| Learning PR lessons from the BNP |
| Tuesday, 10 August 2010 05:04 |
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The recent media melee regarding British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin's invitation to attend the Queen's Garden Party raises several big questions for Public Relations practitioners. When planning any event every PR professional knows the importance of getting the guest list right and the risks of getting it wrong. When the invitations come from a highly profiled person, and there surely cannot be one higher than the Queen in the UK, any mistake made gets doubly amplified – in much the same way as if a high-level stakeholder is missed off any guest list. Nick Griffin represents one of those PR conundrums that can cause serious headaches, split once happy PR teams and drive rifts between PR agencies and their clients.The big question is, do you invite a legitimate guest who is likely to cause problems by attending? And in this case, the problems arose simply through him being invited. Nick Griffin is a legitimately and democratically elected representative of the UK population – he also represents a side of British politics that many simply cannot abide, find utterly distasteful and will not share a platform with; let alone a cup of tea and cucumber sandwich. So on the one hand the PR professional is faced with a bona fide stakeholder and on the other a potential PR nightmare. What's more, and especially in this case, if the decision is taken not to invite the person, then there's the risk of them running to the press to make hay while the sun shines with the aim of casting dark clouds across your event. Anyone looking at Nick Griffin's name on the Garden Party invitation list would have spotted the potential for problems. His track record of exploiting media opportunities, and the media's every willing complicit willingness to play ball, should have alerted Buckingham Palace's PR department to the risk – but what could they do? If other Members of the European Parliament where to be invited, how could he be left off? I faced a virtually parallel situation with a client last year. The client is a publicly funded organisation and wanted to make all relevant stakeholders aware of its track record of successful service delivery to the public. We drew up a multi-pronged strategy of promotion that included a media campaign, direct mail, presentation events and one to one briefings with senior stakeholders that included MPs and MEPs. We then faced had to address the issue of our newly elected MEP for Yorkshire who represents the BNP. Did we invite him or not? As a representative of the electorate he was a legitimate stakeholder; what's more, he could have been voted in by people who well may have used my client's services and to not invite him could be interpreted as disenfranchising them. The BNP was already making media headlines about not being treated the same as other political parties, which was a risk we did not want to take. On the other hand, inviting him would throw up problems. In preparation we did some scenario scanning and took soundings from other stakeholders. Officially the line being taken by other parties was that we could invite the BNP member. Unofficially it was clear that some people we wished to influence simply would not turn up to the same event if the BNP was in attendance. We also knew that if the BNP were at our event, in very multi-cultural city, then there was the risk of demonstrations against them, which would completely ruin our objectives. On top of that, we had a client with personal and professional views that were completely at odds with the aims of the BNP. The client brief was clear – invite the BNP by all means, but don't expect us to be nice to them! In the end we convinced our client that the best thing to do was in fact offer an invitation to the BNP, one that would be in parity with other elected stakeholders. Instead of staging one event where they were all to be briefed, we provided a selection off dates from which the elected members could attend small group or one-to-one briefings. This gave us the opportunity of moving people around to as to manage potential conflict. The BNP responded to our invitation and requested more information about the organisation and the objective of the events. By this time, we had confirmed briefings with six of Sheffield's sitting MPs – the only other MP, Nick Clegg, even then, was unavailable to join us. Yorkshire has two MEPs and our other one had yet to get back to us. If we had not invited the BNP we would have placed ourselves in a powerless position and would have lost control of the event. Keeping quiet, crossing our fingers and hoping that no one would notice was not a strategic option – no matter how unpalatable the alternative. We could have taken a political/ethical standpoint and publicly stated we would not invite someone with far right views, as the client serves a very multi-cultural community who would be disgusted at such an invitation. However, our client also potentially serves people who may have voted BNP – which is something we could never know. What we did know is that a non-invite would give the BNP the oxygen of publicity it is so adept at exploiting. Unfortunately for the BNP MEP, by the time his office had got round to selecting a date for a briefing, all of those that were available had been taken up. We then suggested that another date could be considered, but this turned out to be unnecessary as the MEP did not respond to our invitation, opting instead for us sending information to him about the organisation. The reality is that the BNP and other stakeholders will not go away. If you or your client are in the public eye, are in any way accountable to the public and you need to engage with senior elected stakeholders then you cannot afford to overlook the problems that invitations to events can b.ring. Nick Griffin was always going to exploit his invitation to walk the greens of Buckingham Palace. He was given the media opportunity and took it with both hands, making great capital out of the situation, if all but fleetingly. No doubt the Garden Party went well, and there were no demonstrations outside the gates to embarrass the Queen and her guests. On a smaller, but equally important level to my client, we managed to directly brief in person the majority of elected stakeholders, used the meetings to generate media coverage in Sheffield and Westminster and started some meaningful relationships with senior decision makers as a result. Creating a guest list is always a balancing act, one that takes time and consideration to make sure the event goes well before, during and afterwards. As galling as it may be, stakeholders with unsavoury opinions are stakeholders nonetheless and have to be considered as such – how you manage the relationship to profitable ends is another matter all together. 
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