Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

I touched in an article a couple of days ago on the lost art of oratory in a comment about how David Cameron had changed the terms of political debate, again, with his speech in the House of Commons earlier this week. It is a theme worth exploring for its impact in politics and PR.

You could say it started in 2004, with Barack Obama's speech to the Democratic Convention. I am not so sure. For a politician to make his reputation with a speech is not uncommon.To parlay a skill for public speaking into leadership is much rarer and, of course, it was another four years before Obama did that. I think the key change was the invention of YouTube in 2005. 

YouTube changed the way people consumed speeches. In the Nineteenth Century there was only one to consume speeches – you had to be there. If you weren't there, the next best thing was reading a transcript, and that is not the same thing at all.

The mass franchise, cinema newsreeels and radio all played a role in undermining oratory as a key political skill. With a mass franchise, you simply cannot hope that a significant fraction of the electorate will ever hear you speak live. Radio and cinema newsreels created media for building national reputations. In the UK, where political careers are traditionally built in the House of Commons, oratory remained important, but its importance in the US, with its presidential system, began to decline.

Television seemed to spell the end of political rhetoric. Speeches were now principally consumed as sounbites. The short clip that would drop into a story a journalist wrote required something rather different. The majestic crescendo would be lost on all but the handful actually present at the meeting.

The nadir of political rehtoric in the UK came when William Hague was the Leader of the Opposition. A man genuinely gifted in the art of oratory was able to make almost no dent in Tony Blair's political supremacy. Speeches didn't matter any more.

But then came YouTube. While clips from Barack Obama's 2004 speech were certainly sent virally by fans using e-mail, YouTube's technology changed everything. Suddenly we were not dependent on the editing of speeches by journalists any more. Now we can extract our own clips and post them on our websites, or e-mail them to each other.

Perhaps the first person to benefit was David Cameron. Largely unkown even in Conservative circles before the 2005 general election, he was Michael Howard's choice of successor. Howard cleverly delayed his resignation long enough to allow a hustings at the 2005 Conservative Conference. Howard knew this decision would benefit Cameron. David Cameron walked onto the stage an anonymous figure, running third, at best, behind David Davis and Ken Clarke. He left the stage a new Conservative hero and frontrunner in the election. An election he duly won.

In 2007 Cameron faced the most critical point of his leadership. Long accustomed to poll leads over the government, he found that the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was temporarily popular, and considering an early election. The date of the election had been chosen. Labour's special advisers had been told not to go to work the Monday after the party conference season ended, but to report to Labour HQ instead. Then Cameron spoke to the Conservative Conference. After a day or two's dithering, Gordon Brown cancelled the election.

The following year, Barack Obama was able to exploit his own rhetorical skills to win first the Democratic nomination for President, and then the Presidential election. Like Cameron, he met every crisis – such as the one over his appalling pastor's racist views – with a speech.

Last Wednesday was the third time that Cameron changed British politics with a speech. Ed Miliband, who had hitherto done rather well out of the News of the World scandal, proved he was not up to the challenge of meeting David Cameron in a debate.

But what is the meaning of this rhetorical resurgence in politics? How does it affect wider public relations and the commercial world?

The implications are significant. Aspiring leaders in commerce with have to be inspiring speakers. Social media will make their speeches relevant. This will be particularly true in organisations with consensual leadership structures, such as partnerships. Senior partners will need to learn to spell out strategy in speeches. Other people in the firm will then become advocates and evangelists. People will post clips of the speech on their websites and via Twitter or on their Facebook pages. LinkedIn does not let its users embed video. This is a major weakness, and one the site will have to address soon. Embedding video of your CEO will become a major weapon in the war for talent. Organisations which can post the sort of speech that will leave people in competitor firms thinkg "that's the guy I want to work for" will recruit the most able people.

In commerce, as in politics, the lost art of oratory is making a comeback. It will be the skill that makes executives into leaders. 

Is your firm ready?