Rangers' PR: Succulent lambs to the slaughter

[Frankie 8,570]

On our main site today, @AMcKellar89 examines our PR operations and their ineffective reaction to ongoing issues:

 

http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/current-affairs/768-rangers-pr-succulment-lambs-to-the-slaughter

 

Succulent lamb: a phrase which, as bizarre as it seems, alludes to the great sway Rangers Football Club, or perhaps more accurately Sir David Murray, once held over the Scottish media.

 

The term refers to the food served by the Rangers chairman in meetings with friendly journalists who would report favourably in return for exclusives and inside information in return.

 

Murray understood the value of brand management, media relations and the need to have journalists onside for the inevitable moments when our club would require them. Murray, for all his many, many faults, understood the true value of public relations, at least in the first-half of his tenure. The same cannot be said for our current board of directors. Lamb is very much off the menu.

 

“Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. PR is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.” - The Chartered Institute of Public Relations

 

The above, quite clearly, has not truly been appreciated at Rangers for well over a decade as our club has allowed itself and our fans to become a punch-bag for the media and rival supporters, epitomised most disappointingly by the poisonous summer of 2012.

 

For years we adopted an outdated and counter-productive approach of “dignified silence”, allowing the vacuum created to be filled by others. And, let me tell you, the narrative they have built up has not been beneficial to Rangers in any way, shape or form.

 

Our club has allowed, over a period of time, the continued and disgraceful dehumanising and abuse of our support. We have made ourselves an easy target and at times when there were no shortage of people lining up to take a kick.

 

And that’s the problem with saying nothing. If we don’t comment, someone else will.

 

Look no further than the events of the last week. Two knuckle-draggers were pictured at our stadium racially abusing Scott Sinclair. It was as abhorrent as it was vile. And our club’s response? Silence. Deafening silence.

 

The result of that has been clear for all to see. Celtic had their players tweeting, their manager commenting and stories about a “hate mob” on the back-pages until the middle of the week. Their orchestrated campaign continued with players posing with a t-shirt emblazoned with the message “Love Celtic, Hate Racism” and their supporters proudly displayed a banner with an anti-racism message. That's the same club that employs Leigh Griffiths and was “seriously disappointed” at the ban handed to Aleksandar Tonev.

 

Yet, because of Celtic’s un-matched PR, there’s no mainstream media comment on such hypocrisy – just compliant journalists helping with the over-the-top milking of what was, of course, a horrible situation. An article in The Herald entitled “Scottish football a backwater? Racist abuse and anti-Catholic songbook doesn’t help our case” again reinforces the growing link being made with racism and our club on the back of two morons in a crowd of 50,000.

 

At the time Rangers needed to be proactive, not reactive. Our club is very much open to all and runs numerous terrific initiatives within communities that we should be proud of. The problem is we quite simply don’t promote this anywhere near enough.

 

We could, in any attempt to salvage something remotely positive from this situation, have invited an anti-racism initiative to the stadium the next day and had players endorsing their positive message just as Celtic have done. It seems like pretty simple stuff if I’m being honest.

 

Instead we allowed ourselves to be put on the back foot, issuing a minimal response condemning the gestures and spending the rest of the week fire-fighting the association with racism or, worse, simply waiting for the embers to burn out of their own accord. Then, just as the fire does die down, we organise a SRTRC anti-racism event with Wes Foderingham – over a week later. And days after Celtic did the same at the PFA Awards dinner.

 

All of this begs the question – just what on earth is it that James Traynor and Level5 actually do?

 

I know for a fact that a number of prominent journalists in Scotland are in complete disbelief over how poorly Rangers handles its public relations and brand management.

 

They cannot comprehend that the club thought it was a good idea to employ somebody almost universally disliked and, worse, distrusted in media circles to head-up the public relations of the new regime at Rangers and queried what exactly a former tabloid hack really knows about the various different aspects of modern PR. Valid points, I would say.

 

These journalists cannot understand that a huge club like ours has such a dreadful, antiquated, and ineffective approach to public relations and that we persist with this despite the obvious failings.

 

The amateurish, old school methods deployed by Level5 no longer work in the modern world. Good PR isn’t limited to angry, rambling statements and taking pot-shots at everyone and anyone on the club website. It might work in the sports pages of the Record but it certainly isn’t enough for an institution like Rangers.

 

Celtic used the media, rather disgracefully, to apply pressure to a referee prior to our semi-final at Hampden. They then used it to build the association of Rangers fans with racism through the Scott Sinclair incident. They know how to play the game and they aren’t afraid to take the gloves off in doing so. And we let it pass without as much as a peep.

 

While I wouldn’t advocate stooping to their level there is absolutely no doubt that a modern, professional firm who actually specialise in PR and not sports columns could provide us with so much more value for money than the incompetents we currently have running the show. You wouldn’t hire a plumber to fix your electrics, so why hire a former sports hack to handle our most sensitive PR and defend our reputation beyond the back pages of the Daily Record?

 

Rangers have nobody with the relevant experience in issues like crisis PR or delivering a sustained, message-focused campaign to change or promote perceptions of a brand. What do Traynor and Level5 know about positive image enhancement? What do they know about community engagement or creating and building a brand? The evidence would suggest very little.

 

While Celtic have successfully built a romanticised image around their origin, Brother Walfrid and the core values they believe define their football club, our institution and support have had our reputation defined by jealous, bitter rivals and others. We have allowed ourselves to be portrayed by our enemies, for lack of a better word, as some sub-human, knuckle-dragging “klan”. And we didn’t do anywhere near enough to counter it.

 

Yes, in recent years, we’ve taken action against BBC Scotland and individual journalists such as Graham Spiers and Keith Jackson but the club don’t make clear enough why they’ve had to take these steps. In the last few days another Daily Record journalist – indeed their online sports editor - has joined Jane Hamilton and their paid Celtic blogger in having past sectarian tweets and anti-Rangers bile exposed. What have Rangers said? Absolutely nothing.

 

They may well understandably be fed up of being patronised by the Record Editor Murray Foote’s ongoing tacit support for such bigotry and inaccuracies regarding our club but as powerless as we may be to stop such content, the club should be informing every Rangers supporter to take their business elsewhere. Celtic did so in the past and are reaping the rewards now. Sure, banning newspapers or taking away the privileges of journalists may not be the best long term strategy but if organisations can’t be worked with positively then make it clear why. Don’t leave people guessing – fill the vacuum and make your point.

 

With that in mind, our club needs to define what it stands for, what it means to be a Ranger. David Mason, the club’s historian, said “for me it is about standards and tradition and about the values that Bill Struth instilled into our institution”. From the Gallant Pioneers’ humble beginnings we established ourselves as the premier club in the land, upholding values like class, dignity and sportsmanship. That is Rangers.

 

PR is about much more than the back page of a newspaper. The club needs to start looking after our image, our identity. And you don’t do that by employing those who have absolutely no idea what those are, never mind how to champion them.

 

At best right now we are constantly reactive rather than proactive. At worst we are completely inactive. It is an embarrassingly negligent approach for a firm receiving a not inconsiderable sums for their services.

 

What concerns me however is that our board seem completely ignorant as to just how abysmally poor our PR is. Or maybe they actually believe that Level5 do a good job for us? One is as worrying as the other.

 

There are firms out there who actually specialise in public relations. I suggest we consider hiring one. Only then we may match Celtic off the park – as well as on it.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Frankie

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Totally agree Frankie, our so called PR is a Neanderthal with a ipad. They don't know how to even switch it on, i can imagine them standing round it in a group poking it, sniffing it and licking it. Some big Alpha cave man miraculously presses the on button and they all jump back going oooooooohhhhh.

 

God help us please.

Edited May 11, 2017 by aweebluesoandso

[lenny3k 662]

Totally agree Frankie, our so called PR is a Neanderthal with a ipad. They don't know how to even switch it on, i can imagine them standing round it in a group poking it, sniffing it and licking it. Some big Alpha cave man miraculously presses the on button and they all jump back going oooooooohhhhh.

 

God help us please.

 

I cannot help but think of this scene when reading your post.....

[Blue Moon 1,296]

Superb article from Andy. This is the sort of thing Club 1872 should be taking up with the club. We have taken a hammering from all quarters this week and this racist tag will stick for a long time. Utterly depressing how inept we are as a club in dealing with these issues.

[stewarty 2,027]

Yet another area of strategy that the Board and senior management of the club are failing on... Part of the issue with positive PR is trying to handle all the negative PR that is generated. We're in a situation where there is far more negative, than positive. However that balance us very slowly shifting and whilst Level5 may have served a purpose (even if we don't know what that is!), its clear that we need to start setting the agenda in terms of projecting our strategy and values - a point that Andy makes very well.

 

However, that will not happen in my view for some time to come, whilst we have so many legal and funding issues to resolve as we have no clear timescale on this.

 

Then you add in that Celtic are very effective at managing their message and are winning so comfortably, this only serves to highlight our failings.

Edited May 11, 2017 by stewarty

[Robert 17]

Great article.

[plgsarmy 111]

Great article. I would suggest there are other departments within the Club which should also be performing better.

Edited May 11, 2017 by plgsarmy

[scotjo 19]

On our main site today, @AMcKellar89 examines our PR operations and their ineffective reaction to ongoing issues:

 

http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/current-affairs/768-rangers-pr-succulment-lambs-to-the-slaughter

 

Our PR is nonexistent and all we get is dignified silence but would Celtic have apologised had it been there fans who made the racist gestures? Given recent form I would doubt it. What maybe we should have done is apologise and state that we don't condone any racist behaviour and highlight both the Celtic racist fan from the Diouf incident and the Rangers one, and in this way they are not pointing the finger but simply showing it goes two ways.

If that lot can subtly manipulate things we should too.

Edited May 11, 2017 by scotjo

[compo 7,052]

A good and first class article this is something we have to get right

[26th of foot 6,084]

Back in the day, any criticism of the club and support was ignored, dignified silence was the maim. However, if anyone criticised SDM, there was an all guns blazing reaction.

 

It seems to me, and the article supports my view; nothing has changed. The Board is failing in a number of important areas, including a lack of response to the concerns of the support. Club 1872 may be on the way to proving it is a fire without a chimney?