George Dearsley, of Avante, has a 20 year track record providing media training for businesses such as Shell, Kodak, KPMG, Bupa and HBoS.

So he has been fascinated, when once again, brilliant marketers and business people continue to cause incalculable damage to their organisations when a crisis hits.  George compares how BAE Systems got it right and Toyota are still getting it wrong, and it need not be that way:

BAE Systems called me about a year ago and asked me to present to its main board on how the company was perceived by the media.

I was both flattered and intrigued. Why me?  I am not a defence specialist, but looking back maybe that’s exactly why I was invited.

I talked to a dozen national media friends beforehand: the first words spoken were “bribes, corruption, brown envelopes.”   There was little or nothing about full order books, cutting edge technology or good employee relations.

In a recent BBC commissioned poll of viewers voting on “What Makes Lancashire Great?” BAE Systems had come 140^th.

Slide two told them that in the same poll black pudding was 1st and the late Fred Dibnah was….26^th.  After the wry smiles we moved inevitably to bribery.  It clearly hurt.

But I told them (as I’m sure a PR person would) that the issue would not go away until there was a significant resolution to the whole affair.

I was reminded of that meeting when I saw a wonderful television performance last week by BAE Chairman Dick Olver.  The company, he announced, had agreed to pay fines of £286m in a deal with US and UK authorities to settle criminal investigations into its actions in Saudi Arabia and Tanzania.  He said in the interview the move would allow the company to “put a really hard line separating the past from the future.”

His key messages were all in place and delivered with great gravity and credibility.  It was a majestic performance.

Compare Mr. Olver’s effort with the shambolic PR exercised by Toyota in handling what began as a minor software glitch involving the braking system in one model.

The opening shot was a Japanese executive who faced television cameras wearing a surgical mask, quite commonly worn during Japan’s cold season.  This soon became a metaphor for a company that wasn’t being totally open with its customers.  The brand loyalty, which took years and millions of yen to build, was beginning to melt away.

The safety defects were initially portrayed as an American problem.  But this was not true and the dithering led to new questions about Toyota’s famous quality control.

In Europe and the US there were crucial delays between Toyota’s confirming a planned recall millions of cars and communicating this to the public.

Journalists, keen to keep the tale hot, were delighted when customers called in with complaints about other Toyota models. The dreaded “bandwagon effect” was about to take effect.

Throughout, Akio Toyoda, the company’s president, was invisible.  After weeks of silence he finally faced the media and was thoroughly unconvincing.

He forgot the golden rules:

• Act quickly and decisively
• Apologise
• Thank customers for their patience
• Explain what’s being done to put the problems right
• Carry out the remediation as soon as possible, whatever the cost

Toyota is now one of the stories of the day – day after day.  The cars have become the butt of pub jokes and programmes such as Mock The Week are getting great mileage out of the situation.  Toyota is now the Skoda of 2010.

The initial $2 billion recall and the loss of 17% of share value is likely to prove small change when the final bill is totted up.

In Japan there is a proverb: “If it stinks, put a lid on it.”

Sadly, it is the very opposite of good crisis news management strategy.

My last post was an innocuous but heart warming story of a man that believed he had been wrongly clamped by NCP Services. The owner of the clamped vehicle sawed his car in two in protest.

Not much of a deal you might say until NCP Services director of communications got on the case.

I had quite an aggressive response to a four paragraph post that simply reported what the BBC had said.

Tim from NCP Services stated based on the factual inaccuracies that: “I would be happy to add you to the database of agencies we would never use.”  You’re barred my son!

It was suggested that I take my “offending” post off, which I replied that because someone thinks it is offensive (could be disagree) is no reason to take something off, unless it is slanderous or grossly offensive or insensitive.

After my reply where I pointed out it was a blog, not a marketing website I got this:  “I didn’t realise your site is just a blog.  I thought it was a marketing website.  Sorry to bother you.”

Well!  You would never have thought communications was becoming more democratic and it was about negotiation and diplomacy and less about force.  And anyone involved in PR, especially if they are senior, should recognise the power of blogs surely?

But you know Tim and NCP Services has a  interesting perspective that might surprise.

When I pointed out the story of the bus that got a ticket in Manchester I got an interesting reply.  The reason was that the bus driver had simply gone off to breakfast leaving the vehicle blocking later buses causing a real obstruction.  That puts things into a bit of perspective.

Tim states NCP Services also have doubled the removal from our roads for untaxed, many in a dangerous state, vehicles.  This is a positive messag that we do not tend to hear or take in.
Clamping and parking fines are a contentious issue.  I know how most people feel and I generally feel the same.  But NCP Services has a story to tell.  Once you explain your position, if it has merit, you can possibly achieve some change in opinion.

Open dialogue has to be the best way for the majority of time.

I am very happy for Tim to supply copy for a post about the work they do and examples of they are trying to change viewpoints and work in an area that arouses strong emotions.

It’s preferable to use “jaw jaw and not war war” as one great man said.

Well, judging by the two PR disasters that are dominating the new – losing 25 million records by the government and selecting an England manager that did not achieve the minimum requirement of qualifying for the European championship – you do what any leader of any high profile organisation does: blame someone else and accept no responsibility.

The government has blamed a junior civil servant and not cuts for not having better procedures for handling sensitive material. Moreover, staff at the Tyne and Wear office involved have been warned not to talk to the press with a strict warning.

Brian Barwick CEO at the FA has decided that he and the board should not go for selecting the wrong or at least an unsuccessful manager – let’s not recount the Phil Scolari very public recruitment farce – whose fault was that Brian?.

Brian Clough once said that if the board make a mistake about a manger they should go. Sound advice.

In a blame culture solve your PR woes by making yourself blameless with your messaging and you can forget about the real problem.