The View | Three lessons on how to spin a message in times of crisis
Great communicators from Bill Clinton to the ad men behind Volkswagen knew to keep it simple and use humour to help sway audiences
Sometimes you get to feel sorry for the most unlikely of people. A case in point in France’s hapless President Francois Hollande who is accorded precious little respect these days. The deferential questioning of previous French presidents gave way in a recent television interview where Hollande was mocking asked “are you joking” when he was talking about his nation’s economic recovery.
One of the best remembered Clinton era phrases was: “it’s the economic, stupid”
As it happens the president was not joking because, after a long period of stagnation, France’s economy is indeed growing, unemployment is falling and it can cautiously be stated that the things are looking up. The problem is that very few French people believe this to be true, they see the economic data as being somehow false as it emanates from a distrusted government.
There is even stronger evidence of economic growth from the United States, where employment is rising and the equity markets are buoyant. However in this presidential election year, no one will make it to the White House by suggesting that the economy is doing well. President Obama recently laid out his exasperation over the way the public simply refuses to acknowledge the good economic news. In the public mind the figures just don’t seem right, yet they are hard to fault.
What we are dealing with here is impressions. And the simple lesson for politicians, not forgetting business leaders, is that mere facts are rarely adequate to unseat deeply held impressions. Hollande, for example, is the least popular president in modern French history and it follows that everything he does and everything he says is viewed through a prism of scepticism or downright disbelief.
He’s almost certainly a goner but as other politicians and businessmen have demonstrated; impressions can be changed. The master changeling was President Bill Clinton, who spent a large part of his presidency immersed in scandal, financial crisis while hounded by his opponent’s visceral hate campaign.
Clinton wisely chose to ignore his visceral haters because it was a waste of energy trying to bring them round but when it came to his personal affairs and management of the economy he showed his mastery of presentation by donning his “good ole boy” shoes and winning over even some of his more sceptical critics.