Caution: May Contain Traces of Humour
This you have to hear. Tune in to John Varley, CEO of Barclays Group with Greg Wood on the Today programme this morning. Marvel at how he kicks off with his key messages then reels off statistics and context and makes it sound as if Barclays is a huge cuddly charity, there to make the world a better place. Brilliant!
Why the Beeb are running something this glossy and well-made to an 0915 audience of the infirm, housebound and benefits-cheats taking the week off work, is a question every license payer should ask. Its PSB (public service broadcasting) gone mad!
But seriously. I’m riveted at the difference between Asda’s* briliant handling of their film about some substandard frozen food on Monday; and on Tuesday, Somerfields’roasting in a 45 minute Kleenex weepy about a hard grafting supplier loosing his livelihood at the whim of a Somerfield buyer.
In the Monday film – which the BBC were spoon fed by the GMB union, with whom Asda have a running spat – Asda engaged the film makers head-on. It meant we were either hearing Asda’s key points in Sally Magnusson’s commentary, or in vision in punchy sound bites from a top Asda executive; who just happened to be: female, nice looking, broad Yorkshire, articulate, a mum and yes, shops at Asda. By ‘eck you’d have to be a GMB shop steward not to have been convinced by her oopnorth tell it like it is candour.
But on Tuesday we watched a lettuce farmer going down the pan, every nail wrenching step. Somerfields had cancelled his crop while it was already thrusting leafy rabbit ears towards the Worcestershire sky, a testimony to a lifetime of yeoman husbandry. We saw every pleading phone-call, his Kiplingesque nobility, his apologies for the fury he felt; every pain scratched feature of his family was there, and how we felt for them.
Unlike Asda, Somerfields bogged it or didn’t see it coming. They just banged out a holding statement. Usual guff. Can’t talk about individual cases … enjoy good relations with our suppliers etc etc. Bollox. Nul points to Somerfields.
Rule 101: If you are the recipient of public money or public trust, engage, engage, engage.
* My client.