Context & Continuity

I Come to Praise Burson, Not Bury Them...

(Apologies to the Bard for tweaking his prose for my own purposes.)

Anyway, the way I was raised in the business was that the agency didn't want to get the media coverage -- ever.  Today's there's a good example of this in today's Wall Street Journal.  Burson is helping Countrywide get through some rough seas and part of the campaign is centered on Countrywide employees. 

One fact in the story seems very silly: 

Rick Simon, a Countrywide spokesman, said the transcript was sent to employees Friday. It says that employees are expected to sign a pledge to "demonstrate their commitment to our efforts," and Mr. Simon says about 11,000 have signed. Each employee who signs up receives the Protect Our House wristband made of green rubber. "We believe there's a great story about the strength of the business," says Mr. Simon.

To counter criticism that its lending practices are to blame for a surge in foreclosures, Countrywide plans to emphasize its "mission" of helping Americans become homeowners, the transcript says. "I want employees to look down at their wristbands and remember our fundamental mission to help customers achieve the American Dream, and to help them withstand those malicious outward attacks and to motivate them to continue on our journey with unwavering conviction," the transcript quotes Mr. Gissinger as saying.

Also, the story describes how a Burson executive spoke on a conference call to employees:

"We wanted to assure you that my firm and I have brought companies through the worst type of publicity," Mr. Schechter said, according to the transcript. He added that a six-person Burson team was ensconced at Countrywide's Calabasas, Calif., headquarters, and about 25 people overall were working on the campaign.

A couple of things:

1.  I can imagine that Countrywide employees are feeling rather shellshocked right about now and feel as if the entire country is blaming them for the entirety of the home mortgage fiasco.  They feel blamed for more than their fare share of the problem.  Given that, Countrywide management probably wants to assure them that the company is taking steps to ensure that it's reputation rescued, in this case by a crack team of public relations professionals. 

2.  The whole business about the loyalty oath and wristbands seems very silly -- to those of us on the outside.  But having taken one or two (or more) rides through rough seas, this is the sort of symbol and action that can help rally a company.  I can remember during some of the darker days at 3Com, the negative attitudes of the employees only exacerbated our problems.  Any public relations professional will tell you that the rank and file of a company -- each and every one -- are ambassadors to the public.  As such, steps should be taken to ensure that they are good ambassadors and not random.  If it takes silly rubber bracelets, then that's a small prices to pay for a chorus of positive voices. 

What Rand says about Madison Avenue and the War Against Terror

Here's a fascinating eBook from Rand about how there might be ways to better use public relations techniques to win the ware against terrorism.  It's a fascinating read, but I believe that, most of the time, actions speak louder than words. 

Virtually every action, message, and decision of a military force shapes the opinions of an indigenous population: strategic communication, treatment of civilians at vehicle checkpoints, and the accuracy or inaccuracy of aerial bombardment. Themes of U.S. goodwill mean little if its actions convey otherwise. Consequently, a unified message in both word and deed is fundamental to success. Business marketing practices provide a useful framework for improving U.S. military efforts to shape the attitudes and behaviors of local populations in a theater of operations as well as those of a broader, international audience.

Here's a link to the book.

Someone @ Google is Having a Great Day

I love newspapers and, about three years ago, started having "real" newspapers delivered to the home, the NYTimes and Wall Street Journal.  The real difference is finding stories I never would have seen online.  Saturday newspapers are my favorite.  The Wall Street Journal has put together a terrific Saturday edition that I look forward to all week long and the Saturday Times has been a favorite for more than twenty years.  There are always very interesting bits in it. 

Be that as it may, the NYTimes and WSJ both have page one stories on Google this morning.  The NYTimes has a Google lifestyle story about their commuter buses (complete with the most amazingly boring picture -- "Look!  Californians on a bus!).  And the WSJ has a story about Google winning a toehold in the realm of television commercials.  --Someone, probably several people, deserve a nice mimosa this morning.  Maybe two.

Synchronized to this is a move I made this week to further plight my troth with Google.  Because my business is very mobile, and because there are so many different computers in my life, I have been running a copy of Thunderbird off a USB drive, part of the excellent portable apps package (highly recommended).  But I've come to tire of the performance of Thunderbird-on-a-stick and still being tethered to something instead of working in the cloud.  Then, I found that I could make the Java gMail app run on my Treo and I vastly prefer that email program to even the souped-up email program I've been running for a couple of years now.  Then, I noticed that gMail now offers to pop my mail from all my different accounts, five that are spread over my thirty years of email history and this is necessary for email tidiness.  And, finally, I found a greasemonkey script that strips out the ads from gMail when I'm running Firefox. 

So, I imported a few thousand addressed into gMail and started to enjoy.  It's completed synched to my telephone and I can get to it from most any computer any time I want and this is Very Good.  And, it performs much faster than Thunderbird-on-a-stick even over USB 2.0.  I'm quite pleased.  --Not as pleased as having placed two front page stories in one day, but quite pleased. 

It's an issue of transparancy and guts...

Today, I read with interest, the following story in the Boston Post... 

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent  |  February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Erick Erickson  has been running the popular blog Redstate.com long enough to know what his readers' postings sound like: red-meat conservative rhetoric served up with a little dash of populist anger.

So when postings from an unknown writer on the site showed up praising Senator John McCain -- one of the site's least-popular Republicans for his deviations from hard-core conservative orthodoxy -- Erickson thought he smelled a rat.

Or maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on  Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain's political action committee.

With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.  [more]

The troubling part is that the political operative decided to use deception / anonymity as part of his suite of tactics.  Of course this isn't anything new and, in fact even the media have been caught in the act.  Be that as it may, my point is this:  If you have the courage of your convictions, then you will post your position and who you are.  Take for example, James Carville.  He has a particular point of view -- that's been paid for -- and he is able to argue eloquently his point-of-view.  And he has the courage (or sheer ego) to put his own face and reputation on the line.

I don't think there's anything wrong with posting to a competitor's website or blog, but there is something wrong about not putting your own name to the post.  I've spoken in public and for attribution for many, many clients.  Never once have I resorted to being an anonymous source and if I ever post to someone's website stating my own or my client's point-of-view, then I'll do it in a way people will know who I am.   And if my identity subtracts from either the credibility or substance of my argument, then shame on me.  Public Relations people need to be involved in the dialog wherever it takes place -- weblogs included --  and have the guts to say it, mean it and sign it.

Arf. Arf. Arf.

Normally, I don't pay too much attention to the headlines I read in my emailed edition of The Daily Dog.  Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine product from a fine company, it's just that my pulse doesn't quicken when public relations people discuss public relations issues to other public relations people.  (I probably picked up this attitude at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism where it's understood there's a certain discipline and set of skills involved in journalism, but nothing so complicated that it can't be learned in less that two years.)

Anyway, the headline that caught my eye was about press releases, specifically, The Dark Side of Social Media: Press Releases Are Not a PR Strategy.  This interested me due to the number of discussions I've recently had with clients, friends, and entrepreneurs about the changing role of the press release.  And it has certainly changed from when I started off in the business.  I won't bore you here with the history of the press release, but we will notice that it has changed from a tool used to inform the media to a tool that can be used to directly inform the public and, if one is on top of one's game, actively leveraged as a sales tool, customer communications tool, employee relations tool, etc.  --And, by the way, the SEC still considers it an act of disclosure. 

But back to the article in The Daily Dog...   I agree with the author on many points:

• A press release is a tool (tactic) not a strategy (duh).
• There are lots of other tactics to use.
• Many more "amateurs" than ever before are actively involved in the creation of press releases.

But what strikes me as odd is that the author still believes that a  press release is a media relations tool -- at all.  My experience is that it is rare, very rare indeed that a press release has media impact.  Here's the last example from my work that I can cite:  Here's the media coverage.  Here's the press release.    I wrote the press release with the sales force in mind, but I also wrote it with one media outlet in particular in mind, the Saint John Telegraph Journal.  I had a reason to believe that the newspaper would take the story.  (Not quite as .... thoroughly ... as it did, but still...)  And then I made sure that the newspaper received the press release two days before it wired, a tactic afforded to me by working for a private company. 

But back to The Daily Dog... the author seems to be making the point that the press release tool is being diluted by the participation of amateurs and we should somehow better control this.  She draws a parallel between the uncontrolled use of press releases and the uncontrolled real estate development in her home town due to lack of zoning regulations.  I suggest this instead:  It is incumbent on public relations professionals to figure out ways to add value beyond the read of the general public.  The toothpaste is out of the tube, dear.  Businesswire and PR Newswire are very OK with the idea that more people have more access to their primary service and can afford it and are willing to use it.  (I've met people who believe that PR is an acronym for press release rather than public relations.) 

But is also rubs me the wrong way when public relations staff argue with their clients about whether or not a press release should be written.  I've seen public relations staff object to writing and wiring a press release because it won't help them win media coverage -- and they're correct.  And the client's point is that they need a press release because it's probably the most concise, essential marketing communication that might ever be created for their  product / service -- and they're correct.  --But if it takes a public relations professional more than a couple of hours to write and win approval on a press release, even at a public company, then something is amiss and it would appear that some skills need to be sharpened. 

Come on.  Let's be real public relations professionals and make it a win / win / win for the client, the media and our own work. 

PRSA Seminar: What CEOs Really Know about Public Relations and How to Reach Them

I received this missive from the PRSA in today's email:

Most of us would agree with the statement that CEOs just don't get the concept of public relations, and this shouldn't be surprising, since most CEOs don't have a communications background. Adding to the disconnect is the fact that their objectives are very different from ours. If they don't understand how our activities meet their objectives, the value of our activities goes unperceived.

You will learn:
-How CEOs evaluate communications
-How to make your department's achievements speak their language
-How to connect your results with their objectives.

This is embarrassing for many different reasons:

1. A public relations person should have enough self-respect (personal and professional) not represent an organization that doesn't their role in an organization.

2. It is incumbent on the pubilc relations professional to ensure that their organization to appreciate what they do and respect how they do it.

3. Regarding "how CEOs evaluate communications," well, I'll give you a quick clue: do these communications help an organization make money? If so, good. If not, not so good.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine, 11/23/03: The Ethicist

THE ETHICIST

Honest P.R.

By RANDY COHEN
Q: I'm considering hiring a public-relations representative to promote my new business, but I worry about having him write letters for me to sign. When I read an article or a letter, I expect the name on it to be the author's. The P.R. rep argues that he is simply conveying my message more effectively than I could. But wouldn't I be lying to tack my name on his work? Tal Ziv, Honolulu

A: Context is all.

Download file

Where a good public relations person when you need one?

This is a picture that the New York Times posted on its website.

Jack L. Messman, left, the chief of Novell, and Richard Seibt, the chief of SuSE Linux, in Nuremberg, Germany, last week. Novell has made a deal to acquire SuSE.

What do we see?

Two guys who took off their suit jackets to put on some t-shirts. I'm sure the t-shirts were thought to be emblematic of the Linux ouevre.

One of the guys has a pair of safety glasses in his hand, or a pair of very unfashionable spectacles.

The short guy has a shiny face.

The background is too busy.

And, this is a picture that was sent out by the public relations team. The photo credit is: SuSE Linux. So we can't even blame it on a photographer on the loose. This was a photo staged by and chosen by the public relations team.

Pity.