Month: August 2017

It is a tough PR and leadership position to be in when one is isolated from his constituencies. It is especially difficult when the isolation is self-induced. This is the position President Trump has thrust himself  with the disbanding of two business councils advising him. Trump has progressively cut himself off from one citizen demographic after another. All that remains for him is his base — small as it is. The fewer defenders he has the greater the danger to him and his position. No one has found anything illegal in his operations — at least not yet — but there is a grand jury probing the Russia meddling and his staff’s complicity in in it. At this point, one can almost sense the Republican party begging for a good reason to impeach him and move on. One needs supporters to accomplish anything in the corporate and political world. Trump has yet to learn that as president.

One wonders how a sophisticated company like Costco can make a dumb mistake like this. Surely the company knew it was misappropriating Tiffany’s name and brand for the diamond rings it was selling. Its defense in court was lame, and the judge imposed a fine of more than $19 million on the company. The fine hurts, but not as much as the ding to Costco’s reputation. One can ask what other products has Costco mislabeled. If it was “cavalier” with Tiffany, why not with others as well? Surely this wasn’t the only instance of brand theft. Costco has a task now of auditing its products and making sure its marketing of them is honest. If not, look for more lawsuits against the company, which it will have trouble defending.

It has been 40 years since two gold-plated copper records were affixed to two spacecrafts and blasted into the universe. Voyagers I and II are now far away in interstellar vacuum. It will be hundreds of years before they reach another solar system and by then, who knows what the earth will be like and if it will even be here. The chances of another civilization retrieving one or both of the craft is exceedingly slim. Yet, NASA tried to communicate to the unknown. What was put on the disks was instructive. The scientists tried to summarize life in sound and pictures. There was hubris in the attempt, but idealism as well. We may never know if there is life on the exo-planets being discovered weekly now. We do know there are thousands of them, but learning whether they have a solid surface and water is a slow and sometimes impossible process. The challenges of communicating to the unknown are nearly insuperable. Even if another civilization were to intercept a Voyager, would it know what the disk is for and would it be able to decipher the instructions for playing it? Scientists took their best guess. NASA has not tried to communicate to the unknown again, but it should be honored for making the attempt at least once.

Cooler heads are speaking out over the standoff with North Korea. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said military options are ready but the preferential course is diplomacy. Strong words are useful only to get the other party to the table. The ball is now in North Korea’s court. Will it conduct another ICBM test and will it aim at the vicinity of Guam? That was the threat last week. Words wound but they also can heal. The tragedy would be a total loss of communications between the rest of the world and North Korea. Then any chance of diplomacy would go off the rails and war would be inevitable. As long as each side is threatening, there is still an open line and a chance one or both will back off.  North Korea isn’t going to stop developing its nuclear capability and long range missiles, but there is a chance of making them a potential rather than real threat to the world. There is a rationale behind mutually assured destruction. The North has to understand, however, that it might never reach the number of missiles and bombs that the US possesses, and it is a much smaller country where a nuclear conflagration would have more serious consequences. Continuous communications are a key to peace.

President Trump, apparently without telling his advisers, delivered a bombastic warning to North Korea that hinted of nuclear war. He has talked this way before, but now he is in charge, and he should be watching his words more carefully. He doesn’t seem to realize that words are dangerous if they provoke another to action. Certainly North Korea is violating limits set by the rest of the world, but bombast is not a guarantee they will step back. Rather, it serves as a spur to build more rockets and nuclear devices. It also gives the North more excuses to repress its people in the name of security. It is a hopeless dream that the country will liberalize its policies and set its citizens free. The top echelon is living too well for that. Trump’s words implied the destruction of the command chain that controls the country, but that would result in the deaths of tens of thousands of men, women and children. There is no good way to free North Korea from its communist overseers, and bombast is definitely not one of them.

Wells Fargo bank can’t avoid scandals these days. Here is another one. The bank was clearly out of control in its consumer insurance and lending departments and only now is the dysfunction coming to light. How the bank has fallen in reputation. It came out of the 2008 financial meltdown on a high and with operations that seemed to be working well. Since then, little has gone right. Responsibility for the scandals rest with the CEO whether he likes it or not and even though he wasn’t in the chair when the misdeeds occurred. He now has to investigate every department and root out marginal managers and errant employees. It will take years for the bank to hold its head high again, and that’s as it should be. One scandal was enough. Three is well out of bounds.

The mayor of New York wants to impose a tax on the wealthy ($500,000 and up in annual income) in order to pay for subway improvements and to subsidize low-income riders. There are an estimated 32,000 individuals who would fall into this category. Predictably, lower and middle class riders favor such an approach. It isn’t money out of their pockets. The wealthy have yet to be heard from but they have options, including leaving the city. This crude kind of class warfare is part of a liberal approach to legislation. Income redistribution is at the heart of the message. It is dangerous for the mayor to play with this kind of fire. He is up for re-election and he needs the money of the wealthy to pay for campaigning. The mayor is right that the rich should pay more, but they already are. It is a question of balance. How much more should they give? There is no right answer. It is what voters permit ultimately. The mayor is playing to the masses, and he just might win.

North Korea has said the US would “pay dearly” for new sanctions imposed on it by the UN Security Council. In reality there isn’t much the North can do and its threat is largely empty words. Yes, the country could launch hacking attacks against the US, but security personnel are ready now for such interruptions. The North, if it has lost reason, could launch a missile toward US shores, but were it to do so, it would ignite a war it could not win. So too if the North directed force against the South. So, what is left? The North will have to get creative to punish blockaders and restore its trade with China. One shouldn’t put it past the leadership to find a new way to strike back, but it is likely to be petty. The lesson here is that one shouldn’t use threats unless he is prepared to back them up.

Too much has been written already on the rise and swift fall of Anthony Scaramucci. There is one aspect that hasn’t been covered much and is worth a note. That is Mooch’s demand that a communications person or PR firm “go to the mat and lie for him” if necessary. That would make him ineligible to be a client at many PR firms who insist on facts and persuasion. Certainly there are practitioners for whom facts are fiction, and they give the industry a bad name, especially when it finally comes out, as if often does, that they failed to tell the truth. The first rule of PR should be “accuracy, accuracy, accuracy.” One accepts a body of facts and tries to present them favorably for a client. Sometimes this can’t be done, but often there are multiple sides to an issue and there are interpretations that highlight positives. Insisting that a PR firm lie for him compromises the business as much as it focused a negative light on him. When I entered the business decades ago, I was told I didn’t have to lie for anyone. That has remained true in my career. I am thankful that I’ve never had a client that expected me to tell falsehoods.

What happens when one places investment, R&D and manufacturing on the wrong technology? German automakers are about to find out. They are all-in for diesel engines at a time when the rest of the world is looking into electric. They have staked their reputations on diesel and come up short. Now they are facing a catch-up game in Europe and elsewhere as one country after another places the motor in the polluting column. It didn’t have to be this way. German car builders cheated to make the diesel meet air pollution standards, and they were caught. Now, they have to further refine the engine’s technology to pass muster or they will have to give it up for good. That is a tough choice, but their place in the market and their sales depend on it.