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POSI VIBES
As we enter the New Year, Lee Baker, PR & Media Manager for the British Cleaning Council, this month makes a resolution to focus on the positive aspects of our industry in a bid to boost the perceptions of the general public.
There’s an old song whose lyrics you may well have heard; ‘you gotta accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative…and don’t mess with Mister in Between’ It’s a message the cleaning industry could take on-board to help bolster its public image for 2016.
Not that the public has a wholly negative perception of the cleaning industry, it’s more that they simply don’t understand or appreciate enough of what the industry does, or is achieving.
Readers of Tomorrows Cleaning are well aware that it is a huge, multi- million pound concern, that employs thousands of people, and is crucial to the nation’s health and prosperity; but selling that concept to the general public isn’t always straightforward.
Our sector is not as tangible or as easily definable as many other industries. Taken as a whole, it’s hugely diverse, and although organisations like Keep Britain Tidy, for instance, do get recognition, many others from across the sector; suppliers, contractors, training providers go about their business largely unnoticed.
That is why the BCC was set up, to give one voice to all the constituent parts, and for a modestly resourced organisation it does well. But the BCC can only do so much when it comes
28 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning January 2016
to generating positive news from right across the spectrum, and this is where individual companies can play a big part.
The larger organisations can usually be relied upon to put out a good supply of interesting news stories, but with today’s digital media, everybody could, and should, be doing it.
Positive stories, new innovations, charity work, whatever it may be, it can all help to shape the public’s perception about the cleaning industry.
Of course public relations (PR) has been an essential part of the marketing mix for many years. Big corporations spend millions of pounds annually on PR to protect their reputations and shape their media profile. They do this because they know how important it is to have full control over how the public views them.
The intention should never be to lie or mislead, and certainly not to bore people with endless trivia (mister in between). But it’s important for a company to get as much good will in the bank as possible, because there will be occasions when a negative news story breaks that will be out of their control.
There was one such incident recently involving cleaning operatives who were being disciplined by a contractor in London. One of the aggrieved female employees appeared on national TV news to put her case forward, and
got a very sympathetic hearing. The workers had breached their contracts, but, of course, journalists aren’t always interested in details, they scented blood, and the cleaning industry got the full media kicking.
The following day the media moves on to another target, but the reputational damage is done, and the thought that cleaning contractors treat workers badly is once again reinforced in people’s minds – however misinformed that notion may be.
That’s why it’s important, as much as possible, to always accentuate the positive to mitigate against these negative events when they happen. And these days it’s so easy to get your message out there through tweets, news bulletins on your company website, or even local media.
Fortunately the cleaning industry as a whole does have a very positive story to tell as it continues to innovate, create jobs, and provide training and education opportunities. I’m looking forward to covering many of these topics in 2016.
I’d like to wish all Tomorrows Cleaning readers a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
britishcleaningcouncil.org
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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