Oh NASA, Oh NASA what is going on? For an agency that prides itself on furthering human kind and intelligence, they seem to be to reverting back to Neanderthal times. I’m worried that the next news conference we see, they will be explaining where the best water source is and who in the tribe will be the chief berry gatherer.
I mean, how do yo explain drunk astronauts or deranged angry scorned astronauts? These people are supposed to be the best of the best. So if the PR tactics we’ve heard so far in explaining these incidents is any indicator of whats to come then Houston we definitely have a problem.
We’ve all heard the phrase “never show your hand.” Well apparently NASA hasn’t. The reports that the agency releases offer up explanations like “no method of detecting drinking” or “but there was never heavy drinking.” For a group of men and women who have their actuary s working overtime to think of every possible crisis that could occur, they sure missed this one. This could be handled quietly and discreetly with apologies offered by the astronauts and NASA explaining what would be done in response of that actions or allegations. But for now, tonight I’m going to sleep with one eye open and watch out for those drunk flying astronauts.
So I wrote about Apple and AT&T not too many posts ago and I’m drawn to comment on them yet again. I don’t mean to sound like an annoying pompous person, but Apple really has it figured out. They know how to build sound machines and how to manage and promote them. With all the buzz surrounding the unveiling and sale of the iphone, stockholders were anxiously holding their breaths to learn how successful the phones had been in their first day on the market. Well with all the glitches and bugs, only 146,000 were sold which was much less than the anticipated 500,000. Stockholders and Analysts were baffled and worried.But Apple had a plan. Astound your people with your earnings for the fiscal year up until the point of disaster. That’s just what Apple did. Huge sighs of relief could be heard across the globe. For this year, there was a huge increase of 24% totaling in over $5.4 billion.So in true form of Apple, very little response or explanation was given. Mums the word. Let everyone around you worry and stress themselves out all the while sticking to your plan. Apple knows how to run tight ship without wavering because of the critics. So say what you will about them and claim your allegiance to whoever but I forever will have Apple in my heart.
In a recent article posted on PRweek, food giants like McDonalds, Pepsi, and coke are going to make a major PR change. Since child obesity is becoming a scary growing trend, the major food giants are going to have to change who and how they target their audiences. Usually the ads lean and try to target more towards the shopping and chief mealtime host in the family, usual being the mother of household. But now they realize they are going to have to address the kids as well, which is a change for most of the PR done by these giants.
So will we be seeing ads telling children to eat all their veggies and crazy looking clowns munching on broccoli?. Well most likely, not quite. I think it will or should be a little more subtle. Programs hosted by these prominent companies should be pitched to school in the form of character forming lessons where children are taught the benefits of the food. Because just adding a child friendly healthy menu is not going to do it. The kids have to want it, not just the moms and dads.I mean we all remember Crest coming to speak to our classes as kids and giving out free swag. So now it is only fair, that fast food and junk food companies follow suit if they want to stay in business. Because the more that obesity is on the rise in families, the more these companies are going to get bad reps.
Whether you believe Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” or are going to buy his latest book ” Assault of Reason” you’ve got to give it to the man, he is quickly becoming our new Ralph Nader. He figured out that if you become an advocate of the people and the world that we live in, you will soon rise to the top again. And, I believe it was smart.
Also whether you believe it’s genuine or not doesn’t really matter anymore. He has found his ticket to in and helped do some name transferring. He has helped start a new “Go Green” trend which involves many big names in Hollywood and just recently the LiveEarth concert which took place on several different continents involving musicians and pop culture icons. He’s taken the sometimes nasty conotation of politics and become a friend to the public. Thats a hard step to take and make the transition smoothly. But I think he found his way in with the public. People will easily take a stand and talk about their devotion to the environment much more quickly than they will about touchy political topics such as abortion and same-sex marriage. It was a smart move and I believe we will be seeing a lot more of Al. No fading into the shadows for a man that lost one of the most memorable elections ever.
According to a recent article in Odwyerpr.com, Rev. Al Sharpton is now saying that he would not might if Don Imus came back to radio airwaves. He explained to the assocaiated press that Imus has a “right to earn a living.”
Now you’ve got to have been living under a rock if you think he has good intentions with this one. Ratings folks, thats what we’re looking for. And also attention. So obviously diva Sharpton is going to welcome this action. And what about Imus? It is not like he hates attention as well. I just hate it when I hear or see tactics like this. I always feel like it is a desperate attention plea. And I wonder if both the PR people for both of these men love being on the edge of disaster all the time. Maybe disaster is not quite the word but if I worked for Imus, there would be massive stipulations to my contract.
But we could look at this as a positive step. It totally depends on the intentions of these two men. My better judgment tells me this an attention getter. But I guess if thats how you make you’re living, that’s great. It is not for me though. I would rather work for someone that improves the state of man and speaks with integrity than someone that takes cheap shots at complete strangers.
So I know I have talked a lot about crisis plans lately and I’ve also been judgmental of many organizations and their PR tactics but it is finally nice to see a company that is a success story or at least as of right now.
In a story in PRWeek, AT&T had a slew of angry customers right after the iPhone’s introduction to the public market. Many of the phones would not activate and obviously making several customers angry. After you shell out a massive amount of money for a product such as the iPhone, you obviously want to see results.
AT&T put a crisis plan in full plan, working around the clock to fix the problem. They also had clear cut statements that they wanted to make sure were clear. They wanted customers to know that several phones were activated and that the ones that weren’t working were only a small percentage. They also wanted to convey that they understood that not being able to activate one’s phone was a major issue and came with grave consequences for the customer.
You want to know what the beauty of all this? The way AT&T first began learning of this problem and understanding its severity was through bloggers. Yep social media once again saves the day and in a timely manner I might add. By having a blog section on their website, AT&T was alerted quickly of the problem.
After writing several posts where I harp or rant about a company, its nice to bring a happy ending every once in awhile especially showcasing social media at its best.
So many times after I write a post, I wonder to myself how much of what I just wrote was painfully obvious. Did I come to any conclusions? Did I prompt anyone to ponder something they never had ? But after I read Larry Weber’s article in Odwyerpr.com about PR practitioners learning to adapt to the new social web, I was relieved. Like me, Weber had thought of several of the obstacles that the constant movement of information could present to practitioners. But he also saw the good. We can completly change our outlook and reputation to the world. We have a chance to reinvent the idea of open communication.
I don’t think that traditional press releases will die out. But what I do see is being able to easily convert them to social media releases so there are several ways to get the information. We’ll be able to branch two types of generations. There will be the ones that want to stay with traditional and then there will be my generation that jumps at the chance to make it more accessible. But thats the beauty of this profession. We don’t have to convert to one way. I think the ones that are hellbent on moving to one way or another or the ones that will meet the most opposition. But we as a profession are known to be the great communicators, so how would being totally closed minded to one way or another be beneficial to helping change our image? In the future, it is going to be about learning to work together so we all can easily facilitate information to our publics. But until then, I’m sure I’ll read more about the battle of the egos on whose way is better.
After reading a blog on Odwyerpr.com written by Fraser P. Seitel, I was prompted to comment or rather agree and then ponder some. Seitel wrote an article explaining that the current presidential administration will go down as the worst PR management ever. And I have to say I totally agree. I’ve been thinking that to myself every time I watch the news. Their problem is being reactive.
Every time a crisis or even mini crisis has taken place in the White House, it gets totally blown out of proportion by mismanagement. Even all of W’s grammatical slip ups could be easily managed if someone actually stepped in took control. And that’s just an example of a mini slip up. So what about the major ones?
Its inevitable that slip ups will happen. Thats a number one rule in PR. But its all in your preparedness. We all know that. But why does every one at the White House seem to have their heads stuck in the sand when problems arise. When they don’t address the media, it just leaves them open to be their own fodder. So lets recall some of the more memorable moments in the Bush administration. Well we all remember the Bush twins getting caught drinking under age or how about Barbara flipping off the media? The tabloids and blogs went nuts over this. But when you think about it, Al Gore’s son was just booked on his fifth or sixth DUI and it isn’t front cover People Magazine material. Beat the media to it. Come out, explain the situation throughly and truthfully. Of course comments will be made in the media and Jay Leno will have a feild day but it will be greatly reduced if you meet it head on.
What about Dick Chaney’s friendly bonding hunting trip gone totally wrong. We kept hearing facts in the days after the event. Never at one time. So that led the media and onlookers to think what are they hiding? Which brings me to my next point.
Know your audience. Its a tennant of PR. Know what is being said and thought about your organization. Its part of beating them to the punch. You know how to explain your crisis. What points to hit. So I guess the part I’m pondering is why is all this so tricky for the administration to grasp? In the political world, its a constant change of status so I would think a proactive stance would be pertinent. Just a thought though…
In our campaigns class, we are working with Collegefootballart.com and Auburnart.com to help create a site that better utilizes social media. Through video and audio we are hoping to help make the site more innovative and stand out amongst the competition. But another thing that I am learning about that will help us stand out is search engine optimization.
I have begun to research many of sites such as Google Analytics. It helps to see literally where your website ranks next to many other websites. You begin to ask yourself what may be holding my site back from ranking with the others around me. You can see trends which leads me to also thank Robert for our surveys class. I remember him telling us that there was a good and bad thing about that class. The good being that we were going to do a survey, the bad being that it might be the last we one do. Regardless if I do surveys again, I will take my knowledge of trends and statistics and put it towards learning about search engine optimization to help my clients better improve their rankings. It baffles me how much goes into running a competitive online store. With the surge of the online world and then as it continues to grow and become our main medium, business’s will most definitely have to learn that their online staff’s will need to grow and expand and be an important asset to gain a competitive edge.
I now understand also why people go to school for four years for these types of degrees. Whether is be for graphic design or computer engineering. Now, I’m sure what we are doing is very elementary to the graduated computer engineer, but it sometimes is quite daunting to me how much I didn’t know. I also think the more I take of advantage of this class and everything that Robert offers up as advice will surely only help me stand out amongst my peers. What we are really learning is that the PR practitioners of tomorrow will have to be jacks of all trades.
So as election season is gearing up, I find myself focusing on tactics, more than I do the candidates themselves. I had a conversation with someone the other day that did not see politically the way I did. We were discussing the new YouTube forum for the debates this upcoming Monday. The individual felt that this was a drastic change and thought that it was inconvenient for those who do not focus on the social media world. I explained that I felt that this was ahead of the curve and a great way to get our generation which is slipping in voters to actually participate. I also mentioned several candidates who I did not necessarily support but respected the fact that they were using social media to campaign. Is this the key to getting ahead; when we start to admire those for their tactics of reaching the people rather than their messages?
Since entering the major of public relations, I find myself always thinking about the tactics and strategies behind campaigns, not just political. I constantly ask myself, is this effective? I find it all interesting, obviously why I chose the major I did. But my question is, is there a gap between consumers and the PR/advertising world regarding social media? Do we really get across the message we intend to? Do viewers understand why debates are including YouTube this year? I don’t feel like we have to spell it out but if we do not sometimes explain our tactics, publics become suspicious and distrustful. Is that our job as practitioners? Is it fair to publics?
