I just finished three days of following Prince Charles and Camilla through Toronto and southern Ontario. The Royal couple are currently on an 11-day official visit to Canada.
My first thought is that this is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. I can’t imagine how many millions of dollars are being spent on this. Many events were not open to the general public and most media events were only for a handful of pre-selected media organizations.
However if you consider, or at least pretend, that this is a marketing or public relations event, then perhaps it might be money well-spent if it had been properly planned and executed. This applies to all marketing efforts and not just royal visits. The client, (in this particular case, the Canadian taxpayer), must get their money’s worth.
Why spend time and money promoting a product, service or brand when that effort is only half-assed or squandered? Why just go through the motions? Marketing success needs both media and public exposure. Otherwise it’s just a tree falling in the forest.
This royal tour is being organized by the federal government, various provincial governments and a police force. That latter fact alone should set off the warning bells. Iceberg right ahead!
I’m not sure how the royal tour is/was in other provinces but the three-day southern Ontario portion contained plenty of mistakes and failures each day. A couple of provincial media flaks even kept joking about this.
It’s important to point out that the Canadian media flaks, both provincial and federal, were excellent. They always did a good job helping photographers and reporters but they were under a lot of restrictions.
The news media had to apply for accreditation weeks in advance and this included an RCMP background check, an employer check and photo ID. But it turned out that anyone could have just walked up to the media desk on any day of the tour and requested a credential. No security checks whatsoever. Also, at many events, anyone with a camera (or not) could have just walked in and this happened several times.
Day 1
1) Airport arrival in Toronto.
The media area was erected in the wrong spot. Hey, they missed by only 140 feet!
Photographers had to shoot over a parked vehicle and through a crowd of airport workers who were standing/walking on the tarmac. Some RCMP decided to stand directly in front of the photographers and refused to move:
To be fair, during the three days, some RCMP were great and gladly moved out of the way when asked.
Some ground crew at the airport put their hands over photographers’ lenses and even yelled, “Hey, no pictures!” whenever they thought a photographer was trying to take pictures of the privately-owned jets parked nearby.
A couple of ground workers even stood guard in front of the media pit to stop photographers from pointing their lenses in the “wrong” direction. The airport workers said they had to protect the privacy of the jet owners.
Result: Didn’t see any arrival pictures in print but at least one web site ran a photo.
2) Prince Charles visited a business group’s meeting. No public access. Limited media access.
Result: no pictures in any paper.
3) Camilla visited a music school. Limited photo access and poorly-planned photo-op.
Result: I don’t think any paper used a picture.
4) The Royal couple attended a private reception (paid for by the public). The arrival area was an empty sidewalk at a plain doorway that had no exterior lighting. Did I mention that it was at night, in the rain? Photographers decided to move indoors to a lit hallway. Passersby from a nearby Tim Hortons saw the commotion and pushed into the small area to watch.
Result: Twelve photographers, five TV cameramen and six reporters stuffed in a 14-foot wide hallway, along with about 20 passersby. The arriving Royal couple was surrounded by local politicians and RCMP.
Result: no pictures were used the next day.
Result of Day 1: Toronto papers used one photo on an inside page. One TV news channel just used file footage.
Day 2
1) Visited Dundurn Castle (built by Camilla’s ancestor) in Hamilton. Perhaps 2,500 members of the public attended. TV risers were put behind the six-person-deep crowd. The still photo position? Oops, they forgot about that.
After complaining to the media flaks, photographers were allowed inside the barricades at the arrival area. Cute little girl presented flowers to Camilla but the girl was kept *behind* the steel barricades.
Result: No pictures used the next day.
2) Visited a WWII ship in Hamilton. It was open to pre-selected public. Media position was in the wrong location, almost 80 feet away from the ship and *behind* a row of trees. Photographers moved to a slightly better location on their own.
The Royal couple was also supposed to do an unveiling but the crowd of people watching surged onto the driveway and swarmed the couple. RCMP did nothing and no photos were possible.
Result: One picture taken aboard the ship by a pre-selected photographer was widely used. (It was a nice picture.)
3) Military ceremony at an outdoor stadium at night. Maybe 3,000 members of the public attended. Photo position was in the wrong location, far off to the side and *behind* the Royal couple. Photographers moved to a slightly better location on their own.
Result: Didn’t see any pictures in the next-day papers.
Result of Day 2: One photo from the WWII ship was used inside most papers.
Day 3
The Royal couple visited the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. The Fair’s PR people had little knowledge of what was happening. No photo area was ready but it was made ready just minutes before the arrival.
The horse-drawn carriage arrival was in a hockey arena converted into a dark, dirt-covered equestrian ring. The full arena lighting was not used but only low lighting which was then *lowered* even more when the couple arrived.
The couple exited the carriage away from cameras. Two children presented gifts to each of the Royal couple but the presentation was done behind the stage.
Result: no pictures used.
The Royal couple then toured the event. The Fair’s PR person had no idea where the photo positions were located. Photographers and reporters literally ran from location to location following the running PR person who kept phoning someone to ask for help. She eventually gave up and just walked away.
For one Camilla photo-op, in the space of less than a minute, I was put in a location by the media flak only to be told to move by an RCMP officer who put me in another location, only to be grabbed and yanked out by another RCMP officer who told me to go to another location (my original spot), only to be grabbed by a third RCMP officer who told me that no pictures were allowed and I had to leave the area.
Crowds swarmed the Royal couple during their walkabout. RCMP did nothing. It was chaos and a free-for-all. RCMP and the Fair’s own security decided to block the media but not the public.
Result of Day 3: Papers used one photo from the Fair, shot by one of the pre-selected photographers.
Conclusions
Millions of dollars were wasted on a poorly-planned and poorly-executed marketing effort. Obviously no media were consulted ahead of time to offer suggestions as to media positions or possible photo opportunities.
There was absolutely nothing that said “Canada” or “Toronto.” Yes, sometimes there were Mounties in formal dress but they were kept off to the side or somewhere in the background. No Canadian branding whatsoever.
No apparent communication between the two levels of government involved or the RCMP. Even the UK media who were traveling with the royal couple questioned the lack of organization.
The purpose of these types of visits is to help create positive awareness of the locations and organizations that the Royals visit and to help boost tourism to the host country.
The tour organizers decided to allow only Canadian wire services and sometimes local newspapers, along with UK media, to have inside photo access. This meant that a local daily paper, with a circulation of maybe 130,000, got access while international wire services, with exposure in the hundreds of millions, were shut out.
If you’re going to do any marketing or PR event, work it backwards. Decide on the result you would like to achieve and then organize the event to target that result. Otherwise the event becomes a waste of time and a waste of the client’s money. I suspect many private communication companies already know this. But this royal tour is being run by two levels of government and a police force, none of which seem to have any idea of the purpose of the tour.
If the daily result of the tour is just a single, inside photo along with negative stories about the cost, the lack of relevance, the lack of security and the lack of interest, then are the millions of dollars being spent wisely?
Added
News photographers take pride on being able to do decent pictures of anything, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstance. Myself and other photographers were able to take pictures of the Royal tour through southern Ontario even though some photo events lasted only a few seconds and others had various obstructions. The routine was: arrive 90 minutes ahead of time, stand around, shoot for a few seconds, then leave for next photo-op.
The problem and frustration was that a lot of opportunity was lost. Good moments that could have happened didn’t. Good pictures and good stories didn’t happened. None of these occur by chance because they require planning. Notice how well federal leaders’ election campaigns are planned, how some entertainment red carpets are set up, and how some corporate press events are run.
After the first day, my editor asked whether it was worth continuing coverage of the tour because the first day’s pictures were so lousy and boring.
Why were so many photo positions in the wrong place?
Why was the airport arrival so empty with nothing but grey concrete?
Why was the arrival at the official government reception set to happen on a dark, empty city sidewalk when the venue interior is an award-winning, photogenic, historic site?
Why wasn’t there any advance work done at the Royal Fair?
Why did photographers need over 340 pages of media guides and notes?
