This was originally published on March 19, 2009 on the CNBC Guest Blog
The reasons to envy Edward Liddy, AIG Chairman and CEO[AIG1.510.13(+9.42%)], are few and far between these days.
It’s bad enough he has to defend $165 million in bonuses to senior AIG staff when the company just received more than $170 billion in federal taxpayer dollars. And in his defense, he did say he found the current bonus arrangements to be both “distasteful” and “difficult to recommend” given the current economic climate. But the fact that he did so with such cold, dispassionate language only adds salty insult to an already bloody injury.
But this isn’t meant to be another attack on AIG or the bonuses themselves, however “distasteful” they might be. Rather, there are some communication lessons to be learned from AIG’s fetid response that cut across every business or industry, both in good times and in bad.
The fallacy of fatal facts. Aside from the obviously painful position of being at the helm when that kind of money is going out in executive bonuses, Liddy makes one of the biggest (and most common) communication blunders possible: clinging to fatal facts. Continue reading →
It didn’t take long for Obama’s anti-Wall Street rhetoric to start to come back to haunt him. Already the New York Times is reporting that anger at the financial services industry is threatening to put a wrench in Obama’s agenda.
I never understood why the President decided to switch from “Yes, We Can” to “Look at what they did.” It was so off-brand for Obama. And given Bush’s horrendous approval ratings and the nonstop news coverage of the evil done by Wall Street, Obama would have been better off focusing on the future and not on the past. Why further drive people against Wall Street? Was that really necessary to get the stimulus passed? Always seemed like gratuitous populism to me. And it seemed potentially very dangerous to amp up the anti-business hatred. Continue reading →
Warren Buffet last fall labeled the financial crisis an “Economic Pearl Harbor.” This week he added that both Democrats and Republicans have an “obligation to recognize the current situation as an economic war” and support Obama’s plans to combat it. The symbolism is significant. It is also a vast departure from the language used by the Obama Administration to date. Continue reading →
This post originally appeared on the CNBC Guest Blog on March 4, 2009
How many companies are dying to get their customers to pay more attention to them?
How many CEOs would give their private jet for some clear guidance from their loyal customers about the best path to take?
How many marketers are aching for a way to get in on the “social media thing” and start a real dialogue with their target audience?
The answer is easy: a lot.
And that’s exactly why I wish the folks at Tropicana [PEP47.58-0.89(-1.84%)]had recognized that their recent packaging “crisis” wasn’t even a crisis at all. It was a tremendous opportunity…in a new, sleeker carton.
President Obama’s opening statement for the budget he released yesterday declared: “We arrived at this point as a result of an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions from some of our largest companies’ executive suites to the seats of power in Washington.”
What do you think? Please answer the following five questions. Results are available in real-time. Thanks.
The post below was originally posted today on the CNBC Guest Blog
Obama won the hearts of his base but Republicans remain skeptical.
Tuesday night, my firm, Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research conducted an Instant Response session with 29 voters from the suburban Virginia area. Just over half voted for Obama while the rest voted for McCain. In other respects, the group reflected the area’s population, with a mix of ages, occupations and incomes. All were highly news-engaged people meaning that they each said they pay close attention to national and international news.
Strong partisan divides. The view from this group was not quite as gushy about the speech as most of the cable networks would suggest. While Americans continue to root for the President to succeed, the first few weeks of the Obama Administration have done little to erase the partisan skepticism so prevalent of the past eight years. What we witnessed was a group of people polarized by Obama’s message even while they ended up giving him reasonably high marks for his performance overall. In fact, we saw huge partisan divides in nearly every area of Obama’s speech.
A new divide is forming. As significant as the partisan divide, we also saw a new philosophical split emerging: the responsible vs. the irresponsible. Many participants – Democrats and Republicans alike – believe that the stimulus package and the housing bill are doing too much to reward the bad behavior of others. They resent neighbors who never should have purchased homes they couldn’t afford and they are angry that they will now be forced to carry the burden for what they see as reckless behavior. They reject Obama’s recent policy victories as the wrong approach to solving the financial crisis and want to ensure that they will not be asked to sacrifice more to support others.
With that said, here is a rundown of what worked for both parties and what didn’t work for Republicans in Obama’s speech. Also included are some of the clips from the groups.
WHAT WORKED:
Hope and optimism. Before the speech, most of our participants from both parties said that Obama’s “gloom and doom” over the past few weeks had not served him well. They said they wanted Obama to return to the tone of his campaign. And according to them, he did so. Though his rhetoric around hope and optimism did not test as strongly in this context as it did during much of the campaign, our group overwhelmingly agreed that he has successfully communicated a more optimistic view of American’s future.
People and Personal responsibility. For all of the large reform proposals outlined in Obama’s speech, the messages that resonated most were not about government at all. They were about people and personal responsibility. Talk about “the hardest-working people on Earth” or the parent who must take responsibility for her children or the “men and women in uniform” received uniformly positive responses. For Republicans and Democrats, there is agreement that now is a time for greater personal responsibility. And for a former community organizer it is ironic that the messages that did best were those that spoke of giving Americans the power to achieve a better future.
Sacrifice: There was only one line in the speech that used the word, but it was a powerful one. It resonated with people on both sides of the aisle because they recognize that there are not endless resources and that trade-offs must be made. They expect their elected officials to lead the way. Continue reading →
On CNBC yesterday, Rick Santelli wildly rallied a floor of traders against the Obama housing bill.Santelli’s comments didn’t help the markets, but they certainly did contribute to an increasingly negative reaction to the Obama administration’s efforts to solve the financial crisis.
Today, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs went on the attack.He went after Santelli for a good four minutes, attacking everything from Santelli’s wealth to his ignorance around the specifics of the housing plan.
While Santelli’s rant was great theatrics, Gibbs came off downright snippy.And in that respect, his efforts to shore up confidence in the housing plan were unsuccessful.
We tell all of our clients the same thing:Intent doesn’t matter in communication; interpretation does.If your audience is likely to “hear” a certain message from what you say, then that is the message that matters.End of story.
Passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. “the stimulus plan,” a.k.a. “the bailout,” a.k.a. “the spending plan”) was a policy victory, but it is a communications disaster.
Whether you agree or disagree with the plan’s particulars, it is tough to say the administration did an effective job of managing the conversation about the plan itself. Rather than controlling the conversation, they were controlled by it—forced to go on the defensive when they should have been on offense from the beginning.
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], are few and far between these days.
