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Celebs… Don’t go West.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Days like today I am glad I’m not a celebrity publicist.

Public relations professionals who work with brands have it easy. Those brands can’t speak for themselves and thus, they can’t put a foot in the brand’s mouth. Not so with celebrities.

In case you don’t know what I’m referring to: On the MTV Video Music Awards Kanye West, presumably drunk on cognac, interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech after winning the Best Female Video Moonman. Katy Perry described it as “stepping on a kitten.” In an open letter on her blog, Kelly Clarkson wanted to know if he didn’t get hugged enough as a child. I think part of the issue is that Swift is a new artist and still quite young. Many feel she deserved some spotlight and viewed West’s actions as heartless. Regardless of what you think, his PR team probably needed to change their pants.

You can’t fault his PR team though. They only have so much control. More so than with brands, PR teams for celebrities are often janitors for these open individuals who sometimes have eccentric lives. After all, could Spears’ publicist do anything to stop her from shaving her head? What could her little sister Jamie’s publicist have done to stop her from getting pregnant? Imagine the daily headache Michael Jackson’s PR team faced.

Granted, there are times a PR team can take a more active role in a star’s activities. Someone present at Miley Cyrus’s controversial “topless” Vanity Fair photo shoot could have suggested that it might not resonate with the Disney-level fans and parents.

So what’s a publicist to do for Kanye West? I’ve suggested that in the long term, maybe in a year or two, some form of duet with Swift would be the perfect fix. It would take some work to get to that point. A proper apology would be a good start, something akin to a heartfelt minute or two on YouTube. Anything written will not appear as sincere. After that, he needs to do the exact opposite of what he appeared to do on the awards show; he needs to disappear from the spotlight.

Granted, I’m un-researched in this area and a few months out of the music industry. Despite this, I think he can take a lesson from the airline industry. When a plane crashes, they silence the brand so the public can forget. If Kanye doesn’t want to look like he’ll step on anyone for the spotlight, he needs to follow that advice. He’s the brand, he needs to cork it.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/09/14/kanye.west.reaction/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/14/mtv.music.video.awards/index.html

Tags: celebrities, crisis communication, kanye west, MTV, taylor swift, VMA
Posted in Branding, Public Relations | No Comments »

How not to run customer service.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

A little quickie for you today…

I’m often amazed at the absence of business sense exhibited by many “mom-and-pop” stores. I don’t mean to malign them as a whole, but often they don’t understand that what they think is good for their business may hold them back. The unfortunate thing about this is that many have great products and could really expand and succeed.

As I read this Wall Street Journal article about coffee shops prohibiting laptops, I immediately noticed the actions of the Cocoa Bar with a customer on Yelp:

“Good luck staying open when you’re turning half your clientele out on a Friday night,” Hannah Moots, 23, wrote about Cocoa Bar on Yelp, a Web site where customers rate retailers. When Ms. Moots, who aspires to be an archaeologist, met her boyfriend at the coffee shop after 8 p.m. on a Friday to work on graduate-school applications, she was ushered out, she says, even though the place was almost empty.

“We had to power down or leave instantly,” Ms. Moots wrote in her blog. She left and went to a different cafe, where she later expressed her dismay on the Web. Masoud Soltani, a Cocoa Bar owner, confirms that he sent her a Yelp message: “I remember you very well…I would not think you would write such bad stuff about us.” Mr. Soltani says she is no longer welcome in his store.

Here you have a customer who was turned away from the place because of her laptop use. I won’t fault the Cocoa Bar for prohibiting laptops if doing so has been good for business. (The article doesn’t say, however given the web site I could see it being a problem at night.) The response, however, to simply “not welcome” someone to their place because of a negative review is just a bad idea and bad customer service.

Small Businesses (and large, you’ve made the mistake too): If someone maligns you on a web site, the WORST thing you can do is criticize them and ban them from your establishment. What does that say about your customer service? The better response might be, “We would welcome Ms Moots back to our establishment anytime, we just would like her to respect other customers by following our policy on laptops.” Now, not only does the Yelp community know that the owner can be adversarial, but readers of the Wall Street Journal do as well.

I did check out the Yelp page. It seems to carry a positive rating overall, but there are a significant number of negative comments. I only hope for Cocoa Bar’s sake that the other negative comments weren’t addressed in the same manner as Ms. Moots’.

Tags: customer service, yelp
Posted in Public Relations, Social Media | 2 Comments »

The old numbers won’t do it anymore.

Monday, July 20th, 2009

This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged about this…

Ignoring a customer is a calculated risk. In the past, a scorned customer really couldn’t impact your business, especially for large national corporations. Today, thanks to the Internet and its viral nature, that one complainant can impact your business far more than the cost incurred by fixing the problem.

Take the story of Dave Carroll, a musician who had the misfortune of a broken guitar from flying United Airlines. In a creative kick to United’s shins, Carroll wrote a song and produced a video about his situation. This video has enjoyed a viral growth. It works for Carroll, what musician wouldn’t want the coverage he’s received. United, on the other hand, is left limping.

Lets do some advertising numbers. The video itself has 433,294 views as of this morning. That’s almost half a million impressions for advertising folk out there. Compare Internet impressions to an impression of a regular TV commercial and they are more significant. How much more significant? When you consider that youTube is a pull medium, than the answer is “very” – it means people are watching and paying attention, moreso than TV.

United’s reaction to the video was to finally contact Carroll. Unfortunately for United, I have a feeling that this little black spot on their record will entertain the Internet for some time. Little memes like this don’t just go away. United was smart to take such a proactive (and not adversarial) response to the video. It makes for better PR. It would have been even smarter to have better customer service. Your company should ask itself, “Can our policies towards customers damn us on the Internet?” If you don’t know or can’t come up with a quick response, you should consider an audit.

If your company hasn’t quite learned how bad or good the Internet can be for you, then you should take heed of this and other stories. If you’re large enough for something like this to matter, you should have a channel-for-channel response addressed in your crisis plan. That is, are you ready for a YouTube response to a YouTube attack, or a Twitter response to a Twitter attack. If you don’t, you’re likely to find yourself scrambling when something like this happens to you.

Maybe someday I’ll post a compendium of companies who scuffled on the net and lost, but for now, I’ll leave you with a funny song.

Tags: crisis communication, customer service, dave carroll, United Airlines, youtube
Posted in Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | No Comments »

The Revolution will be Twitter-vized

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

It’s been a while, but I remember how revolutionary it felt reading the results of the OJ Simpson trial over an IRC channel in 1995. Now, over a decade later, a similar torrent of massive proportions is happening over a brand new medium, a new subset of the Internet: Twitter.

In case you’ve been in a media vacuum: In Iran, many claim that the results of the June 12th election are invalid and that the election was rigged. The reaction has been described in the same terms as the 1979 revolution that shaped the current Iranian government.

I’m not here to play pundit on the situation, but rather comment about how Twitter has provided more information than traditional news media.

According to numerous credentialed and informal sources, foreign media cannot report directly on the ongoing situation in Iran. In the past, combating this media blackout would involve a few select individuals with sneaky access to the outside world. Regardless, it would still be limited and slow to flow.

Today is different. Thanks to Twitter (and to a smaller degree Facebook) the information has been pouring out. Of the trending topics on Twitter, three involve Iran’s situation and the updates are quick to come. Indeed, #iranelection ranks as one of the longest trending topics since they started listing them. Updates from specific people are quickly retweeted and sent along the Twittersphere. Traditional media monitors and at times reports these snippets of information. Indeed, CNN outright states, “CNN is also extensively monitoring social networks as an integral part of its reporting on the situation in Iran.”

There’s an important point or two to make here.

Iran is a fairly shuttered nation. Similarly, so is China. Regardless of their powerful ability to stymie using fear and technology, information leaks out. Media outlets now use Twitter-based information. So, if governments like those of China and Iran can’t stop the Twitter revolution, what makes you think that your company can?

There are quite a few businesses out there that think they can or should just ignore Twitter. If these new stories are any indication, you should now realize that you should pay Twitter as much as any other media.

Tags: facebook, Iran, twitter
Posted in Public Relations, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Twitter silence in a minor crisis.

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Originally, I planned on blogging about Apple’s keynote address and how Twitter probably carried as much, if not more detail along with quicker commentary than any of the larger blog outlets would have managed.

Then something interesting happened this morning. I noticed the top trending topic on Twitter was AT&T. I hadn’t paid it much mind until I saw a friend of mine tweet, “RT @steveagee Dear AT&T, how does it feel to be the number 1 trending topic simply for being a piece of shit?” For the record, I don’t know or follow Steve Agee, but he brings up a good point.

I’d never want to be where AT&T is on twitter, nor would I want one of my clients there. The fact remains though, if you’re doing crisis communication, you damned well better to be prepared for that possibility.

Just for a little background, AT&T doesn’t support two very desired features on the iPhone. One is something called tethering, which basically lets you use your phone as a modem. The second and (apparently) more important one is MMS, which includes picture messages. While the iPhone on AT&T won’t support it, it can be supported on other carriers (in Europe) and other AT&T phones. Add to this the multitude of issues customers have with AT&T’s pricing structure. The latter probably wouldn’t be that bad if not for the other issues. It all adds up. Keep in mind this is a quick summary.

AT&T does have a twitter account, and it does tweet. How useful is it? They have around 5,500 followers but say nothing about the criticisms that iPhone customers have hurled their way. In fact, the twitter feed for AT&T contains a mind-numbing list of promotions. It’s not very useful and definitely not conversational.

AT&T’s situation is precarious. The Cult of Apple seems to be ready to cut the company off at the knees. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is starting to look at new carriers. Right now AT&T is taking the bad road of silence and finger pointing. Officially AT&T has said very little. They could take a lesson from Dominos and at least try and calm people down over twitter, but I don’t see that happening.

I can’t stress it enough – in today’s climate of conversation, you cannot ignore negative talk about your brand. It will not go away. Likely it will only get worse.

Tags: apple, at&t, crisis communication, dominos, iphone, pr, twitter
Posted in Public Relations, Social Media | No Comments »

Live or Die by Social Media.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

These days, if you haven’t planned for any social media interaction with a large or national campaign, you’ve doomed yourself to failure. Indeed, if you’re a national company and your crisis plan doesn’t have social media embedded into it, you’re in for trouble.

Sure, you might get lucky, but monitoring the social internet is as critical as listening to your customers who walk in and out of your store. More importantly, negative statements won’t just echo for a few minutes, but can sit around for a long time. Anyone with a fancy for Google can see and use these comments – from the media to influential bloggers and your potential customers.

A few good examples: KFC, Dominos Pizza, Swine Flu (sorry, H1N1).

In the most recent case, KFC decided to use Opera to give away free meals. In theory, this was a great plan. Oprah’s draw is extreme. The problem for KFC, however, is that Oprah’s draw is extreme. In short, KFC didn’t plan for this. They thought that they’d double Oprah’s estimated pull for the free meals and that would be enough.

Hindsight being what it is, even Oprah’s organization could have planned a little better and warned KFC that the impact would be huge. Regardless, what I think both organizations didn’t plan for was the power of social media, especially blogging and micro blogging (Twitter). When word got out via social media and the Oprah machine, the demand was too much for the KFCs.

To illuminate what went wrong, it might help to look at a company that did it right, or at least better. When Denny’s decided to promote its Grand Slam breakfast by giving it away, it carefully thought out that there might be more demand for a free breakfast than their kitchens could have expected. Restaurants greeted those who came too late with rain checks. While they took a few shots for it, it helped defray some of the negative sentiment.

According to the Twitter traffic and reports on the situation, KFC simply turned patrons away. Many were rude. They didn’t offer a rain check. If some of the articles are any indication, they didn’t even get buy-in from every franchise. The result should have been expected: people complained. There were complaints on Twitter and over the blogosphere. The primary problem may have been poor planning, but in that poor planning was a forgotten element: social media.

Dying by social media.

KFC didn’t plan for it, and as a result the social internet ate them like a greasy drumstick.

On the other hand, companies like Dominos handled their recent crisis slightly better by essentially fighting fire with fire, posting a video on the same site that hosted the original video. Dominoes also started using twitter to address concerns. Thought I think they acted a little too late – at least they acted. In the future, those companies should continue to foster their social media tribe. When it comes to communicating over social media in a crisis, an established tribe is going to be a lot more useful than a brand new one. If you take a quick look at Starbucks, they have almost 176,000 followers who will hear them if they need to be heard. Dominos has less than a 10th of that. Who do you think is going to weather a social media storm better?

Finally, one group that seems to “get it” would be the CDC. To combat misinformation about the H1N1 virus (so-called swine flu) they quickly utilized Twitter to help correct the misinformation and panic that could have spread virally (sorry, couldn’t help it). Was it a perfect execution? Probably not, but so far there have been very few “perfect executions.”

So what’s the point here? If you’re in PR and/or crisis management, if you’re planning a large-scale promotion that could overload your infrastructure or if you have any connection to the image of a company, you should be scouring the social web to be sure your brand is protected. Anything else would be downright irresponsible.

http://www.twitter.com/starbucks
http://www.twitter.com/dpzinfo
http://adage.com/article?article_id=136551
http://adage.com/article?article_id=136484
http://adweek.blogs.com/tweetfreak/2009/05/brands-on-twitter-kfc-and-oprah.html

Tags: CDC, crisis communication, dominos pizza, giveaway, h1n1, KFC, Oprah, promotions, social internet, Social Media, swine flu, twitter
Posted in Public Relations, Social Media, Strategy | 5 Comments »

Quick Commentary on Amazon’s Current PR Situation

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Generally, it’s a bad idea to insult your critics. It will only fire them up.

Every now and again, I see some spokesperson try and explain some huge mistake with “there was a glitch in the system.” It’s a nice catchall, but do you seriously think that your audience is going to buy it?

Specifically, I’m referring to Amazon.com’s reaction to the discovery that they deleted gay-themed books from sales rankings and best-sellers lists. To paraphrase the CNET article: Author Mark Probst noticed Amazon removed hundreds of gay-themed books from the public rankings and best-sellers list. When he contacted Amazon, they said that “adult” themed books are removed from best-sellers lists. The article goes on to note that books with much more graphic heterosexual themes did not make the ban list.

The result: the blogosphere, twitter and Facebook have lit up with protests against Amazon. Amazon chose to react by calling it a glitch. The problem with that is simple, people aren’t that stupid.

If you’re going to do something, anything, you need to think of how the public (not just your public) might react to it. If you think that you can get away with it, you’re dead wrong. I suggest that if you’re going to do something that any demographic or psychographic might get angry about, you should pass it by your PR agency or department first. Changes are, they’ll either come up with a better lie than “It was a glitch in the system” or simply tell you not to do it, that it’ll cost you too much money to fix in the long run.

My prediction: Should they stick with this reaction, this will follow Amazon for at least several years. I have a solution, but I’ll give that out when Amazon gives me a call.

Tags: amazon, crisis communication, pr, Public Relations, reactions
Posted in Public Relations | 2 Comments »

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Celebs… Don’t go West.

Quick Commentary on Amazon’s Current PR Situation

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