TV Goes the Way of the Phonograph

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Posted on September 2, 2010 
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Call me old school, or just plain old, but I just can’t reconcile the findings of a new Pew Research report that says only 42% of Americans consider the TV set a necessity. I say this after staying up past midnight watching Andy Roddick get beat by Janko Tipsarevic at the U.S. Open (great match by Tipsarevic, by the way). According to Pew, this number has been dropping—from 52% last year and 64% in 2006. Of all of the findings that come from Pew Research (and it seems like they do 20 surveys a day) this one hits home the most for me.

Comfortably settling in front of the tube almost every night is part of my DNA, but I see the younger demo watching shows on their iPads and phones on trains and planes these days. Plus, the expense of cable TV can’t be ignored, especially in today’s economy. In fact, SNL Kagan reported last week that in Q2 of this year the total number of subscribers dropped (by 711,000) for the first time in cable’s history. For communicators, all of this confirms that while still paying dividends, traditional broadcast outreach needs to be looked at closely. For me the question is, if regular TV is no longer a necessity, when will it be become extinct?

–Scott Van Camp

Grand Theft PR: Bogus Reviews Catches FTC Attention and Blights PR Image

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Posted on August 27, 2010 
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From my “What were they thinking?” files I present the case of Reverb Communications which was fined by the Federal Trade Commission on August 26 for engaging in deceptive advertising by planting false reviews of their clients’ video games  on the Apple itunes store. Tracie Snitker, a PR exec with California-based Reverb, noted in a statement that “It became apparent that we would never agree on the facts of the situation.” The accusation from the FTC is that Reverb, which specializes in product launches for videogames, had its interns, posing as ordinary game-playing folk, post glowing reviews of new video games from their clients.

This ruling puts into play the FTC’s new guidelines re endorsements/reviews.  Clearly Reverb was not the first to break these rules and won’t be the last (See the “Rules Were Meant to Be Broken” file). This incident, however, points to a more important and pressing situation for PR firms worldwide.  It comes down to ethics and reputation.  What Reverb purportedly did was unethical. Whether the unnamed client knew or cared is another story.  The reputation of PR firms, at least for a NY minute, will be tarnished because of behavior like this.  It is beholden on all communicators to take note of this incident and not be tempted to hide behind the world wide social media web to prove a product or service is awesome.

Lastly, there’s a small element of this Reverb story that is gnawing at me.  Apparently many or all of the fake reviewers were the interns at the firm.  They probably had little clue that what they were doing was wrong, and their activities might have been validated by client approval and additional wins by the agency. Now they need to unlearn what Reverb taught them and hopefully start over with another PR agency or department.  PR leaders:  Game on!

- Diane Schwartz

Is CSR ‘Irrelevant’?

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Posted on August 25, 2010 
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Monday’s Wall Street Journal article that makes the case against the idea of corporate social responsibility is provocative food for thought. But just as author Aneel Karnani argues that the reasoning for CSR is flawed, I believe there’s a few flaws in his reasoning. Here’s a couple of examples:

1. Karnani: “Large companies now routinely claim that they aren’t in business just for profits, they’re also intent on serving some larger societal purpose.” While some of this statement rings true, I think Aneel overstates the case. I’ve talked to a lot of CSR leaders, and profits are THE overriding goal. And I doubt if people primarily think of McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil or even Starbucks as economic or environmental saviors.

2. “…in cases where private profits and public interests are aligned, the idea of corporate social responsibility is irrelevant: Companies that simply do everything to boost profits will end up increasing social welfare.” Tell that to the people of the Gulf Coast.

3. “More often, profits and social welfare are at odds, and executives can’t be expected to heed the call for social responsibility at the expense of shareholders.” A number of studies have shown that the public, which includes a few shareholders, better responds to companies that partake in CSR activities. So profits and social welfare—at least in some cases—aren’t really at odds.

These are just a few points in the article that I feel are flawed. But this is not to say that the article has no merit. PR agency Gibbs & Soell’s 2010 “Sense & Sustainability Study,” which surveyed U.S. consumers and Fortune 1000 executives on their views of corporate efforts to improve the health of the environment, found that only a minority of execs (29%) see an overall strong corporate commitment to “going green.” So perhaps the majority of corporate execs might agree with Karnani’s view. What do you think of it?

–Scott Van Camp

Summer of Slam

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Posted on August 13, 2010 
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It’s been a long hot summer here on the East Coast, and luckily for those of
us who follow PR, it’s been a hot time in terms of interesting crises. From
BP to Apple to HP and now JetBlue, there has always been something to jaw
about by the water cooler. Actually, JetBlue appears to be avoiding a
crisis, largely by keeping its trap shut about the situation with flight
attendant Steven Slater. It’s a strategy, I think, that’s underrated. In the
8/16 issue of PR News, there’s proof that JetBlue is weathering the crisis:
a PeopleBrowsr sampling of worldwide tweets in the days after the incident
shows a largely neutral attitude toward the JetBlue brand. Plus, our own
poll on PR News Online (taken online by more than 1,700 people) confirms it.
Who knows what brand or CEO will be caught next the headlights. Me? I can’t
wait.

–Scott Van Camp

Are We Heading Down a Slippery Digital Slope?

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Posted on August 5, 2010 
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I’ve been reading The Wall Street Journal‘s interesting investigative series into online privacy, “What They Know,” and it’s more than a little disturbing. Technology seems to have run amok, and perhaps we should catch up to it and put the brakes on. Consider one of the findings by the WSJ investigative team: Looking at the 50 most popular U.S. Web sites, the team found that most of the sites were placing intrusive tracking applications on their visitors’ computers—in some instances more than 100 at a time. “It’s totally anonymous, we don’t collect people’s names,” say these sites and tracking technology vendors. But the fact is, they collect an amazing amount of data on us, and taking names is probably one or two steps away. Today’s installment talks about stalkers exploiting cellphone tracking technology to find their victims. Where does PR fit in to this? Well, collecting information on peoples’ Web surfing and buying habits—as well as geo-location techniques—fall into the marketing category, and as we all know, the line between marketing and PR is blurring. Do you think we’re going too far with these tracking tools, and should there be some regulation to stop it?

–Scott Van Camp

Woe is Journalism: Newsweek is ‘Worth’ Less Than a Latte while Plagiarism is Alive and Kicking

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Posted on August 3, 2010 
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It is never a good thing for journalists to hear that a magazine that once generated $30 million in revenues three years ago was sold for maybe a buck.  But at least Newsweek was saved, and that it was, when the Washington Post Company yesterday agreed to sell Newsweek (saddled with tens of millions of dollars in debts and market share losses) to Sidney Harmon, the 91-year-old founder of audio behemoth Harmon Industries and a well-heeled philanthropist.  What was once a highly respected weekly, Newsweek is going through a serious media identity crisis despite the fact that it employs great writers and it even has a web site that is updated multiple times a day despite the “week” in its name.  Back to great writers: does it really matter anymore? (Yes).

More disturbing than the Newsweek “development” is an Aug 1 article in the New York Times titled: “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in the Digital Age.” To summarize: many students think it’s OK to lift passages from Web sites, wrap some original sentences around it, and call it a term paper.  If there’s a really great paragraph on Wikipedia and there’s no author and you couldn’t have said it any better, why not just copy and paste?  Only 29 percent of students consider it “seriously cheating” to do this, according to one study quoted in the NY Times article.  In the article, Teresa Fishman, who heads up the  Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University, said: “Now we have a whole generation of students who’ve grown up with information that just seems to be hanging out there in cyberspace and doesn’t seem to have an author. It’s possible to believe this information is just out there for anyone to take.” And some of these students, who still want to be journalists despite the fire sales going on for big-branded magazines, perpetuate the mindset.  Just today, it was reported that an article from the NY Daily News was lifted from the Daily Mail of the UK.  The Daily News admitted to an “inadvertent admission of credit” in reporting on Kate Winslet’s divorce to Sam Mendes (really, why do you need to plagiarize a story on this?).

In the PR world, there is disagreement about whether a press release is fair game to reporters. Can you lift a paragraph from a press release, not source it, and package it, byline and all, as a news story? Most PR professionals not only say “yes,” but “yes, please do!”  Generally, it is an accepted practice among lazier journalists to do just that: go shopping in the press release for well-written sentences as a short cut to crafting a good piece of journalism.  There remains a crop of journalists out there who know better and do better, and it is this crop that PR needs to support, foster and build relationships with. They understand good reporting, will be fair and accurate, and make you and your company look good. That is, if you are good.

What do you think: Press releases fair game for journalists to cut and paste?

-Diane Schwartz

PR and Happy Meals

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Posted on July 27, 2010 
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Last weekend we took a family roadtrip to Philly to attend a relative’s 90th birthday party (the guy bowls every week, and I’m not talking Wii). After walking around the waterfront Saturday afternoon, in 102-degree heat, we were anxious to get back to our air-conditioned hotel room. But we had to stop somewhere for dinner. Selfish me, I was looking forward to sampling some local cuisine. But with kids ages 9 and 6 in tow, naturally we chose the easiest (and unhealthiest) way to go: the McDonald’s directly across from the hotel. OK, so here’s the PR part: McDonald’s is touting Happy Meals as a healthy food choice for kids. And cereal makers have designated sugar-packed products like Lucky Charms, Froot Loops and Cocoa Pebbles as healthy choices. Last week’s NY Times article tells how they’re able to do this. The PR machines of McDonald’s, Kelloggs and others are saying—with straight faces—that fat- and sugar-laden products really are healthy choices. I believe this does nothing to enhance PR’s reputation. What do you think?

That said, the Dollar Menu is a godsend.

–Scott Van Camp

Edited Video Leads to Firestorm + Reminder to Do Our Homework, Check it Twice

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Posted on July 22, 2010 
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By now  you’ve heard the unfortunate story of how a right-wing blogger cherry-picked portions of a speech from Agriculture Dept worker Shirley Sherrod during an NAACP event back in March.  Sherrod’s remarks were neither racist nor inflammatory, but a decision by one blogger, Andrew Breitbart, to post an edited portion of the NAACP video led to quick assumptions from other media (ie Fox News) and a knee-jerk reaction from the White House to support her dismissal, not to mention humiliate her.

It is very easy to take words and sentiment out of context. This has been going on since time immemorial.  From movie reviews (“great movie” — when in fact the critic said “this is not a great movie”) to emails being misinterpreted to soundbites that make someone sound smart or stupid depending on the media outlet’s goals, there will always be cases of people’s words being taken out of context. What is disturbing is how quickly this recent event spiraled out of control.  Neither Barack Obama nor Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack viewed the whole Sherrod speech or read the entire transcript — yet because of the media storm coming from the right, they supported Sherrod’s dismissal.

As we post videos on YouTube, Powerpoints on Slideshare, photos on Flickr, 140 characters on Twitter, emoticons in emails — we need to be careful to monitor the coverage of our content and be prepared to respond to out-of-context reporting.  Also, we need to do our homework. This phrase, “do your homework,” has been lambasted at nearly every conference in which a journalist or PR exec implores the audience to “do your homework” before embarking on a campaign or making an important phone call.  Cue to eyes rolling.  It is just so obvious. But, had the media and White House done their homework — and listened to the entire Sherrod speech while also having some healthy skepticism of the source of the blog post — then this whole firestorm would not have occurred.

Homework is a drag — just ask your child or recall your own school/college days.  But it makes us smarter and more responsible.  In the School of Reputation Management, homework is under-rated but indispensible.

Diane Schwartz

How Did Steve Do?

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Posted on July 19, 2010 
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That was some interesting press conference Friday by Steve Jobs and the crew at Apple. Having been thrown for a loop by Consumer Reports a few days earlier for Antenna-gate, all eyes were on Cupertino for an apology from Apple—or as close to an apology as Jobs could get. And that’s exactly what the conference turned out to be: a mixture of “we all make mistakes” and “you people in the media have blown this way out of proportion.” In the last several months, I’ve talked to perhaps a dozen crisis experts about the responses of BP, Johnson & Johnson and other companies in a PR bind, and the BIG APOLOGY is always high on the crisis to-do list. Clearly Apple had to do something for customers after Consumer Reports couldn’t recommend the iPhone 4 because of the antenna problem (see David Carr’s New York Times column on why Consumer Reports “got Apple to blink”). But the fact that Apple presented examples of other manufacturers’ phones that have had similar problems meant that the BIG APOLOGY wouldn’t be coming. I’d be interested to know how you think Job’s rather combative stance on Friday will play with consumers.

–Scott Van Camp

Who’s Scaring Off Customers with Bear in the Woods Stories?

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Posted on July 12, 2010 
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I just got back from a fantastic vacation to Vail, Colorado. This post will not be about all the “naturific” activities my family and I enjoyed (though, consider a trip to Vail in the summer!).  I must note that to be surrounded by the Rockies for a week certainly settles one’s mind, especially a NY State of Mind.  I would have written this blog post last week after my second encounter with the same customer service rep at the Vail Information Center but I made a promise to a certain 14-year- old and 9-year-old that I would not work during vacation.  So back at the urban ranch and a week later, I still had this urge to write it down: why would a friendly town like Vail put a persnickety, rude and unhappy customer service behind the counter of the Vail Information Center?

Here we were, a happy family just inquiring about a few activities in the Vail area and this Customer Service Rep pointed us to the phone near his desk where we can make the calls ourselves to find out more information, and treated us like we were intruding on his property.  I won’t name names, but this particular man also proceeded to scare my kids by showing them a photo from his iphone of the bear he encountered on the hiking trail we were about to take. “Do not run away from the bear,” he told my 9-year-old son, who backed away from Mr. Customer Service and refused to go on the hike (that day).  At first we chalked it up to a bad day – because we all have bad days, right? But on Day 2, when we returned Mr Customer Service was true to his being with a cold air of nonchalance and annoyance surrounding him.

We returned to the Information Center one more time, and there was a pleasant young woman who assisted us with a quick question. My 14-year-old daughter noted, upon leaving, “I’m so glad she helped us and not that mean guy.”  Customer Service (and its sister Public Relations) affects all ages and groups,  even teenagers.  While I am a big fan of Vail and did not let Mr. Customer Service derail our fun, it is baffling why he would be employed to be a “face” of Vail.  He’s probably thinking the same thing. Take a look around you – are your customer-facing employees telling scary bear stories?

- Diane Schwartz

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