Month: September 2016

Samsung is trying to recall 2.5 million Note 7 phones because of exploding batteries, but the way the company is going about it is a self-inflicted wound to its reputation and brand.  The problem is confusing and missing information in instructions to the public for replacing their phones.  What Samsung needs to do is to make the exchange as simple as possible. Turn off your phone, hand it to Samsung, and we will give you a replacement.  Instead, Samsung is hedging its recall pending an official decision by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  It has also issued a software fix that limits the Note 7 to a 60 percent charge, but it hasn’t made that generally available.  Finally, Samsung says it needs more time to study the cause of the explosions.  Leaving the device in the hands of consumers while one tries to figure out the problem is equivalent to pulling a pin on a grenade and handing it to a customer.  There is no doubt Samsung’s recall is massive and complex, but it needs to protect consumers first and by so doing, guard its brand.  It doesn’t work the other way around.

One urgent concern for PR practitioners is computer security.  It seems anyone with a tad of recognition is being hacked.  Colin Powell, Olympic athletes, the Democratic Party and on have all been invaded and their jewels of information released to the public.  A question PR practitioners should be asking clients is whether they have anything in e-mail or on their computers that could compromise them.  If so, PR needs to put into place a crisis plan against the day that the data is released by a hacker.  The practitioner also needs to get the information off of the system if possible.  There is little security in changing passwords, even if the words are difficult to decipher.  Hackers use human engineering to trick people into giving away their protection.  Look for more information releases in the future and more PR crises.  It will take time to get ahead of hackers and the only way to do so is through strict computer discipline.  Never write what you don’t want the world to see.

It is easy sport to dump on North Korea and its leader, but sometimes the country’s propaganda is too ludicrous to let slip.  Consider this. It is likely the supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, can barely tell corn from beans.   To say he is providing field guidance is a cruel joke on North Korea’s hungry citizens.  Note too that each ear of corn, including the one in his hand is perfect and without normal variation.  Either the farmers hand-selected ears or there is a good deal of Photoshop in the frame.  The hard-to-believe propaganda continues for two more photos and captions, neither of which has a shred of credibility.  Also note that the Supreme Leader is surrounded by military men.  Even in an innocuous exercise such as this, he has to project power, for that is all that keeps him in his rotten office.  Propaganda has an effect when it is close to reality, which these photos and captions are not.  One wonders how many more decades North Korea’s citizens will tolerate such evil.

Apple computer is facing a consumer trust issue.  Its product purchasers are asking, “What have you done for me lately?”  They are looking for another breakthrough Apple product or service and so far, they haven’t seen one.  Call it post-Jobs letdown or the way things work, but the truth is that innovation is not a constant in any company.  There are times when a firm can fundamentally change the course of industries as Apple has done, but they tend to be few and far between incremental improvements.  Tim Cook surely must be aware of this, but the pressure is on him to amaze Apple’s customers once again.  That it isn’t happening fast enough has Apple fans worrying that the era of radical innovation is over.  It is a PR issue for the company and one that is becoming urgent to solve.

What does it say about a bank that it cannot control its employees better than this?  Wells Fargo, one of the leading and some say the leading, bank in the US has fired more than 5,000 employees for fraudulent credit card dealings.  The bank is paying a steep fine, and that is the least of its bad PR.  It needs to redo its incentive compensation plan, the source of the fraud, and it needs better supervision over its credit card operations.  One wonders how more than two million phony debit and credit card accounts could have been opened without that bank being aware of it.  Clearly, there was a management breakdown of major proportions.  Wells Fargo had a good reputation before this incident.  Now it has to work hard to get back to where it was.

One PR tactic practitioners often condemn is silence — making no effort to address an issue or to explain oneself.  But, silence can and has worked, especially when the public supports individuals and organizations.  Consider the National Football League.  Concussions, child abuse, domestic scandals have all rolled off the back of the commissioner who has maintained a steadfast policy of non-engagement.  He can get away with this because football is still the most watched game in America.  Soccer pales by comparison as does baseball, basketball and hockey.  Will it always be this way?  No, but for the time being, the NFL is in a privileged  position.  It can do no wrong in the public’s eyes.  Come the day that the public tires of two teams competing on stripes, the NFL will have to be more transparent than it is today, but that might be years away.  Meanwhile, it can exploit its popularity by refusing to comment on issues affecting the league.

Google has a plan for disrupting ISIS online recruiting efforts.  The question is, will it work?  The idea is that any time someone searches for ISIS propaganda online, Google will automatically serve advertising and links to sites that are contra ISIS.  On the surface, that might not seem like much, but it is better than letting the terrorist sites stand as is.  It is good PR on the part of Google to make the effort.  Even if only one individual changes his mind as a result of the counter-information, that is far better than the lives at risk from the person’s actions of suicide bombing or warfare.  Google is of the size and power to be able to pull this kind of action off.   Kudos to the company for being a responsible citizen.

ITT vocational schools closed suddenly and left 45,000 students in limbo.  The closure came after the government barred federal financial aid and Pell Grants to its attendees.  That happened because the for-profit institution had a bad reputation for poorly educating students and preparing them for real jobs once they are done.  This is yet another example of how one’s actions in the marketplace are viewed positively or negatively by consumers and the government.  The only question is why ITT wasn’t penalized sooner.   Its former students are now left to scramble to complete their educations and in some cases to pay off their loans.  Neither will be easy.

Samsung has taken the right action by recalling all of its latest cell phones even though the cost to the company will likely be between $1 billion to $5 billion.  The company has lost its momentary advantage over Apple, but it doesn’t want to take chances of exploding  batteries in its phones.  One asks how this could have happened and a partial answer is that the company was rushing to beat Apple to market.  There also is the possibility of an unknown defect in the batteries it is using that has caused the meltdowns.  Either way, the company has acted responsibly by getting the phone off the market until the problem is solved.  It is good PR and it saves the company millions in possible tort costs from victims of the exploding phones.  Tesla can learn a lesson here with its refusal to turn off autopilot in its cars even though it has caused at least one death.