APEC PR good lessons for RI business

APEC PR good lessons for RI business

By Larry Pintak

JAKARTA (JP): "Thank God for the kids at the embassy," were
the words spoken by one of the dozens of Western TV
correspondents covering the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
meeting last week. It was cynical, but from the perspective of a
television reporter who wanted to get on the air, it was also
pragmatic.

A United States embassy occupation. A minor riot in Dili. For
foreign journalists struggling to make something interesting out
of a bunch of heads of state sitting around a table talking about
economics, it was irresistible.

That's why it's called a media event.

Unfair? Of course it was. The coverage out of proportion? You
better believe it. "Timor events shake Indonesia as APEC host"
headlines the Asian Wall Street Journal. "Asian summit clouded by
tensions on East Timor" announced the International Herald
Tribune.

But timing is everything. When you have the president of the
United States in town, when you have the world's media tripping
over themselves in search of a story, an embassy sit-in, no
matter how contrived or minor, is a sure winner.

Anything to get out of writing another piece on the alphabet
soup of GATT, PBF, PBEC, PBN and the like.

An Asian-based American newspaper reporter sarcastically put
it: "Trade barriers being dropped in the year 2020. Wow. Stop the
presses".

Twenty-nine kids sitting in a parking lot. They dominated the
headlines from the moment they scaled the walls on the eve of
Clinton's arrival. Toss in a small riot in Dili, and the story
was a sure hit.

Should anyone be surprised? It was a page torn from the
Greenpeace handbook. This is, after all, the Information Age.
Play to the cameras. Know when to make noise and where.

There was even the reporter-turned-Timorese activist who
witnessed the 1991 incident standing out in front of the embassy
pontificating for the cameras. She and the colleague who had been
with her back then had conveniently managed to get themselves
arrested in Timor and sent back to Jakarta the day before. Now
she was appropriately "outraged" in TV-seized soundbites. It was
Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame.

Did the government handle the situation well? Yes. The police
kept their distance. The Foreign Ministry sent a soft-spoken
woman with impeccable English to make soothing comments for the
cameras.

Did it matter? Yes and no. It didn't stop Timor from
dominating the APEC coverage, but it did help undercut those who
would paint a picture of oppressive rule. Anything less would
have turned an unfortunate incident into a full-fledged disaster.

Is there a way to prevent such a PR problem next time?
Perhaps not prevent, but certainly limit the damage.

When it comes to the media, familiarity breeds boredom. Allow
greater access. The more reporters who cover Timor, the less
interested the world will be. Look at Beirut. Afghanistan. How
often are they in the news? Limited access breeds suspicion.
"They must be hiding something," is the automatic response.

The international press corps is gone now. The media spotlight
has moved on. That's good. But it is also bad.

The opportunity to highlight Indonesia's achievements has, for
the moment, passed. What Business Week magazine before the summit
predicted would be "a chance to showcase" the archipelago's "for
tourists and investors" has come and gone.

Why did the Timorese manage to capture the media's
imagination? Partly because the alternatives offered to the
visiting reporters were so few. There are a thousand stories in
Jakarta. It is up to the Indonesian business sector to find ways
to tell them.

How many companies seized this unique opportunity? A survey of
the media information counters at the APEC conference told the
story. A press visit to Bandung for the rollout of the new plane
at IPTN. Two trips to Lippo City.

And that was it. No company fact sheets. No invitations for
interviews with President-Directors. No exotic tours.

Meanwhile U.S.companies were aggressively working the press
corps. Many flew in public relations experts for the event. U.S
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's press secretary went so far as to
wake this consultant and others at 3 a.m. one morning because she
had a White House reporter a few hours from his deadline who
wanted to write about U.S. business deals.

Those efforts benefited the local Indonesian partners of the
U.S. firms, but did little for the countless other Indonesian
companies with their own stories to tell.

Sure foreign reporters focus on the negatives. Sure they
occasionally exaggerate. Sure they are sometimes unfair. But
unless they are given something else to write about, what can we
expect?

A chance for the Indonesian business sector to build from the
APEC experience looms on the horizon. 1995 is the Golden
Anniversary of Indonesia's independence. It is another "media
peg," or event, upon which reporters can hang their stories.

Can anything be learned from the APEC? Yes. Communicate. Don't
wait for the media to come to you.

Become media savvy. Reach out. Make it as easy as possible for
reporters to tell your story. Provide them with the facts. Give
them access. Show them what Indonesia is all about.

It is in the interest of Indonesian business to have the real
story told. The reporters could care less. At the end of the day,
you have to show them that a handful of kids at the U.S. embassy
is not the only story in town.

Don't be misled. An embassy occupation will bump a boring
interview with a president-director off the front page any day.
And when it comes to TV, it's not even a contest.

So maybe it's time the Indonesian business sector comes up
with some media events of its own. The time to begin preparing
for 1995 is now.

Larry Pintak is International Managing Director of TriComm
Strategic Communications, a Jakarta based full service corporate
communications firm which produced The Jakarta Feature File, the
city's official APEC media kit.