Ep 138 Gov Rick Snyder Drinks Flint Water for the Media Media Training Lessons May 17, 2016

So what's the difference between a successful PR stunt and a gimmick that backfires?

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In the news, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. As you may have heard, there has been a huge scandal problem with lead in the water in Flint, Michigan, one of the poorer towns and parentally disadvantaged communities there. It's gotten a tremendous amount of negative publicity. Well, here's what the governor did. He went to Flint, Michigan and had a photo op where he's drinking the water, pledged to drink the water for 30 days. Now I can certainly imagine his advisors saying this is going to show people you care, you're responsive, you're there, you're obviously making it healthy enough. You wouldn't risk your own life. We're going to get a ton of great publicity. Well, he, he did get a lot of publicity. Some of it was positive, but a lot of it was mixed. I want to share with you some of the coverage from some of the major news outlets. Here's one that caught my eye. It was saying essentially that this is bogus of him because the problem with lead and water isn't for middle aged men. Now I always get a kick out of people saying someone in their 50s or 60s is middle aged. Well, unless you live to be 118, it's not the middle or you're old. And I put myself into that category. I am 53 unless I live to be 106, I'm not middle aged, I'm not old. But anyway, that's side diversion. The analysis of Governor Rick Schneider drinking this water is that when you're a 50, 60 year old man and you drink water with a little lead, it doesn't really matter that much because your brain is developed at least as much as it can. Your bones are developed, your immune system is developed. So if there are impurities in your system, it's not going to hurt you that much. The real problem with lead in the water is for young children, for pregnant women, that that's the real problem here. So here's some of the analysis that I want to share with you that came from one of the leading newspapers and picked up by a wire service. But Snyder could struggle to get this message across for both political and scientific reasons. His approval ratings have plummeted. And a recent poll found 44% of Michigan residents think he's doing his job poorly. Plus, because of the way lead poisoning works, an adult drinking the water doesn't tell you anything about whether it's safe for children to drink. Now, I didn't realize this. It's a little bit counterintuitive, the article continues. That's because if you have to be drinking water that's potentially laced with lead, you're least likely to suffer damage. If you are, like Snyder, a middle aged man, lead in water is particularly harmful to children whose brains are still developing, to pregnant women and to the elderly. And while lead isn't good for adults either, at too high a concentration it can cause symptoms like decreased libido, fatigue, and forgetfulness. It takes much more lead in blood to produce these effects. For children, even a few micrograms of lead can lead to developmental delays. So that's the sort of criticism so overall, was this a good PR gimmick? A backfire? How do we really judge this? I'll give my assessment in just a moment.

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Here's the thing. You have to look at every PR gimmick like this PR stunt through a lens, through the context of the larger political environment. In this political environment, Schneider is having problems with the polls. He has negative ratings by 44% of Michigan voters. Although believe me, there are a lot of presidential candidates, even with nominations in the bag, who would love to only be disliked by 44%. And I'm speaking of both parties here. But that doesn't mean if you're running low in the polls, you can't hold publicity events. Obviously, you have to do more. You've got to look at it within the context of how strongly do you think people are going to attack you? If, for example, before going into politics your main source of income was as a CEO of a company known for polluting water, doing something like this could come back to haunt you. It also depends on the party. Now Snyder is in the Republican Party, so his party faces a lot more scrutiny and, shall we say, bias from a lot of political reporters who feel that that party is anti environmental policies and messages. Doesn't mean he shouldn't do it. I just put this in the category of more of a mixed bag of maybe it helps you with some voters, maybe it hurts you with others. The question you do want to ask, I think on a regular basis before you do any kind of a PR stunt, is will you become a source of mockery? Are people going to laugh at you? By that standard? From what I've seen with Governor Rick Schneider, it did not meet that threshold. He certainly was not openly ridiculed. I didn't see lots and lots of skits on late night TV mocking him for this because that can happen from time to time if you do something too cutesy. Now this does recall certain incidents in my own career as a political consultant. I will share with you some of those details in just a moment.

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25 or so years ago I was living in North Florida at the time, had just started off doing political consulting, was working with a candidate running for the state legislature in Jacksonville, Florida. Environmentalism, that now as well as then a big issue. And we were trying to and my candidate was very, very poorly funded, did not have a lot of money, personal wealth or campaign contributions. So we thought how can we get some attention? And he was an environmentalist running on a pro environmental message. So we went to a river one day, somehow found some dead fish and got him to we held a press conference and we got him to hold up the dead fish for the cameras saying essentially vote for me and I'm going to clean up this river. So you're not going to see all these dead fish. Now as a challenge. He was a challenger unfunded, so in that particular and a Democrat who was in favor of policies that would help clean up a river. You can disagree whether those are good policies or not, but there was a lot of things that fit. He did get attention that day. He did get media coverage. He was able to attack the incumbent position himself as pro environmentalist, boost his name id, get coverage in newspapers and get local TV coverage. Now if you're a local candidate for office in a city that's not a small town, Jacksonville is not a small town. That's a pretty good thing. That's a good use of your time in a campaign day. Was it a perfect gimmick? Did he ride his way into office on that? Sadly, no. But it was a good one day hit. I don't recall any negativity coming from it and it generated a lot of goodwill, helped solidify his reputation with other environmentalists and form political allegiances and as far as I can tell, no downside. Will one good photo op get you elected these days or even back then, typically, no. It's a piece of the puzzle. And in politics you need many, many pieces. Now, in most legislative races, you still need a lot of money for direct mail and polling and other things. Yes, you can make the case at the national level if you just have a great message and you're good on Twitter. You don't necessarily need to spend all the millions. But there still has to be a structure and an organization. There has to be many pieces of the puzzle. It's hard to win political office or any other office just on the strength of a media gimmick or a stunt. But when used the right way, it can help. I'm going to give I'm sorry if this sounds wishy washy. I'm going to give a flat C to Governor Snyder with his drinking the water. It's not an F. It's not an A. Maybe that grade can be upgraded or downgraded come election day. We'll see how he does when he's on the ballot in November. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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