Month: March 2016

Volkswagen is not only facing billions in fines for its deception but now it is toying with the idea of leaving the mass market in the US.  That is causing its 600 dealers to fume.  The  brand has been so damaged, however, that its national aspirations are long gone.  The company is a case example of what happens when one practices poor public relations.  Pulling the wool over the eyes of regulators and customers has savaged the company’s image, and it will take years for it to come back, especially in the US where the company has had problems selling its vehicles.  VW has only itself to blame, and its new management team has many apologies to make before the public forgives and perhaps, forgets.  The company  is on probation.  It can’t deceive the public or regulators again and expect to survive as a brand.

Here is a case in which a hospital spoke too soon about its pioneering surgery.  The Cleveland Clinic knows an uterine transplant is risky and should not have bruited in the press that it was trying to do the first in the US.  Now the hospital has to deal with the failure of the first transplant and increased risk for the 10 others it plans to try.  And, it is doing so under the scrutiny of the media and the public.  It would have been far better had the hospital kept the transplant under wraps until it was certain that it took. A successful surgery would have given the institution credibility that it lacks now.  Perhaps in the second attempt it will succeed.  Perhaps not, but if it fails again the pressure on the hospital and its surgeons will be immense.

Amazon couldn’t buy publicity as good as this.  The column is a mash note to Amazon’s Echo device that understands human speech and can perform a myriad of functions at one’s command.  The positive article comes from experience with using Echo and Alexa, its voice.  The author found that it became more useful as days passed until it was part of the fabric of the family.  Whether or not Amazon loaned the machine to the writer, the result was a highly positive time with it and an adoring article.  This is the kind of publicity coup that can make the career of a practitioner.

A Google computer has defeated one of the top Go players in the world in the first game of five to be played for a million dollar purse.  Go is harder to learn than chess with a nearly infinite number of moves possible on a 19 x 19 square board.  Google’s challenge was a PR move to demonstrate advancements in artificial intelligence.  Even if Google doesn’t win in the end, it will have shown the world that it has a machine to be reckoned with that can defeat human intuition.  The feeling one has for a discipline is born of repeated trials that build experience.  Google’s machine has taken that course of learning to the extreme by playing millions of games and from them choosing likely courses of action.  What the professional Go player cannot rely upon is the machine breaking down once it makes a mistake as a human opponent might do.  There is little left that a machine can’t do in games, but it is still not human.

PR is what you do and not only what you say.  This is great PR.  Doctors Without Borders has been travelling to the trouble spots of the world for decades in order to provide basic medical care.  It makes sense that it would provide medical help and better living conditions for migrants in France.  The not-for-profit concern understands what needs to be done in the most desperate of situations and is not afraid to go into harm’s way.  Several of its medical staff have been killed in recent months from bombing of its hospitals in war zones.  The French situation is easy by comparison.  Doctors Without Borders is a wonderful institution with worldwide impact and it deserves all the support it can get.

North Korea knows how to bluff the rest of the world.  Invoking the nuclear option, the country has placed South Korea and other nations on edge.  It is known that the North has a plenitude of missiles aimed at Seoul and the leadership of the North is enough off kilter that one has to worry it will use them.  The cruelty of the North’s regime is one reason why the rest of the world has to take the country seriously.  It is amazing in this day and age that a Marxist dictatorship can survive as the North has done.  One asks why the populace has failed to rise up but the paranoia of the leadership is such that it will jail anyone on a pretext of disloyalty.  There is no good way to communicate to the country except through sanctions, which makes the populace’s life even more miserable.  Somehow, the leadership continues to get all that it wants and more from fine whiskey to banquets and available women.  It doesn’t acknowledge the hell that it has the rest of its citizens living in.

When an industry leader admits to fraud, it can reflect on others whether or not they had anything to do with the crime.  That is the case with Volkswagen and its deceptive diesel emissions software.  The entire auto industry in Europe is in a quandary over what to do about the diesel engine.  The problem is not easily fixed.  Automakers will have to strap more equipment to the diesel to remove nitrogen oxide, which is damaging to the lungs.  The diesel, which had been a key to control air pollution, is under a cloud, thanks to Volkswagen’s lie.  Predictably, automakers are furious with the company, as they should be, but anger doesn’t help them.  There is no guarantee now that drivers will continue to choose diesels with expensive air cleaning machinery, but the automakers are forced to try because they have to meet emission standards.  The article notes that Volkswagen took a low-key approach this year to the Geneva auto show.  It needed a dose of humility.

The Pentagon is getting with the times when it comes to sponsoring hackathons of its networks.  The military has recognized that it is better to co-opt hackers rather than clean up the mess after they have invaded its systems.  Corporations have been offering “bug bounties” for some time but the Pentagon’s invitation to hackers is the first time the Federal government is trying it.  Other Federal agencies are watching and could sponsor the same style of hackathon in the future.  It’s smart thinking.  Hackers have already stolen government records, tax documents and other sensitive information.  It is better to close doors they have discovered than to fight them every step of the way.  Hackers are doing the government a favor by breaking in with the government’s blessing.  It’s good PR to work with them rather than against them.

Finally after decades of using different cables to connect computing equipment, there is now one cable for everything.  This is the result of the work of a standards group trying to simplify computing for the public. One wonders why it wasn’t done years ago in an effort to serve consumers who have drawers full of cables from past machines.  Standards work is slow and tedious and requires agreement from competitors for anything to happen.  It is PR at its most basic.  We might not think of standards in the US since we are so used to them.  Our three-prong wall plugs, for example, are an example of standards that Europe still doesn’t have with its multiple voltages and connectors.  Computer users were facing the same fate until the present cable was approved.  It might not seem like much but little things like this make the public’s life easier and in the end that is what much of PR is all about.

Earned media in PR parlance is getting one’s name or message quoted in the press without paying for it.  It turns out in this campaign season there is a genius at doing this and his name is Donald Trump.  In spite of his many inaccuracies and outright fabrications, Trump has kept his name in front of TV and newspapers and social media.  One asks how he has done it, and it seems he makes one outrageous statement after another that begs to be quoted and disproved, but in the process, he goes on to make more before the truth can catch up.  He is a loudmouth of the worst kind and impervious to what the media have to say about him and for that, people are saying he is authentic and “telling it like it is.”  Trump proves that one can fool some of the people all of the time — enough to win the nomination of the Republican party for the White House.  Republicans are deeply frightened of him — and they should be.