The Burger King Lie-Detector Ad: Future Communications Shock?

Ad industry tongues are wagging over the much-anticipated TV commercial and live webcast featuring NASCAR racer Tony Stewart. Stewart signed a lucrative contract endorsing Burger King earlier this year. On Oct 20 he will take a live polygraph test to prove that his mouth truly is where the money is - that he likes and eats Burger King hamburgers. http://tinyurl.com/nfb9qj

The ramifications of this campaign run far beyond the already-shaky credibility of celebrity endorsements. It makes me think about the super model we media trained who was endorsing a garden-variety department store cosmetic. Did anybody really think she really used that brand when walking down the runway or appearing in other product ads? Did anybody even ask her, much less suggest she take a lie-detector test?

Even if an incident is circumstantial, it could give a spokesperson's reputation a big hit. (Imagine if a hungry Stewart were caught on a post-polygraph video clip grabbing, say, a McDonald's burger at the racetrack because a friend picked one up and passed it to him.)

For professional communicators in PR, public affairs, and corporate communications, the notion of a public campaign like Burger King's built around "proving" authenticity is a sobering precedent. Though one innovative ad campaign certainly does not a trend make, how far-fetched is it to imagine a day when such "proofs" become de rigeur in product advertising? Then, could we see polygraphs or other litmus tests in the broader communications arena - for political ads, advocacy campaigns including attack ads, or any public statements by senior executives and officials?

OK, maybe that's a stretch. But on the other hand, the broad media industry has been known for seizing on trends that capture the public's imagination. The implications for reputation management could be enormous. What do you think? Is this a one-time gimmick? Or is it potentially a first step down a new road of high-profile executive and celebrity accountability, even if the initial Burger King foray is just for publicity?

For us, the bottom line for communicators is this: truth, transparency, and consistency of messaging and branding have never been more important to reputation than today.

A Storyteller's Take On Corporate Storytelling

Media mogul Peter Guber ought to know about storytelling and succeeding in business. It's the world he has been operating in most of his professional life.
Guber -- chairman of Mandalay Entertainment Group -- is the former studio chief of Columbia Pictures, former CEO of Sony Pictures, founder of Polygram Pictures, and founder of Casablanca Records and Filmworks.

As a University of Pennsylvania alum and a communications consultant, I recently came across an interview Guber granted to Knowledge @ Wharton, an online publication of the Wharton School of Business & Finance. The topic was "Sharing Stories, and not Just Information, to Communicate Effectively." (Full interview at http://tinyurl.com/lvahxa).

I was struck by how his comments echoed the best advice CommCore provides our corporate, government and agenda-driven clients: that communicating business and organizational news effectively requires turning it into a story. In the interview, Guber argues that stories are more memorable and engaging than slide presentations, memos or sales pitches.
The notion is not a new one. But what made this interview "sticky" was Guber's admission that it often takes a lifelong career for business leaders like himself to see clearly the obvious connection between their field of business and storytelling as a best practice of leadership:

"The conceit that I've come to believe in over the past 40 years of my career -- in virtually every part of storytelling, from writing books and speaking and teaching and being a newscaster and being a talk show host for 533 interviews and making thousands of movies and television shows -- is that we are all wired as storytellers. The amazing thing is we're all born as storytellers and story-listeners and somehow we don't venerate its value. It's only later in our life that we ... wonder why this [leadership strategy] is working or why it's not working."

Guber doesn't take credit for it. Storytelling is as old as social organization, he notes. What it's about is becoming aware that storytelling is the essence of our social world:

"It's really recognizing that [storytelling is] the way our tribe works, the way our society works....Nobody is wired to remember information. They're really not. What's actionable is when information is encoded or embedded into a narrative and it's emotionally rendered. They hold the information in a different way and it becomes memorable, more actionable, and definitely virally marketable....Every great leader is a storyteller. And I don't know how you can really be a good leader ... without having that as part of your portfolio."

As professional communicators, we all know the story is paramount to the success of any message. But are we consistent in finding the compelling story in a brand, a mission, a product or a service that will stick in our target audiences minds? Do we practice what we preach? How do we know if a story resonates with an audience?

The Stark Truth About Media and Communications Today

It's been a bad week for newspapers. The Rocky Mountain News closed its doors today. Earlier in the week The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News announced they are filing for bankruptcy less than three years after the current group of owners bought the papers. They join The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Minneapolis Star-Tribune as the latest major market print media casualties.

Other major market newspapers are in trouble: the venerable New York Times and established newspaper chains McClatchy and Media General have halted payment of stock dividends. The huge Gannet Co., publisher of USA Today, cut 4,000 jobs in 2008 and is trying to sell assets to stay afloat.

Smaller markets are not immune. Journal Register Co., suburban-Philadelphia based parent of the New Haven (CT) Register and 19 other small daily newspapers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, filed for protection from creditors a week ago. Smaller regional newspapers used to be the most profitable because of local ads, lack of competition, and broad community support; Journal-Register shares were trading at less than a penny on Tuesday.

As a former major market print and network broadcast journalist myself, my directory is filled with the records of veteran former journalists who were fired in the past year, or who took "voluntary" buyouts. (Too often if you're a journalist over 50, you take the buyout because if you don't, you may well end up on the street soon after with no package at all.)

This has huge ramifications for PR and corporate communicators. The fact is that a good number of your old media contacts in newspaper, radio and local TV newsrooms are either no longer in the business, are looking at new careers, or are too busy coping with diminished resources to have time to hear your pitches. Just as the news media business landscape is going through wrenching change, we communicators have to strip ourselves once and for all of the illusion that media is as media was.

There will always be some major newspapers and news broadcasters. But they will be fewer. Our interaction with reporters will change as they increase their own direct communication with the public via their traditional news organizations' online and wireless media platforms. And that doesn't include the exploding blogosphere and other non-traditional social media conduits for news, information and conversation. Your own clients or bosses are already reaching the public on their own via webcasts and podcasts, bypassing editorial gatekeepers.

As a professional communicator how are you adapting to what's happening? How do you define media relations today? What media skills and experience of the last 20 years do you find are still of value, and what do you have to throw away and learn anew? Does the blogosphere offer you valid media outreach options?