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The PR Hurt Locker: Ten Land Mines to Negotiate in a Crisis (six through ten)

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Bye Bye Reputation

Posted by Tom Gable

The previous post covered the first five of ten land mines to avoid in a crisis: guilt, no plan, lack of culture and core values, big hat (no cattle) and CEO ego. The following delve more into hazards to negotiate during implementation.

6. Attorneyitis – This land mine occurs when otherwise good messages and communications that the CEO and crisis team have approved get handed off for legal review and come back bruised, bloated and infected with the deadly disclaimer virus. Short, compelling copy turns fuzzy around the edges. Statements of fact become weighted down with convoluted clauses and abundancies of redundancies (In one set of Frequently Asked Questions that Gable PR crafted to explain a law suit our client filed against a magazine for libel and slander, a sharp 19-word sentence nailing the editor for deceit was turned into 100 words of circumlocution without a verb). The test: read a sentence out loud and if everyone’s eyes glaze over like you were reading from C-Span transcripts or they laugh so hard they herniated, start over.

7. Torpor at the Top (also called Coagulation in the C-Suite) – The media are almost always on deadline and pressed to complete their rounds of interviews with sources from all sides. Many have preconceptions that will drive the coverage, often in a way not appreciated by the target organization. With a well-rehearsed crisis plan and message strategies in place, an organization can dedicate itself to responding as quickly as possible to the media call instead of setting it aside and agonizing what to do while waiting for the lawyers to return your call. The process includes knowing the time zone where the media call originated so you don’t stuck in a time warp between west coast and east coast and lose the opportunity to respond. Providing solid facts and evocative quotes ensures more balanced coverage. If the organization is in the right, its fast response and candor can lead to establishing positive media relationships that can be of major benefit for decades.

When crises hit, companies without plans or facing some of the other land mines outlined here can struggle internally in determining a course of action. Some advisors tell the CEO to delay, which can be brilliant or fatal, depending upon the crisis. Copy often gets written by committee. In situations such as these, communications professionals or outside consultants brought in at the eleventh hour need to light fires under the corporate derrieres of those in the executive suite and loosen the clotted communications channels. Getting back to the media with even a short statement (“We are checking all the facts and will get back to you as soon as we have an answer.”) can help mitigate pending disaster. By not responding or responding after deadline, you get immortalized with the regrettable line that usually appears as the last sentence in the story: “The company was unavailable for comment.” A speedy response, on the other hand, generates a positive impression; the guilty don’t return media calls or have the lawyers call.

8. Dueling Fiefdoms – We’ve seen warring factions fire off random shots of bad advice within the corporate halls in hopes of furthering their own interests in internal turf wars rather than contributing energetically and without guile to the master crisis plan for the overall good of the organization. Lack of corporate alignment and certainty of purpose have broader ramifications in preventing an organization from achieving its business and marketing goals. In a crisis, the problem is exacerbated and accelerated. Good organizations exhibit grace under pressure through positive, consistent communications. For the unaligned and contentious, disaster looms. The media find the inconsistencies among dueling factions and probe deeper, confronting one faction with the claims of another and repeating the process until the inside story unfolds with conflicting voices from every corner.

9. Stuck in Jargon or Legal Land – This isn’t necessarily fatal, just annoying and a potential roadblock to getting your compelling messages through the clutter and promoting good media relations. Speaking in a sincere, human voice will help build bridges with the media and the ultimate target audiences on the other side of this filter. As noted in Attorneyitis, 100-word sentences without a verb don’t cut it. Jargon in a particular niche and working with trade journals can be acceptable. In a crisis, when broader financial, business, consumer and investigative reporters are involved, one needs to apply what some media call the “Bozo Filter.” This methodology came to light during a Media Relations Summit in New York featuring journalists from a wide range of leading publications, news services, on-line sources and broadcast. One noted technology journalist with one of the world’s most respected publications said he had set up Bozo Filters on his email to automatically delete messages from certain agencies or individuals and those containing words he felt were useless or meaningless. For creating compelling messages, start with the evidence developed for your crisis communications plan. Analyze the background information, input from outside resources and historical coverage of the industry, company, organization or related topic. Think big picture. Envision perfect coverage. A trick Gable PR uses to help clients focus on the goal is to have them imagine the perfect headline for this situation. What would it say and where would it appear? Then, can we work backward from perfection and align all our plans, themes, core values, evidence strategies and tactics to bring it to life.

10. No comment – This often springs from some of the considerations listed above (guilty, attorneyitis, torpor at the top). Avoid this nuclear land mine whenever possible. Even providing a comment that you will get back to the media as soon as you’ve had a chance to conduct an internal review, analyze the complaint or get input from those outside the organization is better than saying “no comment,” which comes across as “guilty as charged.” Armageddon may seem eminent, but there will be a future. Salvaging a small part of the reputation during difficult times can provide a starting point for building a new one for the future. Work with your crisis team to analyze your different message strategies and what you hope to achieve for the long term.

A Final Word

Some experts estimate that less than five percent of all crises are fatal to an organization or individual. CEOs reinvent themselves regularly, particularly in industries with high failure rates (technology, biotechnology, Internet). Companies and organizations go through constant change, deal with major public issues and keep moving forward. The path becomes much easier with a continuous investment in image as a part of corporate strategy, developing strong core values, having crisis PR plans in place (and rehearsed) and avoiding potential land mines when your next crisis erupts.

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Ten Land Mines to Avoid in Your Next Crisis (one through five)

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Tred Lightly!

Posted by Tom Gable

Crises come in all forms and sizes, from global product recalls to local political scandal, the nuisance law suit about spilled hot coffee at a fast food restaurant, corporate malfeasance, alleged embezzlement in a not-for-profit, sexual harassment issues, hazardous waste spills, to manufacturing, transportation or other accidents that take human lives.

Skilled public relations professionals have been dealing with these issues and more for decades. They have honed best practices and tempered them under fire, increasing the odds of success in any crisis program. Good advice and case histories abound. But advances in how the world communicates instantly and in living color (photos Tweeted from cell phones, drive-by videos of transgressions, amateur news casts, rumors in the blogosphere, a consumer issue going viral via Twitter, etc.) have added new complexities to the art and science of crisis communications. The race is increasingly to the swift and, as detailed later, the trustworthy.

But extreme dangers are hidden along any path to success in managing a crisis. In analyzing failed or derailed crisis programs in over 30 years in public relations and journalism, certain approaches and characteristics stand out.  The list could go on forever. For focus, we’ve narrowed the key reasons for failure down to the top ten (or bottom ten as the case may be) most threatening land mines to any crisis program. Individually, not every land mine can be fatal. But one blast can lead to another, making the goal of getting through the crisis unscathed unlikely or impossible. Almost all can be dealt with honestly and strategically. Knowing they exist is a start. Start tip-toeing here with the first five of ten landmines to avoid in your next crisis, with six through ten to be posted next week:

1. Guilty (or not completely innocent) – The evidence exists – against the company, CEO, employee, organization, product, or service – for an illegal action, horrible occurrence, affront to humanity, threat to public safety or other transgression. The crisis management team needs to implement its plan, starting with a quick review of your crisis check (click here for a Gable PR example). The team analyzes the crisis in context and with a host of factors before determining the response, including developing a clear understanding of the legal ramifications and liabilities. Being totally guilty requires a different response than being guilty on some counts or a single count, not totally without blame or possibly the victim of circumstance. There is also intent. A major fast food company didn’t intend for its customers to be felled by e coli. The crisis was an aberration. The company had solid food preparation processes, procedures and rules in place, so was able to turn the tide fairly quickly after an initial 30-percent decline in its stock. Another food preparation company that had poor processes in its plant and a history of  being cited regularly by health inspectors for unsanitary conditions hired the most expensive crisis counselors in the country. It tried to spin its way out of the harsh light of media scrutiny with pledges of future adherence to the law, firing people and even giving portions of future sales to minority training programs.  It lacked the culture, history, core values and other attributes (see below) to escape. Customers fled, contracts were cancelled and it soon filed for bankruptcy.

2. No Plan – When issues arise, the best organizations pull out a well-rehearsed crisis plan and implement quickly, confidently and successfully. Should any uncertainties or ambiguities exist, the crisis team and its consultants deal with them effectively as additions to the plan, rather than as another set of distractions for the unplanned and clueless. In the halls of the unprepared, staff is usually found ricocheting off walls in search of enlightenment in between panicked calls to the lawyers or searching local directories for crisis communications counselors. Plans include proven processes, clear marching orders, strict lines of communication and access to an array of supporting evidence. The above mentioned food company with the good reputation, culture and core values had built but not launched Web sites to deal with worst case scenarios in its industry, including e coli outbreaks. The sites included an overview of each area of potential concern, their history of managing in each area and abundant evidence to support each claim, plus links to outside resources, such as government agencies, academicians and independent consumer groups. Crises happen. If an organization is ready with its own plug-and-play plan, everyone will sleep a lot easier before the crisis, during and through the post mortem when the team gives high-fives around the room and pops a cork of bubbly to toast its success.

3. Lack of Culture, No Core Values – Authentic culture and values contribute to reputation for the long term. If you haven’t thought about your reputation, exhibiting positive core values and demonstrating proof of principle over time (walking the talk) as a part of organizational strategy long before the crisis hits, you will start below ground zero when the bomb lands, no matter how good your plan. Positive reputations aren’t spun out of air or the CEO’s frontal lobe on short notice. They are built over time. The leaders in any niche or category determine what they stand for and then provide ongoing evidence over time to support the position. Good companies operate in the no-spin zone, relying on corporate culture, solid facts, quality people, honesty and integrity to carry the day (week, month, year, decade).

4. Big Hat, No Cattle – Do you have a corporate history of hype or muddled communications strategies?  In a crisis, the media will launch quick database research to see how you’ve been covered in the past, by whom and in what context. The sharpest writers will then check with your peers, trade associations, professional organizations, former law and accounting firms. Marginal companies who haven’t dealt with Land Mine No. 2 – core values – often leave a trail of disgruntled professional service firms who served them previously and can now be used as a source in the gruesome discovery process. Lack of credible data and substance become apparent quickly. The first blood is let. With no redeeming values, countervailing evidence from the empty suits at the management level or even a marginal reputation to cast doubt on the charges, the media feeding frenzy begins. Each day brings a new report of chicanery and spin, driving the organization toward Armageddon in the C Suite. At this stage, the organization needs to evoke the Metamorphosis Gambit (sometimes called the Nuclear Option), which involves management change, reorganization, new strategic planning and total repositioning.

Gable PR witnessed this phenomenon when representing a small company with brilliant technology that had been acquired by a billion-dollar company for its stock, which had gone up rapidly based on the company’s regular announcement of exciting new business initiatives into the hottest new markets. However, the company was playing it fast and loose with its business strategies and corporate culture, or lack of same. The media found evidence of bribery by the parent in securing a telecommunications contract with a third world country and almost every one of the much-hyped major acquisitions in pursuit of more revenues and a higher price earnings ratio had turned sour or tanked. Negative coverage ravaged the stock price. Its potential acquisition by a Fortune 500 company was canceled. The company eventually paid huge fines on some of its transgressions, wiped out its executive suite where the transgressions had originated, took huge write-offs on its discontinued operations and announced a new vision for the future. Following its metamorphosis, the company was acquired by another conglomerate, although at a lower valuation than had been anticipated years earlier.

5. CEO Ego – CEOs can have egos as big as the Ritz and think he or she is a natural media star. They refuse to train, rehearse or follow a script or plan. They ignore the gravity of the situation and think they can charm and spin their way out of the morass. Some when CEOs bully their internal staffs into being afraid to provide authentic, sincere counsel. The prototype: MBAs out of central casting, with neatly coiffed presidential hair touched with streaks of grey, a solid jaw, sharp blue eyes, resonant voice and engaging smile, but dumb as a trout when it came to media relations. They are confident they can charm anyone. “I could talk a dog off a meat wagon,” one CEO bragged. Unfortunately, he was already in trouble, having failed two of the earlier tests listed above about culture and providing evidence. The media had done its due diligence and quickly probed into the details of declining sales, escalating administrative costs and high turnover. Without training and having his core messages set, he was caught unawares and folded like a thin tent in a hurricane. He actually started sweating and fidgeting, like the character in a Saturday Night Live skit who was being interviewed by a faux Mike Wallace for selling defective whoopee cushions. Our CEO tried to use his booming voice to make points, then stonewalled and finally tried to change the subject. The reporter kept asking the same question in different ways until she had what she wanted, then hopped off the meat wagon with a little Filet Mignon and hot sauce for her readers.

Next (six through ten): Attorneyitis, Torpor at the Top, Dueling Fiefdoms, Stuck in Jargon Land, No Comment

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Crisis PR, Hoax and Fraud, Hype Free PR, Team Play | No Comments »

Crisis PR: Three Core Principles and Planning Checklist to Guide Your Actions

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Reputation Skewered

Posted by Tom Gable

Most major organizations create crisis plans in advance of need, update them regularly, have a strategic array of tools and tactics ready to go (hidden Web sites, video, audio, fact sheets, media kits) and even rehearse their responses. The better job an organization does before a crisis strikes – or at the beginning to quickly manage a crisis based on sound principles should a plan not be in place – the better the result. These fundamentals came to mind in tracking the Toyota recall, the changing communications strategies and lack of responsiveness early in the game.

In creating a crisis plan and carrying it out in any crisis communications situation, three basic principles should guide your actions:

One – Be honest and stick to the facts. Do not speculate, hypothecate or exaggerate. Those impacted by the crisis deserve nothing less – and your reputation may be damaged irreparably if you aren’t truthful and authentic.

Two – Think strategically about the long-term. It is too easy to be reactionary, get caught up in the grinding short-term pressures of the situation and scurry to respond to those demanding answers from every quarter. What do you stand for? What are your core values? Your culture? Are your responses to the crisis consistent with these values and authentic – no hype? How will your actions today be viewed a year from now? Five years from now?

Three – Maintain unified and consistent communications during implementation of your plan. Nothing will erode your credibility faster than conflicting messages coming from different sources within your organization (be aware that the media – and class action attorneys in some cases – will pursue every angle in search of controversy, unethical behavior or criminal intent).

Another key factor for launching a crisis plan: speed of response. As witnessed with the issues swirling around Toyota as it sank deeper into a crisis PR vortex, lack of pro-active communications resulted in the news media, elected officials and other outside sources taking control of the message momentum. Instead of being fast and responsive, Toyota seemed to adopt the Three S Strategy: be silent, slow and stonewall.

Crisis PR is a team sport that requires a great play book. As a starting point for creating your own plan, Gable PR has developed a detailed checklist (click here) to guide any organization through the essential elements required. Think of it as a critical pre-flight check list. From this start, any organization can adapt it and keep it evolving to keep up with the changing requirements for communicating in the nanosecond news cycle spawned by Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and traditional media embracing 24/7 coverage.

Depending on each crisis, some areas will require more research, planning and action than others. Please take a look at the list and let me know what else might be added, enhanced, edited, deleted or explained more clearly. Crisis PR, to borrow a line from Ernest Hemingway, is something of a moveable feast and the goal is to take charge of the menu.

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In Crisis PR, It’s Not Always How You Start But How You Finish

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Shrinking image?

Posted by Tom Gable

The news media, auto industry analysts and elected officials have been aggressive in going after Toyota for its delays in responding to a growing crisis about sudden acceleration in some of its models from gas pedal and floor mat issues.

NPR opined that “the carmaker that could end up doing long-term damage to the sterling reputation it has painstakingly built up for several decades.” It cited a slow response time in dealing with the problem and communicating.

Critics in the story noted that “the worst-case outcome for the company would be if any of the investigations uncovers evidence that Toyota has been aware of the problem for longer than it has admitted.” This implied that Toyota may be hiding something.

The theme turned up in a Los Angeles Times story:

The pedal maker denies that its products are at fault. Some independent safety experts also are skeptical of Toyota’s explanations. ‘We know this recall is a red herring,’ one says. Sudden-acceleration events in Toyota and Lexus vehicles have been blamed for at least 19 fatalities and 815 vehicle crashes since 1999.

Critics jumped on quickly to ask for specific timetables. The Toyota CEO was largely silent (a Japanese TV crew caught him at a financial conference in Davos, Switzerland, where he made a short apology). Toyota then pulled its brand advertising, ran public service ads in major daily newspapers around the country, hired a PR firm and started communicating.

When Toyota went public with a PR blitz, they used their head of U.S. sales rather than CEO. Some said this seemed to indicate that Toyota wasn’t dealing with the issues at the highest level.

“We deeply regret the concern that our recalls have caused for our customers, and we are doing everything we can — as fast as we can — to make things right,” Jim Lentz, Toyota’s U.S. sales chief, said in a statement on Monday (Feb. 1, 2010).

Although late in responding by crisis PR standards, Lentz did the classic: recognize the issue, apologize, empathize and then set a vision for the fix.

Over the years, in dealing with crisis communications issues involving everything from religious scandal, to threats to public safety, to corporate and organizational implosions, Gable PR has found that three basic principles should guide your actions in every crisis situation:

One – Be honest and stick to the facts. Do not speculate, hypothecate or exaggerate. Those impacted by the crisis deserve nothing less – and your reputation may be damaged irreparably if you aren’t truthful and authentic.

Two – Think strategically about the long-term. It is too easy to be reactionary, get caught up in the grinding short-term pressures of the situation and scurry to respond to those demanding answers from every quarter. What do you stand for? What are your core values? Are your responses to the crisis consistent with these values? How will your actions today be viewed a year from now? Five years from now?

Three – Maintain unified and consistent communications during implementation of your plan. Nothing will erode your credibility faster than conflicting messages coming from different sources within your organization (be aware that the media – and class action attorneys in some cases – will pursue every angle in search of controversy, unethical behavior or criminal intent).

Toyota can get beyond this crisis, recover from short-term damage to its brand and regain the trust and respect it enjoyed by investing in image as a part of corporate strategy. What will Toyota stand for in five years? Quality, customer care, engineering, design, reliability, value? All of the above? Whatever the vision, the next step is developing a strategy to provide ongoing evidence to support the vision. This goes beyond manufacturing to every way Toyota touches its customers and future customers.

In the era of instant communication, organizations need to take an immediate look at the issues it faces. Gable PR uses a crisis communications check list for starters. In less than an hour, we can work through the issues and determine priorities and critical tasks for action, including the speed of response.

For Toyota, it may have done a fast analysis and then decided to go slow in responding for internal or legal reasons. For the “new Toyota,” it should establish procedures for responding at warp speed to any outside concern. Instead of two days to a week, how about two hours or less, even if it’s to say “we are working on this and will get back to you as soon as the facts are in?”

For energizing every corner of the organization, the management schools have many cases for going beyond PR and establishing operating principles to live by in evolving the culture. What directions will Toyota give to its design and engineering teams to analyze what happened with the pedals and mats and develop new approaches to quality control? For the future, if a problem occurs once a new model rolls out, have rapid response teams with the power to analyze issues and make fast decisions on resolving the problem and then pro-actively communicate the new direction with an integrated PR program.

A pro-active internal approach builds support and understanding, then provides the foundation for launching the pro-active communications program. Educate internal audiences first. Develop a consistent messaging strategy, from the basic level of how dealers will answer their phones and respond in the future. Establish procedures for Tweeting updates as they occur and linking to Web sites for more details. Even if working on the image over three to five years, build a sense of urgency into the culture. Empower people to think about continuously improving every aspect of the business every day. By setting a new standard and vision, Toyota can then set in motion the critical business practices and cultural commitment to walk its talk over time – and finish a lot better than it started.

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PR News Release Words to Live By (Not!) in 2010

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Jargon for the Ages

Posted by Tom Gable

We entered 2010 with the banished words for the year from Lake Superior State University, an impressive list full of toxic assets that were shovel-ready for burial. To build on this fine start, we thought it would be instructive to offer a quick historical perspective on words most hated by the media in PR news releases.

Some words such as solutions must get dropped into news releases almost unconsciously, somewhat of a verbal tic. Lazy writers sprinkle their releases with jargon rather than striving to develop well-crafted, creative and compelling ideas that capture the personality of the company, its points of differentiation and the defining factors of its offering. Instead, they issue something that sounds like a majority of news releases going out over the wires each day. A test: redact the company name, send to colleagues in other markets and see if they can identify the company.

This first list of words to avoid is based on several surveys Gable PR conducted over the past decade among editors and writers at major national business, financial and trade media. Amazingly, the list remains pretty much the same as it did when first launched in 2000!

  • Best-of-breed, customer-centric, cutting edge, end-to-end, excited, first mover, leading, leading edge, leading provider, mission critical, new paradigm, robust, seamless, solutions, state-of-the-art, thrilled, turnkey, world class.

David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, analyzed 711,123 press releases distributed during 2008 by North American companies and filtered for gobbledygook words.

  • His favorites: 120 percent, commitment, focused on, innovate, leading provider, leverage, new and improved, partnership, pleased to, unique.
  • The Scott list from 2007: cutting edge, easy to use, flexible, market leading, mission critical, next generation, robust, scalable, well positioned world class.

Inc. Magazine wrote about the words it unfriend last year. Check out their take on some of the words and else they could mean (ala brain dump).

  • Actionable, authenticity, best of breed, brain dump, co-opetition, disintermediate, mindshare, offline, outside the box, proactive, repurpose, solution, synergy, value-add.

Bottom line: be precise, intelligent and creative in telling your stories. This can be hard work. Avoid the temptation to simply drop in a few words that sound good but like blank tiles in Scrabble, have no meaning – a great line from the classic book, Cluetrain Manifesto, which is must reading for anyone interested in joining the battle against jargon.

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Banished Word List for 2010 – Just a Start!

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Jabberwocky landing

Jabberwocky landing

Posted by Tom Gable

Lake Superior State University recently released its annual Banished Words List. First started in 1975, the list is culled from tens of thousands of nominations and includes the best of the worst from marketing, media, education, technology, politics and more.

Interested in contributing? Check their alphabetical complete list first. For the 2010 list, including comments from various sources, read on:

SHOVEL-READY — A cadaver? Potted plant? Suggestion: a project ready to implement.

TRANSPARENT/TRANSPARENCY — Cynics say it means politically invisible.

CZAR — A media term for those given major powers and authority, ala missile, inflation, bird flu, car, etc. LSSU noted that George W. Bush appointed 47 people to 35 czar jobs; Pres. Obama, eight appointments to 38 positions. One wag noted presidents hand out czar positions like party favors. Suggestion: leader, director, manager, CEO, etc.

TWEET — And all its offspring: twitterature, tweetaholic, twittersphere, tweeps, twiteracy, etc.

APP — Annoying abbreviation. Reader suggestion: call them programs once again.

SEXTING – Overhyped. Do the media and talk show hosts encourage the behavior?

FRIEND AS A VERB — The Oxford English Dictionary actually selected unfriend as their top new word of the year, given the growth of friending and related terms on social media sites. LSSU entrant suggestion: befriend. And defriend?

TEACHABLE MOMENT — Is it a time when a mentor has the opportunity to provide a valuable lesson to an individual, class, network or broader constituency? Or, on the down side, getting hit in the face for a rude comment at a bar is a teachable moment, as are political failures, economic policies gone awry, having your sexting messages discovered by your wife, flunking out of college, etc. Suggestions: learning opportunity or lessons.

IN THESE ECONOMIC TIMES — Used as a verbal tic or introductory clause, stating the obvious in political speeches or creating excuses for companies that fell short of their earnings forecasts, stopped selling homes, filed for bankruptcy, laid off staff, etc. Suggestion: stop using it.

STIMULUS – Recreational drugs? CPR? Suggestion: use clear nouns, such as loans and grants.

TOXIC ASSETS — Anthrax? A dirty nuclear weapon? Suggestions from the crowd: bad mortgage portfolios, bad debts, bad loan packages, loan default portfolio.

TOO BIG TO FAIL — Totally wrong if you believe in market forces. Failure is a natural correction. If it hasn’t been run right, a company or institution doesn’t deserve to continue with government subsidies ad infinitum. Let the competitors take up the slack, which they will quite rapidly.

BROMANCE – Sounds like a term created by metrosexuals. Suggestion: how about friends?

CHILLAXIN‘ — (Picture a Gen-Y metrosexual relaxing with his martini on an art deco chair at a gallery opening. Then hit “Delete All.”

OBAMA-prefix or roots? — The name Obama has a nice meter to it and lazy journalists, commentators and critics can easily attached to other constructs: Obamanomics, Obamacare, Obamaland, Obamanation, etc. Instead, come up with clear descriptions and definitions. As the LSSU word czars noted: “We say Obamanough already.”)

Next: additional words to avoid for 2010 and beyond!

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Hype Free PR, Social Media, The Light Side, jargon | No Comments »

PR Releases Packed with Leaders Providing Solutions

Thursday, November 5th, 2009
It's about style

It's about style

 

Posted by Tom Gable

In looking for new content for a speech on jargon later this month, we set up news trackers to see how all the leaders of the world were doing in providing seamless, end-to-end, leading edge, next generation, turnkey solutions to whatever niche they serve. Amazingly, the results mirror those from the first similar survey a decade ago and five subsequent tracking surveys. Every other release on Business Wire and PR Newswire comes from a leader and most of them are selling solutions, rather than specific products or well-defined services.

David Meerman Scott in his Gobbledygook surveys and others, including yours truly, have written about this extensively. For this exercise, we’ve pulled a few choice clauses from PR news releases and company boilerplates and inserted below without attribution. Since they are all leaders, instant name identification should be easy. We do identify one company, because it deserves recognition for hitting the Trifecta, incorporating three great terms disliked by most media into its boilerplate: leading provider, seamless solutions and performance-driven.

The Trifecta!

AccountNet is a leading solutions and professional services provider focused on the financial and government sectors. AccountNet creates performance-driven, seamless solutions that add considerable value, and utilizes proven system-integration methodologies and expertise to help clients capitalize on their existing infrastructures successfully and cost effectively

Whew. What are they selling?

Now, on to more leaders in many niches, with a few comments for the good of the order. And if you can identify any of these, post a comment. The person identifying the most leaders will get an Amazon gift certificate for buying reference books on style, grammar and the new world of PR.

  • the world’s leading provider of high-quality lenticular large format and custom-printed plastics
  • creates performance-driven, seamless solutions that add considerable value (the daily double)
  • (the company) goal is to be an end-to-end service provider to its customers by furnishing customized and integrated “turn-key” solutions
  • a leading provider of affordable easy-to-use enterprise-class systems management software as a service
  • an industry-leading provider of end-to-end web hosting services (they could be seamless, too!)
  • an impressive suite of proprietary products and services to create seamless solutions that meet each client’s highly specific needs (meeting unspecific needs wouldn’t work that well)
  • leading provider of email traffic shaping software (my email is in bad shape; I could use a seamless solution from these guys to get it into shape)
  • a leading provider of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world (would love to know more about this niche!)
  • the nation’s leading provider of cleaner electricity and carbon offset solutions (wonder if the leader in dirty electricity can use some PR help)
  • the leading provider of turnkey virtual communications and virtual office solutions (we could use some real solutions)
  • world’s leading provider of WiMAX™ and wireless broadband solutions
  • a leading provider of advanced font products
  • a leading provider of hip-hop ring tones and mobile content (probably a crowded market where leadership is critical to success)

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Posted in Authentic PR, Client Service Results, Hype Free PR, Hypemeister Honor Roll, jargon | No Comments »

PR Horizon Management: Pointing Clients Toward New Territory, Long-Term Results

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Posted by Tom Gable

The public relations profession faces many challenges in these hardscrabble times. Clients are holding tight, cutting their public relations budgets or simply saying goodbye. Competitors swoop in, looking for hints of weakness in a client-agency relationship. Business consulting, advertising and marketing firms aren’t far behind, promoting their tool kits as a means of not only surviving but growing in touch economic times. What steps can agencies take to ensure that their clients are incredibly pleased with the work being done, the results generated on their behalf and the agency relationship?

Based on lessons learned from working through three previous recessions (some better than others!), I’ve come to realize that success in client service and retention requires a manic sense of urgency to deliver short-term results combined with a disciplined approach to creativity and long-range planning. Smart agencies provide clients with ideas and strategic plans that will be generating results six, nine and twelve months into the future. The best way to get the agency or in-house team pointed in the right direction and taking action: create a system and process to drive results.

Developing Your System

At Gable PR, we experimented with different approaches in the 1992 recession. The goal was to have clients envision gaining market share and mind share from their competitors by committing to pro-active public relations. Statistics from several sources provided validation; the companies that continued marketing in troubled times grew faster than those who didn’t. We began calling our system “horizon management” and worked to get the client on board for sailing together toward new and beneficial destinations.

As recently presented during a recent PRSA Webinar and based on longer lessons found in The PR Client Service Manual, pro-active systems work best with an interactive team process; the more brainpower the better. One approach is to hold regular meetings every Monday to update on all client activities. For long-term impact, use the meeting to brainstorm new ideas for each client on a rotating basis. Chose one client or two as the subjects for the next meeting. Have the team leader or account manager review background information in advance of the session, including client calendars, milestones, known events and activities, conference schedules, editorial calendars and focus editions.

The Planning Spreadsheet

Then, to make it easy for everyone to visualize the flow of activities and critical deadlines, plot your plan on a project management program or Excel spreadsheet. List activities in the first column, months in the subsequent columns over the next year or two and put in check marks to note when activities or events are expected to take place.  A rough sample can be found here on the Gable PR Web site.

Then, during the creative session, analyze each opportunity and see what result might be generated to advance the client’s business, marketing or capital plans, or all of the above. Envision media relations, community relations, investor relations, social media activities, trade relations and public affairs opportunities unfolding across time.

Agency teams can brainstorm on the tactical approaches within each area, set priorities and also get creative in looking at what we call “the flip side” — what’s there and, more importantly, what’s not there? The initial road map gives the agency a simple planning document to track, and makes it easy to take detours and add new side trips while still keeping the original destinations in mind as the program unfolds.

From Brainstorm to Masterful, Strategic PR Plan

With team brainpower, the agency has now created a master plan for the year, with a series of new ideas it can present to the client, implement and keep updating with creative sessions that are adjusted to point to new horizons. Clients get excited. They see the agency as creative, intuitive, pro-active and worth keeping! New ideas can also drive new budgets.

The flip side is sitting back and bemoaning the lower budget and managing for time, not results. This inevitably ends up with the client calling to ask one of the worst questions on earth for an agency: “What have you done for me lately?”

Every agency’s mission, as well of those on internal PR staffs on the client side, should be ensure you do great work both lately and for the long-term. Techies call this parallel processing. Handle the daily tasks with alacrity and skill while working on your horizon program that generates results that go beyond the ordinary and expected for every client. The approach creates value and ROI for the client and relationships that endure to perpetuity (well, maybe not quite that long, but potentially for years and even decades).

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Posted in Authentic PR, Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Horizon Management, In the Beginning, Team Play | No Comments »

Backlash on Gwen, the New “Homeless American Girl”; Can Cause Marketing Trump Crisis PR?

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Posted by Krista Rogers

As a little girl I was captivated by the American Girl book series and the accompanying dolls. The books presented a great platform to educate pre-teen girls on diverse lifestyles and challenges and allow them to relate across time to people living in dissimilar situations. The dolls tied into those same periods of history and provided a tangible link to the pre-teen girls living those lives.

After I read a series of books, my parents would reward me with the overpriced doll that I now had a literary connection with. At $95 a pop, these dolls were more than just plastic play figures. In contrast to headless Barbies soon housed in the ice-chest in the garage, my American Girl dolls had personalities. I developed a relationship with them and learned to relate to the various trials and tribulations they faced.

Enter American Doll’s newest addition: Gwen Thompson, the homeless pre-teen whose back story includes being abandoned by her father and living out of a car with her mother. Still priced at $95 for the doll itself, homeless Gwen is causing quite the controversy.

The reason: homelessness is a serious social issue. With over 10 percent of the U.S. categorized as homeless, the new American Doll does embrace an aspect of our culture that needs to be communicated. Gwen’s story allows girls of higher socioeconomic status (read: who’s parents are willing to fork up $95 for a doll) to relate to and understand the lives of the less-fortunate. Gwen can give perspective to privileged pre-teens and help them develop empathy.

However, capitalizing on the unfortunate circumstances of transients without any type of give-back to the homeless community is as the Huffington Post puts it, in bad taste. The Huffington Post article triggered pages of angry comments. Public outrage then went viral. The Twitterverse trended hot and heavy on the topic. Here are a few examples:

Going Viral

Going Viral

Two comments left on a CBS article echoes the general publics’ sentiment on the issue, “Greedy capitalists will go to any lengths to make money! $95.00 for a homeless doll? The wonderful results of a Sick Society!” and “At $95 it’s nice to know that American Girl, LLC can make money off of the homeless children of America. How about giving a few of these dolls out for Christmas. If they get a letter from a shelter from a family a doll goes there. Someone from the American doll company needs to do some goodwill. I won’t be buying an American doll for little girl this year because I am unemployed.”

It may be too late for American Girl to reclaim some of the goodwill lost in what many viewed as a cynical attempt to capitalize on a tragic situation. Something they should have before launching Gwen was to develop a cause marketing program where 10 percent or more of all Gwen sales would go to a national shelter program for the homeless, or some other relevant initiative.

To take it to a higher level and one that built reputation over time, American Girl could have launched an integrated, strategic program to educate more Americans about the homeless issue and generate new sources of income, much as 7-Eleven did for so many years in supporting Jerry Lewis and his annual telethon for muscular dystrophy. All Gwen promotional efforts, materials, social media blitzes and public relations outreach could have supported the effort, providing links to relevant agencies where the pre-teen girls and their families could step forward with their own contributions. The America Girl web site could have added a special educational page on the homeless issue and encouraged visitors to become activists in a national cause and donate online.

Cause-marketing is a proven way for building reputation and goodwill among different target audiences. Studies show consumers support companies that give back to the community. American Girl has a history of connecting positively with their target audiences (and parents!). Perhaps it is time to start connecting in new and more meaningful ways.

 

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Posted in Client Service Results, Crisis PR, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Making the Online Video Boom Work for PR, Branding

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Getting Visual

Getting Visual

Posted by Krista Rogers

You can run but you can’t hide. The online video boom is here and it is not going to go away. And it is a great thing. Online video presents an incredible platform for public relations practitioners to help their clients or organizations improve communication and tell stories in new and imaginative ways. But the question is, “How?”

Earlier this month I participated in the PRSA teleseminar: Tapping into the Online Video Boom hosted by Mike McDougall, APR Vice President of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Bausch & Lomb that answered the questions so many companies are wrestling with.

Mike said online video should be an essential part of any corporate communicator’s toolkit. He really put the value of online video into perspective. It is no longer limited to channels such as YouTube or traditional broadcast media. It is becoming a cheap and effective tool that can be integrated into all of your communication tactics.

To quantify just how much impact online video has on internet users in the United States, here are some numbers from the results from a January 2009 Comscore report:

  • Over 147 million U.S. Internet users viewed an average of 101 videos each in January (more than three a day!).
  • 76.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  • The average online video viewer watched 356 minutes of video in January, (approximately 6 hours), up 15 percent versus December.
  • 100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (62.6 videos per viewer).
  • 54.1 million viewers watched 473 million videos on MySpace.com (8.7 videos per viewer).
  • The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes, up from 3.2 minutes per video in December.

Mike was kind enough to share his ideas for using online video to show off an organization’s attributes, all within a strategic plan. Here are his top tips with a little Gable PR insights as well.

ELEVEN ONLINE VIDEO TIPS

  1. Let your spokespeople speak! Be casual and non-slick.
  2. Show your lighter side. Be careful though, there is a caveat; don’t make it too light. Make sure the video is appropriate to the company’s personality and culture.
  3. Show what is special. What could you use to increase internal morale or external interest? Talk about how many patents you have? Secret ingredients in your hotel’s recipes? Brilliant engineering in your medical device? Special relics in your museum? You can even interview someone who has been with the company for many years and share that with the world!
  4. Become an expert. Share your knowledge! (Check out Gable PR’s Guru ™ Program)
  5. Dust off the archives. People like to reminisce and witness a company’s evolution and vitality.
  6. Tap the unexpected. Are people using your product in a different or creative way? Build on that!
  7. Make the complex simple. Let video explain the complex.
  8. Supplement a news release with a video clip or link to a YouTube video to further explain your points and add personality to the organization.
  9. Turn your blog into a vlog (video log). Share your opinions, ideas, etc. through a vlog instead of a blog to better engage viewers and enhance your point.
  10. Celebrate global efforts if they exist. Use personalities and experiences from other countries. Highlight it and show it off.
  11. Highlight success. Milestones are a cause for celebration and an opportunity to say, “Hey! Look at us!”

One of the greatest aspects of the online video boom is the bang you can get for your buck. Grab an HD Still Camera for $130 that will have video and be up and vlogging in no time. Need an event documented at your European headquarters in Germany? Don’t send over a whole crew. FedEx a $130 camera and have the footage uploaded in an hour (or have them buy it there if the price is right).

YouTube experts blogged about three factors that contributed to driving an overall growth of 1700 percent in uploads in the last six months: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvement of the upload flow and a new, streamlined process to share videos on social networks. The new technology creates accessibility that allows for endless opportunities for anyone to jump on board and use online video to their advantage. And it’s a must-have addition to almost every PR communications tool kit.

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Posted in Brilliant Counsel, Client Service Results, Clutter Busting, Social Media | 1 Comment »

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