Public Relations

Washington, D.C., is conference city. Each day, there are countless conferences and forums held in the city. Seven days a week, year-around. People fly in, attend conferences and fly out. We don’t hear about most, even though many conference organizers hope the spotlight of media attention will shine brightly on their event, if only for a moment. Usually, it doesn’t, and everyone moves on, back to their own lives.

I was attending one such conference recently, a really terrific series of sessions on issues that could make a difference in the world. It doesn’t matter to identify the organization because you didn’t hear about it.

An organizer proudly told participants that their team of PR people would be sending out a press release to generate media coverage. The PR people probably did write up a release, use some useless blast email press contact service and the release is now sitting in spam filters at newsrooms around the country. Works that way, and it is too bad because many such conferences could make news … and make a difference.

In today’s world, press releases don’t generate news, and they certainly don’t make a difference. Sorry.

Here are some ideas for an alternative approach –

1. Make use of photos. Ask the photographer who covers your event to shoot several “news-style” photos. Quickly prepare a two-sentence caption and get those photos to the media where you hope to be seen. The media — mainstream and online — loves photos.
2. Streaming video. If you videotape an important speech, make excerpts available on your Web site.
3. Podcasts. Again, take recorded excerpts and make them available online with a short synopsis of the event.
4. Alert the media. Even if contacting the media is an after-thought, some journalists may be attracted to your story when they see photos and/or video.

Good luck.

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.

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.

An event called, The Arab Broadcast Forum, is scheduled for early May in Abu Dhabi. It appears to be primarily for those few journalists who have the time luxury to attend such shows.

The agenda seems a bit too plain vanilla and avoids many more important issues that journalists should be focusing their attention on in the Middle East. I’ve added my comments in italics here after their list of agenda items:

- The Media War in Palestine: Are Journalists Safe? (The answer is, No)
- Another Year of Conflict: Covering Iran. (No one credibly covers Iran, and chances are that no one will.)
- The Art of Elections: US Elections and the Arab World. Produced by CNN International. (Yawn …)
- Reporting on Oil: Moving the Markets. Produced by Ebsar Holding. (Oil prices - controlled by a cartel — are up. End of story.)
- The Displaced Masses: Reporting on Refugees in the Arab World. Produced by VideoCairo Sat. (Talk with leaders of Arab countries.)
- Utilizing the Power of TV Drama. Produced by Abu Dhabi TV. (Watch any CNN newscast for cheap drama.)
- Reliable Media Resource? Content from NGOs. Produced by Reuters TV (You’re kidding?!)
- The Arab League Media Charter. Produced by LBC. (The acronym, not explained, either means Louisiana Baptist Churches or Lebanese Broadcasting Company.)

The more important, timely and certainly more meaningful issues that will test the moral fiber of journalists and news organizations in the Middle East are obviously missing from the conference agenda: Terrorism. Coverage of Human Rights, Women’s Rights and Religious Freedom. By avoiding those issues, I can only assume the conference is just another PR stunt.

It’s interesting to watch how many major public relations respond to trends … usually becoming engaged after a trend is already well-established. Couple of examples –

My old friend, Greg Dobbs, and I launched a creative writing online magazine for baby boomers, called BoomerCafé, in the summer of 1999 in response to all of our boomer friends who complained they didn’t have a voice online. Neither AARP nor anyone else has ever provided an online voice of boomers like BoomerCafé over the last nine years. In fact, AARP tried for a short time to connect with baby boomers and gave up.

More than that, it was only last year that Fleishman-Hillard discovered baby boomers. Edelman announced a baby boomer team of “experts” last month. It’s odd that anyone would trumpet the fact that they are coming to the competitive table so late.

Then, there is online — Web 2.0 and the digital revolution. Most of the major agencies have only recently formed Web communications teams to address a trend that was charging forward at light speed five years ago! Other agencies, like Burson, Porter-Novelli and Ketchum, have yet to discover the Internet.

I’m not sure what to make of the slow response … it’s like a fire department that shows up a couple of months late to a four-alarm fire. Is it today’s overwhelming internal focus on making money for the big holding companies, such as Omnicom and WPP, that is preventing agencies from doing great work?

My column today in the Daily Dog online newsletter, the leading PR industry site:

Here’s a reality I learned long ago as a correspondent at CBS News: Perception can be the highest form of reality.

The media has always managed to create stories out of perceptions that sometimes carry enough substance to become reality. We make personal decisions based on how we perceive something or someone. And no two perceptions are exactly alike. We can be poles apart in our perception of something, and both be “right,” because our perceptions define our reality.

You and I see a cloud. It reminds you of Elvis holding a microphone; to me, it looks like a sailboat in the sky. Still, someone else might see a storm approaching. All different perceptions, all correct up to a point and certainly our own truths.

Today, the public relations industry is abuzz with questions about recession—will a recession hit the U.S. economy? Are we in a recession already? How would a recession impact the PR industry? How can we protect our PR agencies and businesses from a recession?

[Click here to read the full column online ...]

The word, “strategic,” is so over-used by many organizations that its true meaning is at risk of becoming trivialized.

The board of a trade organization mandates a “strategic” communications plan, without even considering what is involved. A not-for-profit launches into a “strategic planning” process that consumes many hours by many people, without clearly defining what the organization really needs. A consulting practice wants to be more “strategically positioned” to attract new clients, without accepting that it must take some risks to get ahead.

We live today in a whole new world … a world where “strategic” has taken on expanded meaning. It is a world where traditional styles and approaches in communications may no longer be effective. A strategic communications plan in today’s competitive world requires that an organization take some risks, get outside of its comfort zone and become active in new territory and with new approaches. It requires an organization to embrace and master the use of the increasingly influential communications tools provided by Web 2.0 - blogs, content management platforms, open source, RSS, wikis, podcasts, video - together with traditional tactics. In today’s world, “strategic” means engaging your audiences in conversations and … listening to what they have to say.

The more important question I would pose, however, is whether an organization is ready … and really means it when the organization says it wants authentic strategic approaches to become more competitive. In reality, most are not ready, and that is a critical defining factor. Clearly, those who are will become the leaders, today and tomorrow.