Archive for May, 2008

Consumers and techies, alike, have been atwitter over the lack of availability of Apple iPhones worldwide. Everyone knows that a new, 3G-capable iPhone will be debuted soon. But, suddenly and without warning, iPhones vanished from Apple stores and Apple.com in early May. There’s been all kinds of speculation on Web sites and blogs that follow Apple, like MacRumors.com, about the reasons but none have gotten to the core, I believe, behind Apple’s reason (catch the pun?!)

Apple is unquestionably the most consumer-friendly company on the planet. If you have a question, they answer it. If you have an issue or problem, they fix it. If you wish to return something, they take it back with a smile and give you a refund. Unfortunately, a lot of consumers have taken advantage of Apple on that last point. Consequently, Apple is being smart about the introduction of the new iPhone.

CEO Steve Jobs will take a stage on Monday, June 9, at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, and he will unveil the new 3G model iPhone. The date is one month from when iPhone availability officially ended … 30 days and past Apple’s return and refund window.

It’s a brilliant and bold move of great integrity by Apple because it makes for a clean introduction of a refined product. Apple is taking away the chance for controversy, as it has experienced in the past, caused by consumers who buy an Apple product and then demand an exchange or refund when a newer model comes along.

We will be watching to see how it plays out. In the meantime, I love my first generation iPhone.

In today’s world of intense message chaos, blogs have provided an effective online channel for expression of voice and words. But, what are the rules, best practices and ethical boundaries in the vast blogosphere?

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has made available online and for free download its “Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents.” It is the most credible standard for basic ethical and journalistic conduct in the world of blogging, in my opinion.

Jack O’Dwyer, the respected and long-time voice of reason in the public relations industry, recently wrote about the use of students in communications classes at five universities to post phony profiles and bogus statements on Facebook and MySpace on the evils of counterfeit handbags, clothing, sporting goods and other consumer products.

The PR campaign was cooked up by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition — a whistle-blower front for high-end consumer brand products — and Paul Werth Associates, with the complicity of the university professors. The whole scheme was downright dishonest and wrong, in my opinion, and I question its ethics. Most troubling was the lesson it taught the students about deceptive behavior by some people in business and corporate America.

Asked by AdWeek about the deceptions in the campaign, one student said this was nothing but the reality of how PR works. “PR people, in general, have very little morals when it comes to being completely honest with the consumer.”

I asked Robert Barchiesi at the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition by email to comment about his organization’s campaign, as reported by AdWeek. His response via email, “Their (sic) is nothing misleading about it. What specifically are you referring too (sic).”

There’s something terribly counter-intuitive about an anti-counterfeiting group using less than fully transparent practices in a PR campaign. As O’Dwyer correctly observed, “fake anything hurts PR.”

Over years of consulting on strategic marketing communications issues, I have observed that one of the core reasons that organizations, business and governments suffer financial and other hardships and sometimes fail is because of self-inflicted damage. Losing market share or shareholder value or any other benchmark of success, especially revenue, is rarely as a result of a competitor taking it away but rather an organization giving it away through unwise decisions and policies. There is the case today than the mainstream news business. A couple of examples that forecast the future, I believe, for specific news organizations:

1. The Washington Post online.  If this online news organization ever had a strategic compass to chart a place in the competitive online world it was lost long ago or most likely never existed.  Today, The Washington Post online does not reflect its core market and community of the nation’s capital, and its audience numbers show the decline, as measured by Alexa.com. The newspaper’s site design has not changed much in the last six years.  Even the online news site of WTOP, a local radio station in the Washington, D.C. area, has more online audience than the Post.
2. MSNBC.  This cable news operation (when it is not airing infomercials for cleaning supplies and exercise gadgets) once was outstanding, particularly in its coverage of Katrina and the hurricane’s damage in 2005.  But that was then.  Today, MSNBC shows nine year old video of TV entertainment reporter Bill O’Reilly going obscene on camera and ignores covering world news, such as the earthquake in China or cyclone disaster in Burma.  For MSNBC, it’s all about talking about how great their own campaign coverage has been … at a time when many viewers just want the news.
3. CBS 60 Minutes.  Once the premier television news program, 60 Minutes is relegated - due to budget cutbacks - mostly to doing interviews with personality authors about their news books.

As the digital revolution has evolved online, blogs are taking more of a role to express freedom of thought and voice. For example, human rights organizations occasionally support independent bloggers who target messages to people living under governments that restrict free flow of information and news. There’s one big problem, however. The ordinary people in many of those countries with Internet access will never see a blog. Here’s why –

Many bloggers use free Blogspot blogs, and oppressive governments in countries such as China, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and India … and others … have the ability to block all access within those countries to any Blogspot blog … and they do. As a matter of fact, any blog with a URL such as … yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.typepad.com … cannot be accessed by people in those countries. When governments have that power of censorship, they negate any attempts to influence … whether the general public or the government itself.

There is a solution … register a specific domain name or URL through a service such as GoDaddy.com and import the free Blogspot or Typepad into a standalone Wordpress site. In that way, the site cannot be blocked and is available for people to see around the world, provided they have access to the Internet.

“Today’s news media is clueless and scared.”  A friend who was a 30 year veteran of the newspaper business recently made that candid statement about today’s condition of the news media.  And, you know what?  Even though his statement uses a pretty broad brush, I think he’s mostly correct.

Let me provide an example:  Have you heard any reporter challenge either McCain or Clinton to explain how they would lift the tax on gasoline this summer?  Heck, Congress takes a year just to clip its fingernails.  There’s not much happening on Capital Hill except more funding of the war, and there’s certainly no one up there wishing to ruffle feathers with the oil companies out of fear of losing big bucks when the next election rolls around.  But, have you heard just one reporter ask either candidate … how?!

Here’s why the reporters are timid:  (1) With all the cutbacks in the news business, they are scared of losing their jobs or (2) they are afraid they’ll get kicked off the glamor assignment of riding on the campaign bus or (3) it hasn’t occurred to them that it’s okay to ask any intelligent questions.  

The once-admirable trade of being a news reporter … a journalist … has today become dominated by a flash and trash mob, and don’t rock the boat.  TV news is just a dummied-down form of show biz … except for the NewsHour on PBS.  Newspapers have cut newsroom staffs to the point where those left are terrified of losing their jobs.

So, the politicians with all their big ideas mostly get a free ride.  Yeah, I think my friend was right.

As I was pumping regular gasoline into my Volvo today that cost $3.65 a gallon - the highest amount I have ever paid - I thought about a news story I had just heard: While Exxon Mobil earned $11 billion during the first quarter of 2008, buoyed by soaring crude oil prices, some oil industry analysts voiced disappointment that the profits were not higher.

The oil giant’s profits rose 17 percent against the same period last year, and some greedy ba***rd was “disappointed!” Yet … we consumer pay it, and we keep our voices muted.

Then I thought about friends who are communications executives at Exxon Mobil and what an easy job they have of spin control over the profit story because there’s not a damn thing the American consumers are doing about it, except buying more SUVs.