One rule of the media I was taught in one of those ‘media training days’, you know the ones where you’re asked to write a press release; you do a mock radio phone-in, you’re given tips and techniques, told how to stand, what shirt to wear (never stripes or checks, which takes out 95% of my shirts. I have one special media shirt – it’s dull!)
Anyway, one rule is “never do tit for tat or get in an argument, ever.”
“If someone pokes their tongue out, don’t poke yours back.”
“If a snippy article appears criticising you, take care, make sure you get the point that’s being made, but don’t unnecessarily prolong the story.”
If a journalist says, “So tell me Alan, tell me about your rubbish performance,” you say, “I’m not here to talk about that, what I’d like to talk about is being number one for service, the customer challenge…”
So this week has been a bit like that – opportunity for arguments coming left and right (understatement).
But anyway, some questions that have popped up this week…
1) “Why has ‘a broker’ been critiquing you in the press saying he had a punch up with you?”
And I reply (watch out for media training), “Its difficult times. We make hard decisions based on strategic long term goals. We would never personalise it. There are always two sides to every story. When you’re a market leader, you can’t please all the people, all the time, but I’d rather talk about the pride I feel in being voted general insurer six times running and how our staff….”
2) Are you sure changing your name is the right thing to do?
And I reply, “We are the 5th largest insurer in the world with over £300bn of funds under management, 57,000 employees, more than 45 million customers and we have enormous scale not only in the UK, but in Europe, Canada, India, Australia et al.”
The 2009 investment in our name change, which is only happening in 3 of the 27 countries we operate in (so perspective) is value creating and already this year we’re making savings in media /web/agency costs as a result of being one Aviva.
We now have a one off opportunity to turn ourselves into the organisation we’ve always longed to be. It’s energising us and making us more creative. We are launching, during 2009/2010/2011, a range of new products and services. We will be involving our leaders and our staff around the world in Aviva brand strategy/business philosophy and we are streamlining our print/media/research (draw breath).
Plus, when some of the competition have their heads inside their organisation, battening down the hatches, it has placed our heads firmly above the parapet. You don’t change your name like this without being 100% aware of what the outside world is saying/feeling and we are very conscious of that. It has absolutely driven us to ‘up a gear’ in being externally focused.
So you see not going for “tit for tat” allows you to make sure you focus on your story, your strategy, your insight, your energy and not get sidetracked. It needs confidence, patience and clarity as there’s potential for going down the “tit for tat” route.
But not me, no no, anyone who knows me knows I don’t do “tit for tat” or even do punch ups. I have a weak left hook.
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