Who do you believe – a coda

For those of you who did get through the “Who do you believe” piece, and are curious to know how it all panned out at the end, I have two pieces of news for you. First, the story gets murkier and murkier. Second, the butler did NOT do it.

You will recall that we had left the story poised at the brink – will he or won’t he? Let me decode: will Sir Fred the Shred Goodwin apologise to shareholders, stakeholders, employees, taxpayers and the pizza delivery man for screwing up the bank and colluding to screw up the nation’s economy? Or won’t he?

As it turns out, he apparently did murmur some words, which was construed by lip-readers to be tantamount to an apology, if we stretch the meaning of the word ‘apology’. Attaboy, our Fred! Unfortunately, John McFall, Treasury select committee chairman in the UK, refused to accept the apology as being anything meaningful.

Read these:

1. The Sunday Times, on February 15, 2009, carried a story in its online edition, starting “Nobody is too rich or powerful to escape the caustic Glaswegian wit of the chairman of the Treasury select committee…”

“On Tuesday it was the turn of Sir Fred Goodwin and Sir Tom McKillop, formerly chief executive and chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland respectively, and Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson, who held the same positions at Halifax Bank of Scotland. McFall’s first question was: were they sorry for the destruction of once-venerable institutions now partly owned by the government and costing taxpayers millions? All four apologised but even after a three-hour grilling, McFall wasn’t convinced.

“There was no sense of real contrition,” he says. “They didn’t seem to think they were personally culpable. It’s not part of their culture. They have a sense of entitlement. Getting bonuses is in their DNA and risk taking is at their core — until the extent of their cavalier risk taking is uncovered and the whole thing implodes.” …

“The next day, addressing the current chief executives of the banks, McFall asked them why they thought they were hated. “I don’t know what they thought of that but John Varley, of Barclays, did admit that trust in the industry had been lost. I think it will take years to recover. This is a difficult time to rebuild confidence.”

2. BBC News - 14 February 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7889665.stm)

Headline: Banking bosses head for a McFall

If "sorry" is the word of the moment, then a certain McFall is the man of the moment.

“The chairman of the Treasury select committee has taken centre stage at Westminster, managing to extract apology after apology from the four men held responsible, by some, for the entire UK banking crisis…

“The man of the moment knows how to grab the attention. “Is sorry the hardest part?" was his opening gambit to the deposed chairmen and chief executives of the Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland.

“Unconvinced by their apologies, he questioned their contrition. “What exactly are you apologising for? We've been told you've been coached extensively and meticulously by PR people and lots of money has been spent, so are you expressing sympathy because your PR advisers advised you to do so?"

"No," said the bankers, but Mr McFall's disdain was plain to see - and the public relations damage was done. “

Things get worse from here. Some people wistfully regretted that the great democratizer, the guillotine, is now firmly ensconced in the pages of history.

3. BBC News - 9 February 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/7879616.stm)

Headline: Bank ex-bosses to face committee grilling

Four former bank chiefs who led their institutions to the verge of collapse are set to testify before the treasury committee.

Reports have emerged recently that RBS may nonetheless distribute a total of £1bn in bonuses to staff.

The revelation has prompted outcry among politicians, press and public alike.

Lib Dem (Liberal Democratic Party) Treasury spokesman Vince Cable, writing in the Daily Mail, said that the "financial aristocracy" were "lucky the British have no guillotines in stock".

Similarly, the Independent's Simon Carr argues that "revenge is the answer".

Even worse, people have demanded that the bank bosses should return their past bonuses – surely the most unkindest cut of all.

4. “The Sunday Times, on February 15, 2009, carried a story in its online edition, headlined “Bank chiefs urged to repay bonuses”,

“Treasury select committee chairman John McFall says it is morally right for bosses who brought banks close to collapse to pay back rewards…Senior executives of HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland, whose irresponsible speculating brought the British banking system to its knees, are to be urged to hand back the multi-million pound bonuses they awarded themselves.

“A report by the Treasury select committee will conclude that, while MPs cannot legally confiscate the six-figure rewards the bankers received over the past two years, it is morally right for them to return the cash.

“The report, due out in April, is expected to be scathing about Sir Tom McKillop, the former RBS chairman, Sir Fred Goodwin, the former RBS chief executive, and Andy Hornby and Lord Stevenson, the former chief executive and chairman of HBOS, for failing to show enough contrition when they gave evidence last week.”

The sponsorship deals that RBS signed up has come in for a great deal of abuse. Sachin Tendulkar has even been asked to return the money he got from modelling for the RBS ad which started me off on this journey!

5. Brand Republic - 16-Feb-09, 09:05
(http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/881116/RBS-attacked-spending-200m-celebrity-sponsorship/)

Headline: RBS attacked for spending £200m on celebrity sponsorship

“The Royal Bank of Scotland, bailed out with billions of pounds of taxpayers' money, is under fire for blowing £200m on sponsorship deals with top sports stars including Zara Phillips, Andy Murray and Jack Nicklaus.

“Mann has called for the sports stars to volunteer to opt out of their lucrative contracts. He said: "I think it would go down very well with the British public if some of them were to cancel their contracts. Some of them would become real heroes if they did."…

6. Yahoo India News - Sun, Feb 15 09:32 PM
(http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20090215/928/tsp-reckless-rbs-signed-sachin-others-fo.html)

Headline: 'Reckless' RBS signed Sachin, others for 200 mn pounds

“A spendthrift Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) spent 200 million pounds on sponsorship deals with Sachin Tendulkar and other top sportsmen just weeks before being bailed out by the British government, a newspaper reported Sunday…

“The news comes after the bank announced that it had made a loss of 28 billion pounds last year.

“Treasury select committee member MP John Mann told the paper: 'They have been reckless yet again. This doesn't seem to be a bank that could do anything in moderation. It now needs to realise the golden days are over.'

Now, why am I going on and on about this seriously unwholesome sordid saga, which has obviously caused a lot of disgust and contempt for the top execs of RBS, and almost killed the brand?

Because I believe that the spin community and the brand owners need to take a bunch of lessons out of this.

A brand’s reputation is far more important and certainly more fragile than its image. The reputation is built on how it conducts business and deals with people, not just consumers and customers, but the community at large. The reputation of a bank is built over decades and the foundation of the reputation is two words – trust and respect. The first you provide to your constituents, and demonstrably so; the second you earn.

Advertising and PR won’t save a brand when both have been lost.

The TV spot which started me off on this long story teaches us that sometimes, the best thing that spin doctors can do for their clients is to tell them to lie low and say nuffink. There’s a whole world of practical wisdom in Brer Rabbit.