PR Archives - Clapperton Media

“No Comment” is something people often say when they don’t want journalists to write anything.

It doesn’t work. When lead trainer Guy was a very young journalist the chair of a major technology company told him he didn’t want to comment on something and he didn’t want to see that coming out as “NAME declined to comment” either.

At the tender age of 24 or so, Guy allowed himself to be pushed into this and didn’t put it in. Which was wrong as stating that the chair had declined to comment would have been a perfectly accurate statement of what took place in the conversation.

The chair in question was presumably savvy enough to realise that “no comment” never sounds completely neutral. Here’s a short video with another example – seriously, try never to say it. It really doesn’t work.

It always amazes us at Clapperton Media that so many people think they can ad lib a media interaction and go without interview prep. The same people who will rehearse and prep a presentation that’s going to go to 200 people in a hall will cheerfully claim they know what they want to say to the press (when they will effectively be talking to thousands) and they don’t prepare.

It will stagger you, no really, stagger you, that this approach can often go wrong. A question comes in that doesn’t suit your agenda exactly. Your tone doesn’t suit the occasion completely. The instant rapport you imagined you’d have with the journalist just isn’t happening. It is all told a bit of a nightmare.

We knew one PR professional whose client had exactly that attitude going in – didn’t need support. They spent an hour with the journalist and it didn’t go well. They came out of the meeting, called the PR person and said they didn’t want the interview to go out. They were then stunned to find out that the PR person had no power or authority (and let’s be honest, no inclination) to prevent the publication of an interview that had been given willingly. It wasn’t paid-for content so there was nothing to be done about stopping the write-up, which then wasn’t pretty when it appeared.

Interview prep needs taking seriously

A variant on this is the person who just doesn’t take it seriously. The PR people have prepared a document and the executive who’s going in front of the press intends to read it, honestly, and might even have glanced at it before the event. But they don’t give it enough time so they’re not on top of the figures, the latest research, the journalist’s readers and therefore how they can connect with them.

Clapperton Media Training works with many PR companies, some regularly and some on one-off bases. We often hear from them that their biggest frustration is the client that takes the prep documents and almost immediately discards them. Clients are busy people, they get that – but seriously, those prep documents are gold dust and invaluable – take them to heart, you’ll do a better interview.

Sometimes a media training session will leave you uncomfortable. As trainers we might have to tell you that you’re talking nonsense. On one occasion lead trainer Guy was called in precisely because the PR company involved thought their client needed to hear it.

Client confidentiality still applies so there will be no names here. The company offered a variety of legal forms online.

During the first dummy interview Guy asked who the service was aimed at.

The directors explained it was aimed at everybody. Everybody would need a form at some point.

OK, said Guy. But nothing is aimed at everybody.

“You just don’t get it,” came the reply. “We can aim this at everybody because everyone needs a legal form at some point.”

Media training and reality

He didn’t resolve that issue to his satisfaction and the client didn’t listen which was a shame, because the concept itself was good. Sadly the client wouldn’t listen to the question so they missed out.

Here’s the thing. The fact that a product or service could in theory apply universally doesn’t mean that’s going to happen in reality.

Let’s take food as an obvious example. If we don’t eat, we die. This is why companies like Tesco employ well over 300,000 people according to Statista (the actual number may fluctuate but we can agree “loads”). A quick Google suggests around 100,000 people fewer work for Sainsbury’s but it’s still a vast number.

Even with that many people and providing something as essential as food, however, neither company believes it sells to literally everybody. Of course those numbers don’t reflect the people in marketing but those numbers will be significant too.

So we get back to Guy’s client with the 30-odd staff in total, believing the team could and would sell to literally everybody. No journalist or other media professional would take that seriously. The marketing wouldn’t stack up, the website would almost certainly crash because of the sheer numbers and for all sorts of other reasons “everybody” can’t be a client unless you’re in central government. The PR company that commissioned Guy actually asked him to make this point because they’d tried and the client didn’t listen to them either. The underlying problem was that the client wanted the PR function and media to amplify the message unchallenged.

This isn’t how it works at best. If you get a media trainer in, it’s really worth listening. A good one won’t help you formulate and articulate just any old thing. They’ll test your message, prod it and find holes. It’s a friendly face doing it rather than a hostile journalist who’s going to go away and write.

It’s a very valuable exercise but only if you’re going to listen. We’re here to help – if you’re in PR and your client needs putting through their media paces, we’d love to hear from you – click here for our contact page.

You know when they told you at school that in an exam you should include the question within the body of your answer? Here’s why it works in media interviews too.