Anyone working in the industry for more than five minutes knows Neil Shoebridge. He has worn just about every hat in the business: journalist, editor, author, communications director, and now co-founder of strategic consultancy SKMG.
With more than three decades in media and corporate comms, he’s the guy you call when you need to make headlines… or avoid them.
In this Q&A for Mediaweek’s Newsmakers podcast, Neil unpacks the shifts he’s seen across newsrooms and boardrooms, why smart messaging matters, and what it really takes to steer a brand through stormy waters.
Mediaweek: For those who [somehow] don’t know who Neil Shoebridge is, who are you?
Shoebridge: I started as a journalist. Actually, I started as a production assistant on B&T magazine, back in the day when it was a good magazine. Can I say that? It was a print magazine. I’ve said it.
Then, after a year, I became a cadet journalist. I did that for a while, and then the editors got fired, so myself and the features editor, we were mates, we both quit in outrage.
She got a job immediately, but I couldn’t get a job, so I became a freelance journalist and worked in various places.
I worked for BRW for a long time, and then worked at the Fin Review for a long time.
And then, 13 years ago, I switched over to corporate comms at Channel 10, when it was a good network. I have to say that. You have to let me say that!
Mediaweek: I can’t stop you!
Shoebridge: (laughs) well, I was a journalist for a long time, and I loved working at The Fin. It was a great paper and brand then, and it still is. But after nine years, it started to feel a bit like Groundhog Year.
I was the media and marketing writer, and the thought of doing another round of upfronts or ad rate negotiation stories… again… for another year… Then someone came along and offered me a job at Channel 10 in corporate comms, and they just happened to catch me at the right time. I was feeling a bit restless. So I jumped at it.
Mediaweek: Do you miss being a journalist?
Shoebridge: No, I mean, I loved being a journalist, but I equally loved the corporate comms side because they’re very different, but they’re not that different.
Mediaweek: Do you get energised by dealing with crisis’ everyday?
Shoebridge: I think energise is a good word. I wouldn’t want to be doing it every day, day in, day out, but when something comes along that’s an issue or a crisis that needs to be addressed, it does sort of fire you up.
Having started out in a television network, I can say TV is a very crisis-prone industry. I used to say to the guys at 10: we’d wake up in the morning, grow ten toes, and shoot off every single one by the end of the day. It was that kind of business. Not a criticism, it was a great place to work, full of great people, but you were constantly lurching from one crisis to the next.
Eventually, that does take its toll. There were quieter periods, sure, but you always knew that just around the corner, there was some God almighty disaster waiting, usually self-inflicted.
Mediaweek: Is there an art to what you do?
Shoebridge: I wouldn’t say it’s an art. I know it all sounds a bit cliché, but it really comes down to relationships and trust, building trust in people and letting them build trust in you.
The worst thing you can call us, Andrew, Sam and me, my partners at SKMG, is spin doctors. That term implies you’re out there lying, constantly engaged in subterfuge. We’re not. We don’t lie. If a journalist comes to us with the truth, there’s no point denying it. You might try to buy some time, or negotiate how the story’s presented, but we’re not in the business of spin in the sense that we’re trying to deceive anyone.
You also have to know what you’re doing. You have to help a company walk the talk, terrible cliché, but it is what it is. That means helping them figure out how to tell the story they need to tell, and those stories can vary a lot.
They need to know how to tell it effectively, where to tell it, and to whom. That changes depending on the client, the issue, and the audience.
Within that framework, that’s where we come in, helping distil the story, the narrative, the issue, into something that works for the target audience. We’re big on clarity. Who does the client actually want to talk to? Don’t talk to yourself. Be really clear, especially in earned media, who you’re trying to reach.
Then decide what you want to say, and more importantly, what’s going to be of value. Who’s going to care about it? Why does it matter to them?
Neil, with his SKMG partners, Andrew and Sam.
Mediaweek: What are some of your biggest gripes?
Shoebridge: Things like getting the journalist’s name wrong in the email, naming the wrong publication, or sending something completely irrelevant. They’re small mistakes, but they reveal something bigger.
What lies behind that is, and it’s self-evident: the comms agency doesn’t understand who they’re talking to, and they don’t understand the story they have to sell. They haven’t done the work to understand the story, the company’s narrative, or the company’s strategic imperatives.
We call ourselves a strategic communications consultancy, which sounds like the biggest wank fest in the world, but it’s true. It all starts with strategy.
Too many agencies chase the quick hit. Get in, get some noise, get out. But launching something is often the easy part. The real work is in the maintenance: continuing the strategy, continuing the story.
And like I said earlier, it comes down to relationships. You’ve got to build them. With journalists, with clients, with everyone. You’ve got to earn trust, and they’ve got to earn ours. They need to know we don’t lie, we don’t bring them rubbish, we’re as honest as we can be. That’s the starting point: honesty and transparency.
And also, not being afraid when a journalist comes to you. That fear leads to mistakes.
Mediaweek: How important is the press release?
Shoebridge: You hear PR and comms people saying, oh, the press release is dead, which is absolute bulls**t.
It’s still a very effective way of getting information quickly to a wide group of people. But it’s got to be well written, and it’s got to know its audience, like everything we do, like everything you do.
Tailor it as much as you can. Sure, some things are blast-outs, but they shouldn’t be random. We don’t have media lists of 10,000 names, that’s not the nature of the clients we work with. So we tailor everything: to the channel, to the publication, to the individual. It doesn’t take that much time. It’s not that hard to do.
So I don’t get it when agencies just pump out verbiage to anyone and everyone. They’re not doing their clients a service, and they’re not doing the industry a service either.
Mediaweek: What is the most memorable crisis you’ve ever dealt with?
Shoebridge: We’ve always had a television network, I’ve either worked for one or we’ve had one on our books. And there’ve been some enormous issues and crises along the way. More than with any other client, just because of the nature of the television business. But I really can’t talk about them.
I know how this will sound, but a corporate crisis isn’t always fun. Some have been genuinely serious, people put in really bad situations where the police had to get involved. At that level, it’s not energising, it’s more like, I don’t know, sinus-clearing. It’s been pretty rough to deal with.
That said, some of the things we’ve had to cover up, keep from getting out… well, it would make your curly hair curl.