Bridging the Gap: Public Affairs and Business Goals

This piece also appears on Hudson Pacific's news site.

In a previous article we discuss the potential for data-driven, Moneyball-style campaigns to disrupt public affairs, an industry still dominated by gut feel. Looking back, we realize the piece opened a gap in the discussion: we have critiqued an industry without defining it or explaining its value. We see the gap in the blank stares we encounter at dinner parties when we tell people what we do for a living. “What is public affairs?” For most people, the field is an abstract concept.

Which brings us to our goal for this article. We want to help people understand the public affairs discipline and its benefits. Using three recent examples, this article is designed to answer a single question: what sort of business challenges can public affairs campaigns help address?

Growing in new places

A first type of business challenge public affairs can help address is expansion in new markets. Take for instance Uber. No one would argue it has been entirely smooth sailing for the company?—?a spat with the New York Mayor and a pullout from Austin are two well-known challenges?—?but the fact remains that Uber is growing at a spectacular rate. It’s growing faster than Facebook in its pre-IPO years, according to the Economist. Powering the company’s growth, in our view, is a public affairs campaign with a simple strategy: move quickly and keep opponents on their heels. 

There is no better account of this strategy than This is How Uber Takes Over a City, a Bloomberg Businessweek study of the company’s entry into Portland, Ore. “Rules-be-damned” is how the journalist describes the approach, but the truth is more sophisticated and interesting. Uber used a wide range of tactics: some heavy-handed, others subtle, some widely practiced, others new and creative. 

What did these tactics look like? Direct but informal outreach to the mayor. A launch in a less-regulated town nearby to create a beachhead from which to introduce the company to Portland residents and identify supporters. A video starring an Uber driver and a (unicycle-riding, fire-breathing) street performer, which endeared the company to locals with Keep Portland Weird credibility. After a surprise entrance into the market?—?against the wishes of local political leaders?—?Uber ultimately found a path forward through negotiation with the city. 

In summary, Uber is doing what a successful political candidate does: she focuses first on getting elected and concerns herself with government business once she is in office. In Uber’s case, the first task is to enter the city?—?because you can’t grow in a new place if you don’t have a presence there.

Recovering from a reputation hit 

A second type of business challenge public affairs can help address is recovery from a reputation hit. What’s a reputation hit? It’s an event that reduces your company’s esteem or trust in the eyes of the public or other important groups.

Chipotle is a good example. Consumer satisfaction with the brand took a nosedive following several food safety scares over the past year. Since the company claimed to offer “food with integrity,” news that its food made people sick was especially damaging. 

An effective public affairs approach requires a company dealing with a reputation hit to step back and measure the damage. This process can be uncomfortable for many reasons, not the least of which is the human impulse to fix problems as they arise. But responding immediately often means doing so without fully understanding the issue—which can make matters worse.

Let’s assume the damage is real. A public affairs campaign can help in two critical ways: 1) prioritizing your audiences and 2) identifying and honing your most effective messages and strategies for repairing your reputation. In the Chipotle example, this might be customers and public health officials along with the people who influence them. 

Which takes us to messages.

Engaging the public with authentic messages

How do you know which points or arguments will be most persuasive? How do you know which potential partner can credibly speak on behalf of your issue? You know because you’ve conducted public opinion research to guide your strategy. 

A few years ago we worked with a sharing economy company facing regulatory challenges in a new international market. Locals were not familiar with the brand, entrenched industries controlled the public debate and our client needed to figure out how to explain the value of its services to a skeptical public.  

Research found that themes of democratization resonated strongly with local residents. This data became our roadmap to authenticity. With it we crafted arguments that had the advantage of being true and spoke to people’s desires. They emphasized personal autonomy, quality of life and economic well-being. 

Why were these arguments effective? Because we explained the benefits the company offered in terms that were personal and tangible rather than lofty and abstract. As such they resonated with public concerns about the community’s future. 

Strong messaging gave us an edge, because our opponents represented diverse interests and could not settle on a consistent theme. They had less discipline, and perhaps most fundamentally, defended a status quo which we knew was not entirely satisfactory to the public.

A closing note

So?—?have we cleared things up? Do you understand what we mean when we say we do public affairs? Our hunch is we will still encounter an occasional vacant expression over Steak Diane and Jell-O salad. 

We offer this analogy in closing: think of public affairs work as a political campaign on behalf of a company or organization. The most effective public affairs professionals bring the urgency, discipline and focus of a campaign to your company’s issue. They convert data about the public into a coherent strategy and encourage the message discipline needed to achieve business goals. And they always put the client’s needs first. 

That’s what we aim to do. We think it’s an exciting time to be in this field.