$5 worth of media training
October 22nd, 2007 posted by Brian CourtneyCNN and other major media outlets recently ran stories on the U.S. government introducing the redesign of the $5 bill, which the Bureau of Printing and Engraving did via online press conference.
Originally, the five wasn’t going to be redesigned. But that decision was reversed once counterfeiters began bleaching $5 notes and printing fake $100 bills with the bleached paper to take advantage of the fact that some of the security features were in the same locations on both notes. To thwart this particular scam, the government is changing several security features on the $5.
“We wanted this redesigned bill to scream, ‘I am a five. I am a five,”‘ Larry Felix, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We wanted to eliminate any similarity or confusion on the part of the public between the $5 bill and the $100 bill.”
This last part of Mr. Felix’s statement is why media training or, at the very least, proper pre-speech preparation (such as a list of talking points created by your PR consultant), is critical for any company spokesperson going before the media. There are two problems with Mr. Felix’s comments here:
1. His comments aren’t aligned with the information that his organization put forth – that the change was made to reduce counterfeiting.
2. His comment could be construed as insulting, implying that ordinary citizens are so dim as to confuse $100 bills with $5 bills.
Obviously, most Americans are not so dim. The entire reason for the change and the press conference was counterfeit bills, not confusion on the part of the public. Media training could have kept Mr. Felix focused on his subject and prevented him from making this faux pas.
I doubt this comment hurt the Bureau in any way, but there’s plenty of of cases of B2B companies losing customers over equally small comments made to the media.