Why media training matters: BlackBerry has (another) bad day at the office

Last week, you won’t have failed to notice that BlackBerry launched their ‘make or break’ new device, BlackBerry 10. If you’ve a passing interest in social media, you’ll also have noticed that the launch was entirely overshadowed by the performance of Stephen Bates, MD of BlackBerry EMEA, throughout his day of press interviews. For completeness sake, this is not the first time that BlackBerry’s spokespeople have been found wanting. Witness the chief exec, Mike Lazaridis, storming out of a BBC interview after objecting to the line of questioning during an interview in 2011.

I got a first inkling of how the day was going to go for Mr Bates at around 6.30am while listening to Radio 4. Mr Bates, in response to fairly gentle questioning from a usually tough R4 breakfast team, was evasive, fluffy and managed to use the words ‘unique’ and ‘excited’ far too many times to count, without actually saying anything of substance. The day wasn’t about to get any better for Mr Bates. By the time I had arrived in the office, Twitter was awash with his even worse performance on BBC Breakfast. If you can watch this without cringing then you are a better person than I.

Finally, Mr Bates rounded off his terrible run with an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live. Now, you’d have thought that someone would have given him some feedback or advice by this point. Alas, they hadn’t. He manages to evade every question or mention of Apple or any other competitor with politician-like skill. He is also still very ‘excited’. Twitter predictably erupted with scorn once again.

Another important point for businesses to note is that journalists, bloggers and tech enthusiasts are huge fans of social media; and often the first place they go to with news is Twitter, where messages spread very quickly. Watching my entire news feed fill with scathing comments I almost felt sorry for Mr Bates. Sifting through the glut of sarcastic, incredulous and snarky comments on Twitter and various other social networks reveals that the BlackBerry 10 actually went down very well with its reviewers. In general there was very positive feedback about the new device and operating system. But unfortunately for BlackBerry, this positive reception was drowned out by the chatter surrounding Stephen Bates’ shambolic performances. Indeed, a lot of journalists attending his afternoon press conference in London weren’t talking about the launch, but that they couldn’t wait to see how bad Mr Bates was going to be.

There is an important lesson here for any company preparing a spokesperson. Natural is always best. Being media trained to within an inch of your life is not. There is no problem sticking to the messages, being prepared and sounding positive; but sounded like you’ve swallowed the press release, avoiding answering any question you don’t like, and generally babbling like a corporate drone is not going to win you any fans. It’s a textbook example of how not to launch something; if your spokesperson becomes the story – you’re not doing it right.