This week on EthicalVoices, Amie Hoffner, Vice President of Corporate Communications at Dairy Queen, shares why communicators need the same protections as lawyers — and how to stay ethical when the lines between PR, marketing, and media blur. She discusses:
- Why communicators should have the same legal protections as lawyers
- How to avoid “on background” disasters
- Why trusting your gut isn’t enough
- How to manage overconfident executives in media interviews
- Why every crisis simulation should include an ethical dilemma
Tell us more about yourself and your career.
I lead Corporate Communications at American Dairy Queen Corporation. We have more than 7,700 DQ restaurants in over 20 countries, which sometimes serves as a little bit of a surprise to some folks. I also teach in the Master’s in Strategic Communications Program at the University of Minnesota. I started my career as a journalist.
I’ve worked at a number of other companies, including most recently Target Corporation and TCF Bank, which has had some M&A activity. They are now Huntington Bank.
Thinking back over your career, what is the most difficult ethical challenge you ever confronted that you can talk about?
That’s a good qualifier because I’ve experienced many in my career…most of which I can’t discuss because of NDAs.
The one that I’ve decided to share with you today isn’t the most significant, but it’s a cautionary case about working with media, especially as we see marketing and communications continue to meld at agencies and organizations.
I worked for an organization. I had just left the organization days prior, and there was a customer discrimination case that popped up. It had started to get some national media coverage. Some outlets had started to reach out. This was shared with me by the person who was really in the middle of the situation at that time.
He was leading both marketing and communications. He had decided that there was really an opportunity here to provide some more context, but he didn’t necessarily want that context in the story. He wanted to explain the situation because he thought journalists could understand better if he could provide that additional information.
While he was having a conversation with a journalist, he had said, “I’ll share this information with you on background.” During the conversation he shared confidential and proprietary information about the customer and about the interactions between the customer and the organization at the time.
He was very surprised to learn when the story ran, that confidential and proprietary information was included in the story. He really thought at that time that the journalist had done a disservice. I talked with him while I was on vacation and I asked “When you had the conversation about being on background, did the journalist acknowledge that you were on background? Did the journalist verbally say Yes, I agree to engage in a conversation with you on background or off the record.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and I had to jump in and say, okay, so moving forward, you need to make sure that the journalist acknowledges that the conversation you’re going to have is on background.
Frankly, if they do that it’s even better to get it in writing because you’ll be in a position where you have some level of written protection in case an event like this occurs in the future. Unfortunately, this was a tough learning lesson not only for the organization, but also for this leader who really was more of a CMO taking on CCO or corporate communications responsibilities as well.
There’s a lot of confusion between background, under NDA, and not for attribution. My guidance usually is, I don’t care what they say, do not say it unless you are comfortable seeing it in print, because there is still nothing legally binding them. What is your counsel? How formal relationship do you want to have with a reporter before you take the on background/under NDA/not for attribution seriously?
It’s a great question and a great call out because generally speaking, you wouldn’t want to share any confidential or proprietary information with a journalist that you didn’t expect to be an immediate story. When I counsel leaders, I very much say to them, if they tell you that it is on background, your first thought is to believe that’s not true.
Now, there are journalistic ethical standards that they have to abide by as well, but I usually say to my senior leaders we do not engage in conversations that are on background or off the record.
If that needs to happen, then that’s usually something that I am taking on and we’re just providing background and context so that it can be a more well-rounded story. We’d never share confidential or proprietary information because we knew it could end up in the story – even in some cases by accident.
I remember a conversation that I had with a journalist during a pretty tense time of issue and crisis. It can get confusing because we had a portion of the conversation that was on background, off the record, and then the journalist kept flipping back and forth between, okay, so now here’s a question I want to ask you it’s on the record. Okay. Now I want to bring it back off the record so I can share this point of information with you. So, you really want to have a trusted relationship with a journalist as much as you can. Each of us has a job to do, but generally speaking, it should be a fairly extreme case where you’re having an off the record or on background conversation.
I tell my executives that I will tell you if it is okay, and don’t assume. Because then therefore you have somebody to blame… me. Which is the great part of being an agency person. Do you recommend sending a recap to the reporter and saying something like “Great call, I really appreciate talking to you on background about these things.”
Yes. And I will often do that if we have that off the record or on background conversation. I will also then share clearly what is on record, and if there are any follow-up questions, let me know and we can talk about whether those responses are going to be on or off the record.
Most PR people have found themselves in the spot where the executive said something we wish they hadn’t said. How do you repair the mistake?
It depends on the relationship with the journalist. Sometimes you’ve got a relationship where, you might be able to leverage a “Hey, that was off the record,” or “He didn’t intend to say that.” Other times you’re going to end up being part of this story.
You’ve really got to do the research to understand the journalist and their approach. Also understand what your relationship with them is. If it’s a trade publication that you’ve got 20-year relationship with, that’s very different than if you’re working with someone for the first time.
Typically, I would like I or someone from our agency to be on all of the interviews that we’re doing with journalists at any level within the organization. That gives me the opportunity to jump in if the interview is going in a direction that we’re not completely comfortable with and provide some additional context. The leader gets to remove themselves with the situation, and I’m the person who gets to work directly with the journalist to try to solve and work through it. There are times where I’ve had interviews where I’ve had a senior leader who misspoke or intended to share accurate information but gave an incorrect number.
Journalists are usually really willing to work with you because they want to get the facts right for their story as well. But there are some journalists who will put you in a gotcha moment and then it’s really working to try to recover and have conversations without losing the relationship and the process.
One final question on this, because I think many times the biggest missteps happen with the most seasoned executives who have been doing this for a long time and do not want a media refresher. How do you advise people when they encounter that C-level executive that says, “Don’t worry about it. I got this” when you know you need to work with them.
I always get the most concerned when I have someone who’s confident or overly confident about their ability working with journalists. I’d much rather be in a situation where I have someone who proceeds with caution.
When I am in situations like that, I’ll often say to them that all communication runs through me, so I’m the one who’s going to respond. I’m the one who’s going to reach out. If you have a journalist who directly contacts you, the next step is that you’re going to flip that over to me or someone on the team, and we’re going to work through that for you on your behalf, and we’ll come back to you if it’s something that we want to talk about a little bit more or move forward
We see this very frequently now. Some journalists and paid opportunities will just reach out to senior leaders within an organization and start having conversations. We really want those conversations to run through the communications team so that we can set very clear expectations.
I’ll never give out a senior leader’s contact details, email address, phone number, and I encourage them not to as well.
What do you see as some of the key ethics challenges for today and tomorrow?
Privileged communication is really an area where I have a lot of passion. It might be because I’m married to an attorney, but it might also be because I have a lot of crisis and issues experience.
When you think about attorney-client privilege specifically, when you’re looking at it, any communication that is said between the two of them is confidential and is not admissible in court. I advocate that communication leaders should have the same level of privilege. It’s an ethical concern because it prevents us as communications practitioners from doing our best.
For example, it can limit our access to information. We might not be brought in as early as we could have been, given that we don’t have privileged communication. If there’s something, maybe there’s a lawsuit, it’s bubbling up a little, but we’re not in a situation where it’s really on fire, executives may decide I’m not going to bring her in. She doesn’t know until she needs to know. They might be in a position where they say, oh, if we start to see this escalate a little bit more than we’ll bring in the communications team.
Getting access to information early is important because we can help to advise and counsel a senior leadership team on direction. If we come in later and we don’t have the opportunity to influence early on we could be going down a path that then we have to start over or do some rework or turn in another direction.
I’ve had a number of organizations where I’ve signed NDAs in crisis and issue situations, but legal teams need to draft these NDAs specific for this case. Even if you’re deposed, you may very well have to share some information if a lawsuit entails thereafter. I’ve been in situations where I’ve layered PR agencies under law firms, and while this is helpful because the communications that are shared within that group are privileged, there are still communications that are happening outside of the law firm or the PR agency that aren’t privileged.
It helps, but it’s still not quite enough. So, I’m a big believer as we look at privileged communication, that we need it not only to do our best work, but also so that we can do the work ethically.
That is a great point. For me, I usually say send the emails privileged and confidential and CC the legal team. That’s the standard protection. But you’re right, if you are having internal conversations, those can be discoverable and that costs a lot of money and time for the company as well as an agency partner.
I’ve worked for organizations that have said copying the lead lawyer or one of the attorneys on the team is enough.
I’ve worked at organizations where I’ve literally had to ask questions or seek counsel from the attorney for that communication to be privileged. Part of that really depends on the risk threshold within the organization where you work or the client that you’re representing.
Knowing that upfront and how to engage in that conversation can be incredibly helpful. IPR has done a lot of work in this space, but I do think it ends up being an industry led issue, a topic that we have to lead, whether that’s PRSA, IABC, or CIPR.
We’re in a situation now where the stakes are quite high, especially as we look at crisis and issues, where we have audiences that are far more polarized. Ethics can be amplified when we’re in that hot seat and working through these critical times, and this is one where I think could provide us with some additional protections but also empower us to do our best work.
Do you see this starting at the federal level or starting at a few states such as California and Massachusetts, that can serve as bellwethers for the rest of the country?
I see it as more of an industry or association led – driving legislation, regulations, laws around how to privilege communication for public relations and communications practitioners.
I’m not opposed to it starting in a couple of states or going nationwide or even worldwide. This is really an area where we need to stop and think about where we can provide our best work and how we can advocate at least in the US.
I think it is something we should definitely take a look at, and I will mention it when I am talking to the new CEO of PRSA.
Thanks. I appreciate it,
What is the best piece of ethics advice you ever received?
One of the things that really caused me to pause, and it was language that I’ve used and I’ve heard it mentioned in a number of interviews on your podcast has been for you to do the right thing, check your gut, go with your gut.
I had a CEO challenge me on this many years ago who asked is that enough?
Because what I might believe is the right thing someone else may believe something entirely different. It really caused me to stop and pause because I realized that the work that I had done to arrive at what I thought was the right or the recommended decision, someone else could likely do the same research and land some somewhere very similar.
When we think about how polarized our societies are, when we think about the U.S., even Canada is becoming more polarized now. People have strong opinions and views, and often those are opposing. We see facts and news continue to blur. When we think about social media and how quickly anyone can share information as fact or news, there’s fact checking that we miss sometimes.
So, I would advocate that yes, there’s a place for “do the right thing” and for you to do a gut check. But I would also say, do the research. Seek to understand multiple sides of the story. Create messages that meet publics and audiences where they’re at. We’ve got this ethical responsibility to engage in two-way conversations and to engage stakeholders with opposing views. If we don’t engage them and a group of people feel like they are not being heard or being left out, that’s where we likely run into this activist activity.
The research that we do, along with that gut check, helps to inform not only what is moral and what is ethical and what is legal, but also helps us to take the view of what mitigates risk for the organization, what helps me manage the reputation of the organization to the best of my ability.
Oftentimes when you hear from a C-Suite or a group of senior leaders, all of these things will be incredibly important, as will disruption and wanting to be in a position where you’re able to operate your business efficiently and effectively without disruption. I’d also add here too, if you’re working outside the us, ensure that we as communications practitioners are conducting that research- that we are securing vendors and partners who can help us understand the cultural norms of the region, city, and country. That’s incredibly important too. As a US citizen, I need to make sure that I am not imparting ethnocentrism and that the way that we do it in the US is always the right way. That there are other ways of doing things, that there are other cultural norms, other religious practices or beliefs. I need to take into consideration that may not be right approach in the U.S., the Middle East, and the Philippines.
Those are all considerations to take into effect when we say what’s that best piece of advice? You do a gut check. Do you think it’s the right thing to do? Sure. But you’ve got to do the work too to make sure that recommendation is right for the audience and right for the public and culture and geographic region where you’re doing business.
If you’re talking about doing the right thing, you have to do more than annual ethics training. You need regular discussions, so everyone knows the company’s guideposts and values to help them in that spot.
Two things come to mind for me on that, Mark. One is really using those company values to help guide the decisions that senior leaders and other members of the organization are making. If we’re just not sure what we should be doing, let’s go back to our values, let’s go back to what we’re rooted in and use those values to help us make a decision during a challenging time.
We’ve also been talking a lot about crisis and issues, and you mentioned ethics training. Ethics training is incredibly important. I would also add on top of that, we’ve been talking a lot about crisis and issues today, that looking at tabletop exercises, simulations, scenarios, and crisis and issues, selecting one that is more of an ethical dilemma that we, that as an organization we need to solve together can ensure that level of training or muscle memory is coming through experience and is shared at multiple levels in the organization for who has that seat at the table to come in and try to solve those mock crisis or issue situations in those exercises and simulations.
I agree. Tabletop exercises are so important, and I am seeing more organizations use them, but I also see some are moving away from them due to budget cuts and other priorities. I think it is going to come back and hurt them in the end because you need to be prepared.
I would say too that in the times that we live in right now with the ever-changing government policies around the world, there’s more opportunity for significant escalation and crisis and issues – I don’t want to say than ever before, but certainly it’s very high. Having people on your teams who can do that work and do it well, we think oftentimes when we do these types of exercises around, okay, we’ll do one on active shooter, we’ll do one on a natural disaster. Toss one in there about ethics.
That could be anything from embezzlement to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Toss a topic in there on ethics and see how the team works through it, what they do well, opportunities where they have to improve and grow, and then continue to train in those areas so that your team is ready should it occur.
I also like to highlight ethical failure from time to time in my reports to executives. It reinforces when somebody acts unethically it has a significant business impact.
A long time ago I read a book titled “The Logic of Failure.” It was really focused on case study examples – organizations who thought they had figured it out and then something occurred and all of a sudden, they weren’t really seeing the failure until it was a little too late.
Those are some great case studies and examples around how do we see what’s happening big picture while still keeping in mind what’s in front of us, and how we solve for both simultaneously.
The final question I am going to ask you is not one necessarily for senior executives, but I have to ask it. What is the hidden gem at Dairy Queen that people should try or what is your personal favorite?
This is actually a question that we ask employees when they start the organization. We ask them what their favorite hot food or treat is, and mine is a bit unconventional. Often, you’ll hear things like burgers or chicken strips or a Blizzard, or a Dilly bar or a peanut buster parfait.
For me, it’s our onion rings. I have been such a fan of our onion rings for the longest time. On a long road trip, Dairy Queen, onion rings are my go-to. I can geek out about this with the level of ratio, of coating to onion, to crumble, to crunch. A few years ago, we also offered a proprietary blend of Hidden Valley Ranch. And so, as a true mid Westerner. Onion rings dipped in ranch, anything dipped in ranch quite frankly, but onion rings dipped in ranch is just my go-to.
I could talk for about 30 minutes about how great our onion rings are, but candidly, if you haven’t had the opportunity to try them, please do. At the same time, we have a lot of really great treats and a lot of great, we’ve got a value meal right now that gives you treats and hot food. Go out there and check it out.
That’s what I love is I get good value when I bring my family to Dairy Queen – and I’ll tell you, my youngest son is obsessed with the onion rings.
Listen to the full interview, with bonus content, here.
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