Posts filed under 'Marketing Communications'
Steve Jobs, Apple and Alfred E. Neuman: “What, Me Worry?”
By Chris Scott
If you’ve never had a front-row seat at a corporate communications debacle, just Google “apple jobs illness” and pull up a chair for a lesson on how not to work the media when it comes to a serious health issue with a company CEO.
The results page generates everything from “Do shareholders have a right to know?” to “It’s a nutrition problem” to “SEC review under consideration.” Is this the image that Apple, or Jobs, wants to dominate headlines versus continued trumpeting of the success of the new iPhone 3G S?
There’s no doubt that Steve Jobs has persevered in various health issues: a cancerous tumor in his pancreas diagnosed in 2004; a speech at Apple’s 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference that raised serious questions about his unusually gaunt frame; and this year’s “hormone imbalance” that prompted a six-month leave of absence ending this month. Finally, there was the disclosure of a liver transplant in April that took several days to confirm.
There’s also no doubt that Jobs deserves a certain amount of privacy when it comes to dealing with these serious medical issues. But the wunderkind who founded Apple in 1976 — and spearheaded its stunning comeback upon his return to the top spot two decades later — appears to be following the standard script for Apple when it comes to disclosure. And the Securities and Exchange Commission has definite regulations on disclosing situations that could affect the company’s financial health.
Apple’s legendary secrecy about products and new developments, of course, make sense. (The company has no problem quickly firing employees who blab about new products in development and even successfully shut down the Web site www.thinksecret.com over its leaks of what Apple considered proprietary information.) But investors, the media and federal regulators are correctly questioning why Apple has repeatedly failed to provide accurate, timely information on the status of the person who is often hailed as being personally responsible for driving the computer maker to its current successful state.
SEC rules prompted Coca-Cola to report in 1997 that its then-CEO, Robert Goizueta, was suffering from lung cancer, the disease that killed him that October. And following the sudden death of McDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo of a heart attack in 2004, successor CEO Charlie Bell decided to resign less than a year later before he died of colon cancer. Tragically, Bell was forced to have surgery a little more than two weeks after taking over as CEO, a fact that was prominently, but appropriately disclosed by McDonald’s at the time.
These multinational companies were able to meet federal requirements while protecting the privacy of the individuals involved. The evasive nature of Apple’s corporate responses to inquiries into its CEO’s health could be attributed to a corporate culture that is used to keeping secrets. It also might be part of the orders from the top that Jobs’ medical condition is his and his alone to be concerned about.
But Jobs decided to come back to work and that complicates the already troubled public relations effort. (Some reports put him on the campus of One Infinite Loop in Cupertino last week, before his officially scheduled return on Monday, June 29.) If he had decided to retire, his medical condition and prognosis would have no public component unless he decided to divulge their status himself. Unfortunately, his corporate communications team continues to work between a rock and a hard place with a sick CEO who sees no reason to adhere to SEC rules and Wall Street investors who rightfully contend that disclosure from Apple is appropriate and long overdue.
Alfred E. Neuman, clearly, has nothing on the keepers of Apple’s current public gates.
Add comment June 30, 2009
PR and the respect factor
Sally Saville Hodge
Public relations has always been like the Rodney Dangerfield of the communications field. You know: We just don’t get any respect.
Our collective inferiority complex has been self-created, to a significant extent. The tendency by many in the profession to use overstatement and hype as their stock in trade hasn’t helped the cause. And high profile ethical lapses haven’t added any to the practice’s luster. (Remember Ketchum PR’s payment of $240,000 to minority radio broadcaster Armstrong Williams to tout on air and with his peers the No Child Left Behind program?)
That’s on the public side. Generally speaking, PR is low on the totem pole among business professionals as well. Never mind some of the more unfortunate associations that play down PR’s value. The term “free publicity” is emblematic.
I’ve always thought much of it related to how much of a budget PR commands and controls, particularly vis a vis the far weightier purse carried by Marcom and advertising. After all, money equals power, and it’s not unusual to see ad budgets of the big players in the millions of dollars – hundreds of millions, even. On the other hand, a million-dollar PR campaign is considered exceedingly healthy.
The irony is that for all the disrespect, and for whatever reason, it’s PR that really has the power to build a brand. For all of traditional media’s failings (and recent flailings, for that matter), it’s the news coverage that PR helps bring about that carries credibility, not the “they’ll say anything to make you buy” advertising messaging that’s so transparent to the public. And that’s only part of the powerful overall PR package.
We’re hearing more stories these days of some recession-hit businesses cutting their marketing budgets, but diverting more funds into PR programs instead. I don’t know that I’m ready to call it a trend, unfortunately. We just haven’t managed to do the job of convincing our partners in marketing (and higher up the food chain) that we can be more than simply masters of spin.
Or have we, but marketing leadership just can’t bring itself to respond accordingly?
Michael Dunn, Chairman of Prophet (full disclosure: a client since 2001) has just authored a book called The Marketing Accountability Imperative. It’s a heavy read, but a must-read for senior management. But apropos to this conversation, here’s a pullout worth thinking about:
- “Our 2007 senior marketer survey showed that B2B companies believe that public relations is the most effective activity for long-term brand building and the third most effective at driving short-term sales (after field sales activities and outbound marketing). No form of advertising came close to PR in its perceived long- or short-term effectiveness. Despite this, B2B marketers spend only about 1 percent of their budget on public relations and over 20 percent on advertising. The effectiveness of PR is also rated higher than advertising among B2C marketers and their contradictory spending relationships are even more pronounced.
…[M]arketers’ behaviors seem somewhat puzzling – they do not believe that the marketing activities that they are spending the most on are the most effective, yet they are unwilling or unable to take the steps necessary to quantify this performance.”
Puzzling, indeed.
1 comment April 6, 2009
The press release revived
Sally Saville Hodge
I’ve long since lost track of the number of people who have come to me over the years saying, “We want public relations. Do you do press releases?”
PR is not, in fact, an acronym for Press Releases, a misconception fostered by many so-called PR professionals who apparently aren’t creative enough to find other tactics to add to their toolkits. It’s also often perpetuated by marketers who don’t know any better to challenge such thinking.
Well, of course, we do press releases. But for a long time, because of the kind of public relations we practice, we actually only did a handful a year. I found them so useless compared to other, more targeted and customized approaches to media relations that I wrote an article titled “The Press Release is Dead (Will Somebody Please Tell the Clients?).”
It appeared on MarketingProfs.com (Google my name and it’s still first up, four years later!) and generated numerous e-mails and blog posts, some friendly, some scathing. (And curiously enough, it also generated calls from prospective clients wanting to talk to us about, believe it or not, helping them do more and better press releases!)
PR folks sure do take their press releases seriously. And the debate over their value continues. Just last week, I linked through to End Game PR’s blog to read a post on “10 Dead or Dying PR Tactics.” Sure enough, the press release received honorable mention – with the author acknowledging its rebirth even though many experts put it in the doornail category.
I, however, am no longer of that opinion. It’s not because I now think it’s a particularly effective tool to reach reporters. It’s because of the changing nature of the media, and the 24/7 demand for content. It’s created much higher pickup rates by news sites for optimized releases that are driven out through wire distribution services. That, in turn, drives traffic to clients’ Web sites. Used in tandem with targeted and customized media outreach, it creates sustainable gains in visitors. (From there, of course, the trick is to get them to take some sort of action – but that’s a whole different post.)
Here’s how we have seen this play out for one client, an egg donor and surrogate recruitment agency. In late November, we distributed a news release via PR Newswire that was picked up by 123 news sites, and caused a 441 percent jump in traffic. A few days later, our direct pitching resulted in the story being picked up by a Chicago Tribune health reporter’s blog, which sustained the traffic gains. A few days after that, the Wall Street Journal carried a separate article quoting the client, which was in turn picked up by the Huffington Post and the “Quote of the Day” feature on Time magazine’s Web site. Traffic surged another 162 percent on top of the earlier gains.
It’s best if releases are accompanied by direct reporter outreach, but even without, they can create a healthy flow of traffic. For this same client, for example, we distributed two releases in February, without broader media coverage, and its site experienced a 138 percent increase in traffic.
It’s tricky given the nature of this client’s business to draw a correlation between increased traffic and increased business, since not everyone who might take action once they are on the Web site is qualified to be either an egg donor or a surrogate. But the client can see a correlating increase in calls and submission of online forms with the traffic surge – and so is happy with the results.
Press releases have experienced a happy recovery. They still have to be written well – and smart – and will never be the only tactic in a strategic communications toolkit. But it’s well worth talking to clients about rethinking how they’re used in a comprehensive program.
2 comments March 24, 2009
Why PR investments should grow in 2009
Sally Saville Hodge
I’d like to think it’s true, but the cynic in me just keeps muttering, “Yeah, right.”
Media prognosticator Jack Myers recently issued a report suggesting that the bright spot in the current advertising depression will be public relations. He projects investment in PR to grow by 3% in 2008 and by another 3% in 2009 to over $4.5 billion.
There are a lot of reasons why this should be true.
- In hard economic times, businesses need to grow their credibility with consumers. You get that with PR, particularly with an orientation that’s geared to inform, versus hammering away with heavy-handed sales messaging.
- They also need to grow awareness. And while an ad campaign does that, so does a PR program. The difference is that PR features the credibility component, while advertising doesn’t. Furthermore…
- …a PR program is a LOT cheaper than advertising or the majority of marketing communications programs to design and execute. That’s not to say clients ought to believe the “free publicity” misnomer of one aspect of PR, however. There’s still time and expertise involved, and that carries a price tag. But a $100,000 budget will easily be sufficient to create a robust PR program featuring traditional and social media aspects over the course of a year (providing you stay away from the larger, high-priced agencies). That kind of money will get you bupkis in advertising and not a lot more in some of the more traditional MarCom tactics.
So why am I cynical that the growth Myers projects may actually occur? Well, for one thing, the top dog for communications matters at most businesses is still a person who has a marketing title. As a rule, these folks are still pretty tied to tradition – the tried and true of advertising, direct mail, and the like.
Too many don’t have a great grasp of depth and breadth of traditional public relations approaches, much less how PR applies to the new media world. For example, in an article tellingly headlined, “Social Networks: Millions of Users, not so Many Marketers,” e-Marketer, an online newsletter, has projected a decline in U.S. social networking advertising, but pointedly observed, “Advertising is not the only way for marketers to participate in social networks.”
We’re heading into one of the toughest years for business that I can remember – and 2008 was hardly a cakewalk. PR investment may or may not grow by the projected 3%. But those challenged to do more with less in a difficult climate would be well-served to take another look at traditional and social media PR approaches and adjust their thinking accordingly. (more…)
Add comment January 5, 2009
Municipal PR, Chicago Style
By Chris Scott
There are 34,264 metered parking spots in Chicago and by 2013, the per hour rate for meters that charge a quarter in 2008 will rise to $2, a 700 percent increase.
Chicago residents know this because Mayor Richard M. Daley proposed that the city follow earlier fundraising strategies and lease control of the city’s parking meters — and the money they collect — to a private company for the next 75 years.
You would think that such a serious issue would be managed through the experienced PR machine in place at City Hall and its departments, with residents and news organizations aware of the bidding process and the proposals. Chicago citizens would then be able to attend Town Hall meetings where residents and business owners could voice their opinions on how such a deal might affect their quality of life in the Second City.
But you would be wrong.
In the space of less than one week of the Mayor’s proposal, drivers who will be forced to pay the higher rates — as much as $6.50 per hour in certain areas like downtown — were told that a City Council committee had passed the proposal and that it would be voted on by the full City Council within two days. And faster that one could say “Get your 26 quarters together!” the $1.15-billion deal was sealed. One bidder, one contract.
It’s not that the infrastructure to get the word out to the press and the public in a timely manner didn’t exist. The city of Chicago spends an estimated $4.7 million each year to pay for 50 public information officers in a variety of city government offices and agencies. Additionally, weeks before the parking meter lease agreement, the Daley administration announced contracts with 10 outside PR firms for services that could net each firm as much as $5 million per year. Those contracts were announced at about the same time that city officials revealed an anticipated $469-million budget gap for fiscal 2009 along with layoffs of 929 city employees and the elimination of 1,346 vacant positions in city government. (A reduction in city services and higher fees for other things like parking tickets also will be implemented to save money in these troubled economic times, the mayor said.)
What’s wrong with this picture? Absolutely nothing from at least one perspective. Anyone who engages a PR firm is essentially free to utilize or ignore the vendor’s capabilities or advice as they see fit. If the city believes — as Mayor Daley expressed when questioned about the new contracts — that these relationships with the outside PR firms are necessary, so be it. But don’t the agencies with relationships with City Hall have an obligation to advise the client that it might be a good idea to remove even a whiff of impropriety in the ways “The City That Works” generates an anticipated $1.15 billion in upfront revenue through solid, proven PR strategies (community forums, press conferences, more transparency)?
As it turns out, the city suspended the contracts with the PR firms until the budget crisis “is over.” It’s apparently the same old story: Chicago citizens don’t hear about City Hall decisions in advance. What do you expect from an administration that destroyed a municipal airport’s runways in the dead of night in 2003 with no public relations effort or public comment before the bulldozers rolled? At least City Hall is consistent in how it delivers its message, regardless of the number of agencies it hires to consult on such matters. And that counts for something to taxpayers, doesn’t it?
Add comment December 29, 2008
Don’t try this at home. Seriously.
Chris Scott
We get the idea that businesses are trying to trim their budgets in these economically challenging times (and are there any other?). And we’ve all heard that old saw that economic downturns are when businesses can least afford to reduce their spending for marketing and PR efforts. (You risk being forgotten when client dollars begin to flow again, etc.)
But a larger issue comes into play a lot more frequently (at least on an anecdotal level, so far): The “Do-it-Yourself” phenomenon. You probably know the drill – or at least have seen it. The head of Company X taps the human resources chief or the head of sales to develop a quick-response effort that can keep Company X’s name before prospective clients. (Or, in some cases, someone at the company’s cousin “knows someone” who “makes stuff” and can “do something” on the cheap. It’s a poor-man’s approach to PR and marketing and comes with consequences.)
Whether it’s a Web site, a promotional piece, an overpriced ad or an “e-mail blast” (so early 2000s!), what you’re likely to get is “something” that stands far apart from your previous efforts like a wallflower at the orgy, to borrow a phrase from Nora Ephron. It probably fails to support your brand, doesn’t look like anything that came before it, carries messaging that falls short of advancing your position and carries that patina of “this wasn’t done by a professional.” Inappropriate paper choices, bad design, clunky navigation, poor graphics all combine to threaten all that positive messaging Company X had built up in one fell swoop.
And if there are failings on the marketing side, let’s face it. On the PR side, most businesses don’t know how to get in touch with the media – much less speak with reporters. They don’t know how to provide that expert source quote or convince a relevant publication to write a feature story about how Company X is faring during tough times. And who has the time when there are so many other fires to put out on an operational level?
So resist the temptation. You might save a few dollars on the front end by not hiring an agency or laying off your in-house pros to help guide you through the process (if not manage nearly all of the actual PR and marketing work involved). But your reputation may end up paying the price if you try to tackle these specialized functions yourself or on the cheap. Even the most experienced do-it-yourselfer knows when it’s time to throw in the towel and call the electrician, plumber (or PR and marketing agency).
Why risk the company’s image and progress by taking on jobs that do not fall under your areas of expertise? You’d be amazed at the number of companies that wind up hurting their reputations with the exact people who could help them survive (or event thrive) as the economy shakeouts continue.
1 comment August 11, 2008
Second Life and other Web 2.0 venues: Maybe you can, but should you?
Sally Saville Hodge
Here’s a situation sure to make every PR person cringe. You arrange for your author-client to participate in a book club discussion group with other would-be writers and fans only to have a series of embarrassing mishaps occur at the venue. She sits first on a stool (where the guests can’t see her), is prompted to move to a chair, but instead lands on a lap, and from there goes to the table before finally finding her chair.
Welcome to a new era in book promotion. The Second Life writer’s tour.
Second Life is the virtual world where you create a virtual you in the form of an avatar, and where you can meet up with other like-minded people, casually or formally, and buy and sell everything from virtual dollars to spectacles to real estate. I’m still not quite getting the appeal – my real life is busy enough without mucking it up more with virtual doings. Still, some of the PR and marketing aspects related to it are kind of intriguing.
Like many things under the Web 2.0 banner (haven’t we advanced to Web 3.0 yet?), Second Life, and the different ways to leverage it, remains a work in progress. Gartner has apparently predicted that by 2011, 80 percent of all Americans will have a “Second Life.” And big business, natch, is trying to get a jump on it. IBM, for example, has spent big bucks establishing a virtual island on Second Life. Nokia has hired greeters in Second Life to stand by its virtual kiosks. Dell has a virtual factory there making virtual computers.
The virtual book club guest spot opportunity was one I happened upon, and forwarded to a friend for her Sisters in Crime (SinC) client. The association’s president, Roberta Isleib, was tapped to participate, and she describes her experience more fully than my little recap in a very funny post on her blog.
The club’s organizer has been able to draw some respectable names to the group’s weekly sessions that typically attract 20 to 40 participants: marketer/author Don Peppers. Author Sarah Susanka. Pat Davis, CEO of Passion Parties and an author. Attendance doesn’t make it sound like there’s enough of a return to make it worth a client’s while at this stage, despite the promise of supporting marketing across Second Life’s “vast” social marketing community.
But whether for this sort of endeavor or many of the various opportunities and tactics that are springing up as a result of our Web 2.0 world, you still have to ask: Just because you can, does that mean you should?
3 comments June 26, 2008
Managing the viral spread of bad customer experiences
Sally Saville Hodge
You may have heard this factoid mentioned when it comes to customer service: A satisfied customer is likely to share the experience with one person, while one who’s dissatisfied will share it with ten.
Now, think about the implications of those numbers in a Web 2.0 world, when anyone and everyone has a voice and can make it heard resoundingly around the world. Whether through a blog, a Twitter, a YouTube feed, or a MySpace post. The possibilities for sharing positive, but (human nature being what it is) more often, negative experiences have exploded.
Any business that understands the value of a strong brand is going to do whatever it takes to consistently deliver a superior customer experience. Part and parcel of the deal is monitoring the conversation and seizing any opportunity to identify any disconnects – real or imagined – in the way the business is delivering. And find ways to make it right.
What’s amazing to me, though, is the number of businesses that still don’t get the power of the Web as more than just a messaging channel du jour. It’s also a great, grassroots way to keep the pulse of changing customer perceptions and to respond in real time and in authentic ways to shape them.
Or not.
Consider Brenda and Gerald Moran. These folks love cruises. They were such fans of Royal Caribbean that they booked two trips a year and even bought stock in the company. This despite a customer experience that was less than ideal for each and every trip.
Some of their complaints were laughable: Her birthday greeting was delivered to the wrong cabin. (Get over it.) Others? Not so much. On their most recent, two-week Alaska/Northwest cruise, their cabin reeked of sewage, which was blamed on other guests flushing everything from oranges to diapers. With no more rooms available at this floating inn, their balcony door remained open in 40-degree weather to offset the odor. Yet the Morans were happy with the cruise line’s offer of a 20 percent discount on their next cruise.
But here’s the deal. Brenda wrote, as she always did, a post-cruise review on Cruise Critic, which sparked an active viral dialogue. Royal Caribbean responded by offering the Morans an additional discount for their next trip…and, oh, by the way, now will you pull your review?
Brenda declined. Cruise Critic later declined to pull or modify it. And Royal Caribbean soon thereafter banned the Morans from its cruises – for life.
Even in the olden days before the Web boosted the power of word-of-mouth, such heavy-handed tactics would have been ill-advised. Royal Caribbean would have been much better served with a variety of other courses of action:
- Apologizing in the discussion forum for the Morans’ experience and detailing steps being taken to make it right (and remember, it’s not always about money!) and create a consistently positive customer experience for all its guests.
- Identifying the Morans’ (and others’) specific complaints about the customer experience, their relative degree of importance, and possible fixes besides discounting that would create goodwill.
- Identifying and cultivating other satisfied customers (which the Morans really were, overall) who could serve as brand ambassadors and encouraged, among other things, to share their own positive experiences.
- Monitoring the conversation and employing an ombudsman, perhaps (see what Comcast is doing), to run interference in real time as a means of enhancing customer satisfaction.
The Web’s current role and future potential to help make or break brands is only growing. For those that don’t like the way the conversation goes, killing the messenger isn’t the answer. Finding better ways to keep the negative word of mouth from spreading virally to hundreds or even thousands more is.
3 comments May 20, 2008
Fed up with email? Customers are, too
In Email Insider’s most recent blog entry, “Helping People Become Better Email Users,” Chad White describes his experience at the OMMA (Online Media, Marketing and Advertising) Expo at the Email Experience Council’s booth where he suggested a visitor subscribe to their free weekly newsletter. The visitor’s reply? “Whoa, another email newsletter? I get too much email as it is.”
It’s something to think about the next time you help plan an email campaign or launch a newsletter for a client. Assuming their target market even reads email anymore. If they’re younger than 25, chances are they don’t. They’re communicating real time via IM, Facebook or Twitter. Heck, even executives Twitter now. But I digress.
In his post, White gave several suggestions to help assuage people’s frustrations with email. They’re good. I created @Action folders for both my work and personal email accounts and emptied my Inbox. My Inbox hasn’t been 100 percent empty since 1995. It looks and feels sort of weird, but I like it. I’m fairly confident, however, that most email recipients are somewhat less process oriented and organized than he or I. Which means my client’s e-newsletters are splashing down into a sea of communications numbering in the hundreds, maybe thousands. Lost among thousands of little email voices pleading with recipients to “Read me! Pay attention! Take action!” No small wonder so much email gets deleted or ignored. Who can take the guilt?
To preserve this communications outlet among those still engaged with it, we marketers have to use it wisely. Make sure the email you send to your target audience is relevant, engaging and if at all possible, personalized. The technology exists, and there are partners out there ready to help you. It’s not cheap. But consider the cost of a poorly targeted email campaign that causes the recipient to view your brand as irrelevant or annoying. Some things are better left unsent.
Add comment March 19, 2008
