Imagine you are the CEO of a grocery store. You’ve exited the US, the world’s biggest grocery market at a cost of £1bn. You’ve experienced £169m of trading losses over the last year, partly as a result of your failed US venture and profits after tax are down to just £120m in the year to 23rd February, compared with £2.8bn the previous year. Your shares have fallen by 4pc, to 369.75p in response to this news. Oh, and then there’s the little matter of the horsemeat scandal! This is not a Media First crisis training scenario; this is the reality for Philip Clarke, CEO of Tesco.
Clarke certainly faced a challenging interview with Simon Jack on the Today programme’s business slot last week. So, how did he do? Simon Brooke, one of Media First's team of journalist trainers provides his take on the interviews here.
05 sec “What went wrong there? What have you learnt from that?” asks Jack about the US venture. Immediately the approach is very negative – as are almost all of Jack’s questions. But Philip Clarke picks up on the more positive aspect of the question.
09 sec “We learnt a lot,” he says calmly, not rising to Jack’s bait or matching his doomsday manner. “Our team there worked extraordinarily hard but I’m responsible to investors and I know that ultimately we can deliver more to them by leaving than we can by staying.” Admitting responsibility but making a positive point and looking to the future is very sensible here.
28 sec “We’re now in the process of getting the maximum out of it that we can.” Again, this is another credible attempt to move on to the positive.
30 sec “What went wrong?” persists Jack.
44 sec “Last year I said that we’d take tough decisions for the good of the business. It’s never easy to walk away from something.” Clarke uses simple plain, language with no corporate euphemisms. “The world is so different from 2004/2005,” he goes on. “Who was shopping on smart phones then?” He does well to put the situation into context and broaden out the issue to one of change within the retail sector rather than just a focus on Tesco. He could, though, now take charge of the interview and introduce something positive about Tesco – an innovation or an exciting project that shows the company is leading in other areas.
1 mins 07 sec “I’d rather move on from asking questions about why we failed and instead talking about what’s really happening to Tesco here in the UK and in other places,” says Clarke, quite understandably. However, don’t ask, just do it, would be our advice. Take the initiative here and introduce a striking example of a success or of something new and different that the company is doing.
1 mins 35 sec Jack outlines some of Tesco’s other problems with its international markets. “We made a billion pounds from our stores outside the UK last year, one billion pounds,” counters Clarke. The figure is a great response to Jack’s latest negative question and Clarke is right to stress it. If you’re going to use a key figure or statistic during a broadcast interview it’s a good idea to repeat it, stress it and then put it into context. Clarke could have added that this is more than any other British supermarket, for instance.
2 min 10 sec “Market share has been slipping in the UK”, says Jack. He points to the success of premium supermarkets and discounters. “You’re the squeezed middle,” he asserts.
2 min 19 sec “The reason our trading profits are down is because we made that big investment – 8,000 new colleagues in the stores, 8,500 products redeveloped, stores refreshed,” explains Clarke, adeptly turning a negative into a positive again. These are good examples, but he could go into further detail and really paint a picture for his listeners of some of the exciting new things that they’ll see in Tesco stores. Details of new food ranges, stories about new staff training and a reference to a new service that he himself has tried and enjoyed, for instance, would all fill the remaining airtime with positive news about Tesco.
2 min 46 sec “Did you have a worse horsemeat scandal than others?” asks Jack, predictably. “When you think of provenance and quality you think of other stores.”
3 min 04 sec “It was terrible,” says Clarke, again using simple, human language. He then cites an example of action that Tesco is taking (something we would advise in any crisis situation) by mentioning that the company has pledges to buy more from home. “There’s nothing to fear. Our food is great.” This is very clear and confident.
4 min 10 sec Finally, Simon Jack asks about something positive – the acquisition of the Giraffe restaurant chain. Clarke’s delivery is suddenly more upbeat and it’s injected with real enthusiasm. “Giraffe’s a great business, it’s full of families enjoying breakfast and lunch so it’s going to go into some of our stores in the UK,” he says.
Philip Clarke does a very good job in difficult circumstances. He offers solid, believable answers and explanations to the challenges and negative issues that Simon Jack throws at him. He also avoids corporate jargon and uses simple, clear language which is great.
He could do even better by taking control of the interview a little bit more and, having answered the questions effectively, introducing some more of his own positive messages, backed up with examples. He could also inject a little bit more energy and passion into his delivery sometimes to help convince us that Tesco really is able to deliver.
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