Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

Life isn’t perfect, and neither are public relations strategies. If you’re getting a reputation for being too greedy, you can show some philanthropy. If you’re getting a reputation for being to soft, you can toughen the image. If you’re accused of being overly-sensitive and litigious, then by all means whine and sue!

Okay, that last one was just a joke. Unfortunately, Tom Cruise is becoming his own punchline.

Cruise has become his own worst enemy. From blasting psychology to mud-stomping a hole in Oprah’s couch, he has systematically convinced most of the world that he is really out of touch. Or maybe from another planet.

When the couch-jumping and Brooke-bashing didn’t fade, he apparently went on the offensive. The latest rumored victim is Comedy Central’s South Park. This past Wednesday was supposed to feature a repeat of an episode in which Tom literally lives “in the closet,” and Scientology gets revealed. Instead, the episode was yanked at the last minute. Some are reporting that Cruise put the screws to Viacom, threatening to sit out the Mission Impossible 3 publicity tour.

Meanwhile, he has already filed suit against the New Zealand operator of www.scienTOMogy.info to the tune of $100,000. Let’s also remember that the daily postings on www.tomcruiseisnuts.com abruptly ended on December 6th.

All South Park did was make fun of Scientology, with the same irreverence shown to Christians, Jews, Muslims, and everyone else. It made fun of Scientologists as out-of-control and litigious. It made fun of Cruise as out-of-control and litigious. So what does Cruise do? He plays right into their hands.

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have a low tolerance for this sort of thing. Expect Cruise to reappear on the show in coming weeks — probably as Saddam Hussein’s next girlfriend in hell.

UPDATE: Matt and Trey have issued a statement to Variety:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!”

The duo signed the statement “Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu.”

When faced with a potential crisis, the natural reaction is to get all defensive, and forget about all of the good things you did leading up to the moment. You forget about your training.

There are a number of philosophies and analogies people like to fall back on in these situations. I like martial arts.

There are a number of approaches to defending an attack. One is to go head on, meeting force with force in a linear fashion. Other arts use a “softer” style, absorbing the energy, re-directing it, and putting it to use against the attacker. (Of all of the martial-arts movie guys, Steven Segal’s Aikido skills most match this.)

Take the negative energy, and focus it to your advantage.

The Alabama Department of Agriculture executed this tactic perfectly this week. Faced with America’s third confirmed case of BSE (or “Mad Cow Disease,”) it would be easy to shrink from the fray. Previous reports have led to plummeting meat consumption, export controls, and a host of irrational fears.

Ag. Commissioner Ron Sparks dealt with the news quickly and professionally:

“I was very concerned to find out that the samples that tested positive for BSE were from a cow in Alabama, but this is exactly the reason that we emphasis the importance of BSE surveillance,” said Sparks. “The cow was tested as part of the enhanced BSE surveillance program that has been in place in Alabama,” said Sparks. “Even cows brought in from other states get tested for BSE before they would have a chance to be sold as food. I cannot stress enough how important this testing is to protect consumers. Also, having the Premises ID program in place in Alabama means we are able to trace the origin of a diseased animal. The cattle producers of Alabama understand the need for these precautions as well and we will continue to work together closely to protect consumers.”

Later, he summed up the key point:

“Beef is safe, and we can continue to consume beef as we did yesterday. This is just an example of the firewalls that we have put in place the past few years.”

Interesting use of analogy, and one that communicates to a lot of people. It also stresses that the Alabama Department of Agriculture & Industries is on the job, and that this was an internal discovery. Everything worked like it is supposed to.

Be truthful — lay it all out — and take credit for doing your job. The only thing that makes that recipe hard is the attitude of the messenger. Get all defensive, and you are your own worst enemy. Just like in martial arts.

(Also — props to the department for putting the news conference online in both Windows Media and RealPlayer formats.)

If you really want to cook a butt, you keep the temperature low and roast it slow.

I’m talking about Boston Butts, and I am a bit biased — my father cooks them for fundraisers. Sure, you can fry, braise, broil, blacken, char, sear, and bake a roast. But you can’t beat a butt that’s been slow-cooked.

Enough “butt-puns.”

So much of our PR mindset is predicated on speed. Faster response, faster reflexes, faster spin. We forget how useful slow communication can be. Here’s an example of a new tactic:

I’ve written before about one of the quirks of a “bottomless internet:” the fact that nothing truly fades away anymore. Where you might be aware of things said about you during the news cycle, items that drift in days or weeks later can go unchecked and unchallenged.

So… use that dynamic to your benefit:

1. Don’t link to the complaint. You’ll only draw attention to the original issue.
2. Copy the complaint verbatim, then address it.
3. Make your statement, keep it clean, and get out.
4. Don’t address multiple complaints on the same page. Don’t even link to them together.
5. Don’t use a blog, or any other of your instant channels. Use a web page in an area with low traffic, and don’t publicize it. Let the spiders find it. Then link to it, if necessary.
6. Don’t use urls that are sequential or easy to guess.

The idea is to show up in the very same web searches as the original complaint — which you will, having the same keywords and phrases. By keeping one response to a webpage, you are not advertising any other complaints.

Thoughts, anyone?

We’ve all heard of “shooting the messenger.” However, NBC has taken this to a new low, by shooting messengers in the back.

I thought the whole point of viral marketing was to get other people to carry your water. Take advantage of the relationships and networks millions of individuals maintain, and allow them to evangelize your message and your brand. Thanks to LiveJournal and MySpace, kids who flunk the genetics part of a high-school biology test understand exactly what a “meme” is.

So how is it that a show like Saturday Night Live — which has been lively in name only for years — gets smothered so recently after coming off life support? Instead of allowing fans to spread the news, the messengers get plunked from behind.

The Natalie Portman rap wasn’t the classic that “Lazy Sunday” was — yet the thought of a foul mouth on sweet little Natalie was enough shock-value to get people talking about the show. And sharing the clip.

Here’s the way the listing looks on YouTube:

4-1/2 stars. Impressive. Don’t bother Googling it —
the Peacock has snatched it away:

Now you can go to NBC’s own site and watch it for yourself… as one person pointed out, “without all that bothersome resolution.”

Now, instead of searching the web for “borrowed” NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We’ve taken your viral favorites and gathered them into one convenient location. Watch. React. Tell a friend.

Yes, NBC owns the content.
Yes, NBC has the right to pull it.
Yes, NBC has done nothing wrong.

Just seems a little strange to call it a “viral favorite” when you’re so rigidly controlling the infection. And shooting your messengers in the back. There’s got to be a better way.

I suggest allowing the fans to post what they see on the air, and reserve a special “director’s cut” of the Digital Shorts for the NBC site. Best of both worlds, as fans spend time watching both to see what comes extra in the “official” release.

PR would be an easy business, if only we could get rid of all of the non-trained people who make our jobs difficult.

(Of course, then no real work would get done…)

Your corporate reputation is in the hands of every person who draws from your payroll. And we know how many employees don’t wash their hands.

Here’s a case where the employees can do just about every thing you could want, and still get you in trouble. An AMC theater in Florida is now treading lightly after kicking out a developmentally-challenged boy who laughed too much during a movie. The 19-year-old has a little-known condition called Angelman syndrome, which limits his functions to that of a two-year-old.

“Here’s a child that was laughing at a comedy,” Susan Brown said Monday. “His way of expressing delight and joy at this movie was laughing, but because his communication technique got in the way of someone else’s space, he had to leave.”

The family has been to the theater a number of times, but this is the first where there had been a complaint. The staff tried offering replacement tickets to another screening, but to no avail:

“That (the ticket) wasn’t the point,” said Brown, a stay-at-home mom. “Nobody apologized. Nobody looked at Matt in the eye. It was like he didn’t exist.”

About 20 minutes later, Brown said she went in to get her younger son. Once back in the theater, she paused to give the audience a piece of her mind.

“I guess it’s not appropriate to laugh at a children’s comedy and if you have a disability you don’t need to laugh too loud,” she told the crowd. “Have a nice evening.”

This is a tough one… the ADA does give discretion when one person’s condition affects many others. But that typically has been defined as a violence or safety issue… not a disruption caused by laughter.

According to a statement issued by AMC spokeswoman Melanie Bell, “AMC Theatres has great respect for our guests with special needs and we work very hard to provide everyone the opportunity to attend our theatres comfortably.

“In this particular instance, several members of the theater audience complained that the guest’s outbursts were disruptive,” the company said.

The family is petitioning the ACLU to pursue a case, which only serves to keep AMC in the headlines. And it’s hard to beat a sympathetic kid, even when the law appears to be on your side.

Managing reputations in a vacuum is easy. But life is messy — and like sanitation engineers, our job is to make the work environment a little more livable for our execs, stakeholders, and stockholders.

Sometimes all it takes is one wrong click of the mouse. Eric Govan got bounced out of the Golden State Warriors PR department for sending an inappropriate e-mail to a rather large list. Since this happened in the same market as last year’s 49er training video debacle, the effect is somewhat magnified.

Sometimes, the ball bounces in your favor. At the Sundance premeire of “Thank You For Smoking,” Katie Holmes’ anticipated sex scene was nowhere to be found. The explanation is that the projectionist screwed up:

Jason Reitman isn’t mad at the projectionist he said accidentally eliminated Katie Holmes’ sex scene from a screening of “Thank You For Smoking.”

In fact, he joked that he deserves a raise.

Reitman said the mysterious disappearance during the Sundance Film Festival has been great publicity for the movie. He also understands why some people prefer to think Tom Cruise ordered him to cut the scene. Reitman said the problem with the term “projection error is that it’s the truth but it sounds like a lie.”

As it stands, that little bit of publicity may pique some needed curiousity. It’s not like Katie has millions of people thinking she’s been brainwashed by Tom’s Scientology buddies or anything.

There are a lot of ways you can go about cashing in on a trend. This latest deal between Pontiac and Google has me scratching my head.

Maybe I just don’t get it. I don’t pay enough attention to ads, but the flashy graphic told me to “Google ‘Pontiac’” to find out more.

If you’re making an internet search your “action step” for a potential buyer, why send them to an undetermined destination? What’s going to stop a bunch of kids from Google-bombing the results page? Further, what will stop an underhanded rep from paying kids to Google-bomb?

Now — is Google giving Pontiac some type of guarantee that it can be made bomb-proof? And is that the sort of guarantee that only comes with a (wink wink nudge nudge) co-branding effort?

Good spokespeople can be born… but the best ones are made.

That’s not just a self-serving statement on my part. I am living it.

As I write this, I am in the Birmingham airport waiting for a ride to Dallas. The American Red Cross is training communicators this week.

Now, I was in broadcast journalism for 16 years, and I very well understand what reporters and editors want and how to give it to them. My media training business is built on the idea that “civilians” can overcome a lot of fear and poor press by knowing how the sausage is made. If you can take the trepidation out through advance training, you can enhance the message and be confident that your point will at least be heard.

However, the Red Cross program I am entering is a specialized breed. When a major disaster strikes a community, the local Red Cross spokespeople are usually running beyond full capacity just getting vital information to the public. You can easily fill 16-hour days just fielding calls from local reporters, monitoring local news, and pushing important updates to local media. (I was doing 18-hour days during Katrina.) Simply put, you don’t have the luxury to deal with Good Morning America, CNN, the New York Times, and Newsweek.

That’s where this training comes in. Rapid Response Communicators take on-call shifts, and are ready to zip into a disaster area. By shielding the local volunteers from national media, it allows the important services and information to flow uniterrupted. It also ensures that the national media will get consistent information and Red Cross messaging.

Major disasters already have enough confusion and chaos — the flow of assistance doesn’t need to be choked off by poor communication. Particularly when you have hundreds of thousands of volunteers, any one of which can create national embarrassment with a stray or ill-informed comment.

I’ll share what I can through the week.

Know your audience — and know your media.

It’s not just the rules that are changing ever faster… it’s the evolution and revolution of the game.

I still run across “old-schoolers” who beat the same mantra they memorized out of the old PR texts. That includes the old “sneak the bad news out on a Friday” canard.

Several of major things have changed:

• The news cycle is now constant, so there’s no benefit in dropping bad news on Fridays. Even traditional print publications are seeing the value in updating websites between issues.
• The news is now niche-oriented, which means that specific outlets will run you down regardless of the time.
• Reporters and editors have learned, and have evolved new habits. Particularly the financial reporters.

The two keys are knowing your audience and cultivating your relationships with media gatekeepers. Yes, that is starting to include bloggers, who are the nichiest of the bunch, are the least beholden to news cycles, and appreciate your time and attention more than most.

And don’t forget about placing stories on Friday. From my experience, Friday was one of the more difficult days to nail good stories. A couple of quick calls in the morning will let you know if the reporters and editors in your area are already budgeted for the day, or if they are in need of what you are pitching. (The greater their need, the greater your control, and the more prominent the placement.)

In my market, most of the civic meetings that draw media attention are on Tuesdays. I do my best to avoid scheduling events or releases for Tuesdays, moreso than Fridays. Your mileage may vary.

Hey Pandora — no need to fix that lock. The technology is out, and we can’t close that box if we tried.

I apologize in advance for using a basketball reference, but most people understand the concept of the “full court press.” That’s where a team doesn’t concede an inch of the court, and pressures the ball at every moment, trying to force a steal or a turnover.

For teams not used to seeing “organized chaos” in action, it can be devastating. When the players executing the defense are that much faster and quicker to the ball, opposing coaches sometimes cheat in practice. I remember doing drills on my team where we moved the ball up the court against seven defenders. When game time came around, handling five was a snap.

What if the other team wasn’t just bringing five, but five-hundred? Five-thousand? A sea of humanity, on the playing field? Let’s just say controlling the ball gets nearly impossible.

When it comes to protecting institutional reputation, the rules have changed by orders of magnitude. This is still a business of relationships, and knowing key people can give you the edge in getting your message across. The problem today is that the genie is out of the bottle. There are no real “gate-keepers” anymore, and to be honest, there haven’t been for quite some time.

The “tipping point” emerged a few years ago, when tabloids started getting information that “panned out.” Emboldened by the truth, it was nigh impossible to shut them down, because they didn’t care about whether you liked them or not. Consequently, the “publicity culture” adapted, and used the new rules to create celebrities that were famous for being famous, and nothing else.

The genie boldly left the bottle about the time I started blogging. (I’m not taking all the credit — I just happen to be part of the Blog Boomer generation.) Now, little tidbits about anything can eventually hit critical mass, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It might be a slow-burning misunderstanding about a well-vetted idea. It could be an innocent mistake that gets trumpted worldwide before you even know about it. It could be the break-up rumor that just won’t go away. Or, it could be any of the political blogs that get traction after a couple of days.

Welcome to the brave new world of image management. Pass the popcorn. We’re all a part of the full-court press.

If you can’t beat ‘em, beat ‘em to the punchline. That’s the tack White House spokesman Scott McClellan is taking to mitigate “Hunting-gate.”

McClellan took it on the chin Monday, no doubt. The White House press corp savaged him soundly, trying to construct a “what-did-he-know and when-did-he-know-it” timeline regarding the Vice-President’s hunting mishap. McClellan wasn’t exactly getting forthcoming information from Cheney’s staff, and had to suffer the slings and arrows alone. (Good thing Cheney isn’t a bowhunter.)

Anyway, as you can imagine, Monday was a watershed night for the Daily Show, Leno, and Letterman.

What’s not so funny is the slow response from Cheney’s people. A simple appearance from Cheney to field the questions would have done a world of good. But instead, we’re treated to another day or so of mountains out of molehills (that are of the administration’s own making.)

McClellan is doing his best to take the steam out of it all, though. He delivered a pitch-perfect punchline of his own, using a topical peg: the White House visit by the National Champion Texas Longhorns:

“The orange that they’re wearing is not because they’re concerned that the vice president may be there,” joked White House press secretary Scott McClellan, following the lead of late-night television comedians. “That’s why I’m wearing it.”

Well-crafted, timely, and in a self-effacing way, somewhat humble.

Considering it was a lack of forth-rightness and humility that got them into this mess to begin with, it’s a good start. Best case scenario, the story starts to fade, to be replaced by a recurrent punchline.

(I wonder if the left will stop complaining about Justice Antonin Scalia’s hunting trips with Cheney, and start urging more of them instead.)

Everyone likes to wax on about how the speed of the media and public perception has changed the way PR folks and their clients need to revamp the old rules. But the same technology that vaults us to light-speed video-game-twitch reactions also forces us to look to the past if we are to succeed.

RSS. Podcasts. Citizen journalists. High-tech IPOs. Search engine optimization. Guerilla marketing. Blogs, blogs, blogs, blogs…

…not to mention 24-hour news cycles, and an endless need to respond.

Entire industries and technologies have sprung up to make sure corporations and businesses can know what’s being said about them, and the focus is on how to quickly react.

When you monitor the “now,” don’t forget to monitor the “when.” In many cases, you can find articles, opinions, and blogposts lingering on the net that slipped past that first-day search. Ask Francisco Oaxaca. I wrote about his performance during an extended interview with PrimeTime Live on ABC. My take hit the web on December 2nd — and you’ll notice the very recent comment from Mr. Oaxaca.

I can understand how my piece might have flown under the radar. It was my first substantive post since relaunching my blog — post-Katrina, post-address-change, post-WordPress conversion.

It’s part of our culture to honor speed and efficiency, but don’t forget to look back. Search engines have 20/20 hindsight and freeze moments in time, where we can see them from all the angles and dissect them with impunity.

In a future post, I’ll talk about my experience with “Deja New.”

I’ve had more potential clients than real clients in my slowly-growing media consultancy gig. But what is more frustrating is what keeps getting in the way.

One state agency wanted to train a bunch of folks a few years back. The nature of their jobs created some real headaches when it came to defending their actions and protocols. I pitched a program tailored to their needs, and off we went.

My only problem at that time was my continued employment in television news.

What I needed was a solid firewall. Someone else who would bankroll the training, preventing any real conflict-of-interest charges. We found it, in a private foundation grant. (Bear in mind that I only did seminar work geared toward prevention at that time, and was not a resource for people looking for real-time crisis messaging.)

Then “bad headline #1″ hit the papers, and the agency was too busy with damage control to consider damage mitigation training.

Months later, we were ready to go again, and actually had a contract drafted that fit all of the applicable criteria. I never did get the signed fax back, and I found out why the next morning, when “headline #2″ splashed across the front page.

Again, too much heat to consider working it then and there. The client did not want to be seen spending money on image and reputation management.

Finally, we got everything worked out again. I was free of any possible conflicts, and actually had a couple of new seminar options available that would have helped this agency’s employees immensely. Who knew that one week later the agency would be sanctioned by a judge, and the director (with whom I had dealt) forced into an early retirement???

For a lot of people, “crisis management training” is this iffy insurance policy. There really is no tangible guarantee it will make anything better. (Other than the word of every person whose ever faced a pack of cameras, and felt more confident because of the prep work.) It’s just frustrating when the very people who need the training the most are the ones whose lack of training gets in the way of getting it.

How do you know when you’ve gone too far — and how do you keep from getting there?

That’s really the question posed by Peter Himler in today’s post on “The Flack.” (Peter brings his A-game every day, and is on my short list of must-reads.)

Today, he looks at the cycle of bad decisions surrounding the Peace Mom, Cindy Sheehan.

Without getting all-political, her message started to dilute itself when she got off the “peace for peace sake” bandwagon, and onto the “Elders of Zion Bush puppet regime and anything else I can come up with” path. Peter rightly points out that her latest visit to Venezuela’s “Mr. Smiles and Sunshine” Hugo Chavez stands to get in the way of connecting with any average American again.

My comment actually started sounding more like a post in and of itself so I brought it here — but I invite you to go to Peter’s blog and carry the conversation there. And bookmark him.

Peter, is it just me, or does it seem like every time the Democrats catch lightning in a bottle, they break the bottle?

A grass-roots agent drops right in their laps, one that by far comes across as more human and real than anything they could create — and they destroy her with packaging.

She would have been far more valuable over the long run if they hadn’t burned her out and used her up. She hit her sixteenth minute about, oh, 16 minutes in. Her handlers have devalued her as a human being — she is now a symbol. “Cindy Sheehan” the human is long gone and deceased. Her bones are now in a modern day Ark, being carted around by “The greater cause.”

Lesson: when you start treating your clients as objects and props, your message becomes self-parody.

A sundae with everything, including instant culpability.

A Delaware woman has filed suit against a McDonald’s franchisee, on the grounds that her son’s sundae had blood drizzled on the top.

According to court documents, Jara bought food, including four hot fudge sundaes, at the restaurant’s drive-thru window on Dec. 30, 2004.

Her son, now 13, dug into his sundae and “recognized the taste of blood and, upon careful inspection, noted a red substance on the side of the sundae cup as well as mixed into his ice cream,” the lawsuit claims.

Jara then went into the store and spoke to a swing manager, who confirmed that it was blood, according to the lawsuit. The manager, Joshua Ferrell, said the employee who prepared the sundae had an injured, bleeding finger, and told Jara that he had advised the employee to keep a bandage on his finger, according to the lawsuit.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

Michael Meoli, owner of the McDonald’s franchise, said the claims are unfounded, and that strawberry syrup probably had clogged the sundae machine.

Ferrell, who no longer works at the restaurant, should not have said the substance was blood, Meoli said.

“What is he, a botanist? No, he’s a 21-year-old assistant manager who saw her screaming in the lobby and said ‘whatever you say lady.’“

I’m lovin’ it! There may still be some issues in court (or more likely in settlement) because of that statement, as someone in management ought to know better than to make a statement like that.

Two lessons here:

• Don’t say things like the kid said, for legal reasons.
• Do say things like the franchisee said — short, to the point, and even somewhat aggressive when warranted.

Meoli was also right to end with this…

“I hope she gets the same thing the Wendy’s lady got,” he said, referring to a woman recently sentenced to nine years in prison for planting a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy’s chili to extort money from the fast-food chain.

…if for no other reason than to remind the public that many of these claims are unfounded.

Bonus look-see: Will McDonalds address franchisee issues like this on its brand-spanking new “Corporate Responsibility Blog?”