Special interest groups and ‘big business’ – which one is Goliath?
By Jamie Perrott, Principal
Special interest and community action groups are not a new phenomenon.
They have played a legitimate role in giving voice to individuals and groups taking issue with decisions – often made outside their control – which they claim can affect them in a real or perceived sense.
The decisions they challenge are most commonly made by ‘big business’ or Government and the situation is routinely portrayed in the court of public opinion as ‘David versus Goliath’.
But recent developments are worth noting, and raise the question about which one is really Goliath in some more public conflicts.
Assessing vocal opposition to the Victorian Government’s introduction between 2007 and 2011 of water fluoridation to major regional and rural centres (most Australian capital cities received it in the early 70s), Choice magazine noted: “the claims of those who oppose fluoridation are often based on outdated information, questionable research and selectively picking studies that support their case.”
More recently, a CSIRO study found that there was much stronger support for wind farms than the media coverage would suggest because a “vocal minority” who opposed wind farms had captured the majority of media and political attention.
The CSIRO social research team’s report, Acceptance of rural wind farms in Australia: A snapshot, makes an important contribution to what many have asserted anecdotally for years about action groups of this kind, and should encourage organisations to take more active interest in understating their motivations and responding to their adversarial tactics.
The most effective action groups exhibit many, if not all of the following attributes:
- They are passionate and relentless in pursuit of their cause
- They are not always bound (or do not observe) the same rules of presenting evidence or information as is expected from Governments and corporations
- Their campaigns are their ‘core business’, while for their opponents they are usually treated (at least initially) as a distraction or annoyance
- They are agile, allowing them to frequently out manoeuvre their bigger, more bureaucratic opponents
- They are often well-educated and able to mount sophisticated and persuasive campaigns, and
- with the increasing acceptance of social media, they are able to mobilise large populations of supporters almost instantaneously.
In Australia we are fortunate that individuals and organised groups may always exercise their democratic right to oppose decisions made by big business and government.
But just as the ‘Goliaths’ are often accused of obfuscation and spin, so are some of the ‘Davids’ leaving themselves open to the same accusation.
Jamie Perrott is a principal of Buchan. He leads the Public Affairs practice and works with government and private enterprise on assignments where clarity and direction are required to manage complex stakeholder populations and diversity of views.
Investor relations in a high-tech world
This week we’re taking a moment to reflect on the work of our iComm team and how it is evolving to keep pace with a rapidly developing industry.
The Buchan iComm team has extensive expertise in the area of healthcare media and investor relations (“iComm” being a contraction for Investor Communications). We use this expertise to provide a wide range of services to Australia’s maturing biotech industry, which has an increasingly diverse and late-stage portfolio of offerings for the global market.
As these innovative sectors grow in size and complexity, the advantages offered by niche expertise, such as Buchan iComm, will increasingly become a key competitive advantage for us in the Investor Relations marketplace and for our clients in the healthcare and biotech space. That said, many agencies (including Buchan, which also has strong credentials in the energy and resources sectors) service a diverse client base, but it may be that a ‘divide and conquer’ mentality will become the rule, moving away from old models that assume every industry can be serviced by a basic ‘rule book’ of communication strategies and business principles, shoehorned into fitting all ends.
A moment to clarify: “Biotech” and “healthcare” are overlapping terms but are often used interchangeably when that is not always appropriate. Healthcare refers to the broad umbrella of products and services catering to human health, and can include offerings as diverse as nutritionist consulting or heart valve manufacture. Biotech usually falls under the healthcare umbrella, but more definitively biotech companies have products which are derived from natural processes. The boundaries are fuzzy, and many people are surprised to learn that pharmaceutical companies are also biotechs. This is an unfortunate public misconception as pharmaceuticals are easily the most visible part of the biotech sector!
Biotech still seems to fly under the radar of general public awareness. This may be due to its relative newness, as much of modern biotech relies on the discipline of molecular biology which has only boomed in the last two decades. Investors however have been much faster to cotton onto a good thing, and the communication professionals that service clients in these industries have certainly had to become more tech-savvy - because it is our role to convey the meaning and importance of new developments to stakeholders, which requires a solid understanding of the novelties in question.
The Buchan iComm team is comprised of individuals with broad-ranging experience in the areas of medical research, health and business journalism, crisis management, equity analysis and financial advisory services. Furthermore, a solid understanding of regulatory and clinical processes allows us to understand the value inflection points that biotechs pass through.
It is an exciting time for biotech globally and in Australia particularly. We are seeing a new trend of US healthcare companies listing on the ASX, such as Reva Medical (RVA) and GI Dynamics (GID), more late-stage products coming out of pipelines, and bigger deals and capital raisings sector-wide. For example in December top-tier biotech Starpharma (SPL) successfully completed a $35m capital raising and QRxPharma (QRX) announced a large US partnership deal with a major international pharmaceutical.
In the midst of the industry’s growth and maturation our role as communicators is gradually evolving. We are involved in more international deals and collaboration, both with our clients and their stakeholders and with our internal network of investors expanding into Asia. We also see more work around acquisitions and large, complex partnerships; and we see a wider range of technologies hitting the IPO market. On top of this we have to contend with the ongoing uncertainty brought about by market volatility and the impact this has on our clients.
To stay ahead of the game we have to constantly ensure that three aspects of our team are fostered: the balance of skills and responsibilities, awareness of industry developments and bigger picture news, and maintaining an up-to-date knowledge of relevant regulatory practice. Public relations is infamously an occupation that marries you, and iComm’s work is no exception, requiring a state of more-or-less constant immersion. And of course our relationship with our clients requires constant co-operation, understanding and development. So at least in those senses, our work is very traditional.
What does ‘work’ mean? Lessons from the past year.
By Belinda Thomson, Senior Account Director
In the lead up to the Christmas break, when we were all feeling very reflective, I asked the Buchan team to name one cool/interesting/illuminating thing they had learnt at work in 2011. The answers were diverse, reflecting the breadth of what we tend to crowd under that bland label of ‘work’.
Some of the lessons were about consulting. One person had realised, ‘That you can fit ten times as much into your day as you thought (before you started at Buchan)’. Certainly, agency life isn’t for slouches.
Someone else explained that she had learnt to “be appreciative when people perform ‘thankless’ tasks. The IT guys sorting out your computer … someone doing the dishes in the kitchen… All that stuff makes life in the office life is a lot easier.”
Another one of my team members said “There’s no place for complacency in this environment. If you’re not thinking about ‘what next?’ your clients will be!” Sage advice indeed.
Some insights were about the technical challenges of what we do. One colleague talked about a client’s requirement to base its strategy on relevant behaviour change theory. In this case, Buchan used the Mckenzie-Mohr model to support our recommendations. My colleague concluded that “while it’s important we come up with innovative, fresh ideas, it’s also important that we use proven research as a basis to any strategy we create.”
Another team member said she had continued to improve her writing and grammar knowledge during the year - as we should always be doing - and “that it is rarely necessary to use the word extremely.” (That’s on my list of banned, over-used words, if you’re wondering).
Personally, I had plenty of lessons for the year, but perhaps the most surprising was finding I had the discipline and interest to start not one, but two blogs. Blogs are a great place to experiment with writing, but they have also reminded me how much I love writing in the first place.
We’re always learning – whether we have time to realise it or not. And what I liked about these responses was the variety – there are so many different skills and experiences that underpin the concept of ‘doing your job’.
Each day is an opportunity to be better at what we do; to deliver a result that surprises ourselves and clients; to refine our technical skills a little more. It doesn’t mean we aren’t capable and skilled already, but it does mean we should “work tirelessly to master our craft and lead our profession”*.
*This is a line from Buchan’s Operating Principles.
Tom Buchan, director and founder of Buchan, talks about the new Waggener Edstrom-Buchan partnership.
Our work is about improving communication, understanding stakeholders, managing complex issues and analysing information to enable sound decision-making.
