Tesla v The Times (or should that be ‘Tesla with The Times’?)

By Sarah Carnovale, New Media Strategist

The current battle between electric motor car start-up Tesla and newspaper behemoth the New York Times is a powerful case study in twenty-first century reputation management.

Here’s a quick summary: Times reviewer John Broder put out a review of Tesla’s Model S car that didn’t show the vehicle in the best light, and Tesla CEO (and PayPal founder) Elon Musk responded with a line-by-line rebuttal on Tesla’s website via its blog, and also via its social media pages in Facebook and Twitter.

The exchange has now descended in to a media war with no end in sight, but this is secondary to the main issue – Tesla’s reputation management was successful and efficient.

New media (blogging, Facebook, Twitter etc) spoke directly to Tesla’s electric vehicle loving base. The story was then picked up by traditional news agencies and flowed down to newspaper, tv and radio.

New media went crazy and it didn’t take long for traditional media to follow.

Moving with the times (nee new media response) gave Tesla the upper hand in a dirty fight against a seasoned campaigner and protected, possibly even enhanced, its reputation in the meantime.

Once upon a time, this could never have happened so quickly and fluently.

In a live interview on internet news site Huff Post Live, former Obama Whitehouse Communications Director Anita Dunn said “There are a lot of different ways to communicate to people, and in the modern world of communication you use as many platforms as you can productively to speak to as many audiences as you can productively.”

Tesla’s harnessing of new media embodies Ms Dunn’s philosophy to great and lasting effect.

Today, reputation management has never been easier. An organisation that seeks to better itself in the eyes of the public needs to open its doors and welcome in the potential buyer, invested stakeholder, interested passer-by, and the apathetic sceptic with the same web-based smile and welcoming grin.

Harnessing your organisation’s online presence via a website and social media gives organisations the opportunity to market, defend and communicate directly with the world at large.

Your organisation’s brand is invaluable and the digital era allows for brand protection and reputation management more than ever before. There are a few simple steps your organisation can take to ensure its digitally ready and enabled to meet and greet reputational challenges that unexpectedly come your way.

Website

When was the last time you checked your organisation website for readability and ease of accessibility to information? Have you considered having your website checked by a company outsider?

As a company matures so too does its priorities, and more importantly so does the priorities of its customers and stakeholders. Your organisation’s website is the first port of call for people wanting to know about your business and it should display your offerings in the best possible light.

Integrating a web content and structure review system will ensure that your organisation is ready to meet the challenges and welcome the successes of today and tomorrow.

Blogging

Does your organisation have a blog? Do the people of your organisation contribute to it? Are they giving a voice and personality to your organisation?

A company blog, with contributions from people at all levels of the tree breathes life in to the online platform, increases trust in your organisation via emotional connectivity, and gives a pathway to ‘right-of-reply’ in the event that your organisation ever needs to defend itself, as was the case with Tesla.

Facebook/Twitter

Facebook is a two-way communication website, an open door to your organisation where you can post photos, competitions, customer feedback, and links back to your organisation’s website. Twitter is the conversation, the signpost on the highway to point people to where you need them to go to market a point of view or product.

Social media tools in general are great for pushing the marketability of your company in positive times, and provide a platform and a proactive voice when you most need it.

New media is not an island

Reputation management is a consolidation of efforts across traditional and digital mediums. Whilst new media is way to speak with target audiences and supporters, traditional media (such as newspaper, radio) is the vehicle to reach mass audiences.

Tesla’s new media commandeering will ensure its brand and integrity remain intact long after the New York Times battle had faded into memory. It’s important for us to remember that the same tools are available and ready at our fingertips.

SC

julia gillard and tony abbot

Election 2013 – The Certainty of Stalling Progress

 

With the PM announcing what amounts to an eight month election campaign on the grounds of “certainty” the only sure outcome of the political gamble is that real policy making, economic reform and necessary infrastructure development will stall until after the election.

In an election environment the government will be trying to bolster the traditional Labor base whilst also attempting to attract Green votes carried by social and environmental issues.

In the meanwhile any proposals for necessary economic reform or major infrastructure improvement, by either side, will be attacked by a myriad of counter arguments. The result being that, unless the campaign becomes an obvious walkover for the opposition, business will be unsure of exactly what will happen on September 14. In such a hyper politically charged atmosphere, business will most likely put off major investment decisions.

The PM is gambling on Tony Abbot and the Coalition falling over themselves, for which there is ample opportunity. She is also ensuring that all leadership speculation, on either side, is now at an end as each team delivers the loyalty necessary for a campaign. 

In the mean time, the battle for the crucial seats in western Sydney (which is to the Australian Federal Election as Ohio is to the American Presidential Election) will see the Labor social engineers come out in force. Will this work in an increasingly aspirational Australia? On the other hand, will Tony Abbott be able to overcome his lack of personal connection with large sections of the electorate?  We shall see!

The Federal/State divide is also likely to create policy and administrative sclerosis during such an extended campaign.

With all the major States in Coalition hands the blame game that has been running for some time will only intensify.  In support of their coalition colleagues, the State Governments of QLD, NSW, VIC and WA have every reason to frustrate anything Federal Labor proposes.

As a political move the PM may have caught her opponents on the hop, but she has also given them ample time to marshal their arguments and resources. Sadly, the impact of all of this on the Australian economy may well be to slow growth as we have experienced on previous occasions.

Real certainty in this whole process could come if both sides agreed to put a referendum to the nation on September 14 for fixed four-year terms. At least then we may get three out of four years of meaningful government rather than the current maximum of 2 out of 3. 

Customer Experience

What did your customer experience?

 

In any type of retail outside of commodity the customer experience must be king.

In today’s world, if you had any doubt then take a quick look at the vacant shops in your local high street.

The retail world is morphing into three basic models. The first model is the commoditised transactional retail: supermarkets, big-box category killers (think Bunnings or Officeworks), and value driven discount and bulk stores with the proposition “we have it all and it’s cheap".

The second model is the on-line retailer: Amazon, iTunes and any number of segment-specific sites with the proposition being “we can get almost anything to you quickly and at the best price and you don’t need to leave your desk".

And then there is the third model – the experiential retail outlet. This sector covers where you want to go to physically experience the service or product i.e. restaurants, vanity services (hairdresser, spa, beautician) and entertainment (cinema, live music). Increasingly, luxury brands are creating icon stores with the intention of immersing the customer in the brand values (think Apple, Bose, B&O, Montblanc, Bally, Louis Vuitton).

The inevitable impact of the shift to three dominant retail models is squeezing the margins of businesses occupying the middle ground of general retailing.

The impact of this trend is being felt in the far broader retail space as well.

Even in areas such as automotive retail (where traditionally physical attendance and interaction with sales and service staff is necessary), greater customer use of on-line research means minimising the physical interaction.

If retail outlets allow their customers to become increasingly distant they will eventually be unable to keep them.

For any premium product retailer the answer has to be a total customer experience that provides a compelling case for customer loyalty.

Recently the Cadillac dealers in the USA were sent to a three-day Disney “boot-camp” where they learned from Disney about the effort Disney employees invest to ensure that the Disney experience is one that gets customers coming back time and again.

One of the simplest techniques is to advertise a theme park opening time of 9.00am yet to open their doors, every day, at least 5 minutes early. Disney says “this is a nice surprise for customers who have arrived early and are waiting at the doors. We want to get them off to a good start.”

What a remarkably simple customer-centric action. This is both easy to achieve and sets up a positive initial impression. Take this philosophy to every aspect of the customer interaction and watch the loyalty and recommendations grow.

In a world of instant internet access, the “show” is the one experience you can’t deliver on-line.

JK

construction crane at sunset

Time is right for Vics to lead the way on PPPs

 

The Victorian government announced a number of major infrastructure projects late last year that are likely to play a vital role in the future economic performance of the state.

Top of the list is the East West link, connecting the Eastern Freeway with the Western Ring Road. But there is also the $1.6 billion investment in expanding the capacity of the Port of Melbourne, the development of the Port of Hastings, the Melbourne Metro rail project, the additional rail line between Dandenong and the city, the expansion of Avalon to become our second international airport and the third runway for the Melbourne Airport.

All of them are important to addressing the projected growth of Victoria’s population, the growth in regional Victoria and in closing the gap in service standards in public transport, schools, hospitals and libraries.

But they also need a new approach to Public Private Partnerships. Given the relative inefficiencies of governmental infrastructure, it is understandable that there is cynicism on any governmental role in infrastructure. However, this should not mean that government cannot play an effective role in promoting a world-class infrastructure system.

Victoria has the opportunity to show the private sector that it understands the importance of efficient private sector investment as central to commercially viable infrastructure. But if it adopts the approach of an infrastructure venture capitalist, infrastructure is doomed to fail.

The Federal Coalition’s policy at the last 2010 election advocated for a greater private involvement in Infrastructure.  This policy can be enhanced, especially with appropriate concessional tax treatment.

But it is a sound basis for an instructive government to play a crucial role in an efficient public private partnership approach where large scale infrastructure projects are run by the private sector, but funded through government securities. The call by the President of the Business Council of Australia, Tony Shepherd, for long-term (30 years) guaranteed indexed bonds is also worthy of consideration. He believes they would be attractive to mums and dads and super funds and this may well be the case.

Time is ticking…

RM