I love corporate hospitality. The wining and dining, the sports and concerts. All paid for by the bank. For both comms professionals and journalists – and the relationship between the two – what’s not to like?
My personal favourite was a private box at Wimbledon’s centre court. My team and I would invite editors and senior journalists, and their partners, to a glorious day of tennis, delicious food and fine wine. One year the event coincided with a British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa, so when we tired of top-class tennis we could retire to the box and watch top-class rugby on large screens. Bliss.
But this particular luxury cost tens of thousands of pounds. With a heavy heart, when asked by my employer HSBC in 2010 to tighten our departmental budget, it was the first to go. Despite the event being a fantastic opportunity to build strong relationships with the most important media in our world, my reasoning was simple – lose one expensive outing to preserve most of the others. And it worked. For a while.
Maintaining deep and healthy relationships with the media pays huge dividends. Banks get written about whether they like it or not. Given that, what we want is for journalists to understand what they write about. Banks might grumble if the news is not to their liking, but if it is accurate, there is little they can do. And, of course, bankers are quick to applaud a similar article aimed at a competitor.
One would think therefore that banks would have an institutional interest in encouraging their PR teams to be in regular dialogue with the media, building those relationships and deepening understanding of the organisation. After all, if a journalist understands what a bank is about and what it is trying to achieve, then positive steps that might be overlooked by an oblivious media have a chance of being recognised and written about.
It works the other way too: banks should insist comms specialists get out there to understand how they can better position and protect the bank.
Corporate hospitality – with or without bankers present – plays an important role. Jack doesn’t want to be a dull boy so having a drink or two with a journalist somewhere nicer than an office is very appealing. Lunch or dinner is lovely, a concert is better. A day at Lord's or a private tour of an art exhibition is great.
Belt-tightening
Post-2010, as the budgetary belt tightened, enthusiasm for these activities among the bean counters began to wane.
“Education. It’s all about education,” I would say, hoping to appeal to their better sensibilities. If we get to know the journalists and they get to know us, it surely will help our cause, I would argue. I don’t see the same restrictions being applied to the client-facing bankers, I’d continue. We should engage with journalists as they engage with clients.
“Bankers are revenue generators. You are a cost centre,” came the regular response. But we are reputation generators, I would try. But it often fell on deaf ears.
I was at HSBC for 13 years. It’s a biggish organisation, with journalists around the world following its every move, particularly those in the UK and Asia. Once upon a time, I could arrange a trip to Hong Kong quite easily, based on a need to catch up with the comms team there, liaise with senior bankers who we supported and maintain my relationships with influential journalists.
Over time, this became increasingly difficult. The three reasons for going were deemed not strong enough. Travel costs were under review and a stronger purpose was required.
So not only was there pressure on corporate hospitality costs, I now couldn’t even get out there to host anything, which meant I had to become more cunning.
Perhaps there was a big investment event to which my most senior stakeholders were going and I could persuade them they needed my support. Or I could get myself invited to speak on an important panel. Or, to avoid accusations of London-centricity, have a senior stakeholder broadcast a global townhall from there. You get the picture.
Complications
Then, also in 2010, along came the UK Bribery Act. It defines a bribe as “giving someone a financial or other advantage to encourage that person to perform their functions or activities improperly … So this could cover seeking to influence a decision-maker by giving some kind of extra benefit to that decision-maker”.
Naturally, from a corporate hospitality perspective, this complicates matters. Hospitality is allowed but it has to be “proportional” and not designed to influence or be perceived to influence business decisions. Are we PRs trying to bribe journalists? No, of course not. It is still all about looking for opportunities to educate the media on a bank’s strategy. We are not asking them to do anything “improper”. Far from it. When it comes to a story, particularly a negative one, no journalist worth their salt – and those are the ones with whom we engage – gives two hoots whether they had recently been to watch a rugby match with a PR or a senior banker. Any influence might be defined as when a journo gives you a few minutes to argue your corner because you know one another having met a few times.
Following the act, arranging corporate hospitality became more bureaucratic. That word “perceived” seemed to cause some of the trouble so cost limits were introduced and sign-offs were required, but we got used to it.
That wasn’t the only impact though. Increasingly media outlets felt that by accepting corporate hospitality they exposed themselves to accusations of being influenced. As a result, many journalists now find themselves unable to agree to corporate hospitality unless their employer pays their portion of the cost. Which they may not.
Let’s assume I won a battle for hospitality budget (and it is in the UK so I can get there), the event might be in a room empty of journalists.
Exotic places
A fantastic former colleague used to entertain us with tales of flying first class around the world, catching up with journalists in exotic places and managing his teams and stakeholders across the globe. This was several decades ago when costs didn’t seem to be an issue. How I felt I had missed out by a generation or two on the best years of the industry. Now I look back on my earlier years in the business and wonder if my younger equivalents don’t feel the same.
Jezz Farr has been a senior communications adviser to major international banks for more than 25 years