Month: October 2018

How the mighty GE has fallen. The legendary company under Jack Welch who turned out world-class managers, the envy of CEOs, is now a shadow. It can’t seem to do anything right, even under its first leader from the outside who is a noted turnaround manager. The tide has gone out and GE has been revealed as naked. The company still has a deep reservoir of talent and technology, but it is struggling in the marketplace, particularly in its power division. The CEO is having the division report directly to him and he is splitting it into two parts for simpler management.  If the company can turn the corner, it might be able to rebuild its reputation, but it is unlikely it will never again reach the exalted heights it once had.  GE is a reminder that no company is ever safe. There are always circumstances that can drag it down and success today does not mean success tomorrow.

Sometimes one is too quick to make a decision and creates PR and management problems as a result. In this case, the CEO of Snap promoted an individual, informed the person’s direct reports of his decision then changed his mind two days later and hired someone else. The whipsaw has demoralized employees, and it has made the CEO look capricious. If he wasn’t certain about the first person, he should have delayed the decision. Instead he spoke first then acted later. There is little he can do to mitigate the damage. He created the problem and now he has to live with it. Quick decision making is a hallmark of high tech companies, but there is a limit to how often one can change his mind before it impacts an organization negatively. This is a case in which the line was crossed.

Muslim groups in the US are raising tens of thousands of dollars for Jewish victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. That alone is a statement that Middle East standoffs between Jews and Muslims are not a barrier here. The US is neutral ground between the two groups.  There are still hotheads who want to see Israel destroyed but it appears the dominant view is to live and let live. That alone should be a statement to the Trump administration, which has barred people from Muslim countries from entering America. It is an effective act of relating to a public that has historically been condemned by Muslims. They should be congratulated for their action and Jews thankful they are so valued by an historic enemy.

Conventional wisdom is insufficient. We think we know a topic but when closely examined, it turns out we don’t. Consider this case. For a long time, scientists thought the cerebellum was only there to make sensory motor functions work.  It was the “lizard brain,” making sure we can walk upright, grasp objects, sit and stand. Now, science is revising its views.  “…what they found was that just 20 percent of the cerebellum was dedicated to areas involved in physical motion, while 80 percent was dedicated to areas involved in functions such as abstract thinking, planning, emotion, memory and language.” The more we know the less we know. That is why conventional understandings should be accepted with caution. It is what we grasp now but might not be the case in the future. PR practitioners work with facts and stress accuracy, but there is always a chance facts might change. Hence, one should hedge statements rather than proclaim them with certainty. As far as we know, this is the case, but our understanding might be limited. This leaves room for deeper knowledge.

Target is an ingenious marketer. As this video shows, creativity comes in big things and small. Its stores are planned effectively, well orchestrated with signage, neatly kept, bright and welcoming. There is none of the shelf messes one finds in a Walmart, for example. Presentation is the result of close management and constant aisle patrols to face goods, pick up fallen items and place them back on a rack and neaten displays. One always feels like the first customer in the store rather than the thousandth. This is why the company can boast of the “Target effect”, the impulse to buy more than what one came for in the first place. Merchandising requires constant tinkering to optimize product placement and sales. Customers rarely see the effort but they buy, and that is why Target remains a leading retailer in the era of online shopping.

The best publicity stunts can be renewed year after year and reliably spark press coverage. That is why this annual stunt is in a class by itself.  Neiman Marcus decades ago sought to set itself apart as the retailer to the wealthy so it dreamed up an annual gift list for those with unlimited disposable income. That list became news year after year. The media reliably report the sometimes outrageous offerings, sometimes with commentary, sometimes without. Does Neiman Marcus expect to sell these gifts? I doubt it, but just in case, I suspect the retailer keeps one or two of the presents on hand with the option of returning them to the vendors. This year’s gifts spotlight over-the-top experiences for the super-rich along with a $7.1 million yacht. Everyone needs one of those.

The Saudis have shifted versions of the death of the Washington Post journalist several times. Now they say he died in a fight in their consulate in Turkey. The world is skeptical and should be. Left unexplained is why the country sent 15 men to capture one. If the Turkish story is correct, one of the men is a medical doctor who was carrying a bone saw, presumably to cut up the corpse. Why too did one of the men change into the journalist’s clothes and depart from the consulate? The Saudis are learning the downside of murderous control of the press and a lack of transparency. The world is repulsed by what happened. It was the action of a dictator. Where Saudi Arabia goes now as a country is unclear. It is stifling dissent internally and closing itself off from the world.

Even the hottest, fastest-growing companies cool into a slower growth maturity. Apple has experienced years of blistering sales of its iPhones, which sold out in hours after their introduction. But now, it suddenly seems its latest line of phones might not be selling as well. Availability of the XR model has remained steady, and there doesn’t appear to be a run on it. If that is the case, it might be a rare miss for Apple or at last, the public is exhausted and not as eager to buy. Apple has depended on phone sales for superior margins over the last decade. Should its popularity be over, it is a serious concern for the company. There are things marketing and PR can do to reignite interest when it wanes. One hopes those plans and tactics are ready to implement. Apple has an enormous cash cushion on which it can run for years, but financial analysts will discount that if iPhone sales are down and they will hammer the stock.

When you make a mistake this egregious, there is no make-good — even a public apology isn’t sufficient. How the campaign made such an error is still unknown, and the candidate, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, says she wasn’t the one at fault. From a PR perspective, it is an indication of sloppiness in communications operations and materials. The first rule is accuracy, and it is obvious someone violated it. In an era of “fake news” when people make up facts as they go along, there is a premium on getting it right the first time. Heitkamp should know that, and now she has to struggle with an unforced error. Campaigns are difficult enough without making obvious goofs.

In the internet age, nothing prevents an employee or ex-employee from exposing to the world the dirty laundry of an organization. Consider this case. An ex-employee, six years removed from a Google job, spills his anger at the company and the top manager of his group, Google+. His series of Tweets are ugly and there is nothing the company can do about them. Pointing out that the designer worked there only eight months and is hashing over old times doesn’t help. Neither does the fact that Google is shutting down Google+. The Tweets were inflammatory enough that Business Insider took notice and gave them wide currency. Organizations everywhere need to be prepared for online tell-alls. There will be many more, and they can spark a crisis quickly.