The “Secret” of Effective Messaging

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Clarity and consistency. Really no secret at all. But it does take preparation. And discipline.

While using marketing statements (slogans) in news interviews is counter-productive and ill-advised, approaching interviews from a marketing posture does make sense.

Marketers and ad agencies understand that messages take time to get through. It requires repetition and a consistent, clear message. Getting through in news interviews is much like advertising: it’s a cumulative process. Of course, the messaging needs to persuasive for target audiences.

Office Depot CEO Steve Odland has been quite clear, and consistent, regarding the economy through the prism of his business. He doesn’t see daylight yet in the current recession. His metric is his average customer, typically the small business person, and availability of credit enabling expansion (hiring). In a recent Fox News Sunday interview, Odland was asked if he sees a turnaround. He said his customer has suffered disproportionately because credit dried up and still is not sufficient. (Click on the video below.)



The stimulus was supposed to open up credit streams. Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace asked Odland if that was working yet. Nope, he replied. Small businesses still are not finding credit easier to obtain, typically through second mortgages on their homes. (Click on the video below.)



The consistent elements in Odland’s message: the need for credit, which has not yet reappeared, and its importance to sustaining small businesses which, in turn, can begin hiring more workers. That, Odland says, is where all recoveries begin.

Attention Bloggers!

CNBC's Dennis Kneale celebrates how the tables were turned on a mean-spirited blogger:

Target of the defamatory blogging, Lizkula Cohen (pictured below) was quoted in court papers: "I was shocked and embarrassed" to see photo captions and commentary "that were used to describe me as a promiscuous woman who is filthy, disgusting, foul and a whore," Cohen said in an affidavit.

Conflict in the Boardroom?

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Conflict and controversy.

Two staples of the news media diet. Even when neither exists, you might find them fishing for one or both anyway.

And when they dangle their hooks, often they try baiting you with something someone else might have said, suggesting there’s more to the story than you’re willing to tell. This third person technique is a favorite since it often can be used ambiguously yet seems credible and legitimate, as well.

Business reporters can lean on analyst comments, for instance, just as CNBC’s Mark Haines did recently interviewing the new head of Anheuser-Busch Inbev, the Belgium-based beverage company that recently bought the St. Louis brewery.

Is there a culture clash inside the company, Haines asked, where the new owners are more of a "fly coach" mindset as opposed to the former first class style of Bud’s executives? Haines, of course, attributed the suggestion to a Wall Street analyst.

But CEO Carlos Brito didn’t bite. Instead, he very smoothly lined up his company with its customers and a clear message to those amorphous analysts: “We try to emulate what our consumers do. They fly commercial, I fly commercial…They’re our bosses.” (Click on video below to see and hear the question and answer.)

Brito’s answer was an excellent example of focus. He had a clear vision of who were his real, and intended, audiences in this interview and Mark Haines was not among them. Haines and his co-anchor served only as his conduit.

Body Language at its Worst

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Under fire and possibly targeted for criminal investigation, ACORN, the umbrella organization for a plethora of community and labor groups is attempting to repair, or at least control, the damage.

Both chambers of the US Congress already have voted overwhelmingly to turn off the federal faucet. This swift action was in reaction to a series of investigative videos at ACORN offices in three different cities that caught workers instructing a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to cheat the IRS.

Long suspected of questionable practices by republicans in Congress, the videos fueled their cause. So, ACORN’s CEO Bertha Lewis has been on a media tour trying to minimize damage.

Presumably she agreed to be on the same Fox News Sunday set with GOP Congressman Darrell Issa of California, an ACORN critic. But by reading her body language, he might as well have been 3,000 miles away in his home district.

Several times, Issa spoke directly to Lewis, yet she never looked at him. Indeed, her refusal to even recognize he was sitting next to her, and talking directly to her, was so blatantly rude it served to diminish her as a person and an executive.

Her obvious intention to ignore the congressman may have made her and her minions feel good, but it served only to damage both her organization and her message.

In the video below, Issa asks Lewis a question and she responds as if a third person has asked it on his behalf. This is body language at its very worst!

The Eyes Have It, Part Deux

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

For context, I call your attention to the post in this space about a month ago entitled “The Eyes Have It.”

Here’s an addition. Watch it…

...what did he say?