Please Ask Our Trade Association

A friend asked me this week how to determine when a company should respond to a media inquiry about an issue and when to kick the question to the industry association’s press office. Quite often, the association is in a much better position to handle challenging issues in the press because they can do so without attaching a specific brand to the story.  Think about the American Beverage Association’s handling of media inquiries about sugary drinks on behalf of Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper.

Generally, media inquiries about issues that involve downside or potential for criticism should be referred to the industry association, unless:

• The company has a differentiating position on the particular issue for which it wants publicity (i.e., taking a leadership position supports a concrete business objective)
• The issue affects the company disproportionately to the rest of the industry (i.e., specifically affects the company more than competitors, as might be the case if the company has a majority share of the market or dominance in an important geography), such that not participating would make the company look noticeably absent from the story or create the perception that the company is hiding behind the trade association

When faced with a challenging media question about an industry issue, consider the following to determine whether the company or the association should respond:

1. Is this an industry issue or a company issue?
2. Could the association provide a credible answer?
3. Do we have any interest in leading on this issue?
4. Are we differentiated on this issue in a way that requires a response?
5. Would we look like we’re hiding behind the association if we defer to them? (How conspicuous would our absence be?)
6. How will we be positioned in the story? Best case? Worst case?
7. Could it substantially improve our positioning if we were quoted?
8. How would competitors perceive us if we were quoted in the story? How about the association?
9. Do we set any unnecessary precedents in term of our willingness to respond in the future by responding to this inquiry with a statement or a quote?
10. Do we actually have something to say about the issue that’s newsworthy, important to publicize, credible, and quotable? Or are we trying too hard because we feel some media relations obligation?

Finally, it’s crucial to be able to explain these decisions to management. Often, company bosses wonder why the company wasn’t quoted in a story about an important issue. Just as they aided the initial decision, the answers to the questions above could help justify to the CEO how the inquiry was handled.