Maslanky + Partners

Interview: Deal with Public Fallout

Michael Maslansky provides lessons in crisis communication for Toyota, BP, and Transocean in his interview with Investors Business Daily.

It’s inevitable. Even the best companies have to learn to deal with a public crisis every now and then.

New York-based corporate communications expert Michael Maslansky, author of the new book “The Language of Trust,” says firms facing a public relations crisis must do more than they first think is necessary to protect their image.

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The Marketer’s Bookshelf: Trust In The Post-BP Era

With BP still unable to stop one of the ghastliest corporate-triggered disasters in history, it’s hard not to open a book like Michael Maslansky’s The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics (Prentice Hall Pres) with a foul taste in your mouth.

The problem, as the world’s skeptics know, isn’t what companies say. The problem is what they do.

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For Brands, Bad News Can Be Good

Companies should be honest about product, brand weaknesses.

Months ago Domino’s launched a campaign introducing a new pizza recipe by bluntly telling consumers its old product was terrible.  Showing videotaped footage from focus groups and other customer feedback, Domino’s President Patrick Doyle surrounded himself with comments about pizza that “tastes like cardboard” and is “devoid of flavor.”

The campaign was met with immediate criticism from the marketing mavens.  Many said it would only serve to highlight what non-customers dislike about Domino’s.  Or worse – that it would chase away current customers.  The result?  In early May, Domino’s announced unprecedented same-store sales increases of 14.3%.

Small Business Trends Book Review of The Language of Trust

The review starts by framing the book through the lens of Ricky Gervais’ film, Invention of Lying.

While the film was not nearly as funny as Gervais, it is a great set-up for the book and Ivana is the third person to raise it with me. Read more for her conclusions about the book, and the movie:

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In this Post-Trust Era, Credibility is Everything

Despite the fact that we’re in an age of doubt, skepticism and mistrust, corporate-speak still rules.

It’s amazing that big companies often seem tone-deaf in their routine communications with customers and other stakeholders. Sure, there’s the eternal specter of SOX compliance — adhering to the rules set forth by the corporate governance standards dictated by the Sarbanes Oxley Law — but that doesn’t preclude effective human communication without bluster, artifice or obfuscation. The big problem is that we’re still living between two realities; as savvy as some managers are about the new world of truth and transparency, there’s still a strong gravitational pull that draws them back toward the old-school happy-talk they once relied upon.

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Which “value added” programs really help advisors build their businesses?

“If you can build advisors’ confidence, that’s the biggest thing you can do, especially now because it is really tough for them to have a compelling investment philosophy. We have a lot of scared clients out there and a lot of scared FAs.”

Quote from the Financial-Planning.com article by Hung Tran.

Earn the Trust of Skeptics

Michael Maslansky’s book The Language of Trust reviewed in the Miami Herald. (more…)

Selected by CIO Insight Magazine

Michael Maslansky’s The New Language of Trust was selected by CIO Insight Magazine as one of the Best Books of Spring.

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