What went wrong with Yahoo7’s bewildering media release?
Following Yahoo7’s jargon-heavy restructure announcement on Tuesday, Fee Townshend, director of Curve Comms, takes a look at the nitty gritty of what went wrong.
It seems ironic that a publishing company – which exists to provide us independent news and insights – has taken such a clumsy and cagey approach to sharing its own business.
But there you go.
Oh, where to begin on this ‘restructure’ that will ‘carry the company into the future’ piece, I wonder? As I sit in my glasshouse polishing my stones.
The headline starts with some fairly sobering news for some of the staff at Yahoo7, but it then trails off to a lofty ‘harnessing the power’ justification.
The original release’s title
From the get-go, this release can’t commit to a linear narrative.
It oscillates wildly between tiptoeing around the nasty business of some ‘needed’ ‘changes to structure’, whilst celebrating (in a rather unsubstantiated way given Yahoo7’s access to data) the myriad benefits of Oath’s technology and scale.
It is not yet clear what the restructure will look like
I am re-watching The Handmaid’s Tale, and I am reminded of the moment Margaret Atwood’s Commander tells Offred: ‘better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”
Because the news, essentially, is this:
Yahoo7 will be making redundancies within its local back-end development staff and capitalising on the efficiencies and scale of its global technology capability, Oath.
It took me a few reads to get there and I am 92% sure I am right…
I get that the objective is to focus on the positive in this situation, but what is painfully missing – which is why this narrative goes in a circle that may never end – is directly addressing the news, providing detail around the next steps for those impacted, and outlining the business case for Yahoo7.
This release has tried too hard to reduce the fuss about a restructure, whilst vaguely showcasing shiny new capabilities. It weaves back and forward between ‘needed’ changes and positive sentiments about the future. And it just makes for a confusing read.
Our confusion around how just extensive this restructure could be is amplified in paragraph four, which states: “This change would lead to a planned reduction in locally-produced bespoke platforms, and potentially across the associated teams.
“Smaller changes are also planned across the rest of the organisation.”
Yikes. Is this not likely to send the ripples of fear Yahoo7 seems to have been trying to avoid?
Reality check guys: these small changes can be big news to the individual, so this is a message that needs to be delivered straight.
When you are sharing news that impacts people’s jobs, it’s about those people, first and foremost. The business needs to deal with that openly, and with respect.
History provides hundreds of instances where, due to new ownership structures, rising costs or service/product diversification, organisations have made executive decisions to restructure.
In these situations, providing the greatest amount of transparency around the process, the timings, and the potential scale of the impact is the basic level of respect required.
If appeasing investors and shareholders is a major objective, it’s worth considering bringing home those points in a separate piece that’s directly targeted at that audience. Possibly through direct communication or bespoke investor relations.
If businesses are going to make tough business calls – big calls that that will impact people’s working and personal lives – then they also need to be big enough to discuss them in a direct and responsible way.
Fee Townshend is the director of Curve Comms.
There but for the grace of God go I… Any good PR will tell you it is always foolish to weigh in on the ‘PR fails’ of other professionals. Because karma is bitch. And we’ve all been there. Or almost have. Or could easily be next week. A cheap win isn’t always a good win. And ghoulishly feeding off the missteps of others to generate publicity for yourself is neither a savoury, nor a very smart strategy. Is this how you really mean to begin with your fledgling consultancy? If these are the sorts of grubby tactics you’d like Curve Comms to develop a reputation for, then I imagine you will attract the clients to match.
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Yes I acknowledge that I am casting stones from my very own glasshouse. But I am okay with owning my opinion – not hiding behind a moniker. Their is no deceit or malice in my critique ‘PR Fraternity’.
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Hi PR Fraternity. We asked Fee for her view on the Yahoo7’s media release so it would be unfair to accuse her of ghoulishly feeding off their missteps.
Hope that clarifies things,
Paul Wallbank
News Editor
Hi “PR Fraternity”.
You’re right that we’ve all been there. You more than most, I suspect – given that your IP address suggests you work for Yahoo7.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
This is so beautiful I want to cry
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Don’t PRs have to be able to spell these days???
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Whether or not you agree with the article, you can’r argue with this response from Fee. Nicely put.
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I’ve worked in comms for big US media firms – and whilst this is a particularly painful example of the genre (no doubt doubled down due to two lots of corporate legal/compliance/hr and execs editing away any cohesive narrative) – it’s indicative of the differences between global media.
In a previous EMEA role, I could talk till I was blue in the face about how something that would work in the US, might work in the UK but definitely not France etc – advise that was sometimes, but more often than not ignored until something like this blew up.
If anything the release and associated navel gazing about it will serve as a good show and tell for future comms teams/agencies to demonstrate there is a different tolerance for corporate double speak in AU.
Thankfully some of the crap I had to put my name to was issued pre- decent SEO so it doesn’t haunt me too often…
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It’s disappointing to see Mumbrella using IP addresses to shame their commentors. And hey check my IP, I’m not a Yahoo employee. Just surprised to see the editors piling in over a comment they do not like. Not very encouraging for open debate.
It’s great to have an independent opinion on this PR schmozzle, however, I think many who have experience in this space will tell you, Frankenstein releases like this happen because it is not the company PR who is in control. They may have written an original draft, which was written and re-written by each of the joint venture parent company PRs, until it resembled the unintelligible release we’ve all pored over.
It is also interesting to see the revenues listed as proof of failure. I was actually surprised to see an Australian media company showing consistent (whilst diminishing) profits 😉
It is a shame to see the industry being further hacked away, and then gnawing away at its own foot. The debate I’d rather see is how will Australia have an independent journalism by the end of the decade. At this rate I can’t see it surviving.
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Quite right, ex-ABC. Nothing annoys me more than the misuse of their, there and they’re. I’ll own that typo. Maybe it’s karma on my tail!
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What is the PR Agency for Yahoo7? Anyone…?
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Disappointed at the IP stalking mumbrella, seems unnecessary, invasive and against the spirit of seemingly being able to comment anonymously.
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