What a PR disaster to start the New Year! Hard on the heals of the public relations challenges the Australian banking industry struggled against late last year a group of retailers from the Australian retail industry has scored a spectacular ‘own goal’ with its advertising campaign against the evils of online trading.
One of the basic principles of PR is to avoid giving potential ‘bad news’ stories or issues more ‘air’ by commenting on, or highlighting, them. Often it just gives the ‘other side’ more credibility.
However, through their advertising and the predicted publicity it generated, retailers have just given the online industry the arguably the biggest publicity boost they have ever had. Talk about ‘own goals’ and ‘shooting oneself in the foot’.
This has to be one of the classics ‘how-not-to-do it’ PR exercises of recent times.
If, as has been reported, only about 3 percent of all Australian retail sales are made online, then it’s reasonable to assume that probably less than 10 percent Australian consumers may be active online.
As a result of the wall-to-wall publicity on television, radio and in our papers what’s the betting that a large number of consumers have already, or will soon, be looking online to see what the fuss is all about and to really compare prices.
The big retailers have, through their ill-judged (in my opinion) actions, not only publicised online retailing and bought it to the forefront of consumer’s minds. They have legitimised the online industry and the products they are selling.
What muddled thinking could have possibly led the Australian retail industry down this track?
Why would they take out paid advertisements aimed at the 150 or so Members of Parliament when they would also be read by the 10/12 million Australian adult consumers?
Why did they ever think there was a parallel with the 2010 campaign by the mining industry? That industry was entirely different. It touched comparatively few Australians. There were a whole lot of other political factors connected with this issue.
Did they ever consider what the ‘opinion formers’ and ‘influencers’ (media, Choice etc) might think, and say, about such a campaign and what influence this would have on ordinary consumers?
Did they ever consider what their customers might think, or how they might react, to a campaign that was inherently critcising them and accusing them of not being loyal to Australian retailers?
Did they not realise that their action was like throwing a match into a patch of dry grass? That it would encourage the media to investigate the whole issue of online versus retail prices? And that it would likely encourage Australian consumers (their customers) to actually try this alternative method of buying goods?
In my pre-Christmas blog about the Australian banking industry I commented/inferred that in my considerable experience in working in PR for industry groups that there seemed to be a disconnect between what executives/management did when promoting their own brands compared to what they did when looking at the world from an industry perspective.
Little did I think that in such a short time there would be such a vivid example!
Interestingly, one of the side issues is that this campaign not come from the Australian Retailers Association. Rather it is the action of an alliance of 21 key retailers- including Harvey Norman, Myer and David Jones - who are ‘doing their own thing’ . One can only imagine the splits this campaign, and the aftermath to it, are likely to cause within the wider Australian retail industry.
In fact, the Australian retailing industry has its share of issues over unity and direction as there are several different bodies representing various sectors, including the Alliance of Australian Retailers, whose own public campaign around the display of cigarettes was not without considerable controversy.
However from my perspective the sad thing is that this debacle reflects on the PR industry. One assumes that somewhere in the undergrowth there was PR input. One can only wonder whether this was as considered as it might have been? Or did the retailers simply go on their own?
PS Since writing this blog I have become aware (through the Sydney Morning Herald) that a PR agency was behind the Australian retailers campaign. It is not my desire to openly criticise fellow PR practitioners, or PR agencies, and I did consider not posting this blog. But on reflection, given that I am an independent consultant and commentator with no PR agency affiliations or vested interests, I decided to proceed with what I believe is fair comment.
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