Africa's reputation on the agenda

'Managing Africa's Reputation' is the theme of the 31st annual Federation of African Public Relations Associations (FAPRA) conference, being held for the first time in South Africa. Public relations practitioners have come under fire for not doing enough to engage with business and the media to elevate Africa's profile globally.

The Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA) is playing host to the All Africa PR conference at the Sandton Sun and Towers in Sandton, Gauteng, 21 - 23 May, 2006. Bizcommunity.com is an online media partner to the event.

The hostess is South Africa's first Fapra vice president (Southern Africa region), Kate Bapela, who says the event is an historic opportunity for the industry to work with one voice towards 2010 and in marrying communication objectives with business and political initiatives on the continent.

Fapra president, Joseph Allotey-Pappoe from Ghana, said the 140 or so African delegates had traveled to South Africa from Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, SA, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe for "serious business"..."the business of sharing information on how to place our professional services with regards to aiding our continent, to give greater focus to our efforts... to focus on unlocking Africa's potential".

Allotey-Pappoe emphasized: "We public relations practitioners are front runners when it comes to counseling on and handling Africa's PR. Colleagues, the time has come when Fapra must get governments and institutions together about the facts of our being (as PROs) and consultatively engage."

The world is changing, standards are increasing. Fapra is happy we are meeting here today as South Africa has become a leader in Africa and we, as Fapra, will make the best of our time here."

'Brand Africa'

Kenyan high commissioner, T J Seii, said the despondent image of Africans that was consistently projected to the rest of the world through global media, made people think Africa is a continent of no hope.She said the challenges involved getting the media to work with the public relations industry on the continent to tell the true African story, by Africans.

"The media are part and parcel of our environment, they are not the enemy. We need to understand it and strategically maximise for advantage. We need to constructively engage the media."One of the mechanisms to actively harness the media in this struggle was for governments in Africa to protect press freedom as a democratic right, Seii said.

Current Prisa president, Merle O'Brien, said PR should be willing to change ahead of trends. "Is it possible that from Africa a global brand will emerge... called Ubuntu? Public relations has the ability to facilitate change... our [Africa's] role in the creative economy is not being communicated. We need to communicate the potential of Africa to the rest of the globe.

"This is a momentous opportunity for us to unite as an industry, as a country and as a continent," O'Brien said in her opening to the conference on the first day, today, Monday, 22 May 2006.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a networking opportunity for the industry.Of the 200 plus delegates at this historic conference, only about 30% are from the local, South African public relations industry. Informal comments from speakers and from the floor indicated time and time again, that the public relations industry had to mobilise to rectify its own communications shortcomings and work more closely with business to elevate Africa's image on the global stage.

By: Louise Marsland
[21 May 2006 13:40]

Louise Marsland is editor and editorial director of Bizcommunity.com. She has worked as a journalist and editor in South Africa for the past 19 years across newspapers, magazines, online and in media / communications strategy, notably: The Star; Saturday Star; Progressive Retailing (editor); Retailing Africa (managing editor); Executive Business Brief (editor); Decorex Cape (editor & publisher); FMCG Files ezine (editor); Communicate ezine (editor); and Marketing Mix (editor & business manager), including the Marketer's Guide to Africa and the annual Media Owners' Marketing Awards (MOMA). She is currently in the third year of her M Com: Strategy & Organisational Dynamics. Contact her on: editor@bizcommunity.com.

The aftermath of Coke’s Belgian waffle

It was a classic case. More than 40 children in a Belgian town became ill, followed by dozens more throughout that country. They blamed their sickness on Coca-Cola. Belgian news media, which had recently feasted on a major domestic food scandal involving tainted meat, jumped on the story. The Belgian government, widely blamed in the tainted meat scandal, was in no mood for another drubbing in the press.

Belgians demanded answers from both the company and their battered national government, which immediately ordered Coca-Cola to close its production plants.

Panic spilled into France, which followed Belgium’s lead and banned production of the drink. Coca-Cola was forced into the biggest product recall in its 113-year history.

As PR disasters go, this was the Real Thing - one destined for the textbooks. Some critics charged that the Atlanta-based soft drink company was slow to react. The potential fragility of even the world’s most potent corporate symbol offers chilling reminders for the PR community. In the aftermath of the scandal, Coke has launched a fresh, aggressive "Coke’s Back" advertising campaign with an upbeat, let-the-good-times-roll-again message. They sent representatives into hundreds of Belgian grocery stores to speak with consumers in an effort to regain their faith. They even bought everyone in Belgium a drink (of Coke), which is a customary appeasement in that country after you have offended someone.

Signs are that the post-crisis campaign is working nicely and people in the tiny European nation have regained their taste for the bubbly brown liquid.

Following A Proven PR StrategySure, Coca-Cola, subsequently proven to have been blameless in the Belgium scare, may have been a little slow off the mark, but their executives followed a well-proven public relations/damage control strategy to handle the situation. They even volunteered that bottling plant hygiene may have, indeed, been substandard.

"Quite honestly, we let the people of Belgium down," M. Douglas Ivester, Coca-Cola’s chief executive, said during a June press conference after the crisis was past its worst. A nice mea culpa, but not strictly true. Coca-Cola was dealing with a classic outbreak of mass hysteria, says psychiatrist Marc Feldman of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "These situations create a terrible dilemma for implicated manufacturers," says Feldman, author of "Stranger Than Fiction," a book on mass hysteria. "The sheer force of anxiety, mixed with media bombardment, creates an illusion of truth."

Feldman says Coca-Cola did the best it could because calling the situation for what it was at the outset wasn’t an option. "If they had come out and said 'this is just mass hysteria' they would have been vilified 10 times as much as they were," says Feldman. "People don’t want to hear that it’s all in their head, especially when it is."

"Coke recognized it wouldn’t win by presenting science," he says. "So they pacified people, told them their concerns were valid and said they were correcting the problem."

Like most observers, Feldman criticizes Coke’s Ivester for his lack of visibility during the Belgian scare. "It allowed the situation to spiral," says Feldman. "Mass hysteria is like a virus, if you leave it untreated it spreads. You have to intervene early with information and with assurances."

The company says it kept a low profile early on because the Belgian government asked it to. Ivester said the Belgian health minister told him not to manage the crisis in the media. (Coca-Cola PR executives did not return calls to Tactics for comment.)

Was It The Correct Textbook?Coca-Cola handled the Belgian difficulty with textbook solutions, says Katharine Delahaye Paine, whose international communications research company Delahaye Medialink measures corporate image and assesses the effectiveness of marketing and PR campaigns. The problem, she says, was that the textbook solution was North American, but the problem wasn’t. "An American solution to a European problem isn’t going to work," she says. "Just because it looks and feels like a familiar crisis, does not mean that the rules we use in America will work elsewhere."

Paine says her "when in Rome" approach makes good sense if you consider that every country has its own ingrained cultural ways of reacting, especially in crisis, and news media have different prejudices and ideas than North American journalists. "What they failed to do was understand the local environment and that’s a major problem with American business. We are myopic and incredibly parochial. Coca-Cola got caught up in something that was really none of their doing, but their local people should have been more attuned."

Succeeding Where Others Have FailedPaine may have a point, says crisis management specialist Richard Levick, but there are worse examples than Coca-Cola. "I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s an issue only with American corporations, " says Levick, whose Washington-area company Levick Strategic Communications works mainly with law firms. "Being sensitive to differences is not always easy and it takes time. But look: Coke has a 70 percent market share worldwide. They have succeeded where others have failed miserably. They do it right, likely better than anyone." Levick says he is loathe to be too critical of Coca-Cola because after a false start, they did it right. But Ivester’s lack of presence was a mistake.

"When 100 children say they have some illness because of your product, the company had to send the message that this was important to them. They had to say to the Belgian people 'we don’t know whether there is anything wrong here but we are sending our top guy to make sure it’s handled right.' That is such a powerful image."

Few seem to doubt that Coke will emerge healthy from its Belgian experience. "It will blow over and be forgotten," says Feldman. Levick, meanwhile, is more philosophical. "Sometimes in this business you just have to suffer a bad news day," he says. "From a public relations point of view, Coke has learned a lot. Let’s see what happens to their market share in Belgium. I bet it grows."

By Chris Cobb

The Ten Commandments for Powerpoint Presentations - BABSON BUSINESS REVIEW

"Its Open Season on Vice President Dick Cheney"
Lenox Mhlanga

There used to be a golden rule that went: No News Is Good News. In the 21st century, the tables have turned. In a world that now demands transparency, responsibility and the plain old truth, the handling of issues or crises has taken a different direction.

In classic PR, disclosure is now a requirement demanded of people in high office. No more sweeping things under the carpet. The behaviour of people such as politicians and highflying business executives is of public intrest and unfortunately that includes their follies.

Keeping to himself might have been a trait that has served US Vice President Dick Cheney well in the past, but it has severely damaged his reputation and image in the Shooting Incident. He has come out as insensitive, too secretive for anyone likely to be the next President of the world's only super power.

And to make it worse, American comedians seem to have no sympathy for the man. (See below)

The knives are out, they say and we will see how the White House spin doctors will weave Dick Cheney out of this boob. Would you have handled the siuation differently? How do you think the White House will handle it? Post your comments at the bottom.


And now for the story...

'It's time for Dick Cheney to step down'
Stephanie Griffith Washington, United States (17 February 2006 10:08)

United States Vice-President Dick Cheney badly handled a damage limitation exercise after accidentally shooting a hunting partner and could now become a case study for future politicians, experts said.

"This is a classic one," said political analyst Larry Sabato.

"It will be studied as one of the big ones -- an example of how a modest mishap goes completely out of control," said Sabato, head of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia.

In US politics, where spin and image control are crucial skills, the handling of the controversy has shocked many experienced White House hands.

The vice-president said he had accidentally shot lawyer Harry Whittington (78), during a quail hunt on Saturday on a Texas ranch.The one-day delay in announcing it to the public -- and the way it was announced by the ranch owner to a local newspaper -- stunned many observers.

Cheney only spoke publicly about the incident, which he called "one of the worst days of my life", in a television interview on Wednesday -- four days after the event."He had an obligation to disclose it himself, and he should have done so Saturday night or Sunday morning," said Ari Fleischer, a former spokesperson for President George Bush.

"The vice-president has brought this on himself and on the White House."He added: "It would have been a serious story, but it would have been a one-day story, with a follow-up on the gentleman's health."

Marlin Fitzwater, who was White House spokesperson from 1987 to 1992 under the administration of the elder George Bush, told Editor and Publisher magazine he was "appalled" by the administration's handling of the story.

He also said the story should have been made public straight away."It would have been the right thing to do, recognising his responsibility to the people as a nationally elected official, to tell the country what happened," Fitzwater added.

"It would have been confined to the vice-president. By not telling anyone for 24 hours, it made it a White House story," Fitzwater told the magazine. "It becomes a story about the White House handling of it.

"Cheney's interview with Fox News Channel on Wednesday has also been criticised as too little, too late."Giving an interview to one individual, particularly in a forum deemed friendly to the administration, is unlikely to silence the criticism," the Miami Herald newspaper said in an editorial on Thursday.

"There are more questions to be asked and other angles to be pursued. The vice-president should hold a news conference and answer questions from a larger circle of interviewers if he wants to put this public relations debacle behind him.

"Opposition Democrats have seized on Cheney's behavior as emblematic of his secrecy. Some in Cheney's Republican party have also conceded that he bungled the incident.

Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer also demanded Cheney "clear the air" on a number of issues by holding a news conference.

"The press corps and American people deserve answers, not avoidance from this administration," Schumer said.

Respected New York Times columnist Bob Herbert called on the vice-president to resign in a column on Thursday.

He said the shooting imbroglio was the last step in a career sullied by scandals over the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, leaks of classified information and a penchant for secrecy.

"It's time for Dick Cheney to step down for the sake of the country and for the sake of the Bush administration," Herbert wrote, citing "Cheney's controversial and even bizarre behavior as vice-president.

"Whatever he does at his point, Sabato said that the episode, which might have been a fleeting if embarrassing incident, now becomes forever associated with the vice-president.

"It confirms what they already know about Cheney: that he is secretive by nature. This is just another example of that," he said.

"It's permanent now in peoples' minds," Sabato added. "It will be in his obituary." - AFP


And the comedians take aim... and fire!

United States comedians and satirists have seized upon Vice-President Dick Cheney's quail hunting accident, in which he fired shotgun pellets at a lawyer friend Harry Whittington. Here are some of the talk show jokes, news headlines and blog comments about Cheney:

David Letterman on his talk show:
"Good news, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally located weapons of mass destruction: it's Dick Cheney."

"Here is the sad part. Before the trip, Donald Rumsfeld had denied the guy's request for body amour."

"The guy who got gunned down ... he is a Republican lawyer and big Republican donor, and fortunately, the buckshot was deflected by wads of laundered cash."

Jay Leno on his talk show:
"When people heard he shot a lawyer, his popularity in now 92%."

"When the ambulance got there, out of the force of the habit they put Cheney on the stretcher."

"I think also Cheney is starting to lose it. After he shot the guy, he screamed: 'Anyone else wants to call domestic wiretapping illegal?'"

"And here is something I just found out today about the incident. You didn't know this. Turns out Cheney tortured the guy for half an hour before he shot him."

"The guy Cheney shot was wearing a bright orange hat and orange jacket. Cheney said he thought it was a gay quail."

Jon Stewart on his satirical The Daily Show:
Stewart recalled that Aaron Burr was the last Vice-President to shoot someone when he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804: "Alexander Hamilton, of course, was shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honour, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington was mistaken for a bird.

Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio show presenter:
"Would you rather go hunting with Dick Cheney or riding in a car over a bridge with Ted Kennedy?"

New York Daily News tabloid's headline: "Duck, It's Dick":

Andy Borowitz on his political blog: www.borowitzreport.com
"Mr Cheney acknowledged that the man he sprayed with pellets on Saturday was not Ayman al-Zawahiri [the al-Qaeda leader] but rather Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old millionaire lawyer from Austin, blaming the mix-up on "faulty intelligence". - AFP