A banker in an East European country was sponsoring an international sporting event, hoping to create a positive image.

MediaZones helped project the sporting event and even stressed its controversial nature [held in a politically sensitive area].  That focused media coverage more on the political circumstances of the country hosting the event while, as far as possible,  the strategy steered the media away from examining the Client’s financial wheelings and dealings.  So far, so good.

However it turned out that  the bank owned by the Client had used a scheme that had put the customers’ money at risk.  This only became apparent the public and to MediaZones when the bank collapsed.   Inevitably, serious negative publicity for the Client ensued.  Could further reputational damage been minimised?

MediaZones managed to get our Client, by now in hiding in another country, interviewed and quoted prominently in  a major British newspaper.  The Client was briefed well, and he said the ‘right things’ in the telephone interview, using quotes that MediaZones had prepared with and for him.   He was able to blame factors beyond his control for the banking debacle.

Because the Client was co-operative to the media and provided an interesting and colourful story, it was printed in a major newspaper without any quotes or comments from the banker’s many detractors.  The client then faded into obscurity.

A media-related company in South Africa  was in trouble when a journalist started interviewing the company’s customers and finding they were dissatisfied with an increasingly inadequate product.   One of those customers told the company’s boss that a journalist had been snooping around and asking tough questions – including the possibility that it would go bankrupt.

This is how the issue was handled:

On MediaZones advice, the company boss chose to phone the journalist, and surprised him with his openness and candour.  He said: “Yes the quality of our product has declined.  Now let me tell you why, and I think you’ll get a far better story.” 

He then laid the blame for the decline (in his own company’s quality of output) on a what he described as hard-right-wing racist trade union.  It was, he said,  using laws, legislated by the new government to protect black workers, to protect white people’s jobs and so stop black people coming in. This had disrupted his company’s urgently needed and politically important plans to make its staff and its output more representative of the country’s racial (black majority) mix.  The costs of fighting this trade union by this fledgling company meant vitally needed restructuring could not take place, he said, had diverted funds  that were vitally needed to battle competition from the “big boys”.  It had also stunted the planned expansion of the company.

That was all true, and an interesting story for the journalist – which meant he did not feel the need to dig further.  Had he done so he might have found there were other, less easily-justifiable reasons for the quality drop-off – including strife among some of the staff! 

The company boss also gave the journalist another attractive ‘lead’:  that same trade union had also been attacking a much larger Government-controlled South African broadcasting organisation.   MediaZones even managed  – quite a coup given their relative sizes – to get the big Government-controlled organisation and the Client company to issue a joint statement condemning that right-wing union.   Through diligent research, MediaZones was able to give names and leads to the journalist (via the company boss) about the onslaught against the big Government-controlled organisation.

MediaZones also uncovered the very flawed background of the trade union leader who was running the damaging campaign – in the days of apartheid he had once been a secret policeman spying on dissidents.  This information helped turn the story strongly against the trade union that had attacked the company.  

In the end the journalist who was about to write the story did not write even one word attacking the company, but chose to focus instead on the nature of the right-wing trade union, and on its “unwarranted” attacks against the Client’s company.