In the back of cabs, trust matters

It’s probably ignorance more than anything else, but I don’t tend to think of Norway as the sort of country that’s big on what we might call pranks: lovely people, but generally quite sensible. Perhaps that’s one reason why the move that saw Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, ‘work’ a shift as a taxi driver has captured the attention of news editors rather further afield than Oslo. One of the other reasons, less wittily, is that the move was organised by an advertising agency that are working on the forthcoming Norwegian general election campaign, in which Mr Stoltenberg’s party current trails the main opposition by 3%.

The idea – that people will say things more openly to a complete stranger, especially in the sealed confines of a cab – is a nice one, if slightly cutesy (although it stands one British cliché on its head: here it is usually the mythical cab driver stereotype who expresses opinions rather freely). And it is at least a humorous update on two other ideas: ‘the boss working on the factory floor for first-hand observation and feedback’ – often used on UK TV and maybe in other countries too, and Managing By Walking About. Or, in this case, Managing By Driving About. After all, you don’t expect your uniformed, sunglass-wearing cabbie to turn out to be your Prime Minister.

And if, as seems to universally have been the case, you quickly realise that he is, the wit of the set-up might just break down a few inhibitions. Or failing that, show your PM to be a man with a sense of humour as well as a willingness to (literally) travel among us. All of which probably plays quite well in a country that doesn’t particularly favour social self-aggrandisement and where displaying a sense of superiority wins you few favours. Having read this far, however, you may well now be anticipating a ‘but’. Here it comes …

But all this is easily undermined. One flaw with the stunt/prank/initiative is to leave any kind of door open to ridicule. In Mr Stoltenberg’s case, a few remedial driving classes might have been a sensible idea. We appreciate that PMs are busy people, but having not driven for eight years left the man open to quite a few snarky comments on his driving ability. Full marks for laughing these off as best he could, but some metaphors are so obvious they’re best avoided.

The bigger flaw emerged a couple of days after the event. As any type of leader, making a show of spending time in the company and at the level of ‘the ordinary folk’ depends for its effectiveness on showing a genuine desire to understand, listen and engage. If you are in anyway the type of leader who is vulnerable to accusations of ‘spin’, this dependency is exaggerated. We may have joked in the past about sincerity, but authenticity is even harder to fake.

So it’s probably rather unfortunate that it has now emerged that some of those passengers you can see in the video (either on YouTube or with English sub-titles at The Telegraph) were paid by the agency to participate. While Mr Stoltenberg can – and we’ll take him on trust – hold up clean hands, point out he didn’t know till afterwards, and explain that they knew they were involved in something for the Labour Party but none of the detail, the prank now looks … well, a prank. And unlike the car, one that backfires in public.

The other thing that this episode exposes is the important link between marketing activity and trust. I (less than happily) recall a frantic month spent answering telephones in a University registry once A Level results were released and the annual scramble called ‘clearing’ was underway. The Marketing Department, who later argued that it generated calls and interest, placed adverts in national newspapers announcing places left on degrees in Mining. Which sounds fine till you realise the University didn’t offer them, not anything even close. This was irritating for a team of people who fielded nearly half a million phone calls in three weeks, as we had to either apologise or desperately suggest courses of a similar bent – not easy when the closest you can get is Civil Engineering.

But we could tell it was a lot more irritating for those calling us. We’d lost more than their interest and their potential custom as students: we’d lost their trust. We’d acted in public in a way that let us – and them – down. And in an age when ‘things go viral’ with alarming ease and speed, we’re ‘in public’ more often than we used to be – even we’re not necessarily aware or conscious that we might be.

Mr Stoltenberg isn’t the only example in recent news where our expectations or assumptions about private vs public have been tested. There is an on-going legal case in New Zealand where a flight attendant appealing against dismissal has found her Facebook account and bank account details being used as evidence in the case. As an employment rights lawyer has commented:

I don’t really know that society has seen this sort of thing previously. But at a time when we think we are behaving privately, or at least within a restricted circle of friends, we are actually effectively on trial […] And the courts see Facebook as a wonderful asset because all of a sudden not only do we have the potential for pictures and so forth but . . . we can see what time statements were made and pictures were taken.”

Social media might let us all ‘get our messages across’, but it also gives the rest of us the right to reply and the opportunity to view and to judge. Seth Godin or Franz Kafka – you decide.



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