Month: May 2015

Leave it to political campaigns to turn fact checking into a weapon.  And when the fact checking doesn’t go their way, they make up facts to use in TV advertising.  Political campaigners are often people who believe the end justifies the means.  That politicians go along with them says something about the moral rectitude of candidates.  Fact checking should be non-partisan and a tool to get to truth.  It has turned into a cudgel to hammer opponents.  Perversion of purpose makes it unreliable and voters should be wary of claims.  Yet, campaigners will continue to use fact checking as long as it serves their purposes.  Fact checking is a fundamental step in PR and not because we slander opponents.  Rather, we don’t wish to be rejected by the media for lack of accuracy.  It is a defensive tool for PR, and that is as it should be for political campaigns.  Too bad it isn’t.

It seems the cable television/internet industry is trying to shed its name — as if that will make up for decades of poor service.  The industry’s main conference, previously called “The Cable Show”  is now “The Internet and Television Expo.  It is as if the cable industry suddenly got rid of its coaxial wires strung past millions of homes in the US.  A name change might work within the industry — although that is debatable — but it is unlikely to gain much credence with users.  The first step in a new moniker should be a service change — i.e., better response overall to cable customers.  Were that to happen, a name change might be easier and might actually work.  PR isn’t in a name.  It is in action.  The cable industry still has a long way to go to improve customer service.

Dodge has engaged in smart PR for the introduction of its newest muscle car, the Hellcat.  The company dribbled details about the auto to enthusiasts and let them speculate about its performance.  And guess they did.  The company kept up the game until it revealed that horsepower broke 700 for the rubber-burning machine. It also released viral videos that furthered speculation.  The cost of the program was negligible by comparison to buying TV spots and it reached its target audience like a rifle shot.  The company built engagement with the brand whether or not an enthusiast could afford the $61,000 to buy the Hellcat.  This is far from the day when one called in the editors of auto magazines and did a reveal.  However, it appears that it will work well only in some instances.  For mainstream autos without huge performance statistics, dribbling information is likely to result in yawns.  Still, Dodge has shown the viral way for muscle cars.

It is harder now for a reporter to get away with a biased interview.  Consider this.  Bloomberg’s political editor, Mark Halperin, went too far in trying to test presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, on his Hispanic background.  The internet erupted in outrage over the questions Halperin was asking.  Halperin, for his part, is left with a black eye as a reporter with a twisted “liberal” bent.  Many felt that Cruz would not have undergone a grilling had he been a Democrat.  That remains to be seen.  But, it is true that Halperin’s questions were demeaning.  From a PR perspective, Cruz came out of the interview rather well.  He wasn’t defensive.  He gamely answered most of the questions.  Halperin later apologized for conducting the interview in the way he did.  Perhaps this episode will insulate Cruz in the future when others want to question his heritage.  If so, a negative will have become a positive.

This is wise advice on the use of e-mail.  I’ve taught business school students for several years using the same principles.  The problem is that many never learn, and they create problems for themselves.  E-mail works on the KISS principle — Keep it simple, stupid.  Messages should be complete but short and sent just to those people for whom it is intended.  Long message strings should be cut back, or if they are necessary, summarized.  One point I drummed into my students.  E-mail is never private, whether or not one puts a warning at the end of a message.  I’ve always taught that one should write so anyone can read the missive without repercussion.  It is amazing how many people forget that even now and get themselves into trouble.  E-mail needn’t be bland.  One can express oneself forcefully but it should be done carefully with the intended audience firmly in mind as well as the secondary audience that might see it.

A total of 187 Asian scholars are calling on Japan to admit its wartime atrocities against neighbors and allied countries.  Their PR effort, done by open letter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has not yet succeeded.  Abe is resistant to apologizing for crimes such as putting Korean women into prostitution to serve its soldiers.  Nations, such as China, which suffered terribly under Japanese control are not satisfied with a general acknowledgement that Japan was in the wrong.  It is understandable that Abe, who is struggling to reignite Japan’s growth and make it an important force counter-balancing China, does not want to dredge up the past.  Yet, the past has bearing on the present, even though it was 70 years ago. For Japan to white-wash its past is a symptom of a culture that has yet to understand and deal with the actions of its military during World War II.  As Japan slowly re-arms, it needs the lessons of the past to help it better handle the future.

There is nothing one can do in PR or marketing to save a business that the public no longer needs.  Consider, for example, the one-hour photo processing industry.  There are just 190 stores left in the US, and one wonders how they hang on.  Business is Darwinian.  With the demise of film, so too came the demise of film development.  As the article notes, the same holds true for video stores and news stands.  Chances are that most, if not all, video stores will be gone in the next five years and one-hour photo processing even before that.  It is a cliche in business to talk about buggy whip makers that did not survive the rise of the auto.  We have our own buggy whip businesses with the advent of digital photography and streaming video.

A first step in political campaigning today is to secure your web site names.  That is why this mistake by a former high-tech CEO is a howler. It comes under, “What was Carly thinking?”  She is running for President on her business experience, but she failed in a basic requirement.  That opens her to mockery from the outset of her hunt for the White House.  A political campaign demands attention to thousands of details, any one of which can sink the candidate.  Carly is starting off well behind and her web page error isn’t going to help her catch up.

When should a reporter become part of a story?  Some say never. That is why this journalist is causing angst among purists.  Sanjay Gupta is a neurosurgeon and reporter for CNN.  He has a habit in crises of pitching in and helping the wounded, especially when there are no other qualified medical staff available.  From a medical perspective, it is just common sense that he do so.  From a news standpoint, he becomes part of the story that might overshadow the news of suffering and tragedy.  Aside from the obvious question of why he is a TV reporter in the first place, Sanjay Gupta has a duty to provide care in the wake of disaster.  That trumps journalistic ethics, but at the same time, critics point out that his relief work should not be the story.  They suggest a solution:  Provide care but don’t report on it.  That is possible, of course, but CNN might object that Gupta is not telling the whole story.  There is no easy answer.  CNN wants his expertise and is willing to accept and promote his medical work.  Editors grind their teeth in frustration over intrusion of a reporter into the news.

Watch this video and think of the publicity value of having a hololens and augmented reality in publicity events.  For example, in a new car introduction, one can isolate sections of the vehicle, such as the drivetrain and project them before an audience in a way that they can walk around and examine the image.  In a drug announcement, one can show each section of the body that the pharmaceutical affects.   An electronics presentation can show the innards of the device and its packaging.  The hololens is still in Microsoft’s laboratory, but the demonstration shows that it is approaching practical use.  If and when it is released, publicists and marketers will have a powerful new tool for communications.