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CHAPTER TWELVE: COMMUNICATING WITH EXTERNAL AUDIENCES
The learning goal of this chapter is that successful managers, sooner or later, will have to
represent their companies effectively to external audiences.
This chapter offers the opportunity for three classes: one on the principles of external
communication (Oxford Energy) and two on a real-time encounter between business and
the press (NutraSweet).
Oxford Energy offers a useful introduction to making a public presentation. It
encourages students to consider goal-definition, audience analysis, preparation, structure,
and delivery. It also exemplifies the fact that managerial communication is not an act, but
an ongoing process. Phil Rettger’s presentation to an informal town meeting culminates a
ten-month communication campaign. Class discussion can be enriched by using the
videotape of Rettger’s actual presentation and the audience’s response (available through
McGraw-Hill). If you are following the general scheme outlined in Chapter Seventeen:
Effective Speaking, Oxford Energy can serve to introduce presentations in general or
persuasive presentations in particular. The case, and accompanying videotape, can be
presented at the beginning of a speaking module, depending on scheduling constraints.
The following teaching plan has worked well for a class intended to introduce a course
sequence of student presentations:
l. In advance, ask students to bring to class an outline of the presentation they think
Rettger should deliver. You can also suggest that they note down the rationale for
their chosen approach.
3. One good opening question: “How should Rettger — or any businessperson — prepare
for any business presentation?” This will keep the opening, and the initial responses,
on general principles of effective presentation, rather than on the specifics of Oxford
Energy’s relations to Derry. Students may suggest some of these preparatory
strategies:
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Oxford Energy brochure. Does it prepare the ground well? Is it well-written?
Does it cover the appropriate information at the right level of detail?
+ Analyze your audience. The Derry leadership supports your proposal. But the
decision will ultimately be made by the voters. Should this modify your original
+ Sell benefits. How much does it matter to Derry residents that they have
unsightly tire dumps in their town? That there have recently been dangerous
fires? That the new plant will create jobs? What benefits, if any, accrue to Derry
from the new supply of electricity? How important are these?
+ Acknowledge and neutralize opposing arguments. No matter what benefits this
idea may offer to the community, it will still increase pollution and noise
+ Build credibility with the audience. How? Should Rettger start by
acknowledging audience concerns? Should he demonstrate mastery of the
Get students to lay out their suggestions for Rettger’s presentation. It can be useful to
summarize these on the board, and then test them against the criteria for success they’ve
established above.
During the course of this analysis, students should be encouraged to consider the salient
characteristics of Derry itself. This town of 28,000 combines lifelong New Hampshire
natives with many more recent refugees from the urban problems, real estate prices, and
taxes of metropolitan Boston. Seventy-five per cent of the residents commute to jobs in
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At this point, it’s useful to run the first few minutes of the videotape, where a stand-in
moderator, Ed Bureau, tries to warm up the audience, and Councilor Gerrish
unexpectedly interrupts to offer an endorsement of Oxford’s proposal. What sort of tone
throats of the citizenry.
Now run the introduction to Rettger’s presentation, pausing before he gets into the
technical details (roughly minute 5:43). Has Rettger achieved the right mix of selling
benefits and countering opposition? Has he grabbed the audience’s attention off-the-top?
How about his delivery? Students can be encouraged to recognize a number of important
elements in Rettger’s performance. On the one hand, he comes across as a real person
When Rettger gets into the details of how the plant will function, he stumbles. He goes
into excruciating detail on how the tires will burn, seems out of his depth on some of the
technical details, uses some incomprehensible jargon, and concludes by asserting: “It’s
simple.” This may be the place where he really loses his audience. Students can be
encouraged to recognize that this phase of the speech represents a failure of audience
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In fact, Oxford Energy’s proposal lost in the Derry referendum by roughly a 60-40%
margin. This fact suggests an effective conclusion to the class. Was this failure due to
inadequacies in Oxford Energy’s communication strategy? Partly; the vote was close
enough to imply that a different approach might have achieved a success for the
company. Equally importantly: Did Oxford Energy factor communication decisions
Teaching Business and the Press
This is a topic that arouses intense interest among students because, whatever their
backgrounds, all of them have been inundated with media all their lives and have strong
feelings about it. Depending on the needs and scheduling restrictions of the course, this
can serve as a two– or three-class module. The following material outlines a two-class
format based on preparing and executing an effective press conference, followed by some
suggestions on other approaches.
Two-class Business and the Press Module
This approach envisions the following model. In Class One, students discuss how a
corporation should manage a major public relations crisis; then, in Class Two, they role–
play how senior executives, members of the press, and the public would react to the
situation.
Class One. In preparation, students read NutraSweet (A) or an alternative case listed at
the end of this teaching note. At the beginning of the class, tell students that by the end of
the session, the instructor will select several students to represent the company at a press
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Class Two. Often, local reporters will be willing to come to the class and conduct a
realistic inquisition if you invite them well ahead of time. If so, try the following format:
Introduce the reporters, and then hand the class over to the team you’ve selected to
represent the company. Allow about half the class time for opening statements and
reporters’ questions. Then invite a few questions from other members of the class so they
can play reporters themselves. Then ask the reporters how they would have played the
If professional reporters are unavailable, have several members of the class play
reporters. Brief them on their responsibilities and adversarial role. Provide them with
some recent local media coverage which suggests the types of issues reporters are likely
to pursue in a controversial situation. If the students playing press are being too gentle on
their classmates, ask the tough questions yourself.
Sometimes, students will question whether a press conference is the best strategy in a
given situation. Some may maintain that a company should stonewall the press in all
Teaching NUTRASWEET — Class One
As a product, NutraSweet is a manufacturer’s dream: patented, in high demand, cheap to
make, commanding a premium price, and far superior in taste to its competitors. Its
problems have been regulatory and procedural, and this raises several issues that will
likely surface throughout the discussion of the case. General discussion of the company’s
profile and situation provide a good introduction to specific consideration of the current
crisis:
l. NutraSweet went through a long and tortuous FDA process to get to market. Was
this degree of regulatory oversight justified? Students will likely have sharply
2. While the product is in high demand, it’s a type of food, and its nutritional benefits
are at best debatable. There’s little evidence to demonstrate, for example, that
substituting NutraSweet for sugar actually causes people who need to lose weight to
3. NutraSweet chose a high-profile marketing strategy. It devised a logo that had to be
displayed on any product that contained it. Was this a brilliant marketing strategy or
a high-risk gamble that invited the current criticism? This question invites discussion
4. NutraSweet is a one-product company with a clock running on the patent. What
5. Clearly, there have been some irregularities in the test results that led to the FDA
approval of NutraSweet. How important are these? How valid in general are test
results paid for by a company that wants to market a product? While some students
It’s probably not coincidental that the parent company put its top lawyer in charge of the
subsidiary charged with marketing NutraSweet.
Once these issues have been covered, the rest of the class should address how
NutraSweet should respond to accusations that the product is unsafe. Options include
doing nothing, making low-profile government and media contacts, issuing a press
release, offering on-the-record interviews to members of the press, and mounting a full–
scale public relations defense. This debate should turn on a central point: Does
NutraSweet gain or lose by contributing to making this a major news story? (If available,
After this discussion, the instructor can point out that by the end of the case CBS has
already decided to give the issue major national coverage, and assert that NutraSweet has
decided to offer a full-scale defense of the product, including a press conference.
Questions to be addressed here:
1. Who should speak for the company? Generally, reporters will go to the top.
2. How credible are NutraSweet’s critics, and how should this affect NutraSweet’s
response. Currently, the main attack is coming from an obscure professor at a
minor university, but others have entered the picture. Are Nader’s Raiders
heroes, villains, or gadflies?
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5. What are the real benefits of this product?
6. Can NutraSweet’s customers — mostly large and powerful companies — help
take the heat? How?
Teaching NUTRASWEET — Class Two
If properly prepared for, this class will more or less run itself. Depending on the size of
the class, it may be good pedagogy to put more people on the company team than would
be the case in real life — for example, Shapiro, a Communications Director who can serve
as company moderator and direct press questions, an internal expert on regulatory and/or
1. Is it ethical to sell the same product to different customers at different prices?
2. If the product has no value, is it worth taking any risk?
3. Isn’t it the company’s responsibility to pull the product from the market until
objective tests can be done?
4. Since methanol is a poison, is there any tolerable level?
5. Does anyone really benefit from this product?
6. If NutraSweet weren’t under the patent gun, would it be charging so much?
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In our experience, the following schedule for Class Two has worked well:
1. Encourage the company team to provide an opening statement of no more than
five minutes.
3. Leave at least a third of the class time to debrief. Start by asking the reporters
how they would play the story. What lead paragraph would newspaper reporters
write? What would be the differences among newspaper, radio, and television
coverage?
5. Return to an issue discussed in Class One: Was NutraSweet right to hold a press
conference at all?
6. Close with a general discussion about how the company team did, and whether
the experience has altered the class’s view of the press and media coverage in
general.
Generally, students will emerge from this experience with a heightened respect for the
press, and a better understanding of how to factor potential media coverage into their
business planning.
Schedule permitting, this two-class module can be expanded in one of two ways:
l. Before Class One, address another business-and-the-press situation to bring
Pitfalls. Students will often be concerned about how they will be graded on their
performance during this assignment. This will vary according to class structure. Since
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Don’t necessarily choose all your strongest students to be on the company (or press) team.
Some students who have not shown brilliantly as writers or speakers may be savvy
strategists, or simply need the exposure. Having done this exercise for a number of years,
Alternative In-Class Exercise
You are either a Searle manager on the NutraSweet team or a journalist for a city
newspaper.
Before Class: Read Chapter 12, External Audiences and NutraSweet and consider the
questions at the end of the case. We will host two guests, a reporter for _______
newspaper. And _____________ local manager or CEO.
In class: Class will be structured as follows:
Part I: Introductions; Preparation for the role-play:
Discussion of chapter and case situation (about 30 minutes)
Guests invited to comment on general guidelines and the mutual perceptions of
business and the press;
Group meetings: (about 30 minutes):
2 Company Groups meet to:
Assign team members (such as, Robert Shapiro, President NutraSweet
1 Press Group meets to:
(10 minute break)
Part II: Role-plays
Group 1 presents its opening statement and takes questions from visiting reporter and
members of the press group (15 minutes).
Discussion and comments from guests and the class (15 minutes).
Group 2 presents its opening statement and takes questions from visiting reporter and
Possible press questions:
1. Is it ethical to sell the same product to different customers at different prices?
2. What is the real benefit (if any) of this product?
3. If the product has no nutritional or dietary value, it is worth taking any risks?