Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

(I’ve been hanging onto this article, because it just feels like a weekend piece… Have a safe one, by the way.)

We’ve seen a radical shift in what we sell and market. You sell an object or service — you market an image. In that same vein, automakers sell you a car, but market a lifestyle.

Major automakers played it safe for a long time, with a lot of models identified by letters and digits. Now at least the pendulum is swinging back toward actual names for vehicles. And as such, there is a lot of research into finding a name that will market well in multiple places. For instance, you’d hate to spend a lot of ad and development dollars only to find out your product means “masterbation” in another language.

Don’t laugh. It has happened. Forbes recently compiled “The Best, Worst & Weirdest Car Names. Take a few minutes, it’s pretty interesting.

Oh, and one more thing.

It’s not enough to research those words, but by all means, think like a Junior High Prankster.

(I’m long past that age, but if I were working for Publix, I’d better have a contingency plan for what to do if the “L” burns out.)

Steve Nash has had one heck of a year. The Little-Canuck-that-Could is still hustling, and adding to his improbable MVP season. Last night, the 6′-3″ guard went off for 34 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists in 42 minutes. Jason Terry couldn’t stop him. Marquis Daniels couldn’t stop him. Michael Finley couldn’t stop him. Even former teammate Dirk Nowitzki couldn’t stop him.

Nothing short of an NBA lockout can stop Steve Nash.

Oops. I spoke too soon.

You’d think that with all of the steroid talk, and that whole NHL season in the toilet, that the leadership of professional leagues and the players’ associations would have figured out by now that not having games tends to hurt the fan base and the merchandising. We still don’t know if hockey can recover. It took the once-in-a-century effort of Cal Ripken and a subsequent home run exhibition from Sosa and McGwire to being baseball back from the dead after a similar gaffe.

The NBA collective bargaining agreement runs through the end of June, and negotiations are off for now. I’d like to tell you that you could learn a lot about the art of spin from watching each side pin the blame on the other.

But you won’t. Because the fans don’t have any sympathy for the ultra-rich. They don’t particularly care which group of rich men (owners vs. players and agents) has to bite the bullet. They aren’t interested in hearing about how hard it is to raise a family on less than $9,000,000.

Lesson learned? Before you read your prepared statement, do a sound check from the front row to the cheap seats. You might be surprised to hear how hollow your words can echo when you’ve lost touch with your customers.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the British boy who found a snake in his cereal box. (No doubt, this story got more attention after the month-long “Fingergate” that Wendy’s so valiantly fought.)

While many agencies and PR professionals will advocate a quick response, some miss the boat by not complementing it with a slow one.

Check out this Google News search done on the words “snake cereal box”, on May 17th. (I preserved it, just in case a few links change order.) You’ll see a lot of the coverage hit within a day of the incident, May 4th. Look at the outlets: ABC Online (Australia), CNN Internaional, Reuters, MSNBC…

Now sort by date, and see what you get. The online edition of India’s “The Hindu” didn’t pick up the original story until the 13th, nine days later. Now, if you don’t have a customer base in India, you might not care. But your quick response won’t show up on this page at all, and those who are curious about your actions in this matter will have to dig to find it (and most aren’t inclined to do so.)

There’s a fine line to cross here, where you might be “giving the snake story more legs” by pushing your denials and mea culpae. You don’t want to over-apologize. Just do your due diligence, and continue to monitor what’s being said after the initial venom wears off.

It hasn’t exactly been a great year for Mexican President Vicente Fox.

He’s already been blasted for his tantamount encouragement of Mexican citizens to illegally cross the U.S. border in search of work. He’s drawn ire for suggesting that millions of Mexican immigrants will be necessary to shore up America’s Social Security plan. He’s railed against the building of any wall on our southern border, and threatened to seek global sanctions if U.S. citizens tried to monitor illegal border crossings.

Then again, he isn’t running for office here.

Still, you’d have to know that this kind of statement would become a problem:

“There’s no doubt that Mexican men and women — full of dignity, willpower and a capacity for work — are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States.”

In a situation like this, the smart thing to do would be to play up cultural differences in mis-interpretations, and let the statement fade into the footnotes. Mexico City’s Catholic leadership didn’t make things any easier:

Even Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the archbishop of Mexico City, criticized the U.S. policy as ridiculous and defended Fox’s comments, saying: “The declaration had nothing to do with racism. It is a reality in the United States that anyone can prove.”

So what did we see in the way of a backpedal? Through a spokesman, Fox said:

“The purpose (of the comment) was none other than to show the importance Mexican workers have today in the development and progress of U.S. society.”

Not exactly a strong retraction. The CNN article attempts to highlight the cultural differences:

While Mexico has a few, isolated black communities, the population is dominated by descendants of the country’s Spanish colonizers and its native Indians.

Comments that would generally be considered openly racist in the United States generate little attention here.

One afternoon television program regularly features a comedian in blackface chasing actresses in skimpy outfits, while an advertisement for a small, chocolate pastry called the “negrito” — the little black man — shows a white boy sprouting an afro as he eats the sweet. Many people hand out nicknames based on skin color.

Victor Hugo Flores, a 30-year-old bond salesman, cringed when asked what he thought of Fox’s comment, but said it isn’t too different from popular sayings celebrating what Mexicans see as a strong work ethic among blacks.

“It was bad, but it really isn’t racist,” he said. “Maybe the president shouldn’t have said it. But here we say things like, ‘He works like a black person,’ and it’s normal.”

What’s our lesson here? There’s a court of law, where you are home free if you can prove a fact. The truth, indeed, will set you free. In the court of public opinion, there are some truths that can lock you out of consideration and opportunities. People, by nature, are not always forgiving.

Are Fox and the Cardinal correct in what they say? The question is irrelevant. What matters is they didn’t have the foresight to see they had no business raising the question. Fox could have made his point without using a racial example. Particularly in a race-conscious society.

You know… some professions require everyone have good public relations skills.

Enjoy your weekend.

Ice cream vendor ordered to cool off

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

A Good Humor man was served 18 months’ probation Tuesday for losing his cool with a foul-mouthed teenager.

Nazzareno Didiano, 44, stopped dishing out peanut butter bars and Blue Bunnies last May 12 and began pummeling a pudgy-faced Bloomfield teen during a meltdown.

The teen, now 14, told Allegheny County Judge John A. Zottola during a brief trial that Didiano grabbed him by the arm, yanked him from his bike, punched him in the face and slammed him into a wall.

The attack came after the boy berated and cursed Didiano over the cost of his cones.

“I wanted to tell him I didn’t appreciate being talked to like that,” said Didiano, who denied punching the boy.

Zottola ruled he did not believe Didiano and convicted him of simple assault. In addition to the probation, Didiano must take anger management classes and reimburse the teenager $20 for damage to his bike.

The teen giggled as Didiano recounted the obscenities directed at him.

Didiano, who worked for Paul’s Ice Cream Co., served up his own frosty insults.

“I told him he didn’t need any ice cream anyway because he’s fat,” said Didiano.

The teen, about 5-foot-5 and 140 pounds, responded by calling Didiano a “bald (expletive) ripoff.” Didiano later attacked when he found the boy sitting on a bike two blocks away.

Assistant District Attorney Dan Regan presented photographs of a red-faced victim with a cut inside of his mouth.

“He instigated the whole thing,” said Didiano, who is looking for a new job.

The teen’s mother said she’s satisfied with the verdict, but complained that her son is now self-conscious about his weight.

“This has been a nightmare,” she said.

“I told him he didn’t need anymore ice cream because he’s fat.” Classic customer service. Great kick-start for a new campaign: “Paul’s — the ice cream you want, but only if you really need it. Our team of mobile health professionals will help you stay on your weight-loss target.“

Let’s get some feedback here.

A former student at an all-girls Catholic school in Chicago is suing her teachers for discussing her case of mono with several classes — describing it as “a disease that whores get.”

Pretend you are hired to do damage control for this lawsuit and the resulting publicity. What can you do at this point to regain institutional integrity?

Keep in mind, a lot of time has passed since the incident. Contrast that with the case of the Columbus, GA high school student who was suspended for 10 days for talking on his cell phone during school hours. (It was his mother calling… from Iraq.) That boy’s suspension was lifted after two days, and he won’t be penalized for missing any tests or assignments. (That might have something to do with a tide of public sentiment.)

So, back to the schoolgirl with whose mononucleosis led to a bad rep. What would you do?

ABC News: An Illicit Affair on ‘American Idol’?: “May 3, 2005 — A former ‘American Idol’ contestant told ABC News’ ‘Primetime Live’ that Paula Abdul, one of the judges for the hit reality television show, provided him with off-camera tips and assistance while he was a contestant, even helping him select some of the songs he would sing.”

Let’s look at what Fox had at its disposal to counter the allegations.

First, Paula Abdul’s blanket denial was expected. Now that there is public evidence that Corey and Paula didn’t have proper professional distance, there will be more questions. (The cough syrup may be the key, moreso than the phone stuff.)

Second. a lot of people though the “Fallen Idol” show would have some of the current information about Bo Bice’s drug arrest record. That information hit the Smoking Gun website about a week and a half ago. Makes you wonder whether Fox leaked Bice’s record as a pre-emptive strike.

It certainly wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. He properly warned them about his arrest record… they had easy access to the documents… a well-timed release might blunt the interest in the “Fallen Idol” expose… it might even generate sympathy against ABC for even doing a piece (which it did in Birmingham.)

Like a lot of good PR strategies — we may never know.

Paula Abdul, on the other hand, might still have some ‘splainin’ to do.

Straight up. Your thoughts?

Do you know this man?

Odds are, you don’t, but you probably agree with him about one thing:

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”

The man is Fred Allen, and he was a huge force in entertainment back in the 1940s. you probably know some of his work. Or at least a reasonable facsimile.

How about this guy, over here? That’s Foghorn Leghorn. “Now wha, I say what’s the big idea!”

Foghorn Leghorn was a direct ripoff of a Fred Allen’s recurring character, Senator Claghorn. “Now, who’s responsible for this attack on my person?“

The point here is that even Fred Allen, at the top of his game, knew that television was two things: cyclical and cynical. “Any of this getting through to ya son?”

Most of the time, television has stayed true to its disposable nature, to the extent that when a show lasts longer than 100 episodes it’s considered a raging success. We know that all good things, in order to be good, are temporary… and will end.

This is the dilemma facing the Miss America pageant. It’s been a staple for so long, it’s a part of the culture. Few television relics survived multiple generations: Bob Hope, the Tonight Show, and Miss America.

Ratings have been steadily declining, and since ABC has dropped the television rights, the producers are scrambling to find a better way to pitch (and promise) profitability. And it sounds like they are about to prove Fred Allen right:

“The Miss America Organization has hired the William Morris Agency to shop a pageant telecast reworked as a reality show, with competition stretched over several episodes, backstage access, and possibly even an open vote for the winner.”

In a business where your image is everything, what do you do when your image no longer sells? Products are reworked all the time, but Miss America isn’t a widget in need of better wrapping. It “is” the wrapping.

Let’s see what the brain trust comes up with here. Maybe it’ll go all “Survivor” on us. Maybe more “Fear Factor.” Or maybe they just need to listen to Foghorn Leghorn, and spice up the evening gown competition with a strip show: “Show ‘em what ya got but dooon’t let ‘em have it. Ya gotta teeeze ‘em a little. Make ‘em chase ya.”

(Big credit to Neal Abrams for hosting a bunch of great sound clips.)

Forget about Overstock.com being the “Big O”… Opera is making waves in the Atlantic. Literally.

If you aren’t familiar with Opera, it’s an alternative web browser that’s been around longer than Firefox. It’s quite fast, although the only free version does feature advertising. (Still not obtrusive, though.)

Opera recently released Version 8.0 for download, and with the sudden burst of recent activity for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner made a bold (cold) promise: If Opera-8 gets 1-million downloads in the first four days of release, he’d swim from Norway to the United States.

Oops. Now, he’s all wet. As in already in the water on the way to America.

“Although I blatantly admit that my promise was based more on joy and enthusiasm than my swimming abilities and physical health, I will do my very best to keep it,” he said in a statement.

He’s not totally insane, though. First of all, he’s taking his PR guy with him. Spokesman Eskil Sivertsen is rowing a boat alongside (presumably as punishment for releasing the braggadocious statement to begin with.) Sivertsen is bringing along a satellite phone, maps, food, water and a book with inspirational quotes from the Viking sagas.

“It’s the least he can do, having put me in this situation in the first place,” says Jon S. von Tetzchner with a wicked grin on his face. “Besides, I can’t swim to the USA without maps, and this wet suit doesn’t seem to have any pockets, so it’s good to have him there – also as someone to talk to along the way.”

The photo ops alone make this a winner. Opera gets tons of free publicity, the image of a corporate leader who stands by his word, and the “ocean voyage to America” theme harkens back to conquest — which is a good place to position your third-place browser with less than 1-percent market share.

(PS: If you want to try Opera, don’t worry about the “AdWare” designation. It loads the ads as you surf, and the ads stay in the same banner near the browser buttons. It doesn’t load additional sneaky software onto your machine.)

Update: “Brave CEO saves PR Manager in Dramatic Rescue at Sea.” Just brilliant.

It wasn’t hard to see this train coming. The flap between the University of Alabama and sports artist Daniel Moore isn’t exactly going UA’s way. Even if they win the case, they lose from a public relations standpoint.

The feedback is overwhelmingly in Moore’s favor, with a few people chiming in on UA’s behalf. Sportswriters are treating the “Crimson A” like a new Scarlet Letter.

All of this apparently hit the newsstands about the time the new Alabama Alumni magazine hit mailboxes. And who did the Jesters of Irony place on the cover?



Now comes the latest salvo: Moore’s refusal to pay royalties is costing students their scholarships. (Will that message really play with a hardcore fanatic audience that allegedly doesn’t care about graduation rates and academics?)

Even the mighty need a little love…

Wal-Mart is holding a media conference — not about a particular subject or incident. Just ’cause.

The retailer has taken a number of hits in the media over the years, but has always taken the philosophy that as long as we’re growing, why risk it? Well — here’s why:

“Despite Wal-Mart’s negative image, throngs of customers keep shopping at its stores, but that could change, image experts said.

‘Any retailer has to be cautious about consumers’ opinions of their business ethics and practices,’ said Howard Rubenstein, president of Rubenstein Associates, a New York-based public relations firm.”

The 50 or so journalists who are expected to make the trip to Arkansas to attend will have plenty of past fodder on which to chew… and Wal-Mart can ill afford to play around with the responses.

“They need to persuade people they are bigger than people’s attitudes toward them,” said Clarke Caywood, professor of public relations at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

My guess is the Bentonville marketing machine knows how to use Google News, and they are well aware of what will be asked. There could even be an advantage in being able to prepare for everything, because the press will have to as well. But a hungry press could stir a frenzy now that there’s blood in the water.

“This is clearly by Wal-Mart’s own admission a damage control tour,” said Christy Setzer, a spokeswoman at the AFL-CIO, whose United Food and Commercial Workers Union is trying to organize workers at some Wal-Mart stores. “They are aware of a growing chorus of community leaders, environmentalists and religious leaders, who are saying that Wal-Mart’s values are not our values. And they need to respond to this. It is telling that they would rather spend millions of dollars on PR efforts than to change their business practices.“

The irony here is that the company does have some decent things going on within its various communities, in terms of charitable involvement and corporate citizenry. But there hasn’t been a comprehensive strategy to capitalize on that as an antidote to the anti-Wal-mart sentiment.

If I can find a transcript of the newser, it might be fun to pick apart the answers.

Anyone interested?

If you don’t recognize the guy at the left, don’t worry. You probably recognize his work.

Daniel Moore is the 2005 Sports Artist of the Year, although in the state of Alabama, he’s really been the only sports artist of record for an entire generation.

Remember that postage stamp honoring Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant? Moore did that one. He also did the stamps for Pop Warner, George Halas and Vince Lombardi. He’s more well-known for photo-realistic depictions of turning points from crucial games. You can see them in athletic departments, and in the dens and offices of rich (and not-so-rich) fans and boosters across the Southeast.

Anyway… now he’s being sued by the University of Alabama in a licensing dispute.

The university’s lawsuit, which Moore said he received via fax on Friday, claims Moore has violated trademark law and marketed some products with Crimson Tide images without paying licensing fees.

It seems the University isn’t going after Moore to be vindictive — it’s a matter of not establishing a precedent by letting people walk all over their trademarks. But Moore’s attorneys say a 2000 case involving Tiger Woods set the legal standard that art is free speech, and is not subject to license fees based on content.

I don’t know the ins and outs of the legal briefs, but I do know this: the university isn’t winning the PR war.

In his own news release, Moore states:

“Dr. (Finus) Gaston conveyed the University’s position as being that a mere depiction of an Alabama sports uniform in a Fine Art Print is cause enough for the work to be subject to licensing—even if it did not include a depiction of a registered trademark of the school itself. “

Wow. That seems rather greedy, and according to an online poll by AL.com, 85% of the respondents voted no on the question “Should Daniel Moore have to pay licensing fees to the University of Alabama?”

I know the University took a long time to eventually file an action. But it does make you wonder whether the guardians of the school’s images won out over the guardians of the school’s reputation. Even if UA wins… it loses.

(zoom zoom.)
Zoom – zoom – zoom…

A Wisconsin woman tries to invoke the lemon law, and Mazda kicks and screams through the appellate courts.

I don’t know who to blame more — the lawyers who are dragging this thing on, or the PR people who aren’t pointing out the inherent danger of seeking bad publicity.

Folks… it’s been feast or famine in the Good-and-the-Bad. Other than the ongoing Michael Jackson media circus, the wilderness is silent. (And speaking of the circus — I’ve desperately avoided mentioning that Jackson’s handlers are cutting off his nose to spite his… nah. Too easy.)

So — I bring you a couple of original thoughts, and how you need to avoid them in your implementation.

First, what I call The Beekeeping Theory of Public Relations: Blow a lot of smoke, and hope it keeps you from getting stung.

This is more common than you would think, and it’s more a result of a lack of planning. Sometimes, it’s employed by organizations that are trying to slip their bad medicine out in giant sugar-coated containers — hoping the sheer volume of released information will make it less likely to be discovered. Risky, at best.

The second notion is what I call the Nostril Theory: PR strategies are like nostrils… everybody has two, and picking one in public will tarnish your reputation.

Flip-flopping was the buzzword of the last political season, and it has enough legs that it can apply to you. All you have to do is be caught in an apparent contradiction during a crisis. It’s that simple.

There really is more than one possible course of action for every conceivable corporate disaster. Just don’t get caught trying to switch mid-stream. Commit to your plan, and stay the course. Those who stray are either not paying attention, or do so because they see what they perceive as an opportunity to take advantage of a short-term situation. Whether it’s a competitor’s failure, or a sympathetic ear in the media — you have to make sure you stick to the plan. Others are counting on you to maintain the same consitent message and tone.

Just a couple of thoughts to brighten your day.

Here‘s a story about a PR expert who got bounced out of Neverland.

Apparently, she had some ideas about how the King of Pop ought defend his image, but never got to the throne room. Instead, someone on the inside hatched a plan to play hardball with the eventual complaintant.

Ann Kite, who also goes by the professional name Ann Gabriel, told jurors in Jackson’s trial that she was hired by his Las Vegas-based lawyer, David LeGrand, less than a week after the documentary, “Living With Michael Jackson,” aired on Britain’s ITV on February 3, 2003.

A different version, based on the same material, later aired in the United States on ABC.

Kite described the program as “an absolute disaster” for the pop star and that, on a damage scale from one to 10, she would put it at “a 25.”

Well — that sounds about right to me.

In his cross-examination, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. challenged Kite’s description of herself as a crisis management expert, getting her to admit that the only other celebrity client she had was an obscure Las Vegas entertainer whose act included self-hypnosis.

“You really weren’t very experienced in the area of celebrity crisis management,” Mesereau said, asking Kite why she described herself that way.

“I’ve seen a lot,” she replied.

Mesereau is trying to discredit Kite, because prosecutors are using her to prove that the original Martin Bashir documentary backfired on the singer. She claims that her dismissal came directly on the heels of information that Jackson’s handlers thought would paint the accuser’s mother as a “crack whore.”

Some people just don’t get it.

A good crisis manager is someone who can deliver a good read on outside opinion. Don’t shoot the messenger.