Karan Chadda

Digital experience, marketing analytics, and AI

Kumbaya Capitalism

Modish proponents of Purpose have distilled snake oil from a worthy idea.

From its noble beginnings, Purpose has fallen. Like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), good intentions have not become good deeds. But, whereas CSR was misused as a way to polish up a company’s image, Purpose is bandied around as the solution to everything from lack of trust in corporations to avoiding the hard truths of business.

The idea that businesses have a wider duty than to generate returns is nothing new. Quaker founded businesses such as Cadbury and Rowntree were thinking about their workers as well as the bottom line back in the 19th century. That thinking wasn’t limited to Quakers. In India, Jamsetji Tata helped not only to build India’s industrial base but its culture of corporate philanthropy too.

The current trend towards having a purpose began with brand consultants talking about companies having a noble or higher purpose. The idea being that you work on something greater than yourself and, in doing so, you create a brilliant company (i.e. we don’t make cars, we help people see the world). For those developing brands, this was a great idea. Brand development is all about what a company is and how it goes about doing what it does.

Responding at the speed of emotion

But then purpose started to trickle into the hands of marketers and PRs. Conversations went from being about having a purpose to demonstrating purpose. Latching on to the vogue-ish idea that emotion sells, purpose was used to anthropomorphise corporations. All of a sudden companies cared deeply about you, wanted to know you and wanted you to love them.

The touchy-feely stuff is great but it ignores two fundamentals of business. The first is that businesses cannot respond at the speed of emotion. It’s all well and good being loved, but when it turns out you’re ripping down forests or involved in sweatshops or underpaying staff, you can’t fix that problem faster than people will stop loving you. Relationships require an instant response and most businesses aren’t set up to deliver that.

Purpose before profit?

The second problem is that the markets don’t buy emotion. Unilever, the standard bearer for a new way to do business, learned this lesson the hard way. When Kraft Heinz came in with an offer to buy the firm, management had to offer shareholders a lot of concessions to avoid being sold, including greater cost cutting and a sharper focus on profitability. The brutal truth is that whatever your purpose, you still need to make money.

Simon Sinek and other modish TED talkers will glibly tell you to, “start with why.” But that advice is delivered out of context. Because along with your why, are other whys. Your investors’ why might be to get a good return on their investment. Your customers’ why might be because you’re the cheapest or most efficient or coolest. You can’t run a company in a vacuum.

Google famously seeks to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible. A noble goal. Imagine how far it would have got if it didn’t make mountains of cash by dominating digital advertising. Too many people talk about putting purpose before profits, but by weird coincidence most of the companies used as examples of purpose make a healthy profit and have been doing so for quite some time.

And there’s the rub. Corporations are like wealthy city-dwellers going to minimalist retreats, singing kumbaya and being mindful, all the while ignoring the inconvenient fact that their expensive spiritual weekend was paid for by selling things for money.

So beware the snake oil salesmen with their kumbaya capitalism. True purpose must run through every fibre of your firm. It should inform what you do and how you do it. Those decisions are made in the boardroom, not the PR department.

Getting on with getting on

Last night, I was part of a panel discussing career progression for BAME PR practitioners. The event was organised by the Taylor Bennett Foundation who do excellent work on diversity and, right at the outset, I’d encourage you to help fund their work.

The discussion was wide ranging but centred on some core areas.

A double whammy of Imposter syndrome

It came up towards the end, but I’ll start with imposter syndrome because it was probably the most personal of all the issues raised. Often, when we talk about diversity or careers in general, we discuss things in quite a broad way and there’s a risk that we fail to fully appreciate that we’re really talking about people’s lives.

Someone asked a question about the challenges of not easily fitting in at work and, by choosing a career that’s not traditional within your community, not necessarily fitting in at home either. There is no simple way to address this but the feeling that you don’t really belong is almost universal. If you read a few autobiographies, whether they’re by sportspeople, business people or politicians, you’ll see countless references to fears of not fitting in at work, or with lifelong friends or at home.

The only solid advice on tackling this is to talk to people and let them know how you feel.

Social diversity

This issue cropped up repeatedly. It’s great that we’re getting more BAME candidates into the industry but are we mainly getting the middle class ones? PR is a pretty middle class profession anyway, so where’s the change going to come from? The idea was mooted that we should be more aggressive in pursuing greater social diversity, for example, instead of applauding those who pay interns, perhaps we should call out those who do not. Naming and shaming isn’t something that fills me with joy, but I think it’s a good idea in this instance.

Unconscious bias

There were questions about whether recruiters and those for whom they recruit are susceptible to unconscious bias. Of course, we all are in some area or another but perhaps the hiring process needs addressing. Are terms like “good cultural fit” being interpreted as “people like me”? It’s a thorny issue but one that can be addressed by employers explicitly demanding more diverse shortlists.

Mentoring and support

The importance of mentoring, building networks (of friendship and support) and helping others was emphasised. It’s important to note that your mentor needn’t be the most senior person you know. If you’re an account executive, an account director who you admire could be a great mentor and really help you focus on progressing your career.

Having a network doesn’t mean you have to start networking. It’s the support element that’s important. You should have friends in the industry who you help and who can help you with advice. This is also goes a long way to tackling imposter syndrome.

Good advice for all

You’ll recognise that much of the above is not rocket science nor particularly specific to BAME PR practitioners. It is just good advice.

Copy and paste culture

The lack of creativity across marketing and PR is a common complaint from clients and agency heads.

We’re meant to create campaigns that get people talking or thinking. Sometimes those people are consumers, sometimes they’re business owners or MPs or budget holders or whatever the target market is. We want them to repeat our messages, take on our opinions and buy our products. We help define the language people use in different sectors and across the country.

But right now, we’re forging a copy and paste culture. Too many campaigns are predicated not on insight but on received wisdom. These campaigns are then put through the creative sausage factory of brainstorms and senior people’s whims and out the other end pop tried and tested, and wholly unoriginal, tactics.

Here are three examples, from corporate to consumer, of some of the tactics that have become lazy and second-hand excuses for real thinking.

Economic contribution

Not a day goes by without a company or a sector stating how much they’re worth the UK PLC. The monetary value is always in the billions, the number of jobs is, at a minimum, many tens of thousands, and then there’s usually something about the total contribution to the Exchequer.

Like pieces of the True Cross, if collected together these economic contributions would add up to a sum greater than the whole.

Every time a minister speaks at a conference, they duly spout out the stats as a reason why that particular sector is so important to the nation. For a moment, everyone feels good.

But feeling good and doing something are two completely different things. If every sector makes a significant contribution, then no one stands out.

It was clever the first time someone did it; now it’s just tired. Let’s leave the final word on this tactic to Chris Giles, the FT’s economics editor:

Our survey said

From large polls of businesses to ropey Survey Monkey questionnaires, business-to-business campaigns often resort to opinion polling to drum up an interesting angle where none exist.

The problem with many is that, even after that is done there is still no interesting angle; worse they overstate what they have happened to have found. A poll of 100 self-selecting small business owners is hawked out to the press as representative of the opinions of entrepreneurs. No one notices them, no one trusts them but agencies pitch them, clients approve them and journalists write about them in a dull circle of mediocrity.

Awareness days

Why stop at days? There are awareness weeks, months and years too. A handful have become iconic. World Book Day is a stonking success. It’s played a key role in lifting sales of children’s books and made a massive contribution to childhood literacy. However, British Sandwich Week or British Pie Week are just boring attempts to fill a few more well-fed bellies.

These awareness days might lead to a temporary sales bump but will they lead to a sustained increase in sales? Of course not. Can anyone remember when these weeks are? Can you remember the companies that promote them? They’re like wallpaper, occasionally noticed but always unremarked, while other more interesting campaigns hold people’s attention.

When you take a step back and look at these tactics, it’s obvious that they’re void of creativity and likely to be ineffective yet they persist.

We’re unthinkingly creating a copy and paste culture.

I said, we’re unthinkingly creating a copy and paste culture

Inside the mind of the mediocre opinion writer

There’s no shortage of opinion online. From established media outlets to blogs (including this one) there’s a cornucopia of opinion. It’s often said that everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but that doesn’t mean all opinions are equal.

Let’s delve into the minds of polemicists and commentators and look at some of the rhetorical tricks they resort to when they’re pushing opinions that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Whataboutery

In the debate about the anti-Trump protests in the UK, whataboutery is the weapon of choice of those who disagree with the protests. Arguments such as, “Why didn’t they march against the state visits from Saudi Arabia or China?” are put forward by almost everyone questioning the marches and the petition seeking to stop Donald Trump having a full state visit.

Superficially, it is a simple and powerful argument. It doesn’t, however, address any of the issues raised by protestors. It’s simply deflection by comparison.

It can also blow up in your face as Piers Morgan learnt recently in an interview with Owen Jones.

Straw man

Can’t knock down your opponent’s argument? How about attributing an argument to them that you can knock down? The straw man is a newspaper column staple. Just say those you disagree with believe something they don’t and then spend a few hundred words taking it apart.

Anecdote

Ever lacked decent evidence to back up your point? Why not simply recount a personal anecdote and scale it up to a societal insight? Had a bad meal in a chain restaurant? Your experience can’t be unique. Why not scale it up to a problem with that chain in general? Be suspicious of anyone using anecdotes for anything but colour.

Circular reasoning

Having difficulty building your argument? Why not start by presenting your conclusion and then working backwards from there? This way you can pre-load any supporting premise with assumptions that make it support your point. It also embeds your argument and then everything reinforces it. Even though it’s really weak.

False dichotomy

Life can be a lot easier if everything is black and white, good or bad, right or wrong. Life is rarely that simple, and neither are arguments about it. Why not make it simple? Indeed, why not present two options as if they are the only options and then argue your point? Make sure the two options you offer are reasonable (yours) and totally ridiculous (the one you’ll compare yours to).

Ad hominem attacks

If you can’t take down the argument, take down your opponents. Is there something dodgy about them? No? Pick something and make it dodgy, suggest they’re “too clever by half” or that people “have had enough or experts”.

Slippery slope

Object to a small change in something? Don’t want to look unreasonably upset about an insignificant tweak? What if it’s not a tweak? What if it’s the beginning of an all out assault that irrevocably ruins the world? Make a mountain out of a molehill.

Think of the children

Trying to argue about something that most sensible adults would take no issue with? What about children? Why is no one worried about the children? Drag in the children. Who’s going to beat you in an argument when you’ve constructed rhetorical human shield of children?

This is by no means a comprehensive list. What rhetorical tricks do you regularly notice in opinion pieces? Which ones wind you up the most?

Diversity in PR: access and progression

Last week, the CIPR announced its board for the coming year and the next day PRCA published its annual report. I won’t dress up my observation. Take a look at either the CIPR board or at the PRCA’s board of management and you’ll not see an ethnic minority.

In announcing its board, the CIPR said, “Board members represent the full spectrum of the UK’s public relations workforce…” Really? It’s depressing the CIPR believes that.

You might ask why this matters? It matters because these two organisations not only represent public relations, they also shape the profession’s conversations about itself. In fairness to the PRCA and CIPR, the majority of these positions are elected; they’re not in a position to appoint who they like (although the CIPR President co-opts two members).

Slow progress

At this point, we should recognise the progress PR has made on a number of diversity-related fronts.

Back in 2005, I was a small part of the Interns’ Network, a now defunct group that campaigned for paid internships. I even spent some of my then meagre marketing budget to host a parliamentary reception with w4mp to highlight the issue. Fast-forward six years to 2011 and the PRCA began asking agencies to commit to paying the minimum wage to interns, they’ve now got 189 agencies signed up. Since then, the PRCA has broadened the campaign and led the way on apprenticeships and a number of other initiatives. Its work has materially broadened PR’s intake and increased the pool of talent available to employers.

Specifically on ethnic diversity, the Taylor Bennett Foundation and Creative Access have helped ethnic minority candidates begin their careers. Ignite, a now closed diversity in communications networking group, pushed for change and created a space where diversity could be discussed openly. Also, the CIPR’s Diversity and Inclusion Forum has been working to progress diversity on a number of fronts since 2009.

Access isn’t enough

All these initiatives have begun to make PR more diverse but my concern is that diversity seems limited to the lower rungs. There is a world of difference between access and progression. When you look at those managing agencies, for ethnic minorities role models are few and far between.

The work to widen access must continue, but alongside it we need to look at progression. If we don’t do that, a lot of the work around access will be undermined. You won’t attract the best if middle management’s the furthest they’ll reach.