“Are you expressing sympathy because your PR advisors advise you to do so?”
So said John McFall of the Parliamentary select committee into the bank debacle to Andy Hornby, disgraced ex-chief of HBOS.
Despite the RBS and HBOS senior execs being advised by their PRs to say “sorry” they did not come out well at all.
“Sorry” was not enough, particularly as they did not mean it. Well, if you have brought a bank to the bring destruction like Andy Hornby did you would not be accepting £60,000 a month to act as a consultant for them?
PR and marketing only works if the product or service has merit. Crisis PR can only work if you intend to address the situation and make amends and repair the damage. All we got from Fred Goodwin, Lord Stevenson, Tom McKillop and Andy Hornby was arrogance, especially after they tried to avoid blame later in proceeding.
Any PR can advise a client to say “sorry,” but the issue goes deeper. The PRs really needed to ask the bankers to give up any pay-outs, pensions and bonuses recently awarded. Easier to say “sorry” and keep the money.
Better still not to have had any PRs involved.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
[...] what! Rob at Artisan Media has risked a Ratner moment concluding that British bankers would be best advised ‘not to have had any PRs involved’ in preparing for their recent select committee [...]
February 18th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Stephen,
Well there is no pointing taking on a cause such as this. Hang on what are they paying?
Rob