Without Grassroots PR in Place, Dateline NBC Story Might Have Zapped Co.

Don't count on your media-relations efforts with high-profile media outlets as your only PR salvation, because when you invite national press coverage, you also welcome press scrutiny.

But to mitigate any damage, it's important to have strong business relationships with your external audiences: the local press, your customers and the vendors who sell your products.

Lessons Learned TV operations like "Dateline NBC" have months to mold what messages they send the masses; Training company execs to face the media, avoid "no comment" and provide documentation and background information are the foundation of a sound PR program; Ready yourself for the worst: "With the media, you can't always guarantee that your spin will be [the angle of] the story but, nonetheless, you need to be as forthcoming as possible," Dateline Producer Joseph Rhee cautions; Make sure, before you hunt down media coverage, that there are no skeletons in the closet that could spell disaster for your firm; and Build relationships with the press in the market where you're based and view your customers as long-term advocates for your business, not fleeting profit makers.

That's the lesson Air Taser Inc. (ATI) learned after its main product, a self-defense device, was featured during a story (originally pitched by an outsourced agency handling PR for ATI) on "Dateline NBC." During the piece, Attorney General of New York State Dennis Vacco called the $250 Air Taser "the type of weapon that we cannot tolerate in our society." Seems like a shot of bad PR, doesn't it?

ATI is a 20-person company in Scottsdale, Ariz., founded by brothers Rick and Tom Smith. The Air Taser mimics police stun guns but uses compressed air to shoot two small probes up to 15 feet to ward off an attacker. In June, Dateline aired a segment that featured experts espousing alleged health risks - even those that are potentially lethal - that could be brought on by the Air Taser.

Before Dateline had arrived at ATI headquarters more than a year before the program made it to the airwaves, the Smith brothers had undergone 13 hours of media training by their in-house PR execs but little could ease the impact of watching the quasi-carping story that Dateline execs still maintain was fair. But for ATI and its two-person PR team, the story's an illustration of how important grassroots PR is.

Just in Case: Readying Themselves for Anything

Knowing the story might trigger public queries and ancillary press attention, ATI sent out a broadcast fax alerting 2,000 customers (including dealers who distribute the device in the U.S.) that the report would be telecast.

"Whatever angle they're coming at you from, you need to be open and honest," says Tina Miller-Steinke, PR specialist for ATI. Since the product was introduced in December 1994, about 70,000 units have been sold and more than $17 million in sales generated.

Miller-Steinke said by the time she learned on May 30 that the story would air on June 2, ATI had prepared itself for a tough analysis. That inkling was based on these key facts: it took the piece 15 months to come together; and after the Smiths were interviewed, Miller-Steinke answered about 20 additional information requests from "Dateline."

The Mark of Measurement

What could have been a PR atrocity, even a crisis had the company's business reputation suffered considerably, proved to be the opposite. Even though company execs attribute the 100 sales that went through shortly after the piece aired (typically exposure via an ad or story has resulted in the sale of about 20 units for ATI), it was the regional publicity, the follow-up stories, that propelled the positive PR:

Following the broadcast, traffic at its Web site (http://www.airtaser.com), which typically nets about 50 hits an hour, grew to 1,600. Staffers were also met with 72 voice mails when they arrived in the morning in support of the Air Taser;

The Arizona Daily Star, Business Journal and KTAR Talk Radio tracked the company's reaction. And after the Dateline story ran, David Wichner, technology editor with The Arizona Daily Star, wrote in his column: "Smith.maintained that available studies show that the device poses no long-term health risk to 'normal, healthy adults.'";

The Arizona Republic reported on the Dateline segment on three separate occasions; and

Gentlemen's Quarterly and VIBE Magazine called ATI for upcoming features.

Shooting for Candor Throughout

The morning after the piece aired, a meeting was also held with employees and Air Taser's sales force was briefed and alerted that it could be inundated with questions. The Smiths also did some frontline PR work themselves: according to Rose Bickley, a buyer with Ellett Bros., a Chapin, S.C., Air Taser wholesaler, Tim Smith broached the issue at an EB training session that ironically coincided with when the Dateline piece ran.

And just as they had been open with Dateline, company execs didn't slink behind the scenes. They also issued a press release that responded to the Dateline story but didn't bash it. Even Joseph Rhee, the producer who oversaw the "Shocked and Stunned" Dateline story about the Air Taser, says the company handled its communications well. "It goes to show that if you do good PR in your own backyard and you set up good working relationships, that can count for a lot," Miller-Stienke muses. "And you have to be prepared and aware that journalists aren't working in your sales department creating ads for you." (ATI, 602/991-0797; Joseph Rhee, 212/664-2535; Ellett Bros., 803/345-3751)

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