Massaging the Message—What the State of the Union Can Teach Us about Business Communications
It’s the day after the State of the Union, and the airways are crammed with political prognostications as well as the usual Monday morning quarterbacking. To offer a fresh alternative, we thought we’d stay focused on the present and ask leading communication experts to reflect on the basic communications challenge President Obama faced in giving his big speech: How do you adjust or modify an agenda before an audience after your initial agenda has run into roadblocks?
It’s a challenge businesses face, too. How do you change course from an initiative—a new product or service perhaps, or a program of internal change—that hasn’t proven as popular or profitable as you’d hoped? How do you take a tarnished brand in a hopeful, new direction? What balance do you strike between acknowledging the legitimate concerns of your audience and reaffirming your own core principles?
Al Jackson of the Chandler Chicco Agency emphasizes the importance of sticking with your core message, even as you give ground around the minutiae in articulating a change. Noting that health care is emblematic of the Obama administration’s challenges, he suggests that Obama remind us of the principle at the core of health care reform while steering clear of all the details that can cause discord. “If you’re going to shift off something,” Jackson remarks, “don’t announce it. Don’t say, ‘we were wrong.’ Instead, talk about the basic good you were trying to achieve. Whether it’s the President talking to the nation or a CEO talking to an audience of clients, help the audience feel listened to by acknowledging process mistakes and promising change in those areas. That’s always helpful.” Jackson stresses the importance of assessing whether the initiative in question goes to core values. “If it’s not core to the candidate or brand, then you can just move away and let it go. Otherwise, you need to reaffirm the core principles in some way.”
For Rob Mathias, President of Ogilvy Washington, one thing Obama is doing right these days is remembering with whom he needs to 
communicate—the independents who elected him. “That’s an important lesson. As a candidate or a business, you go astray when you’re not talking to the right people.” And for many brands, those people are going to be more moderate than the hard-core users. “You’ve got to remove the rhetoric, the hard line, and start talking about compromise and a willingness to find a third way. That’s what Obama has been doing.” Mathias derives from this another important communications lesson for business: Agility. “You’ve got to constantly assess and reassess your target markets and respond accordingly. American automakers couldn’t do that, and look what happened to them. And then there are companies like Google and Apple who are not only listening to their markets, but also leading them. So be respectful of your market, and be sophisticated in understanding them.”
David Fuscus, CEO and president of Xenophon Strategies, looks at the very institution of the State of the Union as holding lessons for business. Businesses, he says, should look for their own opportunities to kick off and shape agendas in dramatic ways. “Business tends to be less proactive, less willing to create news on a constant basis. They tend to wait until there’s a big problem or opportunity.” A better approach would be to “engage in media management to ensure that companies are actively creating—and controlling—news on an ongoing basis.” Apple, Fuscus notes, is great at this; Steve Jobs’ industry speeches are to some extent analogous to the State of the Union. “The State of the Union marks the next phase or evolution of the administration, and likewise, companies should mark the next phase of ‘us, what we’re working on, doing, how we’re driving change.”
Changing or adjusting course mid-stream is never easy. Yet challenges like this present great opportunities for us to add value for clients in need of strategic guidance. With public relations executives occupying seats in corporate boardrooms like never before, we can offer better solutions by making full use of our expertise as both political and business communicators. The lessons here are clear: Listen to and respect your audience. Moderate your message. Take a firm hand in laying an agenda for the future. Whether or not the President’s State of the Union is a success, the position he is in after the last election’s “shellacking” offers us much to think about.
Obama’s message needs to play to people’s higher ideals and aspirations– and not fear. He needs to continue his message of hope and understanding–particularly to the people who are still hurting in this great recession. Presidents as communicators have a tall order– they need to address the immediate challenges of the day– jobs, the economy and our place in the world. They are also concerned with their place in history (something most of us do not need to worry about). Stay on message. Stay uplifting. To paraphrase FDR– try everything. Downplay fear that most paralizing of human emotions. Use this as an opportunity for change. This is the message.
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A couple of other good refresher lessons I took away from the SOTU speech:
1 – Involve your audience personally and use anecdotes to reinforce key messages (e.g., his reference to Joe Biden growing up in a blue collar family in Allentown and John Boehner sweeping the floor at his father’s bar in Cincinnati). Both were great examples, and visuals, of Obama’s message that it is possible to achieve anything in the US.
2 – Never underestimate the holding power of a memorable, quotable phrase (e.g., ‘What matters is not so much where we all sit tonight, but where we all stand tomorrow’…. in reference to Rs and Ds sitting together instead of divided.)
3 – Don’t let the crisis of the moment divert too much attention from your overall big picture (he respectfully acknowledged Congresswoman Giffords’ absence very early on, and then moved on to address other issues).