Sneaking in the back door

I got home the other day to find what I thought was a free newspaper in my post box – the Haringey Community News.

Brilliant, I thought, I love a newspaper.

I settled down to read it with a cup of tea. The front page read: ‘Lib Dems taking action to cut CRIME’.

Inside the paper there were stories including:

‘Help for Haringey residents as Lib Dems deliver Council Tax freeze’

LABOUR SHAME: Council’s ‘bonuses for failure’ scandal.

Not all of the headlines were so blatant. But it turns out what I thought was a newspaper, was in fact a piece of Liberal Democrat propaganda.

Cynical

I find this approach deeply cynical. It’s nothing short of dishonest to try and dress-up your 

campaign messages as independent news. I can’t find a single reference to it being a Liberal Democrat publication – it’s just called community news.

More importantly, I don’t think it works. If you need to trick people in to reading your messages, then as soon as they realise what’s happened, they feel cheated and immediately don’t trust you.

It also assumes that your audience is stupid. I take offence at that. Of course I’m not going to fall for this. Anything that’s in Haringey Community News, no matter how valid, has now lost all of its credibility.

Try harder please Liberal Democrats. Earn your right to be talked about in proper media or make your marketing so compelling that I want to pick-it up. Don’t trick your way into my front room, because I will just kick you out. And be sure not to let you in next time. 

'I wish' campaign: Hit or miss?

I’ve been captivated by Pancreatic Cancer Action’s ‘I wish I had breast cancer’ campaign.

From the initial backlash to the tragic death of Kerry Harvey, the courageous face of the campaign, I’ve asked myself, ‘has this been effective for the charity?’

A few weeks ago I said Prostate Cancer’s campaign was ‘brilliant’. However Pancreatic Cancer Action’s campaign would have been run on a far smaller budget and generated far more column inches.

Apparently the ad was only in regional and online media. But the only place I’ve seen it is in national newspapers which tells its own story.

It’s also received 119 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, with people like Gloria Hunniford saying it had made her feel ‘almost sick’.  

My Dad had cancer. And it was awful. There is something deeply uncomfortable about someone saying ‘I wish I had breast cancer’ or ‘I wish I had testicular cancer’.

It’s so uncomfortable, that I don’t think many people would publicly feel confident enough to say, 

“Yes I support that campaign,” or “Yes, I want to donate to that charity”.

But was that the objective?

Writing for the Guardian website, the chief executive Ali Stunt, said: “With a limited budget, it was vital that the advert would stand out and provoke thought and initiate discussion among members of the public, the media and influencers.”

It’s certainly done this. I had never heard of Pancreatic Cancer Action a month ago. Now, I have a firm opinion of them as a bold, courageous charity and I admire them for taking such a risk. I imagine there has been some tense mornings in the office over the last few weeks. 

I also had no idea that the survival chances of someone diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is just 3%. That’s staggering. Regardless of if you like the tactics, many more people are now aware of the devastating ferocity of the disease.

As Stunt says: While the direct criticisms that we have received are in their hundreds, millions of people are now aware of pancreatic cancer who weren't a week ago. And they're now becoming aware of the symptoms.

I imagine more people feel upset and offended by Pancreatic Cancer Action than they did a few months ago. But I also imagine that awareness of pancreatic cancer and its symptoms is significantly higher. And as uncomfortable as it makes me feel, maybe that’s the most important thing. 

What does Care.data even mean?

One of the biggest Government U-turns from the last few weeks has been over the proposed scheme to share GP patient records – Care.data

I support the sharing of patient data – I’m more than happy for my anonymous medical records to be shared for the betterment of medical research. But the way it’s been communicated and then defended has been nothing short of a shambles and is the reason for its downfall.

If ever there’s evidence that PR works, it’s in the midst of some serious baktracking on an expensive NHS England initiate after weeks of backlash in the media. Although I disagree with the outcome, this is PR in action in a democratic society.

A nudge too far

Looking at the way it was set-up, Care.data seems to be born out of Nudge theory. The message I took from Sustein & Thaler’s influential book is that people’s decisions can be influenced by the way they are presented to help them make better choices.

To overcome people’s inertia, the book says decisions should have a positive default option – i.e. I don’t have time to think about my pension contributions, so by not filling in the forms I will be rolled on to a default pension scheme that means I don’t lose out. This certainly applies to me.

In the patient data case, the default is to opt-in. I’m not against this.

But Sustein and Thaler also say that to count as a nudge, “the intervention must be easy and cheap to avoid”. This is where Care.data falls down. To opt-out you need to first realise it’s happening either through a non-descript piece of junk mail or a tricky search on the internet.

Then you need to go and speak to your GP.

This isn’t easy, and might not even be cheap.

The way forward
I can see the decision maker’s concern – an easy opt-out by email or clicking a button on a website could mean thousands of people opt out in the wake of the inevitable privacy backlash. 

But by not communicating it properly, it now it looks suspicious. It looks like NHS England has tried to sell-off your patient records to private companies without properly telling you its plans. I’m not sure the programme can recover.

If the Government / NHS England think it’s the right thing to do, then they need to have the confidence they can make the case for this to the public. It requires an above the line campaign, easy interactive online guides, a click of a button to opt out, a coalition of supporters and a robust defence to the inevitable criticism.

Also what does “Care.data” even mean? Who thought of that?

Instead, mounting pressure that reached its crescendo in Radio 4’s survey that found fewer than a third of people remember receiving the information letter, meant NHS England had to delay the scheme.

As Nick Triggle from the BBC said:  When you have a group of bodies as disparate as the British Medical Association, privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch and the Association of Medical Research Charities united in their condemnation, you know you have a problem.

NHS England is now in a tricky position. If they do bring it back, revamped and more user friendly in six months time it’s going to be starting again but with a heavily tarnished reputation. This will be very difficult to turnaround.