I know that we are all heartily bored by the Ross/Brand/Sachs controversy – and they say the ’silly season’ for media is in August – but there are a few interesting lessons from the incident that can guide any wannabe crowd surfers:
1. Know your crowds … despite spending millions of pounds on audience research and employing some very bright people, the BBC does not appear to understand its core Radio 2 audience. It may have been successful in broadening the station’s appeal, but its heartland remains firmly entrenched in Middle England. Senior BBC managers appeared genuinely surprised by the moral backlash unleashed by Brand and Ross, whereas to most outsiders it looked like the perfect issue to wind up Middle England (ably assisted by the Daily Mail, which clearly does understand this audience) - overpaid, trendy celebrities from an urban elite they despise, attacking the very essence of family, somebody’s grandfather. This audience has always believed that Jonathan Ross is overpaid and that his humour is inappropriate for Radio 2. The incident with Brand simply gave it the perfect opportunity to jump on a moral bandwaggon.
2. Take the initiative … it is a delicious irony that one of the world’s foremost media organisations does not appear to understand the modern media environment. At a time when 24 hour news channels can only survive by feeding off a diet of controversial stories and consumers are able and willing to view, share and debate issues on a variety of file sharing sites, the indecision demonstrated by the BBC can be disasterous. In the immediate aftermath of the Brand/Ross broadcast the BBC received two complaints … just over a week later the figure had risen to 34,000. In our book we describe how Seb Coe, facing a similar outbreak of public criticism when unveiling the London 21012 logo, was able to take the initiative. He fronted-up to the crowd, articulated his point of view and took the heat out of the argument.
3. Sort out the organisational structure – with Mark Thompson, the head of the BBC, on holiday, the organisation appeared incapable of making a decision. It was only when he interrupted his holiday that the BBC began to get its act together. Without the right decision-making structures in place, no organisation can crowd surf. In our book we describe how Dell was able to shorten its reaction time to external incidents, such as a laptop catching fire. It wasn’t simply about Michael Dell becoming a crowd surfer, although the commitment of the person at the top of any organisation will always be important … it was a case of making the organisational and operational changes necessary to allow the whole company to become crowd surfers.
I am sure that the BBC will have learned many lessons from this incident … but will they learn how to surf?