Month: May 2014

Misinformation like this is not PR.  There is no body of scientific fact that links autism with milk.  Other than protecting free speech, there is no excuse for publishing what clearly is not true.  PR is based first and foremost on facts and persuasive presentation of them. Accuracy is the first rule because the media expect PR practitioners to shade the truth.  By not doing so, we earn credibility and a hearing time and again.  The in-your-face statement of something that has no basis in fact is propaganda.  The theory here is that if one says something loud enough and long enough, he will gain followers.  That worked for some of history’s worst dictators, but the falseness of their position caught up with them.  PR is focused on building relationships through an honest presentation of organizations and individuals.  One wonders if PETA understands that.

Sometimes creative media ideas go wrong.  When they do, you get an incident like this. The publicist for a computer gaming company went to great time and expense to assemble a package that could pass for a safe — or a bomb.  How was a newsroom to know?  After the building had been evacuated, the device was pried open to reveal “a copy of Watch Dogs, a baseball cap and a beanie.”  There are those who say that any publicity is good no matter how you get it.  That theory is disproved in a case like this. Imagine the reception that the company is going to get in the newsroom going forward. Reporters and editors will remember the stunt gone awry and the first task of the company will be to overcome hostility.  File this case under “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

This is an example of a brick thrower, a person trying to influence events by making things up, fomenting trouble and twisting facts.   There are brick throwers on both ends of the political spectrum and they have existed since the beginning of the country.  They are lamentable and anti-PR, which concentrates on fostering relationships.  That  so many brick throwers have filtered from Washington DC into the corporate world is sad.  It indicates that company executives still don’t understand the communications function. Noise isn’t PR and never has been.  That is publicity, but even in publicity, brick throwers are a special class and not much appreciated.  One could wish these people would disappear but that will never happen.  Partisanship births new brick throwers every day. They last a while, perhaps make a few headlines then disappear as others take their places.  Mostly they talk to those of their own persuasion.  The rest of us know better.

One might not expect a Third World country to be adept in communications, but this is poor PR.  The military should not have been speaking without the approval of the President.  Announcing that it has found the girls also is unwise because the rebels will now move them again.  One can understand a need to tell the people that the government is working to rescue their children, but not at the peril of the ones being rescued.  Instead, the military should be working behind closed doors to figure out ways to reach the girls and the probabilities of getting them alive.  Nigeria is a focus of international attention over the abduction.  Every day that goes by without a solution increases the burden and tension on government officials.  Letting it be known that the country is helpless to get the young women out of bondage is a testimony to the weakness of the central authority.  No good can come from this.

Have a memorable Memorial Day and think of those still serving.

Fifty US Senators have signed a petition calling for the Washington Redskins football team to change its name. They consider the moniker a slur against Native Americans. The owner of the team thinks otherwise.  He sees it as a positive image honoring Indians. One name, two views. An observer can interpret this either way — as racial bias or political correctness run amok.  What should the team do?  Bend to the will of politicians and activists or stay the course and keep a name that the team has had for decades without incident?  It is a tough call but other sports teams have changed their names, considering it the proper approach or a route of least resistance.  It is hard to provide PR advice in a situation like this, especially if fans love the team’s name.  It is not a matter of expense but of principle.  Ordinarily one would go with the political correctness of the moment, but names are not easily changed or branded.  The controversy will continue, but sooner or later it will either fade or overpower.

President Obama didn’t create the secret waiting lists at the Veterans Administration hospitals. Most of the misbehavior didn’t occur on his watch. No matter. The boss takes the heat for failures below him and is responsible for cleaning it up. Much like Mary Barra at General Motors, the crisis was handed on to him. In fact, Obama has even less responsibility for the failure than Barra, a GM lifer. Yet, Obama gets to deal with the scalding rage of both sides of the aisle. He has tried to tamp down the ire but it is taking time to do so, and he hasn’t stopped the waves of criticism so far. He could be forgiven for saying, “Don’t blame me”, but a leader stands in and takes the abuse while turning a situation around. The demand of Congress and the public is loud and clear. “You’re the boss. Fix it.” There are many perks for being President. This isn’t one of them.

The power of images in persuasion is amusingly demonstrated in this story. It is a face-off between Apple and Microsoft over the future of tablets. Apple believes a tablet is its own device and is unrelated to other technology. Microsoft sees the tablet as an extension of its operating system for PCs and laptops. Apple took a visual shot at Microsoft with a street sign image showing a tangled road. Microsoft returned the blow with another street sign showing one road branching in two directions. The image war wasn’t lost on the audience, and it was good publicity for Microsoft, whether or not one agrees with its product direction. Microsoft used Apple’s imagery against it. Now Apple will have to find something else to make its point.

This is what Sen. Marco Rubio is saying about whether he smoked pot earlier in his life. It is a carefully worded non-answer. One can assume that it is a well trained media response, rehearsed and play back on camera. Rubio never answers the question with a yes or no. He provides a reason for his failure to respond and repeats his opposition to pot smoking. Non-answers are more common than “no comment” but they are just as unsatisfactory to the questioner. Sometimes, however, one must use them. There are situations in which the facts should not come out, especially as Rubio suggests, when no one would believe them anyway. Instead, he falls back on his key message. He doesn’t want anyone smoking marijuana. He is clear about that.

New York University is learning the peril of starting operations in a different culture. Although the University set guidelines for how workers should be treated at its Abu Dhabi campus, The New York Times has found that laborers were exploited and mistreated. That is a blow to NYU’s reputation even though it had no direct control over the contractors who hired and sometimes paid the East Asian workforce. How could NYU have let this happen? The University’s answer is that it didn’t know. A tort lawyer would charge that the University should have known, given the history of poor treatment of foreign workers in Arab countries. If there was a mistake in building the campus, it might have been in oversight that NYU neglected. If the Times’ reporters could document abuse, one would think that NYU could have done the same. There also could have been naivete — assuming contractors would abide by the University’s principles but failing to check if they were. Either way, the Abu Dhabi campus has become a sore point and PR headache for the University and a cautionary tale for other academic institutions who might wish to move into different cultures.