The Chicago Bears held a press conference on January 5, 2010, after a dismal at best season long performance by management, the coaching staff and players. No need to go into the gory details; the lesson here is how not to handle public relations.
For weeks now, the media and public has been in an uproar over team performance. This was exacerbated by a perceived lack of indifference and arrogance by the team leadership. Clearly a crisis communications situation if anyone in the PR department at Halas Hall was paying attention.
The Press Conference
A press conference is held, they trot out the team President, General Manger and Head Coach all in that order. The President speaks, apologizes and was contradictory in his remarks about the situation being unacceptable, change is needed, mistakes were made, but things are going to stay essentially the same. He spoke for 20 minutes which was 15 minutes too long.
The GM gets up apologizes, says mistakes were made, change is needed, but things are going to stay essentially the same and I would make the same decisions the same way again. He also has a different message than the team president. Q and A ensures.
Head Coach gets up, has a different message than the other two, is arrogant and testy that he is being questioned about any of this and never admits to making any mistakes. Change is needed but things are going to be the same. He fires his entire offensive staff, demotes himself from being the defensive coordinator and life goes on.
The PR department for the Chicago Bears should be fired in mass for that performance. As a marketing and PR professional this was an embarrassment.
What Went Right?
Virtually nothing.
What Went Wrong?
Virtually everything.
Let Me Count the Ways
Lack of organizational understanding of the need to handle this as a crisis communication situation
Different, conflicting senior management messages
Testy responses to questions
Lack of preparation by speakers in understanding the seriousness of the communication
Poor speaker body language
No overriding organizational message
Organizational arrogance
Lost messaging opportunity
Appearance of offense to blame for the season
All three senior managers appearing not to be accountable
The organization furthering to anger the media and fan base
What struck me about was the similarity to how I have seen hospitals and healthcare systems handle crisis communication situations and public relations.
Is it not true that any press is good press! And the Bears are getting a lot of bad press locally, regionally and nationally.
PR Lessons for Hospitals and Healthcare Systems
Understand the nature of the situation
Be transparent
Be proactive in how you intend to address the situation
Limit the amount of time senior leaders i.e. the CEO or president speak
Make sure everyone has the same message and is on board
Develop strong organizational messaging of care and concern
Don’t scapegoat
Don’t blame others or give the appearance of blaming others
Don’t tell people things will change when things are not changing
Practice, practice, practice
Anticipate hard questions and do a strong Q&A document
Bring in an outside PR firm for another viewpoint
Understand that your reputation is built up over a long time and can be destroyed in a few short minutes
Remember that it is not just a three day story
Watch your body language
Know your facts about past performance, reporters will be prepared
I can reached at 815-293-1471 for marketing and PR consulting, or via email at the themichaeljgroup@aol.com
The Brave New Healthcare Marketing World 2010 And Beyond- Its All About Demand Management
12:15 PM
CEO, Consulting., COOs, Demand Management, healthcare reform, Marketing, Strategic Marketing
The world as you know it is changing forever, so better for you to face the brave new world of healthcare marketing in 2010 and beyond, than to be on the tracks of an oncoming train like a deer in headlights and be hit unprepared.
Assuming healthcare legislation will pass in early 2010, its time for healthcare systems to start thinking and learning about demand management.
Not the generating type of demand for services, but managing the demand that will naturally come from 31 million plus people suddenly having access to health insurance and healthcare services. Granted, the reforms will phase in over the next few year until 2014, when the healthcare reform actions will be fully in place. The coming demand for services will be unprecedented. And the current configuration of the healthcare system across the country for care delivery is not ready. Not ready at all.
Hospital beds taken out-of-service over the years. ERs strained from over utilization; lack of nurses and primary care physicians; this is a marketers dream. Maybe not to the CEOs and COOs out there, but you have an underutilized asset. That's assuming of course that you do have marketers in your organization and not just people doing stuff and making pretty brochures. If you don't you're in trouble.
Marketers can play an important part in this generational transformation process. It's time to step up and step forward and lead a transformation in healthcare marketing that is long overdue.
Running an advertisement attempting to generate demand for a services is not the same as understanding local market forces at play and how much potential demand exists for services in your community. The healthcare consumer is becoming more mobile than at any other time in the history of healthcare. Choice, convenience and access. Can you meet those needs?
The Walgreens, CVS and Walmarts of the world already understand this and with retail clinics, home care and ambulatory infusion centers they are already well positioned to take advantage of all that new demand that will be coming on-line. That's your business and they will do it faster, cheaper and with better customer service.
It all about managing demand, customer service, and the right mix of docs and services. Otherwise, long wait times for care and procedures, poor customer services and patients choosing to go where they can obtain needed care.
A mobile healthcare consumer. A hospital and doctors worst nightmare. Unless of course you can manage demand and deliver exceptional customer service.
With change come opportunity. Hopefully you won't lose that opportunity.
Happy New Year everyone, 2010 is going to be something.
I can be reached at 815-293-1471 for strategic healthcare marketing consulting services.
Assuming healthcare legislation will pass in early 2010, its time for healthcare systems to start thinking and learning about demand management.
Not the generating type of demand for services, but managing the demand that will naturally come from 31 million plus people suddenly having access to health insurance and healthcare services. Granted, the reforms will phase in over the next few year until 2014, when the healthcare reform actions will be fully in place. The coming demand for services will be unprecedented. And the current configuration of the healthcare system across the country for care delivery is not ready. Not ready at all.
Hospital beds taken out-of-service over the years. ERs strained from over utilization; lack of nurses and primary care physicians; this is a marketers dream. Maybe not to the CEOs and COOs out there, but you have an underutilized asset. That's assuming of course that you do have marketers in your organization and not just people doing stuff and making pretty brochures. If you don't you're in trouble.
Marketers can play an important part in this generational transformation process. It's time to step up and step forward and lead a transformation in healthcare marketing that is long overdue.
Running an advertisement attempting to generate demand for a services is not the same as understanding local market forces at play and how much potential demand exists for services in your community. The healthcare consumer is becoming more mobile than at any other time in the history of healthcare. Choice, convenience and access. Can you meet those needs?
The Walgreens, CVS and Walmarts of the world already understand this and with retail clinics, home care and ambulatory infusion centers they are already well positioned to take advantage of all that new demand that will be coming on-line. That's your business and they will do it faster, cheaper and with better customer service.
It all about managing demand, customer service, and the right mix of docs and services. Otherwise, long wait times for care and procedures, poor customer services and patients choosing to go where they can obtain needed care.
A mobile healthcare consumer. A hospital and doctors worst nightmare. Unless of course you can manage demand and deliver exceptional customer service.
With change come opportunity. Hopefully you won't lose that opportunity.
Happy New Year everyone, 2010 is going to be something.
I can be reached at 815-293-1471 for strategic healthcare marketing consulting services.
Are You Working in a HiPPO Marketing Environment?
The other day, I was attending an American Marketing Association webinar on “Your Customers Aren’t Hiding the Answers, You Just Need to Know Where to Look”, sponsored by Autonomy Multichannel Customer Interaction Solutions. The presenters were Andrew Joiner, CEO and Jeff Westover, VP Marketing. (Note, I am not receiving any payment in mentioning this, but you will see why in a short bit. It’s all about full attribution.)
In one slide they presented what really summed up for me what most healthcare marketing is like. And I wish I had thought of it; which bring us back to the original question. Are you working in a HiPPO marketing environment?
H Highest
P Paid
P Position
O Opinion
Yes HiPPO! It was a moment in time where it all fell together. No marketing science, no qualitative understanding of markets, just opinion, hearsay and flavor of the day from reading an article someplace or seeing an advertisement. No primary or secondary market research or understanding customer needs except in the most superficial level. One maybe two people say something and then it’s the whole universe acts that way. I am the highest paid person here…. so go do this. A competitor does this, so you do this. I have made up my mind because I believe this to be true and I am the insert title here- CEO - EVP - VP etc.
An interesting concept that’s easy for you to determine if you too work in a HiPPO marketing environment. Take a step back and look at your healthcare company. When you do that the choices become really clear if you want to succeed.
My read on this….
A HiPPO organization will never reach its full potential and is characterized by a lack of sustainable mission, vision and values, short attention span, constantly shifting plans and priorities, inability to execute operationally, constant crisis and chaos and lacks a formal integrated planning process. Communication is poor interdepartmentally and marketing is seen as doing “stuff”. Proposed marketing solutions are seen an “elegant” and not as the right way to build revenue and brand because they aren’t expedient. It’s all about the HiPPO and what they believe regardless of any lack of foundation in reality.
I do think my time for change has come.
In one slide they presented what really summed up for me what most healthcare marketing is like. And I wish I had thought of it; which bring us back to the original question. Are you working in a HiPPO marketing environment?
H Highest
P Paid
P Position
O Opinion
Yes HiPPO! It was a moment in time where it all fell together. No marketing science, no qualitative understanding of markets, just opinion, hearsay and flavor of the day from reading an article someplace or seeing an advertisement. No primary or secondary market research or understanding customer needs except in the most superficial level. One maybe two people say something and then it’s the whole universe acts that way. I am the highest paid person here…. so go do this. A competitor does this, so you do this. I have made up my mind because I believe this to be true and I am the insert title here- CEO - EVP - VP etc.
An interesting concept that’s easy for you to determine if you too work in a HiPPO marketing environment. Take a step back and look at your healthcare company. When you do that the choices become really clear if you want to succeed.
My read on this….
A HiPPO organization will never reach its full potential and is characterized by a lack of sustainable mission, vision and values, short attention span, constantly shifting plans and priorities, inability to execute operationally, constant crisis and chaos and lacks a formal integrated planning process. Communication is poor interdepartmentally and marketing is seen as doing “stuff”. Proposed marketing solutions are seen an “elegant” and not as the right way to build revenue and brand because they aren’t expedient. It’s all about the HiPPO and what they believe regardless of any lack of foundation in reality.
I do think my time for change has come.
