A couple of recent examples of large institutions letting their PR mask slip.
Paperchase
Nancy Smallwood complains about sexist promotional material in the shop window and is replied to by the Marketing Director of the company, Robert Warden, in a manner which Nancy describes as “patronizing, rude [and] unprofessional”.
Without getting into the debate itself (which, as Nancy says in an update to her post, isn’t what she’s really upset about), or taking sides on who’s right or wrong here I must say I found the exchange quite refreshing.
We’re used to corporations either hiding behind faux-apologetic customer-is-always-right lies or heavy handed legal speak so to have someone high up in the company stand up and say “I have sufficient faith in what my team is doing that I will shout you down” comes as a bit of a shock.
Yes, his manner is obnoxious and no, I wouldn’t advise anyone to address their customers like this but I think we should be celebrating that this discussion is happening in an unmediated, human-voiced way.
National Theatre
The other day some Evening Standard hack quoted Steve Norris saying nasty things about the National Theatre. “I think the National Theatre should have a Compulsory Demolition Order!” he japed. In response to which whoever was controlling their Twitter account posted:
The subsequent panic is nicely documented by Megan Vaughan but in short they deleted the tweet (logical) and claimed they’d been hacked (laughably absurd).
Was the tweet malicious? Was it a private message accidentally broadcast? We’ll never know. But what we do know is that people who work at the National Theatre feel passionately about their building and the work that goes on inside it. Unfortunately the institution cannot publicly defend itself against attacks from those who might control its funding. Slips like this give us a peek behind the curtain.
Conclusion
Every so often I come across the question of how large companies and institutions can use the social internet. The answer usually boils down to the nature of that organisation. How do they communicate internally and with their customers? Is that communication controlled by the PR department or are people free to speak their minds?
Being one of those annoying free spirits who can say what he wants online I tend towards the opinion that companies should let their people speak their minds (within reason, obviously). If you have enough faith in your offer or product and have employed staff who give a damn and are empowered to make adult decisions then what have you got to loose?
But I also accept that this utopian ideal doesn’t play in the world of corporate PR, which is why I don’t tend to work in that area. (If you need advice in that department my better half runs the blogs for Grant Thornton.)
It’s an interesting phenomena though. As people at the higher levels of companies get more comfortable with communicating through social channels we can expect more unmediated utterances, and as bloops on Twitter become mundane and outrage passe we can expect to see the leash loosened on those corporate tweeters and Facebookers. I’m looking forward to it.