May 24, 2010

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

A letter from the chairman or the CEO still has a cachet that is hard to rival online, says Ruth Sunderland, editor of Observer Business & Media

To the Facebook and Twitter generation, the letter is an old-fashioned, even quaint form of communication, but one striking aspect of the 2010 election was the power of pen and ink. Old school correspondence in the form of letters to the editor – whether or not they were literally delivered in an envelope or in virtual form via email – set the agenda in the early stages of the election campaign.

The most striking example was the infamous National Insurance letter from a group of leading businessmen to the Daily Telegraph, denouncing the Labour Party’s proposed increase; it dominated the news agenda for days.

Economists on both sides of the political divide were busy sharpening their quills too. A group of more than fifty signed a letter criticising the Conservatives’ plans to cut an extra £6 billion of public spending, in a letter followed a fractious exchange between rival groups of dismal scientists on the newspapers’ letters pages back in February.

“Tweeting says you’re cool, but a letter whispers maturity and authority”

Real scientists were at it as well: a list of eminent professors sent a letter to The Times, challenging the leaders of the three main parties to spell out their science policies in detail. A group of high profile philanthropists wrote an open letter to politicians asking for consideration of human rights; international development campaigners also got in on the act, putting pen to paper about their worries over the Conservatives’ commitment to tackling global poverty.

All this letter-writing took place in an environment where the parties were attempting to harness new social media, putting their leaders on web forums such as Mumsnet and online videos such as WebCameron. They dabbled in crowdsourcing, online advertising, search engine optimisation, and made creative use of spoofs – for instance the Liberal Democrats’ spoof Labservative website, ramming home the message that the two larger parties are as bad as each other. The main aim: to “humanise” politicians and to rebuild relationships with voters after the expenses scandal.

But in a media universe where emails and tweets can easily be lost in a continuous confetti of messaging, a proper letter with some impressive signatories stands out. We are unlikely to trade in our laptops for inkwells, but if anything, the letter has become more powerful because of its relative scarcity.

The traditional etiquette of letter-writing can also be a virtue. While the culture of new social media is immediate, intimate and chatty, a “Dear Sir” letter is consciously formal. It’s a medium that suggests gravitas, and implies time and trouble has been taken in its composition. Tweeting shouts that you are down with the kids, but a proper letter whispers maturity, dignity and authority.

Perhaps the current generation of politicians and advisers just haven’t quite figured out yet how to exploit new media to its full potential. But – and please forgive the pun – one of the lessons of the campaign is: don’t write off the letter. Whether it is sent to a journalist, an investor or an angry customer, a letter from the chairman or the CEO still has a cachet and a persuasive power that is hard to rival online.

It’s interesting that another form of “old media”, the staged TV debate, which arrived in the UK a mere half a century after being launched in the US, was the other big agenda-setter of the 2010 campaign. The debates were stylised and controlled to the point of artificiality – the opposite of new media mores – but it was the TV, not Twitter, that provoked Cleggmania.

Online politics is still a niche: only 4,000 people follow Gordon Brown on Facebook, but more than 9 million watched the first leaders’ debate on TV. New social media is re-shaping the relationship of traditional authority figures like politicians with the public, just as it is reshaping corporate communications – but at this point in time, it still has its limits.

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Join us - insight in every issue