Marketing Myopia

The challenge for the image of today’s American fire service

By Ben May

The fire service must show the community the value it brings–both on and off the fireground. (Photo by Pixabay.)

Dead of night. Pure black except for a thin sliver of light straining through the second-floor windows just above the beds in the bunk room from the streetlight below. Total silence. Suddenly, lights on like a flashing strobe. Tones throb in your ears as you strain for the combination that signals your crew. It’s our engine, our truck, our aid car. Everyone goes. We are first due. Multiple alarm. Get the address. “Where is it, Chief?” “It’s us!” “It’s our house.” “It’s right here!”

That’s right. It’s us all right. It’s all of us. It’s the United States fire service. It’s in trouble, and it’s coming to your department. It’s coming to all departments unless we make a paradigm shift in the way we see ourselves and make some significant changes before the public takes a closer look. It’s called myopia: marketing myopia–in other words, “breathing in our own exhaust.”

Who We Are

Over the past five years, the importance of a positive image and the delivery of a consistent message of “value” has become a part of the strategy of the fire service. In the early ’90s, a number of forward-thinking chiefs and senior officers created marketing and communications plans to galvanize their departments around citizen needs, the economic value of their departments in the community, and the reputation and image of the department. Always the innovator, in 1996 Alan Brunacini wrote Essentials of Fire Department Customer Service, a great step in this direction.

In February 2013, the International Association of Fire Chiefs released an excellent report, “Fire Service Reputation: Taking Responsibility for a Positive Public Perception.” The report contained the reasons for the need of a positive perception and some significant ideas for action plans any department could modify and adopt. In January 2016, Wingspread VI included the critical need to adopt a marketing approach for the growth and survival of the fire service as one of its key elements.

“The United States fire and emergency services must place importance on marketing and branding. Our ability to survive and thrive is dependent on having the ability to communicate our value to the community…Marketing and branding strategies and tactics should be codified based on the service delivery model and revised when the model changes. Fire and emergency services organizations must develop and implement aggressive marketing, branding, and educational programs to inform stakeholders and the public of the dynamics of service delivery within the community.”1

How We’re Known?

Any chief, fire officer, or firefighter has a better understanding today of the importance of marketing. The digital age has made this very clear. We minimize marketing at our peril. One negative headline doesn’t just harm your department, it jeopardizes the entire fire service. Maybe not today and maybe not a few incidents, but, over time, the quantity of negative actions or communications will affect us all.

Many people in our country work very hard, many for a low salary. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the firefighting profession has consistently raised its standards for the quality of the man or woman who becomes a part of one of the most admired and respected professions in the country. Salaries are not just better; in some cases with overtime, they can be suspect in the eyes of the community of people who do not enjoy the same standards or opportunities as the fire service. Considering the shift schedules of the fire service, some of us even have the opportunity to have second jobs or to own our own small companies.

Then, of course, there are the health and retirement benefits. Many people would say that this is as it should be. After all, we are risking our lives for the entire community–to keep them safe 24/7. We study consistently, keep in the very best shape, and constantly work on new solutions for the protection of every citizen. All of this is true. The difference is that the fire service is a public service.

How Does the Public, Not Us, Define Our Value?

A public service is just that. The entire jurisdiction we protect is our market. Our reason for being is to serve every single man, woman, and child in the community–no exceptions. The same quality of service for everyone. The fire service is not a business. I have heard, and even suggested many times, that we should run our departments like a business. There are many useful things from good business practices we can learn, adopt, and even modify for the fire service. But it’s not who we are. We are a family protecting other families. How far will you go to protect families like yours?

If we do think about the fire service as a business sometimes, then we would do well to apply the axiom of the famous business guru, Peter Drucker, who said: “The purpose of a business is to create a customer.” But even this definition does not work. Why? Our customers already exist. And the most significant deliverable we have after the vital safety service we deliver is value.

The definition of value is a higher return over cost. This is critical for public service.

We are not in business to make a profit. Yet, more and more, we have a myopic view of our own importance. We are losing sight of our value to the people we serve.

Looking back to the early days of the creation of the fire department in America, men decided they would put themselves in harm’s way, even at risk of death, so their neighbors, friends, and certainly strangers could be safe, eventually 24/7. It has always been a noble calling, attracting men and women who understand what it means to serve the community for its most vital needs: safety and security. As the safety needs of the community have increased over many years, our service has expanded to include emergency medical, hazardous materials, natural disasters, terrorism, and mass casualties from domestic shooters. Our budgets are consistently constrained without many exceptions. Yet, when senior government officials and the public look at where most of their money goes, it is to staffing. Can you explain the value equation of the shifts you work, including overtime, over a year for the income you receive? What about the elephant in the room: pensions? It’s called entitlement, and it must be controlled or we will all choke to death on it. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We must constantly seek better and less expensive ways to deliver our service. We must be effective and efficient.

Intelligent community leaders are now looking at the United States fire service through a microscope, questioning everything we do from an efficiency and effectiveness perspective. All the marketing and branding in the world will not help a product or service that cannot pass the quality/value equation. Chief Randy Bruegman of Anaheim (CA) Fire and Rescue observed that this is occurring at a much quicker rate than the service has been able to adapt, creating the next emerging crisis for the fire service. This puts us in a vulnerable position, allowing someone else to define our value instead of ourselves. This will open the door even more for privatization of many of the services the fire service provides today.

Innovate for a Positive Future

We won’t be in business if we don’t drop the myopic view of our own importance. We may be located and visible in every community, but we are a “small business” compared to others. We must always look at our competitive frame, just like a good marketer. We need to look at other fire departments in other countries to learn best practices.

I was recently on assignment in Paris, France, for two years. One morning while walking, I happened to come on a room-and-contents fire in a large, old, well-maintained, multiple-use, four-story building in the middle of Paris. The second-floor fire was confined to the room of origin with one engine company, one quint-like ladder truck, one aid car, and a battalion chief. The six firefighters (pompiers) used one supply line coupled to a small spigot hydrant below street level and one attack line from the engine, both of very light, durable hose. Salvage contents were stacked neatly on the street. This entire operation took about an hour.

Yes, I know we aren’t France. Different countries, building codes, and the progression of the fire service is totally different. But there is something we can learn, especially in a cost/return for value. What would that same incident entail if it happened in the United States? How many engines, tower ladders, firefighters? Chief Bruegman noted that we have the same model of now six people on a big red. If we don’t adapt, the private sector will own the business.

There is a Solution

The culture of the United States fire service needs a “health check.” We understand our mission. We consistently strive to deliver on the public’s expectations. If we can innovate more to bring greater value for safety in each of our communities, we will ensure our own future. This means leveraging community risk reduction (CRR), fire prevention, and public fire education.

There is no reason for crews to be sitting around the firehouse ever unless they are training, studying, or practicing CRR in the community. Every minute in the community is a gain for public safety while lowering our cost to the public we serve. This is another kind of marketing: social marketing, teaching our citizens how to take care of themselves. And our visibility in the community will do wonders for the other kind of marketing: reputation, image, and brand. This isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s survival.

Think Strategically Before the Strategic Plan

Every department that wants to ensure its value for the community needs to engage in a sober approach to strategic thinking well before creating a strategic plan and especially its marketing and communications plan. It’s easy to write a strategic plan; it’s hard as hell to think strategically. This doesn’t mean coming up with some slick kind of brand plan to show people how great we are and what we do. That was marketing 2.0 from the days of 9/11. I am talking about marketing 3.0, understanding the tiniest elements of our market to define specific plans and programs at metric value so we can deliver the safety to our citizens that our traditions promise. Expand your thinking. Ask a million questions of your firefighters and citizens. “What do we need to do?” “What can we stop doing?” It is a very big order, and it’s one we must deliver if we want to survive. Now is the time. Wake up to that fire bell in the night.

Reference

1. Wingspread VI, “Statements of National Significance to the United States Fire and Emergency Services: A Wingspread Conference Report,” 2016, www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/Membership/member-sections/Metro-Chiefs/Wingspread-VI-final-ereportfull.ashx?la=en&hash=D17EA3CCE1FFE426D086D5C4F489AEE3CF5E58C5.

Ben May is a recently retired director of global business and alliances for the Walt Disney Company. He worked with Disney to create interactive social marketing experiences dedicated to the betterment of society as well international alliances. Among these interactive attractions, May conceived and developed with Disney executives and Imagineers, in an alliance with Liberty Mutual Insurance, the largest public fire education experience in the world at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort: “Where’s the Fire?” He has been a firefighter for Hillandale Fire and Rescue in Montgomery County, Maryland, and fire commissioner for Woodinville Fire and Rescue in Washington State. May has been a marketing consultant to Fire Service Publications of Oklahoma State University’s School of Fire Protection Technology, the United States Fire Administration, and metro fire departments across the country in the creation of strategic marketing communications plans. He is a member of the National Society of Executive Fire Officers, the Institution of Fire Engineers, the American Meteorological Society, the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, Vision 20/20 for Fire Prevention and Education, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. May has a bachelor’s degree in public affairs and a master’s degree in international communication.