One of the most reassuring elements of the media coverage from the past 10 days is how few publishers have put a foot wrong. That was until Holly & Philip and queue-gate. As someone who would have been involved in managing the crisis which ensued, I’ve watched with interest as It's unfolded.
What’s The 101?
On Friday, Holly & Phillip were spotted in Westminster Hall during the Queen’s lying in state. Whilst they weren’t actually in the queue, they were seen on the live feed going past the coffin. It became clear they were there in a professional capacity as part of the journalists and press approved to cover the event. However, this also coincided with David Beckham spending over 12 hours in the queue to pay his respects and Good Morning Britain’s Susanna Reid queuing for 7 hours with her mum. The optics soon became about Holly & Phillip queue-jumping.
Despite statements released by ITV and This Morning’s social media on Saturday, the furore continued and even the opening explanation on Tuesday’s episode has failed to quell the anger, which has prompted 50,000 to petition for them to be fired from This Morning.
This follows only a couple of weeks after the controversy about offering ‘paying energy bills’ as a prize on the This Morning feature Spin To Win. This caused a number of OFCOM complaints with some claiming it was insensitive given the cost-of-living crisis which is impacting the This Morning audience significantly. Like with queue-gate, they doubled down and continued with the feature, until clearly the programme makers were told by ITV management to change tack.
Ok, so what?
Who cares? All of this has changed perceptions of Holly & Phil from being ‘one of us’ to ‘above us’ for a significant proportion of the population, who already have a growing distrust of news. This accessible persona has been hugely successful for Holly in particular (who has over 8 million Instagram followers), and is the cornerstone of why they are so popular with mass audiences and brands. This also poses a bigger, more existential crisis for ITV as it strives to shift perceptions ahead of the ITVX launch.
Timing & News Cycles: Even though it was only 24 hours later, with a lack of any other news to focus on, it felt like days until ITV responded. Maybe ITV were hoping it would go away or concluded that talking about itself and its presenters in a national period of mourning felt disrespectful. But given no other celebrity news stories had got a look in for over a week, ITV should have quickly realised that this particular news cycle was very different from the norm, and therefore acted quicker.
Sorry Not Sorry: The key part from all statements was that there actually wasn’t an apology, and this was picked up by media commentators and the public. Even if technically they may not have done anything wrong, would it have been better and more on-brand to acknowledge vulnerability and apologise? The value of an apology is often forgotten about when it comes to crisis comms, especially when there’s a human element to the story as well as a need to move the story along quickly.
What To Take Away:
What your audience thinks is more important than what you think: This went so wrong for This Morning because the programme makers (and to a lesser extent ITV) believe that the show is a news programme, whereas the perception from its audience is very much that It's not. It really doesn’t matter what you think about your brand or product; what matters is what your audience or consumer thinks. Leave your thoughts and assumptions at the door, otherwise you risk alienating the most important people.
Your talent, leaders and employees are part of your Brand Codes: ITV didn’t move fast enough when this story broke. And even when it did, the statement was not particularly strong or supportive towards its talent. It fundamentally forgot how intrinsically linked Holly & Phillip are to the ITV brand. The duo is part of so many of its programmes that they are the faces of ITV - the brand codes if you will. And trust in your brand codes is inherently linked to trust in your brand. Identify and protect them as you would any other part of your brand.
Jaine Sykes is Senior Director of Media Strategy at Edelman