TOUCHDOWN - MIKE & SPIKE

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: I went to high school with Mike Myers.  Well, for a year or two, anyway – he forsook my alma mater, Sir John A. Macdonald C.I. for the neighbouring Stephen Leacock Collegiate midway through, because Leacock was on a semester system and Mike could graduate from there six months sooner, once he had amassed the credits necessary for his diploma.  He went from there immediately to Second City, the first stop in a career that would lead to Saturday Night Live and movie stardom.  So it’s fun to watch from afar as the success of a guy from the old neighbourhood plays out in the media – and it’s nice to see how well-managed Mike’s press seems to be.  Unlike so many other showbiz types, when his marriage broke down and a new relationship blossomed into a new union, there was precious little about it in the tabloids or, for that matter, anywhere else.  His second marriage became public through his own disclosure, well after the fact – a pattern repeated this week with news of the birth of his first child, a boy, already two weeks old now.  Classy.  Discrete.  I dare say, downright Canadian.  So for that – and for naming the boy something as cool as Spike! – a Touchdown to Mr. Myers.  Bridlewood’s still proud of ya.

TOUCHDOWN - FEDS' TASK FORCE REPORT

This week's perspective from Joe Chidley: Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have oft been accused of not taking the threat of climate change seriously, so it was both shrewd politics and a handy communications vehicle they set in motion two years ago in the form of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.   Its mission was to look into the potential ramifications of rising temperatures here in Canada over time, and to try and put a price tag on them in terms of economic impact.  That mandate and process gave the Tories somewhere to point for two years, when questioned about the issue.  This week, the panel reported back:  we could be facing a $5 billion hit by 2020, ramping up to $21 billion to as high as $43 billion by 2050.  Huge numbers all around, despite the absence of any sense of what stopping global warming might cost – but no worries, by doing its job, the NRT gave the Harper government a fresh platform upon which to stack the $58 million commitment toward climate change-related initiatives made in the  spring budget.  Is it enough?  Who knows?  Did the NRT exercise give the feds at least the appearance of taking the issue seriously – and seriously enough to allocate some budget toward fighting it?  You bet.

TOUCHDOWN - MEN IN HEELS

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: It’s Friday and like many Ontarians, I’m feeling a bit politicked-out this week … so let’s talk about men in high heels shall we?  That was the spectacle down at Yonge-Dundas Square, as some 500 guys strapped on the stilettos (and all other manner of feminine footwear) for an event dubbed “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes.”  It was an awareness/fundraising event in support of the White Ribbon Campaign to end violence against women – and it was a communications Touchdown.  Annual events, especially one as well established as the White Ribbon Campaign (now 20 years old, having been established in the wake of the murders of 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1990) are often a PR challenge: how do you keep it fresh, different and interesting to media?  Ask a bunch of guys to totter around in women’s shoes, that’s how.  It got huge play and fresh attention for a worthy cause.

SPECIAL MENTION

TD&F was extremely saddened to learn today of the passing of Stephen Dupuis, CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and longtime friend to Veritas. Stephen was a consummate storyteller with a keen communications sense and a healthy dose of wit. He will be deeply missed in both our world and his own. Our thoughts go out to his family, colleagues and extensive circle of friends. Stephen: we tip our pens to you, Sir.

TOUCHDOWN – 26 SPOONFULS OF SUGAR HELP THE MESSAGES GO DOWN

This weeks perspective from Bob Reid: Statistics Canada crunches numbers for a living.  It’s the organization’s mandate to measure and analyze all manner of minutiae, to better inform Canadians. So it’s another day at the office for them to try and get media attention for the latest thing they’re giving us data about – and some days are easier than others.  This week, they scored a huge communications Touchdown for a report on sugar consumption by Canadians.  They equated the average person’s intake from all sources to 26 spoonfuls of sugar. 26 spoonfuls. We can instantly picture it, relate to it, comprehend exactly what that means – and, as a result, it’s a message that resonates. Newspaper art departments had a field day creating images of heaping spoonfuls and stacks of sugar cubes, and one TV reporter filled a clear plastic sports water bottle with the equivalent amount, winning expressions of disbelief from people on the street.  Putting what can be complex numbers or research results into familiar, tangible terms that connect directly and immediately with those hearing the message is Touchdown-worthy material.

FUMBLE – UBS’S CHIEF SLIPS INTO SHRUG MODE

This week's perspective from Joe Chidley: OK. So you’re the CEO of an investment bank that has just revealed a $2.3 billion loss from unauthorized trading. What is the LAST thing your board, your investors and your customers want to hear? No prizes for guessing: “Not much we can do about it.” But that’s pretty much precisely what UBS AG’s CEO, Oswald Gruebel, told a Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag on Sept. 18, mere days after it came to light that a rogue trader had cost his firm billions in unauthorized trading. Gruebel said that he had no plans to step down because of the scandal, and went on to add (according to Bloomberg) that when “someone acts with criminal intent, you can’t do anything.” That might well be true – in fact, the CEO could be the last person you’d expect to be able to keep track of everything each employee is doing – but it’s not exactly appropriate in a time of crisis for a leader to talk about his inability to do anything. To be fair, Gruebel followed up with a memo to employees assuring them he was taking every step possible and acknowledging that, ultimately, the buck stopped with him. But by failing to show that he “got it” right out of the gate, Gruebel made a major misstep, and now rumours are swirling that he is not long for the CEO’s job. Small wonder.

TOUCHDOWN – HARPER & FLAHERTY STRIKE CREDIBLE BALANCE

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: Public leaders always have a fine line to walk between being honest about the challenges we face, but not going so far as to be alarmist.  So it has been interesting to watch the lead players in the federal government grapple with global economic instability over the past few years.  This week, with markets again gyrating wildly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty ramped up their communications quite pointedly:  Harper said “We’re now at a stage where the uncertainty in global markets is getting to extremely dangerous levels,” while Flaherty called for “decisive” action by European policy makers on their deficits.  As noted, politicians never want to alarm the public, but at the same time, there comes a point where failing to call a crisis a crisis can do serious damage to your credibility.  The feds are sounding the right notes on this score, and they’re able to – Canada’s economic record through the recent turmoil gives us the authority to be a lead voice in the world on this stuff, and they’re using that position to maximum communications benefit.

FUMBLE – RESEARCH IN MOTION FLOPS

This week's perspective from Joe Chidley: When a company is in a crisis, employees, investors and public supporters rightfully hope for strong and resourceful corporate leadership. So in the wake of Research in Motion’s disastrous Q2 earnings this week, it has to be asked: Did RIM’s co-CEOs measure up? On an earnings call with analysts, co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis chose to accentuate the positive – focusing on robust sales of the recently launched BlackBerry 7 smartphones, gushing about big plans for the Playbook tablet (sales of which have been miserable) and promising an earnings turnaround in Q3. But in the face of such a crummy quarter – during which the company’s profits were down 58% (!) – such rosy outlooks beggar believability, and lend credence to the now-familiar criticism that RIM’s executive leadership is in a state of denial. And then there was the handling of the earnings call itself. As Forbes columnist Eric Jackson noted, prepared remarks took up more than half of the call – leaving just over 20 minutes for Q&A, which is typically the most valuable part for investors. In total, the call took 54 minutes before being ended. Jackson points out that by general industry standards, that’s very brief; for a company in a crisis, it’s ridiculously brief. One could argue that keeping the Q&A short limited the risk exposure for Balsillie and Lazaridis. But I think just the opposite. The tactic suggests obfuscation, not transparency; it speaks of weakness, not strength; it communicates fear, not fearlessness. And those negative attributes are hardly ones you want to communicate when your leadership is under fire. The proof was in the pudding: the morning after the conference call, RIM stock opened down more than 20%, and analysts across the board were downgrading earnings estimates.

TOUCHDOWN – VAUGHAN’S ONE-LINER

This week's perspective from Bob Reid: There are many ways to drive a message, and one them is by being ready to take clever advantage of those lucky times when the stars line up for you.  For Toronto councilor Adam Vaughan, nemesis of Mayor Rob Ford and his cost-cutting agenda, the fact that there was a rat – literally – running amok in the office of the city’s budget chief must have seemed like Christmas morning.  While it was obviously no laughing matter that a city staffer was bitten during attempts to capture and dispense with the rascally rodent, Vaughan was still able to make light of the whole thing with the one-liner heard ‘cross the city, joking that the critter and the mayor seemed to be on the same page:  “It was looking for gravy.  It didn’t find any, so it ate a city worker.”