Food Fight: It wasn't long ago when Starbucks, among other brands, claimed its Q3 2016 sales were soft due to uncertainty over the coming presidential election (PRN, Oct. 24, 2016). Starbucks said consumers here and abroad reduced the number of trips they made to its stores due to the uncertainty of the times. We mused that with so much anxiety in the air and declining Starbucks visits, purveyors of other liquid refreshment, such as beer and spirits, as well as those who serve said products should be the beneficiaries. Skip to the present and we have John Schnatter, CEO and founder of pizza maker Papa John’s, deflecting depressed sales figures onto the NFL’s failure to resolve the issue of its players protesting during the playing of the national anthem. The players’ actions were hurting the official pizza of the league, costing the company some $70 million, Schnatter said Nov. 1. “We are totally disappointed that the NFL and its leadership did not resolve the ongoing situation to the satisfaction of all parties long ago,” he told investors. It’s not news that the NFL, arguably America’s premiere sports league, is suffering ratings softness, perhaps due to the anthem controversy. At the season’s midway mark, ratings were off 5% vs 2016, according to Nielsen. While we scoffed at Starbucks’ presidential coffee conundrum—with all that supposed anxiety, Wall Street, a bellwether of nervousness, remained robust as the election neared—the Twittersphere kept its powder dry. Not so this time, as tweeters smacked Papa John’s hard, suggesting the reason its pizza wasn’t selling is because it’s not very good. Other tweeters hoped Schnatter’s words would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. that when fans read his comments they’d boycott Papa John’s and sales would decline even more. Things got cheesier for Papa John’s when rival brand DiGiorno, in, what PR News’ Samantha Wood called its “signature snarky way,” tweaked Papa pizza, contrasting its rising sales and John’s’ falling revenue on Twitter in a series of tweets. Pizza Hut was more civil, with its Yum! Brands CEO Greg Creed telling investors he’d seen no decline in his sales. Incidentally, Yum! was one of the brands pointing to the November 2016 presidential contest as a cause of soft sales. The PR lessons are obvious and far from new: Deflection rarely works and social media can be a harsh judge, especially when your CEO deflects to a hot-button topic. For the record, on Sunday, Nov. 5, several teams’ players locked arms during the anthem and at least three, all from the Miami Dolphins, kneeled. The team’s coach, Adam Gase, asked players to stand or remain in the tunnel during the anthem. The three players told Gase remaining in the tunnel disrupted their pregame routine. Gase relaxed his rule.
CEO, Wells Fargo
Driving While Drowsy? Wells Fargo continues to be the poster child of crisis mismanagement. Even its board is caught up in the brand’s fumble of the bogus credit card scandal, which hit the headlines more than one year ago. San Francisco judge Jon Tigar of the U.S. District Court ruled the bank’s board and several of its senior executives should have known about Wells Fargo’s sales tactics. The ruling came in the early stages of a case brought against the board and executives, including current CEO Tim Sloan. The judge’s ruling, while isolated, is interesting. The NY Times says it sends a message to board members of public companies: “be vigilant for bad behavior in your operations, or else.” In a way, former Democratic National Committe chief Donna Brazile’s attack in Politico Nov. 2 on Hillary Clinton’s alleged legal but unethical rigging of the Democrats’ nomination process could be seen as a way to change the conversation. A veteran DNC leader, Brazile claims she had no idea the party was broke when she became interim DNC chair. That financial situation allowed the affluent Clinton camp to control the DNC, Brazile alleges. Similar to the Wells Fargo board, DNC leaders, including Brazile, seemingly should have been better informed. Were the boards at Wells Fargo and the DNC (and let’s add the self-professedly ignorant group at The Weinstein Company) asleep at the wheel?
People: One of the industry’s top communicators, IBM chief brand officer since early August and former SVP of communications and marketing Jon Iwatawill retire next month. Ford veteran Ray Day will join IBM as CCO, reporting to CEO Ginni Rometty. – WE Communications named Matt Trocchio SVP and GM of its Austin office. Trocchio most recently was at SHIFT Communications. – UAW’s digital director and PR News Rising Star (2016) Andrew Huddleston later this month will depart Detroit for D.C., where he’ll join New Blue Interactive, a digital strategy firm, as senior production manager. – Moxie Communications Group promoted EVP Corinna Pieloch to partner, the agency’s first. – Digital agency Reingold named former BGR VP and Capitol Hill staffer Joshua Lamel VP.