are being taught.  Heaven forbid their children learn how to form their own opinions.  And they won’t even need a tetanus shot.

A recent event titled Multifamily Building Boom caught our attention.  We haven’t seen the two words – building & boom – used together for awhile, so we bought a ticket to this Building Industry Association program.

It turns out, there is a bit of a boom happening.   Economic conditions and government policies are driving Southern Californians to rent apartments – which is great news for apartment builders.

That’s the good news that was shared.  The tough news was that the entitlement process for proposed apartment communities (typically located on infill sites) can be very difficult.  Opposition from existing neighbors is often so intense that local governments have difficulty approving even the best projects.

Small-group meetings are an effective way to introduce your project to the community in an infill area.

What’s the solution?   Laer Pearce & Associates has developed five guidelines – based on our 20+ years of entitlement consulting – for successfully working with neighbors of proposed infill projects.

1. Start with a simple introduction: Start small. Send a letter, hold a small group meeting.  Let your new neighbors get to know more about you and your concept.  Be prepared to explain why the existing land use (be it a golf course or industrial site) is no longer viable and why your plan can be a positive alternative.  It’s critical they understand there’s a real need for change other than your bottom line.
2. Be inclusive and responsive: Create opportunities for two-way dialog with your neighbors so you can get input during the design process, and eventual buy-in on the final plan.  If you can’t incorporate a neighbor’s idea, explain why.  He or she will appreciate that you tried.
3. Paint the picture: Invest in professional materials that help tell your story through words, pictures, sketches and video.  These materials help neighbors overcome their concerns, and strengthen the opinion of those who want you to succeed.
4. Build a coalition:  It is important that decision-makers see a strong coalition of supporters from diverse backgrounds.  Your supporters will typically come from neighbors who you’ve built relationships with by starting small and being inclusive and responsive.
5. Deal with opponents: Opposition groups will form against most infill projects – especially when rentals or affordable housing are involved. You need to be prepared to respond to misleading statements that cross the line.  We add “that cross the line” because it’s important that you do not get distracted responding to every negative claim that’s made.

These guidelines will go a long way in decreasing the duration and cost of the entitlement process and increasing your chances of success.

What were the three biggest California water stories of the past seven days?  Well, the news-heads and policy wonks here at Laer Pearce & Associates have compiled them for you here.  You’ll find the Big Three here every week, or you can follow LPAWater on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news and analysis. You can also sign up to receive the Weekly 3 via email here.  This week:

“Results-Based Science” Update

We’ve written before about Judge Wanger’s shellacking of two federal scientists who he thought were more interested in achieving pre-determined results than pursuing good science.  The issue is not going away, as Republicans seeking to dial back federal regulation have pounced on the case as an emerging cause célèbre, and the feds are standing by their science … and scientists. Wow! Could this become an HBO miniseries?

“100% behind them” – read about it here

“Investigate ‘em!” – read about it here

BTW, a Supreme Court appeal was filed on Delta smelt

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