By nickjohnson - July 31st, 2013
In the run up to the Incite Summit (September 18-19, NYC), we interviewed some of our senior executive speakers.
This week, we spoke with Jan Jones Blackhurst, who is the Executive Vice-President of Government Relations, Communications and CSR at Caesar's Entertainment. Jan will be spoke on crisis communications at the Summit, alongside Sprint and Cardinal Healthcare.
What's your remit, Jan?
I oversee all of the government relations that impact our business activities, legalization in any new markets, writing and crafting and designing laws that will govern gaming in new jurisdictions and existing jurisdictions.
My department also handles all the press relations and public relations as it impacts the corporation, working with press on issues pertinent to the company - so crisis communications and any issues, whether they’re day to day issues or longer term consideration.
I’m also focused on CSR, and look after our corporate philanthropy, diversity, and sustainability functions - all of the issues that speak to who we are as company.
We have found that there is an increasing need for the public relations functions within large brands to work increasingly closely with marketing. How is your relationship with the marketing team at Caesar’s?
You have to co-ordinate with marketing all the time, particularly in a business like gaming, where you’re always going to have issues that come up, whether it’s compulsive gambling, accidents, deaths.
There’s just so many different issues that can come up unexpectedly - and impact how we’re positioned, how the public sees us, and then help us to determine how we speak to the public, to give them confidence that whatever the issue is, it’s under control.
Through the lens of our relationship with marketing, that means we’re exceedingly thoughtful about how we market to our customers. We must ensure that we do not come across as appearing predatory, marketing to underage people, inciting people to gamble who may not want to be casino customers.
And that’s because crises can now go ‘viral’ incredibly quickly - so we work closely with marketing to watch issues that may have consequences.
We were involved in the Paula Deene situation recently - she had branded three of our buffets.
That whole circumstance is a classic example of a company losing control of their public relations, and handling it inappropriately. Unfortunately, the issue got so far ahead of them that they couldn’t pull it back.
But in our case, our customers also got involved, and some of them were threatening to boycott us if we didn’t cut all our ties with her. Others were saying that it’s not fair she’s being treated this way.
After a lot of conversation, we made the determination to take her out of our properties. And it wasn’t an easy decision - because you don’t want other partners to think that you’re not a loyal partner, but they had so lost control of the messaging that she just couldn’t pull it back.
So to go deeper into the relationship between marketing and PR - what methods do you use to ensure you’re on the same page, working collaboratively and efficiently together?
All of our Marketing is governed by our Code of Commitment Marketing Code which is overseen by the Code of Commitment Council, so if there’s ever a question about marketing practices we have quite explicit rules on where and how we will advertise and who we will advertise to, what is acceptable messaging practice. For example, we don’t market in any venues where 50% of the demographic is not over 21, and we don’t advertise in media where the audience is not 70% over 21. We’re very explicit that gambling and casinos are adult entertainment.
If there is a question as to whether something is appropriate, they will direct that request to the CoCC, where we’ll review it, and make a determination on whether we go forward, whether it’s appropriate, and that falls under the CoC. And the Code is an umbrella across all departments, and are the rules that guide us.
And then if it’s a crisis communication, of course we’re always directly involved with the marketing department - because we may need them to assist us in getting the message out to the broadest audience.
So essentially there is one Code that governs when and how marketing and communications interact?
Yes - an agreed set of principles.
In practice, that means there’s no new marketing initiative that I wouldn’t be apprised of well before a decision has been made to move forward.
It’s becoming more and more pressing in a communications space, particularly with crisis issues, for a company to be able to respond increasingly quickly.
How is it that you have changed or evolved the internal models and expectations at Caesar’s, to ensure you are in a position to respond rapidly when a crisis hits?
The fundamental tool we use is our Crisis Team. That’s a team that is specifically designed to launch if the company is presented with a crisis, and brings together a combination of marketing, management, legal, communications and PR. They come together immediately, and assess
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Is the crisis real? First and foremost, do we have the facts correct?
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If it is real, what is the message that we want to put out to our employees, our guests, the community at large and any other relevant audiences?
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What different vehicles should we use to disseminate that message? Social media, one on one interviews, press releases?
Step one is determining whether a crisis is ‘real’. How is that you go about doing that?
There are inevitably a lot of rumors that happen around a crisis. So before taking action and addressing them, you really have to take the time to confirm that the crisis is real - and what it looks like.
Whether that’s working with law enforcement, with our properties, regulators - we’ve got such a broad depth and breadth of crises you just need to take the time to assess is the crisis real, what is the scope of the crisis, is it confirmed, and then move.
Sometimes that may take you a little more time, but it’s a lot better than getting out ahead of a crisis and making it worse by over-reacting or disseminating bad information.
What sort of metrics or indicators do you look at to assess the size of a crisis - and thus the scale of your response?
My communications teams will make the initial decision, since we are responsible for overall corporate communications.
One must bear in mind, these issues most often happen in real time - so I think generally, once it is determined that we have an issue - whatever the size - I will convene the Crisis Intervention Team to determine appropriate next steps.
You talked about brands now having significantly less control over how their brand is communicated.
How is it that Caesar’s handle the fact that ‘complete control’ over messaging is no longer possible in the age of social media?
I don’t think it changes the way you do your job. I’m not sure complete control was ever possible.
Yes, you can go viral much more quickly, so some of it is really being poised to be able to respond to that just as quickly, in the same medium and space - not trying to answer a message going broadly over social networks by holding a press conference.
You need to be able to respond within the appropriate communications realm - that’s the key difference.
When a crisis does happen, what would you say are the best steps for companies to take to ensure that the fallout is minimized?
Be honest, be direct, be responsive.
Look at all elements of the crisis, to make sure that you are addressing both the immediate and the subsequent fallout.
No matter what the issue, answer it to the best of your knowledge. If you don’t have an answer, say you don’t have an answer. Then be responsive all the way through until you come to a conclusion.
As an example, about a decade ago, a big Hell’s Angel’s fight that took place on one of our properties. Two competing gangs entered one of our properties and, there was a shootout. Two people were killed and there were several injuries; the police came and began the investigation.
Since the fight began at our property, all of the images on the television were of our casino, even though we really had nothing to do with it, apart from the fact the fight started there. So the perception was that our property was dangerous…our logos were all over the national news.
We handled the circumstance by changing the messengers. We did not want the press making this a Caesar’s issue, so we approached the Chamber of Commerce and City of Laughlin, and told them they needed to hold press conference and be responsive to this crisis. They needed to make people feel safe coming to their city, city officials needed to have a say in what was happening.
They proceeded with the press conference, and that took us off television. So the issue didn’t go away, but it was no longer an issue about our company - the more serious issue went away.
With the rise of social, and with the rise of Big Data, and with an increasing desire for companies to be more customer-centric, the dividing line between the marketing and communications departments is blurring. Is that something you would agree with?
It’s interesting. The way that our company is structured - we’re a gaming company. It would be very unusual, in most businesses, to find a company where government relations, corporate communications, PR and CSR all are housed under one person with direct responsibility to the CEO.
The reason we follow this structure is because all these functions are key to how we are perceived - and consequently governed and regulated. Continuity of message is key.
I’m not a great believer, honestly, in merging marketing and communications.
Marketing messages are very different from corporate positioning and crisis communications.
I know my PR communicators in Marketing have a whole different view of what their job is - it is to sell. Mine is different - to preserve the credibility of the organization.
So I think that a degree of separation (with an understanding that you really need to stay aligned, and you can’t work entirely separately) is better.
In large companies, how does one ensure that the two departments do remain aligned?
In our company, marketing, government communications, legal, operations and human resources are all executive VP positions with direct reporting to the CEO. We’re the senior management team, and we meet constantly.
And we’re all of a level - so you have the ability, when setting policy and procedure, to do it as a team.
You’re always aware of the expectations and where the organization is going, and you have equal levels of authority and responsibility so that the Head of Marketing, if there’s an issue, is going to know he’s going to have to reach out to Head of Communications and Government.
That seems quite different to many companies - often you find that the entire Communications department reports up to the Chief Marketing Officer.
And I think that’s old-time thinking. People have a tendency to think it’s all about sales, until you face a crisis.
Often times when crisis situations get away from a company, it’s because they don’t have an autonomous communications department who have been vested with authority to make real time decisions - a communications department whose primary goal is preserving the integrity and reputation of the company.
If it’s all part of a broader marketing department, you inevitably look at what you’re communicating differently. There’s an entirely different lens, and I think that’s harmful.
I suppose ultimately if your boss’s role is fundamentally about marketing, that will inform everything you do.
You’re right. And I see it with a whole team of PR people who report to marketing. They’re great at selling stories about new openings, renovations, what we’re doing, what’s going on.
But when it comes to really understanding and making a relationship with the community around sustainability, or philanthropy, it’s mushy to them.
I’m selling the company, who we are, what we stand for - because I believe that ultimately that does impact consumer decisions.
A Marketer is just looking basically at pushing to payment, get people into their store.
That’s a different kind of sales, and if you’re not balancing that (and the only way you really can balance it is for me to have the same authority and accountability as the lead marketer), you will have a problem.
This concludes our interview with Jan. If you'd like to learn more about this event and others, then check out the Incite: Summits site where you'll learn all about past and future events.