“What’s your favourite cake?”
On the face of it, not the trickiest of questions you or your spokesperson could face in a media interview.
You might think answering it is a piece of cake.
But sometimes it is the innocuous questions that cause the biggest issues.
Why are we discussing this in our media training blog today?
Well, the cake question was asked during a BBC Breakfast interview that I caught on Friday.
It came when Fran Barnes, the chief executive of the Horticulture Trades Association, appeared on the programme to discuss the 70th anniversary of the country’s first garden centre.
As the interview came towards the end, host Charlie Stayt asked: “If you went into a garden centre today, what cake would you be seeking?”
And then added: “What would the seasons tell you?”
It’s a light-hearted, fun question.
But it is also the sort of question that can cause a spokesperson to hesitate, stumble, become flustered and panic.
When I think of innocuous media interview questions, my mind wanders to Theresa May being asked what was the naughtiest thing she had ever done, and responding with “running through fields of wheat”.
The answer grabbed all the attention and led to intense ridicule.
I can also remember Boris Johnson being asked what he does to relax and, after a lot of stumbling, he said: “I make buses. I make models of buses.”
He added: “I like to paint. Or I make things. I have a thing where I make models of buses. What I make is, I get old, I don’t know, wooden crates, and I paint them. It’s a box that’s been used to contain two wine bottles, right, and it will have a dividing thing. And I turn it into a bus.
“So, I put passengers… I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on a wonderful bus – low carbon, of the kind that we brought to the streets of London, reducing C02, reducing nitrous oxide, reducing pollution.”
The answer was so bizarre and long-winded that theories circulated it was a deliberate ploy to game Google search results.
Anyway, let’s get back to the present time.
Questions like ‘What’s your favourite cake?’ are tricky because they are unexpected.
They are not the questions spokespeople typically prepare for when they consider what they might be asked.
It was handled well on this occasion.
Having initially said “all of them”, Ms Barnes narrowed it down, saying: “I would always go for a coffee and walnut cake.”
That answer was met with the agreement of co-host Naga Munchetty.
And it gets our approval as media trainers. The question is answered in a way that doesn’t grab attention or distract from what has been said in the rest of the interview.
Interestingly, the previous question felt trappy and innocuous as well – “Name something one garden centre does that keeps you coming back.”
Again, it was handled with composure.
She said: “Knowledge. If you are not an experienced plants person, which many people aren’t, if you go to a garden centre, they will know what they are talking about and will be able to help.”
It was a good media interview. There was a conversational approach, and messages landed about the importance of garden centres and the challenges they now face.
But not all interviews end so positively when spokespeople face innocuous questions.
During our media training courses, we stress that innocuous questions serve a purpose.
Sometimes, they are asked to drag a spokesperson away from the questions they have prepared for and beyond their scripted response and lines to take.
They can also be asked to give the audience an insight into the person talking to them, what makes them tick and how they want to be perceived.
So, what can you do to prepare for them?
Many seemingly harmless questions have a personal element.
“What’s your favourite cake?”, “What do you do to relax?”, “What’s the naughtiest thing you have ever done?”.
All personal. Yet two out of the three caused problems.
Other spokespeople should try to anticipate this potential personal element.
Let’s say you work for a bank or building society. You might face a question about how you use credit cards, your savings or when you last used cash.
If you work for the NHS, you could be asked how long it took to get your last GP appointment.
“How did you feel?” and “Why does it matter to you?” are more general but often asked personal questions.
Changing how you think about innocuous personal questions is also crucial.
Rather than seeing them as something to fear, view them as an opportunity to inject personality into an interview and show your human side.
It can help add credibility to what you say and make you relatable.
One of the favourite responses I have seen to an innocuous question during the time I have written this media skills training blog came from Mark Drakeford, who was then the First Minister of Wales.
He was asked, “What’s your favourite cheese?”
And he replied: “That's probably the hardest question I've had so far because I really like cheese, and always have since I was a tiny child, and I used to walk up to my grandparents in their farm.
“One of the things I used to look forward to when I got there was the fact my grandmother would pass me a piece of cheese to eat.
“Caerphilly is a cheese that I really like - that crumbly, slightly salty cheese that is Caerphilly. But actually, there's a lot of cheeses I like, and I'll be eating some of it over this weekend."
It’s a response packed with storytelling, personality and the human element.
Whether it is cake or cheese, these examples provide plenty of food for thought on how to respond to innocuous media interview questions.
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