Personal notes

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.

I think we may be witnessing the death of American Airlines’ brand reputation, caused largely by self-inflicted poor corporate communications. Yes, the airline was faced with a real problem of fixing the aging wiring in their aging fleet of MD-80 jetliners, some that date back to the ’70s. Yes, the airline could have spread it out over months rather than being forced into action by the FAA.

It would have been so easy to get out ahead of this aggravating issue for the flying public, use more contemporary methods of communications and show some empathy. But, American created its own form of crisis communications by poor communications.

Ripping a page from 1970s-style corporate communications, American’s CEO, Gerald Arpey, said there was nothing to be alarmed about. “Irrespective of FAA oversight, no one would put a plane in service that wasn’t safe,” he told The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I put my kids on these airplanes all the time.”

A lot of people today might be responding, “Gee, Mr. Arpey, I don’t really care about you or your kids … I just wanted to get home because my mom was ill or we wanted to attend a wedding tomorrow … but we can’t because you screwed up.”

Why didn’t Arpey call the nation’s media to the airline’s repair hubs and personally show them the nature of repairs and try to explain the problems? Why wasn’t he the “voice” of his airline, as Richard Branson would have done, rather than issue a series of statements through a spokesperson.

Why didn’t Arpey show up at key cities and personally apologize to passengers who got slammed by the airline with cancelled flights and spotty refunds? Why wasn’t he walking the ticket counters, interacting with customers, taking their names and making promises to make good on their inconvenience?

Why didn’t the airline make better use of the Web to reach out to the hundreds of thousands of passengers who got stuck and penalized when clearly it was American’s fault?

Check American’s Web site, and it appears to be business as normal … except for one little line, “Aircraft inspections affect some AA travel.” No kidding.

I think American Airlines has dug a hole so deep that it’s hard to fly out of.

I switched on the TV this morning only to see Phil Donahue on a cable news/talk show slamming America’s stance in Iraq. I thought, how odd to hear Donahue, who is no expert on the subject, making such statements. Then, I learned that he is promoting his involvement in a movie that criticizes the war.

Then, Bernard Goldberg, an expert on little, came on to yack about Democrats and Republicans, and why? To promote his new book.

On Sunday’s CBS “60 Minutes,” a former hard-hitting news show, there was Douglas Feith, a former Pentagon civilian executive who promoted the war in Iraq. Feith was saying that if they’d listened to him, everything would be rosy in Iraq. First, that’s outrageously untrue. But, why was he on “60 Minutes?” To promote his new book. “60 Minutes,” by the way, has turned into a weak former news program.

Last week, there was a panel discussion on Jim Lehrer’s NewsHour on PBS about the controversy over Barak Obama and his former pastor, and the loudest voice was a minister who … well, you guessed it. He promoted his new book in every other sentence he spoke.

Principles … ethics … integrity … true intelligence. Push ‘em aside and sell something.

It’s a hard lesson for companies and organizations to learn in today’s new world of intelligent communications but … here it is: No one cares ‘about’ you.

When an organization, for example, issues a news release and concludes with a puffy ‘about’ section, no one … and certainly no one in the news media … cares.

What people — customers, consumers, shareholders, the media, stakeholders, employees, vendors, etc — care about is the value to them of what a company or organization does. That’s what influences an organization’s brand value.

So, for Starbucks to hype a “04.08.08″ promotion with such gusto merely to announce a new roast of coffee, it’s … well (let me think of something polite) … it’s not only dull, predictable and boring but tarnishes Starbucks luster to announce something more authentically important in the future. Sorry, Starbucks … but your feeble attempt to right your listing ship is more ‘about’ you than the value of why we should care.

CBS News, once known as the “Tiffany” news operation because of leadership and excellence in the industry, has been self-destructing over the last 20 years through a continuous series of colossal and highly public missteps. CBS News has fallen to sixth place in a three way television network news race for audience ratings simply because of self-inflicted wounds (the hiring of Katie Couric, the firing of Dan Rather, the loss of John Roberts, denudered “60 Minutes” and on and on).

Now comes a report in The New York Times by Tim Agango that CBS News may outsource some of its news-gathering to another ratings laggard, CNN.

Well, why not?! CBS News has closed nearly every one of its news bureaus, whittled professional and experienced news staff to the bone and already relies on news stringers with unknown credentials.

I make it a rule not to write about politics, and this posting is no exception. It is, however, about a line from Frank Rich’s column in the New York Times on Sunday, March 30, that’s stuck in my mind — about the tactical thinking style of the advisors who surround Mrs. Clinton. The subject falls into the category of how to do competitive positioning and how not to.

Rich referred to the style of Clinton’s advisors as, “…the political perils of 20th-century analog arrogance in a digital age.” It’s a brilliant line, especially in the context of who Mrs. Clinton’s advisors are and the old-fashioned style of PR they represent.