Colita Colloring’s PR challenge

At a recent power breakfast pre-planning meeting during which myself and several colleagues had the difficult task of outlining a draft agenda for submittal to an agenda proposal sub-committee for subsequent approval by the Senior Account Managers' agenda ratification Soviet, someone interrupted proceedings with the question "anyone for coffee?"

Fairly straightforward question, n'est-ce pas?. Only to the uninitiated. Very few recognise the effect that a bad coffee decision could have on a company's share price three months down the line, especially if taken at a crossroads in the company's restructure.

Fortunately, we in the professional world of PR immediately realised the potential for disaster and in just over half-an-hour had knocked up a provisional list which included a milky latte and two decaf double mochas.

Last week, I tackled the thorny question of how to decide whether or not to get out of bed. We now move on to how a PR consultant would break down the hot beverage question into a series of time-critical elements.

While the man in the street is unlikely to give the matter proper consideration, the PR consultant knows that the quality of the coffee, and indeed the quality of the pre-coffee planning, are as important as the final outcome of any campaign. The client knows this too, and will happily pay for this high level of strategic thinking.

Here is how I might approach the coffee question (no one approach is correct, but this will form a good foundation for those studying the art of PR). Those of you au fait with Powerpoint might like to project this onto the boardroom wall during your next management brainstorming lunch:

Naturally, this is a massively simplified version of my own beverage decision manual. In response to the initial question "coffee?", a negative answer might lead back not to thirst, but to a further range of options, including "Perrier?", "spritzer?", and so on.

Neither have I included the sub-section on biscuits, where the dilemma of whether to compliment the coffee with a Hob-nob or chocolate digestive runs to eleven pages.

Plus, in order to save valuable space on The Rockall Times' servers, we have not even begun to investigate the exciting range of coffees which are now available. I think readers can imagine how our flow-chart would look if we had to include every option on the Starbuck's menu!

But I do hope that this example gives some insight into the planning challenges confronting the modern PR as she struggles to cope with an ever more complicated and demanding world.

Next week: How to be nice to people you don't like