Media training and crisis communications – why beauty brands need them more than ever
A new report by sustainability rating platform Good on You will make grim reading for many beauty PRs and in house communications teams. Good on You has assessed nearly 240 beauty brands on their efforts to ensure that don’t harm people, planet or animals. The platform looks at a variety of publicly available data points and information to create a five-point rating for each beauty brand.
Brands are ranked from “We Avoid” through to “Great.” Nearly two thirds of the beauty brands that Good on You assessed were rated as “Not Good Enough,” or lower. Shockingly, only two ranked “Great.” As providers of media training for beauty brands we were fascinated to see that some of the largest, best known names scored particularly badly.
Media Training for beauty brands
As well as media training for beauty brands we also provide media training for fashion labels and it’s interesting to note how this report shines a light on a lack of information and transparency on sustainability and human rights compared to the fashion industry. Meanwhile, our media training for climate change organisations has helped spokespeople carry out media interviews on sustainability with confidence, putting across their messages and handling difficult questions.
So what can beauty brands do to improve their ability to talk about sustainability and human rights with consumers and trade audiences? In our media training and issue management courses for beauty companies we look at how their spokespeople can work closely with their PR consultancies and inhouse media relations teams to get their messages across in the media.
First, they need to define those messages and ensure that they’re relevant to their audiences. For instance, the messages and the examples that they use to back them up, as well as the language they use, will be different in the case of consumer and trade outlets. As well as having their own concerns, retailers, distributors and other industry organisations will understand words, phrases and acronyms that will be lost on the public.
Media training workshops for beauty brands
Language is very important too. As we say, in our media training workshops for beauty brands, it’s good to use language that people understand but it’s better to use language that they use. Beauty brand spokespeople also need to be ready to convey these messages with authority, empathy and authenticity. It’s one thing to see your key messages written down in front of you but it’s another to be express them confidently and convincingly to a journalist. Connecting with them on a personal level and making them sound authentic is also essential.
That’s why in our media training for the beauty industry we carry out realistic role play media interviews with the participants on our courses. All of our trainers are working journalists (operating under strict NDAs) and so they ask exactly the same questions that they would in their day jobs working in the media.
However, instead of publishing the answers anywhere (you’ll be glad to hear) they give the participants on our media training courses constructive feedback. The beauty brand executives, marketing people, brand ambassadors, supply chain managers and others that we provide media training for can then take these lessons forward to the next set of interviews. They improve and build their confidence as the day progresses.
Media training courses for beauty brand executives
If beauty brands want to convince journalists that they really are sustainable then they’re going to need to provide some proof. During our media training courses for beauty brand executives we help them to identify the evidence, examples, proof points and even simple, human anecdotes that they can include in their media interviews to both illustrate their points and to prove them. As we say in the media, if you haven’t got an example, you haven’t got a message – and if you haven’t got a message why are you doing this interview?
We journalists will often ask difficult or unexpected questions
It would be nice if journalists simply asked helpful questions and left it at that. However, as we explain and then demonstrate in our media training for beauty brands, we journalists will often ask difficult or unexpected questions. It’s not that we are out to persecute our interviewees, it’s just that we need a story and we’re constantly thinking of the questions that our readers, listeners or viewers might be asking themselves.
It’s therefore essential that the spokespeople for beauty brands are prepared not only to put across their positive key messages, but to handle any difficult or irrelevant questions that they might be faced with. In the case of sustainability in the beauty industry there are, as this latest report reveals, plenty of these awkward inquiries.
We work closely with beauty PRs and in-house media relations teams to identify these difficult issues and tricky questions. We will then include them in our media training courses and help the participants to find convincing answers to them. It’s not about making anybody look foolish – quite the opposite.
We provide tools and techniques
We want to test people in our media training courses but we provide them with the tools and techniques that they need to manage these difficult questions. The result is that they go away feeling that they have been challenged but that they have the skills that they need to answer difficult questions and, very importantly, to get the interview back onto their key messages.
We don’t have to tell people who work for beauty brands that this is a very visual industry. How you come across on camera is almost as important as what do you say. That’s why in our media training workshops for beauty brands we put spokespeople on camera. Again, it’s a challenging but realistic experience and it’s aimed at building confidence.
“Facing the camera with the lights in my eyes and a microphone in front of me as questions were thrown at me was pretty terrifying but now, I’ve practised it a few times I’ll certainly feel more confident about doing TV interviews for real,” one senior beauty brand executive told us. No normal human being likes to see themselves on the screen but playing back a TV interview is a great opportunity to look at those small but important details such as tone of voice, facial expressions and body language. There are always learning points to be taken away from reviewing broadcast interviews.
We work with in house media relations departments and PR companies
Occasionally beauty companies find themselves subject to investigations by the media and exposes. This is why it’s important that they think about a crisis strategy. Our crisis communications courses for beauty brands are increasingly in demand. We work with in house media relations departments and PR companies to develop relevant scenarios around greenwashing, human rights abuses or complaints by customers and organisations.
We then use these to put beauty brand senior managers through a range of tough but realistic media interviews. Here too, we provide tools and techniques to improve their crisis communications capabilities. We help beauty houses to look at every aspect of their supply chain and manufacturing processes as well as their communications strategies so that should they be subject to a crisis they will be well prepared to convincing media interviews and to manage the media effectively.
This new Good on You report is a wake-up call for many beauty industry players. Certainly, we expect it to increase interest among savvy comms professionals within the industry in media training and crisis communications courses for beauty brands.
Media Training courses for beauty brands
Our media training courses for CEOs teach techniques to control interviews and steer away from difficult topics. We create all of our media training for beauty brands from scratch to meet the client’s needs exactly. Come and talk to us. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.
