When celebs become a problem

 

UPDATE: Since writing this piece both the Prince's Trust and the RVS have confirmed that they will no longer be working with Phillip Schofield 

You can't have missed the stories in the last week about Phillip Schofield. He was hailed for coming out by Stonewall in 2020. He initially said he was leaving This Morning but later left ITV and admitted to lying to ITV, his agents (which terminated their relationship), family and friends, about an affair with a junior staff member.

A difficult time for all, but also the charity sector. For example the Prince's Trust, which supports vulnerable young people.

It has been widely shared that he first met the young person when they were only 15. That person went on to work on This Morning. It has been said that nothing of an intimate nature happened until the individual was 20 and whilst Phillip said the relationship was 'unwise' there was nothing illegal.

I am not a safeguarding expert. Whilst at the NSPCC I wrote the safeguarding policy as it pertains to celebrities made possible by drawing on the enormous experience and advice of its amazing child protection experts. There is an obvious concern that a young person might be in awe of someone who had been on their TV screens their entire life.

As Gaby Hinslif said in a Guardian op ed, this is a complicated issue (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/29/phillip-schofield-scandal-workplace-metoo-this-morning-itv). You have an older star coming out late in life and a, possibly, star struck young staff member but would it have been different if it had been a male female relationship?

So what do charities do now? Phillip didn't attend the Prince's Trust awards, despite being widely reported as an Ambassador. He is not listed on the charity's website, except in historical news releases.

Celebrities can be vital in gaining media coverage and influencing donors. However it is important to remember that you are aligning two brands and the fall of one can do damage to the other. Just look at the ending of the commercial partnership between Adidas and Kanye West when Kanye allegedly said something against Adidas's values.

There have been many people who have fallen from grace. I joined the NSPCC post Jimmy Savile, hence ensuring that the charity added a celebrity safeguarding policy. When someone meets a celebrity there is a power imbalance and it's important that the person managing high profile supporters is completely conversant with this.

So what do you do when a supporter gets negative headlines?

Firstly don’t panic and act in haste but look carefully at what they are accused or convicted of doing. Does being over the drink drive limit or speeding mean they are not still able to help? If you're an alcohol charity then yes but if you are a medical research charity then possibly not. I have also had a celebrity charged with a significant drug offence who was subsequently found not guilty.

Secondly, if there is a conflict, the CEO needs to flag to trustees that the relationship is no longer viable. Review every interaction from media releases to events attended to ensure no one was put at risk. An honest and careful conversation needs to be had with the celebrity and/or their agent.

There is an historical story of a celeb who was interviewed by police about inappropriate child images. They were found completely innocent. During that period the celebrity wasn't invited to a big charity event they attended every year. As a result of the way the charity handled the situation the person walked away.

An agreed statement needs to be drafted, where possible. Proactive statements are not recommended. That just drags you into the story but you need to prepared.

Thirdly, like Phillip's agent, immediately remove them from your website as a Patron or Ambassador. Don't try and remove things that are already in the public domain, like media releases. We all know that anything that was on the internet is there forever and you can't remove every person's Instagram or Twitter post of a celebrity meeting them at your high profile charity event.

Fourthly, have due diligence processes in place. For some that will just be Google, at others there will be access to more sophisticated tools like Nexis Lexis. At one cancer charity I was tasked to find chefs. I found that one chef was a Patron of a pro smoking lobby. Needless to say smoking and cancer are not great partners. You won't always be able to spot problems. You can reduce your risk by doing checks in advance but you can't eliminate it.

No charity could have predicted this story but being prepared is vital. If an internal ITV investigation found no substance to the rumours then there is no way a charity can be expected to know. It's how you handle it that's important.

The big winner from the Olympic opening ceremony

One and a half hours of entertainment and three weeks of wall to wall coverage;  yes the Olympics have arrived.  Needless to say I‘m avoiding it by listening to Radio 4 extra whilst medicating with something fizzy and pink.

Friday saw the much anticipated Opening  Ceremony watched by nearly 27m viewers in the UK and a speculated global audience of 1 billion.  I confess I watched until the 204 teams started entering the stadium when I slowly lost the will to live.

Widely considered to be a successful spectacle that was quintessentially British by the world’s media, the not-for-profit sector was represented in various forms.  I’m sure I spotted the RNLI as well as the wonderful Kaos Signing Choir and membership organisations, Liberty and CND.  I’ve probably managed to miss some other examples.

But for me the biggest winner from the night, as far as the voluntary sector is concerned, was the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.  As the sequence on children’s literature began we were treated to J K Rowling reading an extract from Peter Pan.  For those who don’t know, J M Barrie donated the rights in Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street.  Whilst copyright currently lasts for 70 years from the death of the author, an amendment to the Copyright Designs & Patents Act of 1988 means that Great Ormond Street receives royalties in perpetuity.

We were treated to a 25 second shot of the GOSH logo – which looked fantastic from the aerial shot above the stadium.  This link between GOSH and Peter Pan also gave a very neat way of tying together the NHS and children’s literature.

So why do I suggest GOSH were the biggest winners?  Because, according to one media buyer a 25 second ad reaching that sort of audience could, were it possible to buy one, easily cost around £100m.  Somehow I’m guessing that GOSH may have waived their extract fee given the value of what they got in return. A friend who’s a literary agent tells me that would have been in the region of £200 or so. It was also a fantastic opportunity to recognise what I often think of as the Hospital of Last Resort to many thousands of children across the UK.

Quote me, quote me.....

The Independent has taken a look at celebs taking on 'ultra challenges' today and have included a bijou quotette from little old moi!  They've also outed me as a girl - but am I?  You can read it here.

What was that about paying peanuts.....?

One of my bête noire’s is that the skills involved in managing celebrity relationships are not properly understood by some of the charity sector and frequently undervalued.  As a result jobs are advertised expecting the earth for money that simply doesn’t match.

I was disappointed today to have one such example pointed out to me.

The role is ‘Celebrity Liaison Assistant’.  Here’s some of what they’re looking for:

• experience gained in either a talent, media, PR or charity environment,
• hands on experience of working with celebrities and VIPS’s,
• good contacts with agents, publicists and artists
• strong and creative copy writing skills
• strong understanding of the digital media landscape
• strong influencing and negotiation skills

So not just doing the admin and supporting the team but actually doing some of the job then.

None of the above surprises me.  All perfectly sensible requirements.  That the job is an 11 month contract is fine.  What really surprises me is how much they want to pay for the role - £18.5kpa.

If they can find someone with that skill level (most of which only comes with experience) good luck to them, but it really doesn’t seem to match what they’re asking for.  By comparison one UK charity recently recruited a celebrity officer, working to a hugely experienced celebrity manager at £27k.  Two major charities are currently recruiting senior celebrity managers, who run teams, at over £40k.  In 2009 the Alzheimer's Society advertised a similar role, although with far less experience required, for £5k more

If the role is truly junior and they’re happy to recruit someone for whom this would be a second job then that’s fine, but I can’t see how someone like that will have all that they’re looking for.

Incidentally, I thought I’d look at what else is available in the area where the job was based.  Candidates might be interested to know there’s a job going as a van driver which pays more, or indeed a role as an assistant manager in a sandwich shop which has a similar salary. 

According to the GLA, the living wage in London back in May 2011 was £8.30 an hour or over £17k for a 40 hour week.  Not sure who they think is going to have that level of experience and then want to work for a smidgen over a basic living wage.

In my opinion they’ve either seriously over stated the skills required or they’ve drastically under valued the role.

Can you ‘bribe’ celebrity support?

It seems that once again passion and a misguided belief that celebrities don’t do enough for charities has spawned another website that will neither help charities engage with the famous, nor will it do anything to enhance the work of the charities being featured.

Readers of my blogs over at the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network may recall Africa Needs You (ANY), which I felt, although well intentioned, was misguided.  You can see that blog here.  Indeed, Unicef, the charity that was to ‘benefit’ from ANY, commented on my blog, saying “UNICEF does not encourage any activity that seeks to embarrass or challenge celebrities in a negative way in a bid to secure their support for any cause”.



Thanks to the ever eagled eyed @RobmDyson I have now discovered another well meaning but ultimately flawed attempt by enthusiastic volunteers trying to engage celebs with charities.  Charity Bribes, unlike ANY, is more generous and charming in its tone and aims but won’t ultimately work for a number of reasons.

The concept is that individuals come up with ways in which a named celebrity could help a charity and then pledge money for the celebrity to do this.  Site visitors vote for the favourite and each month the one with the most votes is selected to be taken forward.  If the star in question does take up the challenge they have 30 days to participate.  Should they do so then the money pledged will be sent to the charity – if not then the pledgers are not charged.

The creators, William Burks Spencer and Chris Baker, are quite clear that they are not affiliated to any charity which is featured and have made no prior contact with the celebrities.

So it’s a bit of fun and ultimately harmless? Right?  Well yes and no.  Let me break it down:

1)     They have no prior relationship with the celebrity.  That suggests to me that they therefore don’t know whether or not the celebrity already supports the charity.

2)     They expect it to be completed in 30 days – this is a ridiculously short time in which to expect this to happen (if someone’s away filming a movie for the next six weeks then they’re scuppered).  There is no consideration that the celebrity may have a ‘day job’ which controls their availability

3)     There is no relationship with the charity.  This too becomes a problem.  The charity may have been trying to cultivate the chosen celeb for months and this won’t help that process

4)  Random members of the public are selecting the activity without considering what the charity’s priorities might be.  If you, as a charity, only get one or two requests from a high profile individual you’ll want to maximise the value that can generate

On the day I looked at the site the ‘bribe’ with the most votes was ‘Morgan Freeman to spend an afternoon narrating user-submitted animal videos’ with pledges going to the Red Cross. I can’t see how this really helps the charity. 

1)     Morgan already has a relationship with the American Red Cross

2)     What have animal videos got to do with the Red Cross?

3)     How does this highlight or advance the amazing work that the Red Cross does (apart from maybe raising a $1,000 or so)?

4)     Who is going to organise these user-submitted videos? Who will edit them? Who will script them? Who will pay for this? What are you going to do with them afterwards?

5)     If Morgan wanted to support the Red Cross again would this be the best use of the limited time he might be able to offer?

6)     It is possible that an approach like this could damage the working relationship between the celebrity and the charity

7)     If you were Morgan Freeman would you consider a donation of around $1,000 worth sacrificing your free time for when you know that offering the same amount of time at the right charity auction would raise considerably more for the cause?

My suggestion – let the charities decide what their priorities are and what the best use of potential celebrity support might be. 

Whilst a nice idea, this project is not thought through and lacks any idea of how charities work or how they engage with celebrities.  It’s always possible that I will be proved wrong but my gut reaction is that, apart from taking up the time and energies of its designers, it won’t achieve anything of value for the charities.

Festive 'Spot the Difference' with the X Factor

Here at celebrity towers everyone seems to need a little Christmas – me, I’m a little more ‘Bah, Humbug’, at least until my third glass of champers.  Anyway, I thought I’d attempt to join in the fun with a suitably festive game of ‘spot the difference’.  So pop-pickers, can you spot the, rather expensive, difference between these two videos?

Here’s the spoiler sweeties….

It takes a while but if you pause at 48 seconds in you’ll see the frames below



Now you see him...



 




...now he's gone
...to Hollywood maybe?



As you can see M&S (okay, their ad agency, don’t get picky) has edited Frankie Cocozza out of the group scene from their X Factor themed Christmas ad.  This is different from the various versions where they’ve changed the soloists in the line up as people leave the show.  It’s specialist editing which needs to be done one frame at a time and, I’m guessing, can’t have been cheap – I would imagine it certainly won’t have been budgeted for.

But you might ask whilst this is all lovely, fluffy, Christmas frivolity and an excuse for me to put Crimbo cheer upon my blog what does it have to do with charities and celebrities?  Well pop on the reindeer slippers and ears, pull up a comfy chair, grab a mince pie and something medicinal, and I’ll tell you (you may want to turn down The Sound of Music).

Many charities work with celebrities and that endorsement can have terrific benefits for the charity…… but…… here comes the science bit (well they said Management was a science at my university)… when you work with a celebrity you are aligning two brands, yours and theirs.  Damage to one brand can affect the other.  Whilst 99.9% of the time it will be fine just occasionally something happens in the celeb’s life which means you want to distance yourself from them – after all you don’t want an interview being dominated about their personal life instead of their support for your cause or your key messages.

You might say that Frankie’s alleged misbehaviour falls into the category of predictable but I know of cases when it hasn’t been. What if you’d secured Frankie to headline an event? Put him on posters? Even worse signed him up to a front your new ‘just say no’ to drugs campaign?  If you’re M&S you quietly make him disappear (and of course have the funds to do it).  If you’re a charity you can cancel press interviews, that’s cheap, but can you so easily afford to cancel an event, reprint posters or even recall all your fantastic ‘just say no’ leaflets?

There are no easy answers but it’s something any charity that works with a celebrity should always bear in mind.  So my yuletide message is to not assume that once you have a celeb that everything’s solved and the world will be a happier place. Just occasionally what looked like a fantastic opportunity can turn into reputation management nightmare.

….and on that cheery note I’m off to look for last minute deals on a bauble-free winter break.  It’s been tinsel a-go-go wherever I look since the August bank holiday and, quite frankly, I’m beginning to get a little fed up of it.  Personally, I blame Charles Dickens!

The stunt that got lucky with timing

A conversation this morning reminded me that real news has a nasty habit of getting in the way of your story or event as I mentioned back in June over the Conran donation to the Design Museum.

Last week Remember a Charity got a lot of pick up for this stunt with Rocky Taylor throwing himself from a burning ‘building’.  Here’s the video:

Creativity is increasingly important and this got coverage because it was a lot more than a simple stunt. 

1) Rocky is a world class stuntman

2) He’s 64 – which is probably 500 in stunt years

3) The stunt he was doing nearly killed him last time he tried it in 1985, so a real sense of jeopardy

4) The stunt actually tied back to the core message – ‘when you make a will think about charities as well’.  I’d imagine anyone about to do a ‘death defying’ stunt would make sure they’d organised their will.

This was a straight media opportunity which went well – Rocky survived.  I have no doubt it cost a fortune.  They had numerous cameras and the insurance on a man repeating something that nearly killed him 26 years ago can’t have been cheap.  However also think about how lucky they were with the timing. 

Just a week later these were the images that were dominating the news:

Let’s be honest would you want to be staging that stunt this week?  Even if you did, do you think any news outlet would want to run it?  If anything the charity would have almost certainly come in for criticism for trivialising something we had just seen for real on the front page of many of the UK’s papers – there’s a copy of that image on the Daily Mail website.

So when you’re risk assessing a media activity remember to allow for the possibility of real news either meaning you get no coverage or even worse that you have to call the whole thing off, possibly at great expense.

One question in a survey doth not a story make.....

So Yougov have asked one question in a survey and writes authoritatively as if they have the world of celebrities and charities nailed?  Well that’s good.  We might as well all go home now – a large white wine for me please.

Oh, you want analysis?  You want detail?  You want a fuller understanding of the subject?  Why should I bother with that?  Yougov didn’t. 

To be fair Yougov didn’t say they knew everything, but I don’t think one question is enough to justify a story (I can’t blame them for trying though).  It’s certainly not enough to justify anyone making a strategic decision.

In ‘cynical celebrity charity’ they say 46% of all Brits think that celebrities supporting charities are guilty of cynical self promotion.  However 36% of those surveyed said that they thought celebrities were genuinely trying to do good. If we look at just women the figure rises to 41%, which is also the figure for 18-24 year olds.

So what have we actually learnt?  That some people are not influenced by celebrities? Didn’t they already know that?  That men are more cynical than women when it comes to celebrity?  Gosh, couldn’t they have just wandered down to their local newsagents and seen what sells?  Magazine publishing is a multi-million pound business and that huge commercial behemoth produces lots of celeb magazines targeted at women, particularly younger women. I guarantee they spend a fortune to find out what their readers like and don’t like.

Well at least we’ve saved a trip to the nearest branch of W H Smiths. 

So what exactly is the point of the story?  Use celebs?  Don’t use celebs?  Use them carefully?  They don’t say although they try and expand with a quote from War on Want in which they say it's ‘imperative that the power of that [celebrity] voice is directed in the right direction’.  That’ll be the charity I wrote about last Christmas which ‘cynically’ tried to draw Dannii Minogue into a story about high street retailers using sweatshops with a press release entitled Dannii in M&S ‘sweatshop’ storm.  By the way Dannii wasn’t involved; they were just trying to hook their story to the X-Factor Final.

Ask anyone who works in this area of the sector and they could easily have told you that celebrities aren’t right for every audience but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be used.  Celebrity is a part of the marketing mix; a tool to be used properly and carefully, like any other.  For example would many of those magazines cover a particular charity’s work if they didn’t get a lovely celebrity to go with it?

Oh and do they question whether poll answers are representative of actions in the real world? Of course not – they’re a polling organisation.  I’ve seen senior (male) board directors get excited at a charity event because they got to meet a celebrity who showed interest in their work and support for the charity.  I’m fairly certain they would have been in the cynical camp if polled.

All in all a non story with a bit of stating the obvious thrown in for good measure!  Know your audience and target accordingly.  Isn’t that what everyone aspires to?

The PR agency, the charity & the lack of understanding

It’s a common old story.  A small charity wants to try and recruit some celebrity support to help raise the profile of their work. Not an unreasonable thought, but as ever the question is how you go about it.

Finding celebrities who might have an affinity with your cause is a time consuming business which can involve hours of painstaking research – I genuinely know someone who was on page 86 of a Google search when they found a mention of a celebrity who had a direct link with the work of their charity (the celebrity did go on to support them!).

Of course a bit of luck never hurts.  Nothing like spotting a reference to something useful in the last but one paragraph of an interview with a celebrity who’d be perfect.

I’m not discounting luck but random mass appeals for celebrity support rarely if ever work and hardly make a celebrity feel like it’s them in particular with whom you’d like to work. 

I’ve queried before the use of tweeting as a method of approaching celebrities.  Today I’ve seen another version of this kind of apparently untargeted appeal which does nothing to enhance the reputation of the charity involved.  Those in the PR and communications world will probably have heard of Response Source – a way for journalists and PR’s to get in touch with each other.

An email from Response Source today read as follows (I’ve removed references that I think might identify the charity):

Hi,

I work for [name of small UK charity] and we're in the process of appointing some more high profile ambassadors to help promote our messages of [key message].

We're particularly interested in GB Olympians past and present as well as other sports stars from the world of football, rugby and tennis to promote the importance of [area of work].

We're also after celebrities that would appeal to housewives and families such as daytime TV personalities and big name soap stars.

We would hope that any ambassador would be able to give up a couple of hours for one appearance a year and the possible endorsement of some quotes once in a while - we appreciate that their time will be limited.

Had it been an enthusiastic, overworked, PR from an understaffed communications team in a small organisation I might have had some sympathy.  However it isn’t.  It’s from a PR agency appointed by the charity to run a national awareness campaign.

I doubt they’ll get any response since the one group of people I know won’t be reading it is agents and managers.  This is not the sort of service that most agents subscribe to.  The only people who might be relevant are companies who have a contract with a celebrity to promote that company’s product or service.

If the charity wants to gain one or more high profile supporters they, or their PR agency, should develop ‘thought through’, relevant approaches to individuals who have an affinity to the cause and with whom they would hope to have a long term relationship.

This email shows very little understanding of how to work with celebrities when you’re a charity.  If I was the charity I wouldn’t be very happy with my agency.  More particularly I’d be unhappy paying for expertise which doesn’t appear to be there – although for all I know the agency is very generously doing this pro-bono. 

If you want a long term relationship, how do you make someone feel wanted and special when you haven’t sent them a personal approach?  What happens if someone comes back who doesn’t fit with your brand or (as a health charity) healthy living messages and you have to turn them down? 

They’ve clearly identified their target media and the sorts of people who might appeal, now they need to do the research.  I’ve done radio days with celebs and when we had to change the interviewee at the last minute what was the first question I was asked by the radio stations? What’s your new celeb’s link to the cause?

Whilst they are quite clear in the ‘ask’ I’d question whether they’ve got it right. They want a “couple of hours for one appearance a year” but what does that mean?  They talk about target media so maybe they mean be available for two hours of interviews – except that is frequently not two hours.  If they live in Dundee and the interviews need to be done face to face in London that’s at least a day.  If they were lucky enough to get their celeb on ITV1’s This Morning (given the demographic they’ve identified) that alone would use up the commitment they’ve asked for.

If they really do mean a personal appearance do they honestly think two hours is sufficient?  Again they don’t seem to have allowed for any travel time although I assume they’ve allowed for any travel costs and possible food or accommodation.

Whilst the concept of working with a celebrity is perfectly reasonable this is not the way to be going about it.  There are no short cuts to gaining celebrity support and an email like this does nothing to enhance the reputation of the charity or its PR company.

The thing I find most perplexing, above everything else, is that the agency itself claims strong sport related clients.  Surely they have access to just the sort of people they need? 

Oh well, maybe this email is just a blip – after all who hasn’t had an off day?

When the real world gets in the way of your great story

Gaining the support of a high profile individual is hard work for any organisation.  Carefully stewarding that support over the years to ensure you retain it is even harder.  The hardest of all is when you turn that supporter into someone who also donates significant amounts of money.

Clearly this is something that The Design Museum has achieved in its relationship with Sir Terence Conran and the Conran Foundation.  It was announced yesterday that the Foundation is to donate £7.5m in cash plus the value of the sale of the lease of the museum’s current site, expected to be in the region of £10m.  The money will be used to help fund a move to a new site at the Commonwealth Institute.

This is a fantastic commitment from Sir Terence, although to be fair, he was involved in establishing the forerunner of the museum and establishing the museum on its current site.

So why am I blogging about it?  Because I think the timing of the announcement is at best a little insensitive.  Sir Terence is probably the foremost proponent of design and style in the home.  It was Habitat that started turning houses across the country into light, bright, stylish palaces of design.  That’s why I think the timing is insensitive. 

Just a week ago it was announced that Habitat was to go into administration as part of a sale of the name, online presence and three flagship stores to the Home Retail Group.  The sale price is £24.5m, just £7m more than the value of Sir Terence’s donation to the Design Museum.  For the 750 staff who work outside of the core business there is a very uncertain future.

Now it should be made clear that Sir Terence stopped being Chair of the Storehouse Group in 1990, some 21 years ago.  Should he have stepped in to rescue his baby which is now fully grown up and has a life of its own?  Well that’s for him to decide not me, it’s really none of my business.

I just feel the timing of this announcement is a little bit off.  As the High Street brand, that established him as a leading name in design, appears to fall apart, would I have made that announcement now?  I think not.  In the circumstances I would have left a suitable, reverent pause.  Sir Terence turns 80 in October.  Even if he’d written the cheques now (and I have no doubt this was planned well before the news of Habitat) I think I would have played it safe and used his birthday celebrations, and a four month break, to make the announcement.

I think there’s a lesson here for all of us in being sensitive to the world around us.  No matter how long it’s taken you to put together a project or media event, when you’re working with high profile individuals always be aware that the real world and news agendas can just occasionally get in the way and rather spoil the party.