How transparent is transparent?

By Tom Curtin

Curtin&Co had the pleasure of Pauleen Lane, Vice Chair of the Infrastructure Planning Commission at our annual Christmas Lunch at Browns in London. She gave an excellent talk on the work of the IPC and its committment to transparency. I wish it well on a difficult journey.

But what is transparency? Already politicians are extremely uncomfortable with the Freedom of Information Act, especially when it comes out of their expenses. Does transparency mean that every scrap of information must be placed in the public domain? Every jotting, every notebook, every flipchart? This could lead to a bureaucratic nightmare and a bonanza for the manufacturers of scanning machines.

From my own experience in the nuclear industry some years ago, the sad truth is that there is no other way forward. I was a strong advocate at that time in making everything public. Invite in Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and anyone else who wishes to trawl over the files and the notebooks.

Sure there will be skeletons in the cupboard. The science will not always be perfect. There will be thoughts which one would rather not have public. So what? After a few headlines media will soon get bored and move onto something more interesting. And so will everyone else.

You cannot be a little transparent. And if you really want to be cynical about it, if you want to hide a needle, first build a haystack.

In this week's PR Week, Danny Rogers' article "Even the Paragons of PR Can Drop the Ball" demonstrates how a good reputation is a fragile asset. A painstakingly constructed facet, it can take just one negative publicity event to destroy years of hard work. As Perrier found out to its cost in the early 1990s, a generally well-run company can be over-shadowed by a badly handled issue. In this case, the discovery of minute quantities of benzene culminated in the company being sold for a fraction of its value: It's value hinged on a reputation which had been irreparably damaged. The product still hasn't recovered its market position, despite millions of dollars being spent on re-branding by its new owners.

Speed of action is often key to keeping consumers on side. The main criticism of Eurostar from those passengers who were stranded over Christmas was that they had not been told what was happening: the staff appeared to have no idea. The only way to avoid this situation is preparation. If a company's staff is trained for a crisis to happen at any moment, then the response should be immediate and evident to all those involved: It is just a case of following procedures. However, it can be the difference between retaining your good reputation (and customer base) or losing it (and your customers) altogether.

Often we are blinkered by our belief in our own brand and we forget to consider how it looks to outsiders. Sometimes it is necessary to take a step back to see how your reputation could really be affected by a crisis - however minor it appears - and take some time out of busy schedules to ensure you are prepared to deal with it. After all, what are you left with without your reputation?

PR Week article:

http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/opinion/977224/Danny-Rogers-Even-paragons-PR-drop-ball/