Bangladesh factory collapse

Global clothing brands involved in Bangladesh’s troubled garment industry responded in starkly different ways to the building collapse that killed more than 600 people. Some quickly acknowledged their links to the tragedy and promised compensation. Others denied they authorised work at factories in the building even when their labels were found in the rubble.

Primark on the rack 2013. By followthethings

The first approach seems to deserve plaudits for honesty and compassion. The second seems calculated to minimize damage to a brand by maximising distance from the disaster. Communications professionals say both are public relations strategies and neither may be enough to protect companies from the stain of doing business in Bangladesh.

Such experts say that with three deadly disasters in Bangladesh’s $20 billion garment industry in the past six months, possibly the only way retailers and clothing brands can protect their reputations is to visibly and genuinely work to overhaul safety in Bangladesh’s garment factories. A factory fire killed 112 workers in November and a January blaze killed seven.

“Just public relations, is not going to do it,” said Caroline Sapriel, managing director of CS&A, a firm that specializes in reputation management in crisis situations.

Over the past decade, major players in the fashion industry have flocked to Bangladesh, where a minimum wage of about $38 a month has helped boost profits in a global business worth $1 trillion a year. Clothing and textiles now make up 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports and employ several million people.

Yet the country’s worker safety record has become so notorious that the reputational risks of doing business there may have become too great even for retailers and brands that didn’t work with factories in the collapsed Rana Plaza building or the Tazreen Fashions factory that burned late last year.

“I don’t think it’s enough anymore to say: We’re not involved in these particular factories,” Sapriel said.

Many clothing brands were quick to distance themselves from the five factories that were housed in Rana Plaza. The building, which was not designed for industrial use and had three illegally-added levels, collapsed April 24.

Benetton said none of the factories were its authorized suppliers, although Benetton labels were found in the rubble. Spain’s Mango said it hadn’t bought clothing from Rana Plaza factories but acknowledged it had been in talks with one factory to produce a test batch of clothing.

German clothing company KiK said it was “surprised, shocked and appalled” to learn its t-shirts and tops were found in the rubble. The company said it stopped doing business with the Rana Plaza factories in 2008. It promised an investigation.

Wal-Mart said there was no authorized production of its clothing lines at Rana Plaza but it was investigating whether there was unapproved subcontracting. Swedish retailer H&M, the single largest customer of Bangladeshi garment factories, said none of its clothes were produced there.

The Walt Disney Co. in March responded to publicity from last year’s fire at the Tazreen factory, where its branded clothing was found, by pulling out of Bangladesh production altogether.

Only a few companies, including Britain’s Primark and Canada’s Loblaw Inc., which owns the Joe Fresh clothing line, have acknowledged production at Rana Plaza and promised compensation. Loblaw’s CEO said there were 28 other brands and retailers using the five factories and urged them to end their “deafening silence.”

Companies that are downplaying involvement in Bangladesh’s factory safety problems may be counting on the short memories of Western consumers, who tend to focus on price and may not even check where a piece of clothing has been made. But that’s a risky strategy, said Rahul Sharma, public affairs executive with the India-based public relations firm Genesis Burston-Marsteller.

“Reputation is built over a long period of time. But to lose it, it can take seconds,” Sharma said. Even companies that do make efforts to ensure they use only factories with good safety records are now at risk of being lumped in with the problems that are rife in Bangladesh’s garment industry, he said.

Sharma said that if he were advising any retailer doing business in Bangladesh, he would recommend swift action in the form of a concrete plan to overhaul the entire industry, working with government, factory owners and labor unions.

“They need to send out the message that they are addressing this problem — and then they need to actually do it,” he said.

In the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse, there have been tentative moves to do that. Last week, the Bangladeshi garment association met with representatives of 40 garment buyers including H&M, JC Penny, Gap, Nike, Li & Fung and Tesco.

Others have called for retailers and brands to now embrace a union-proposed plan for all retailers to fund factory upgrades and independent inspections that would cover the entire industry in Bangladesh.

That plan has previously been rejected by all but two major brands as too expensive for the corporations and Bangladesh’s responsibility to fix its own problems. PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, and German retailer Tchibo were willing to sign up.

But with the latest disaster, a potential loss of reputation could be far more expensive in the long run.

“There is a perception when something terrible like this happens, that crisis communication is going to fix it,” Sapriel said. “But no, no. You have to go and fix the problem. And then, only then, can you can communicate that you’ve done something to fix the problem.” By Associated Press

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Horse meat scandal dominating the front pages

“Told my mate I had a hot date with an Italian Stallion – sounds a lot better than saying I’m sitting at home eating a Findus lasagne for one.” And so the Tweets went on…

The horse meat scandal has led the news agenda for weeks. First discovered in frozen burgers bought from supermarket giants including Tesco, products containing up to 100 per cent horse meat have subsequently been found in food heading for school dinners, served up to Britain’s incarcerated and rolled up into meatballs and plated up in Ikea’s restaurants. The story has rumbled on with food producers, distributors, food regulators and the Government taking their turn in the hot seat about the lack of accountability down and up the food chain.

When faced with a crisis it is difficult not to react with fear and anxiety. The speed at which news (bad news in particular) is spread on social media means it’s all the more important to have crisis plans in place and to react speedily and sensibly – not hastily. The need for crisis management has never been greater for the food industry. So what does the horse meat scandal tell us about the right and wrong ways to handle a crisis?

The right way:
Let’s take supermarket giant Tesco, which had products containing horse meat for sale in their stores. They put well planned crisis management straight into action, initiating a product recall, putting full page adverts in the press and using their website to explain to customers exactly what was happening and what they were doing about the problem.

• Recognise the problem. Don’t try and cover it up, pretend it’s not happening or pass the buck*.
• Be honest. Tell your customers, clients and staff what has happened and what action you are taking.
• Act quickly and be decisive. It is essential to be proactive. Get a well written statement out which tells people what has happened and what you are doing. Line up spokespeople for media request and ensure they are well briefed.
• Keep your customers, clients and staff informed. Up-date websites, statements and keep on top of social media.

• Think about getting a high ranking member of staff to issue an apology. This shows you are taking the problem seriously and dealing with it at the highest levels.

*Away from the public arena you can investigate who is to blame, but the most important initial steps are to take responsibility and show you are taking the problem seriously. In other words, manage the crisis and don’t let it manage you.

The wrong way:
Frozen food giant Findus became embroiled in the scandal after the media found out they had known for 12 days that some of their products contained 100 per cent horse meat It took them a further seven days to inform stores and pull the product from supermarket shelves.

Following news that Findus lasagne has contained as much as 100% horsemeat they have introduced new packaging.

• Findus failed to recognise size of the problem. Do not underestimate a potential crisis. Think about how the story will be picked up by the media and the impact this could have on your business.
• Findus kept quiet. Do not wait to see what media coverage there is before you respond – being reactive can be extremely detrimental and it can give out entirely the wrong message. A message that says you are trying to hide something and that you are not in control.
• They were slow to react. It’s so important to be proactive.
• Didn’t tell anyone until forced to.

There are many lessons which can be learnt from the horse meat crisis. Here are a few: Put crisis management plans in place and revisit them regularly; Make sure social media plays a part in your crisis management plan; Train and brief senior staff members who may be called upon to be company spokespeople during times of crisis.

A young child watches students play on the grounds of Arts College at Osmania University, Hyderabad, AP – India.

Striking, clear, high quality images are key to getting media coverage. Whether a photo is being sent accompanying a piece of editorial (in print or online), to be included in an advert or as part of a competition, the power of good photography should never be underestimated.

These days, it’s tempting to use “point and shoot” cameras to take photographs of the day, but unless you’re a professional then its unlikely to be publishable. It’s imperative for the image to be focused, framed properly and be lit properly. If it isn’t then a lot of media outlets won’t use it.

So no matter how good your copy, you have to supply a good quality image which relates to your copy.  No image or a badly taken photograph which is too low resolution will seriously deplete your chances of getting media coverage. Granted, social media does not require as high a resolution image as print, but te same principles apply – images are the first thing to either entice or turn away a reader.

Picture editors (and news editors) look for well written, clear copy and original images. Steer clear of overtly branded photos, cheque presentations or handshake photographs. Make sure your photo gets a clear message across so avoid over-populated photographs.

Photo captions are a must when supplying imagery to photo editors and it’s important to give a left-right of first and second names of people in the photograph. Always make sure you have the right permissions to publish the photo – from the photographer to parents of any children featured in the image.

Finally, when commissioning a photographer, make sure you request that all photos are shot both portrait and landscape. Some images may work better one way but depending on space in the relevant publication or website, offering images in both layouts could guarantee you coverage due to offering flexibility.

Getty Images

Lance Armstrong. Those two words which have thrown the sporting world into turmoil. A legend was built up around the man who many people thought had fought cancer and not only survived, but achieved the ultimate physical feat by winning the Tour de France seven times. The now disgraced sportsman is finally getting his comeuppance after years of illegal doping and strenuous denials, which left many of us – including me – feeling sorry for the man who beat cancer only to face a barrage of accusations. It’s only recently that the scale of the cover-up – the manipulation and calculation – has come to light.

Just this week Nike pulled the plug on the lucrative endorsement deal with the sportsman. In a statement Nike said: “Due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade, it is with great sadness that we have terminated our contract with him. Nike does not condone the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in any manner.” Nike did, however, decide to continue to support Armstrong’s cancer charity, Livestrong. The move followed a 202 page report by the US Anti Doping Agency which detailed the evidence stacked irrefutably against Armstrong.

In an effort to head-off any more bad press, Armstrong and his team issued his own announcement on the same day as Nike’s decision to axe him as brand ambassador. Armstrong said: “I have had the great honour of serving as this foundation’s [Livestrong] chairman for the last five years and its mission and success are my top priorities,” he said on the Livestrong blog. “Today therefore, to spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career, I will conclude my chairmanship.”

RadioShack, who backed Armstrong’s since 2009, have also severed ties with the Texan. Oakley are also reviewing their relationship with Armstrong and he faces being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. What is astounding is that – despite being caught out for years of pretending everyone else was out to sully his character and reputation – Armstrong is still seemingly unable to hold his hands up and admit that he did cheat. Armstrong may have reached the heady heights of legendary status, but the legend itself proved to be nothing more than a myth.

Tailor your pitches. Don’t send out mass emails. Every single one doesn’t have to be completely unique but at the very least top and tail your pitch accordingly. Sometimes you get an outright “no”, but other times it falls into the abyss of unwanted emails.

Pitch to the relevant person. Make sure you email it to the correct person – sending emails to generic email addresses is fairly pointless.

Follow up with a telephone call. People are harder to ignore than emails. Phone up the relevant person and alert them to your email and re-pitch it on the telephone explaining things in more detail.

Timing is crucial. This is difficult because the news agenda can change within a matter of minutes, but what you can do is check to see what’s being broadcast and printed. If there are big events coming up like the Olympics then don’t expect to get anything into the media.

Be patient. Something which is not my strong point, but patience does help. If a reporter is busy it might take them a while to get back to you, so don’t be tempted to send five emails in two days and demand a response.

Where’s the story? It’s essential to pitch something which is a story. Clients often think their news is a story, but something which is news to them may not translate to the media – it’s your job to manage their expectations.

Don’t assume publication. Even if your pitch is accepted it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be published or aired. This can be down to a number of things, like for example, a changing news agenda.

Link building makes a big difference in the search engine rankings. Well written, catchy headlines always draw people in whether it is a commercial, a billboard or on the internet. Much like journalism, the headline of your website and the summary content or the first par should hook the audience in and make them want to read on and engage further with your website.

Aside from the webpage content, blogging can also help to build links – especially when the blog is about something which is in the news or being talked about. Guest blogging can also be a good way of building links to your website. Utilising social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn also increase web traffic.

When a user enters a query into a search engine, the search engine needs to determine how to return the best results. The search engine returns pages on the web which are related in any way to the query, but this can bring up mixed results and they are not always the ones you were looking for. The key is to evaluate which of the pages that relate to the query are the most important, or the most authoritative in regard to that query. One of the biggest factors in deciding that is the link profile of the site containing the web page being evaluated, and the link profile of that page itself. 

In principle, each link to a web page is seen as a vote for that web page. In simple terms, if there are two pages that are equally relevant to a given search query, the page with the better inbound link profile will rank higher than the other page.

Three things to remember are:

• Relevance. If the link comes from a site that is on the same topic as your website site (or a closely related topic), than that link is worth more than links which come from a site with an unrelated topic.
• Authority. Within any given market space there are sites that are considered by the search engine as authoritative. 
• Trust. Search engines attempt to measure how much they trust a site. If a site is highly trusted, its vote will count for more than if it is not that trusted. A trusted site will also tend to have higher rankings on related search phrases. Does the website have other trusted sites link to it? Links from trusted sites improve the trust score of the site and page receiving the links.

I said PR as I see it, is what looks into the ‘human element’ running corporations, building on that knowledge to enhance productivity from that angle on behalf of the client who solicits their services. Bureaucracies generally appear rather faceless, nonhuman and represent institutionalism. This, in a way is what the novelist Franz Kafka explores in The Castle.  Yet, I said all institutions are run by humans, and therefore to build better relations between corporations and their stakeholders, the ‘human element’ needs to be better understood; and communications that deliver an effective result need to be built and maintained for this purpose.

The response was that my take on PR sounded interesting and my outlook had some newness. However it was not exactly the crux of defining the PR industry which involves many lines of services. But nevertheless that is what I conceived as Corporate PR. My layman understating on the subject may not have been ‘spot on’; but I don’t think it was altogether meaningless either.

Corporate PR as I learnt in that conversation is centrally to do with matters relating to the ‘reputation and image’ of clients. It’s about ‘building and guarding’ reputations I was told. The crux of it of course is made on the basis of ‘brand imaging’ which is central in the subject of marketing, of which I have very limited exposure.

Reputations can be built of organisations, corporations, and institutions. But these intangible ‘reputations and images’ are nevertheless the result of people and their efforts to create goods, services which become ‘reputable’. Hence why Corporate PR schemes include ‘profiling’ the personalities behind the success of the company through print and electronic media. I feel this aspect of a PR plan touches on the ‘human element’ of corporations and circumspectly aids profiteering, as a more ‘trustable image’ of the otherwise opaque bureaucracy is communicated to the public or in more marketing oriented terminology –the ‘consumers’ or ‘targeted market’.

Written by Dilshan Boange for The Nation 

EX has tapped into a rare gap in the market, a section of society that doesn’t want to be reminded that we are still in a recession because they have a disposable income. It’s packed full of fashion, gardening tips, chef-talk, sections for petrol heads, military enthusiasts, time keepers and Olympic athletes. It’s fresh and modern and not weighed down with talk of cream teas and pasties (admittedly there is one mention of cream teas, but when it comes from Liam Tancock who are we to argue). The point is, it doesn’t treat its Westcountry readers as if they have never travelled further afield than Cornwall or Dorset. It’s a reflection of where Exeter is now and in my opinion, that’s why so many people are connecting with it.