OPINION: Issues test fortitude By Grant Common Editor Published July 2004 Grant has 30 years direct experience in public relations and communication in Australia and New Zealand - as well as directing and managing programs in the UK and USA. He has consulted to Governments, publicly listed companies, industry bodies, marketing organisations, multinationals and not-for-profit organisations. He is Managing Director of Sydney-based Network Communications and principal of Comsult Communication Design, a consultancy specialising in the emerging management discipline that focuses on how organisations internally plan, structure and organise their communication. As a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (having completed the Company Directors Diploma examination) he is also one of the few PR practitioners to have the perspective of the company director. Handling issues is an everyday PR challenge.  How does an issue develop? Is it based on fact? Should a response be made?  If so, how?  And what are the risks of responding or doing nothing? Here are three current examples: McDonald’s McDonald’s Australia has again shown leadership in handling issues and being responsive - and shown what ‘think global - act local’ can really mean in the world of multi-nationals.  The issue was the release of the movie Super Size Me in which Morgan Spurlock consumes nothing but McDonald’s food and drink for 30 days. Reportedly McDonald’s international stance had been to say and do nothing.  However in Australia where the movie was gaining considerable publicity, and had the potential to undermine the recently announced Salad Plus initiative, local McDonald’s CEO, Guy Russo, took the decision to hit back.  He used a full armoury - consumer handouts, advertising, media engagement and the web. As with all such issues these days the web has been a key battleground.  As you would expect www.mcdonalds.com.au puts forward all the counter claims against Super Size Me.  Against this is the well-established international  anti McDonald’s site www.mcspotlight.org.  Also worth viewing is a so-called ‘independent’ site - Tech Central Station. From a PR perspective there’s little doubt Russo and McDonald’s Australia made the right decision.  These days no comment or silence is often associated with guilt.  And the film clearly portrayed excesses in food consumption that regardless of one’s opinion of McDonald’s, most sensible people could hardly condone. There was nothing to lose and everything to gain. Russo is a breath of fresh air as a marketer.  He’s prepared to engage with his critics and not hide behind the corporate façade - and do it personally.  It’s not a strategy for the faint-hearted and it has it has its share of critics but some other CEO’s in the beleagued food industry should at least be studying his strategy and tactics.  Coca-Cola Meanwhile internationally another icon Coca-Cola is battling an ongoing issue about its labour policies in Colombia - not unlike the pressures put on Nike for several years. In the US the issues has spilled over to the consumer area with activists taking anti-Coke messages to several University campuses.  As well the Union movement has got into the act and reportedly forced Coke vending machines to be removed from some industrial facilities. And not surprisingly the company’s AGM has been The interesting point - from this distance - is to see how web sites have become a key element of the claims and counter claims.  Coca-Cola has created www.cokefacts.org to tell its side of the story - and it’s an excellent example of how to use the web for this kind of defence.  The activists use www.killercoke.org  but in a spoiling move for those who accidentally type in the wrong URL address Coke has taken control of www.killercoke.com   Mark Latham Finally an issue of a different kind - the one facing Prime Ministerial hopeful Mark Latham when the media worked itself into a frenzy over allegations about his private life, especially over a ‘bucks night’ video. And the issue of whether he should or shouldn’t have publicly responded to the media as he did. If the well-respected ABC Media Watch program is to be believed this is a rather sobering example of the media reporting rumours as news - or “peddling rumours without the facts to back them”. According to Media Watch it is now clearly accepted that there never was a video and that Latham spoke the truth on this topic.  As a result it helps put Latham’s ‘fronting’ to the media in better perspective. But Media Watch goes further and has chronicled a succession of the sloppy and downright unprofessional conduct by some of the best known journalists and media organisations in Australia.  Click here to see the full transcript. It was a real example of a ‘media beat up’ and it goes to support the view that too often Australian media is guilty of the crime of ‘never letting the facts get in the way of a good story’.  Such examples don’t fill business people with a great deal of confidence about dealing with the media.  More’s the pity because such occurrences are relatively rare!  And politics - and an election - do tend to get the blood boiling. Grant Common Editor

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