Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Ephraim Cohen has some excellent commentary on the role public relations should play at the senior level - providing business consulting advice in the context of reputation impact. He points out a BusinessWeek article about Toyota:

The article tells how the head of Toyota, Shoichiro Toyoda, had his new head of PR, James Olson, find out how the company should avoid angering US consumers and politicians as it made inroads in the market during the 1980s. The article briefing goes into discussion how Olson reported Toyota’s reputation as an interloper due, at least in part (the article implies), to the fact that Toyota produced very little in the US itself. What did Toyota do next? Not release bunch of news and speeches, but actually invest in building factories and creating jobs in the US. These days some argue that Toyota’s cars are more American from a manufacturing perspective than cars made by the Big 3.

Actions invariably speak louder than words. Another great example of a company actually engaging with their key stakeholders instead employing a strategy that involves nothing more than pointless rhetoric is Sunderland Football Club in the United Kingdom. The club’s chairman, Niall Quinn, has been charged with turning its fortunes around following a successful takeover in the Summer. He faces challenges on a number of fronts; the club are currently in the Championship (effectively the second rung in the Soccer league system) and the sport is suffering from the first signs of a public backlash at the cost of supporting a club due to the hikes in ticket and jersey prices.

Michael Walker reports in the Irish Times (via the Guardian news service) on Niall Quinn’s campaign to win Sunderland fans’ hearts back. (subscription required). Here’s some of the best bits from the article:

Sunderland’s chairman Niall Quinn has written to 7,000 disaffected former season-ticket holders and will begin a series of large-scale meetings with them at a local social club from next Tuesday.

“We’ve sent 7,000 letters out to lapsed season-ticket holders, people who came for a number of years, who enjoyed it here but who in the last couple of years have stayed away,” Quinn explained. “We’re saying, ‘Come back, it’s a little bit different now.’ I know they were hurt, I know they were fed up and I know the apathy that was in the air, but we’re trying to change that.”

“I’ve sent these letters out to invite them to ask me about anything that is still bothering them. I’m trying to make them understand that the club is a different place now. Any bad experiences they have had I hope will be erased and we can make them proud of their club again. We kind of get the feeling that it’s going that way, but I need the people.

“I called it a reconnection at the start and it has a chance now. We have six evenings arranged, players will be with me, a board member. It’s to show the people that it’s their club again.

“They fell out with the club but we want them back, there is a unity and a harmony now. There is a great opportunity to grow and be strong but ultimately we will only be a big club if we have 40,000-plus here every week.

“I have had my six months, I know a lot more about the whole ins and outs of what’s required. But I still revert to the one thing: 40,000 crowds and we win more games. It’s not a marketing ploy to get more money in.

Another recent decision Quinn took which shows that he has the fans, rather than the club’s coffers in mind, was to forego a televised fixture in favour of a traditional 3pm kick-off with Derby. Explaining the reasoning behind his decision, Quinn said, “Derby are top of the table and I’d much rather have a big crowd than the TV money and some people cheering us on in the pub. It’s my job to attract people back and when there’s a big crowd it helps us to win games. I know crowds are down around the country but we want something special to happen here.”

It is great to see that other clubs are taking notice of falling attendances and using the rise in television revenues to give something back to the fans - Blackburn are slashing ticket prices by 25% and Charlton have gone a step further by cutting ticket prices and promising the free season tickets to holders if the club lose their Premiership status.

Technorati Tags: Ephraim Cohen, Niall Quinn, Piaras Kelly, PR, Public Relations, Sunderland