High-Tech PR Blog >> Beyond the Hype

What the King James spectacle teaches us about publicity, communications and image

LeBron James' over-hyped, overblown, over-analyzed and ultimately over done free agency signing saga has treated us to a fascinating lesson in the power of celebrity, publicity, communications and image. 

As the most celebrated free agent in the history of sports, LeBron and his handlers knew that his choice would be be huge news.  The question they faced was how did they want to manage it?  Ultimately they chose to play it out like a combination of The Bachelor, with teams and fan bases publicly wooing him with incredible deals and public displays of affection, and an Apple product launch, keeping "The Decision" a secret until was revealed in prime time on an ESPN special.  

From my vantage point, team LeBron got an A in hype creation and coverage, but a D at best in message delivery and perception. 

In choosing to go to Miami, LeBron and his team knew that there would be negative repercussions.  Leaving any team creates bad feelings, leaving your home town team after failing to win a single championship to go to another where it will be easier to do so will look and feel traitorous to some.  See this letter from Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert to the fans to get a taste of this.   

What Team LeBron under estimated was the additional negative fallout that has been heaped upon LeBron about the process itself.  For many, it has all been just too much, sending a message that has led many to view him as overly narcissistic, caring more about the LeBron brand than being seen as someone committed to winning and even sacrificing to do so.  And that's too bad because what is somewhat lost in all of this is that LeBron is taking less money to go to Miami for what he sees is a greater chance to win.  Unfortunately, he failed to communicate his choice in a way that would at least begin to soften the feelings of anger, hurt, rejection and loss from the fans who loved him the most, those in Cleveland.

In concert with his decision, LeBron launched his official new web site and Twitter handle, @kingjames.  But incredibly, he has failed to use these channels to ensure the effective delivery of his message and counteract the negative fallout.  The site itself contains no content.  There, he should have at least posted a video or a letter explaining his decision and thanking his fans for understanding why he felt he had to make this move.  The Twitter handle has only five tweets as of the Friday morning following the ESPN show, including a request to submit questions, which he promised to answer last night. I guess LeBron and his team are too busy partying down on South Beach to get back to the 375,000 fans he picked up in a couple of days to provide those answers.

The King James Image Runs Aground

What is sad in all of this is that up to this point LeBron had done a great job managing his image.  From the age of 13, he's been pursued, promoted and profiled like no other athlete, perhaps with the exception of Tiger Woods.  Until "The Decision", he had navigated the tricky waters of sports celebrity remarkably well, but with this event he ran aground and it will take some work to get The King James ship righted and cruising through calmer waters.

In and interesting juxtaposition to LeBron's signing, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder, announced that he agreed to a 5-year extension with the team.  The NBA's leading scorer and 2008 Rookie of the Year, Durant arguably will be the most important player in the NBA over the next decade along with LeBron.  But unlike LeBron, Durant chose a much different communications strategy to get the news of his signing out.  He simply put the news out through his twitter page.  A long time user of twitter with 13,000 tweets under his belt and 200,000+ followers, Durant has received high praise from many fans and the media for how he handled his signing compared to LeBron. 

These events have shown how much the world of communications has changed.  Yet they also remind us that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing and that often less can be more.  

Tell me what you think.  Did LeBron's brand managers miscalculate? How long will it take for his image to get back on solid ground?

Using the upside/downside meter

Maybe General Stanley McChrystal had Dr. Hook's song about wanting to be "on the cover of Rolling Stone" on his iPod, explaining his mystifying decision to allow a Rolling Stone reporter to follow him and his team around for a month in the midst of the war in Afghanistan. I'm filing the amazingly free access to the general and his team's derisive comments about the president and other administration figures under "What Were They Thinking?"  I was frankly stunned about the detailed information about upcoming battle plans and wondered what ever happened to national security.  I honestly think my father's letters from WWII to my Mom were more heavily censored than this article was.  The General was embarrassed and forced to apologize to President Obama before being called to the White House woodshed this afternoon.  In his John Wayne moment today in the White House Rose Garden, the President  announced the acceptance of the General's resignation and the appointment of replacement General David Petraeus.

The key statements, from my perspective, from the President, were:

"The conduct represented in the article does not meet the stand for a commanding general."
"Troops must obey a strict code of conduct, including commanders."
"I welcome debate among my team, but I won't tolerate division."

The whole incident is a great reminder that, contrary to that old adage, all publicity is not necessarily good publicity.  We firmly believe in evaluating the upside and downside of media opportunities, especially when the news aspect of the interview is charged or tricky, and certainly when the interview involves national publications or broadcast media.  Many years ago a CEO of a start-up we represented was offered the chance to have a well-known business journalist follow the CEO around for the first six months leading the company.  Knowing how candid and flip that CEO could be and not being able to clearly map out that the upside of the access would absolutely outweigh potential downside, we recommended turning down the opportunity.  Hindsight showed it was absolutely the right call.

Just as reality TV stars forget about the cameras after a while or alter their behavior and play to them, any high-level spokesperson or team who has a good journalist essentially living with them for a long period of time is at risk of making critical mistakes.  General McChrystal, whom President Obama praised as a soldier and a leader, is paying the price for not planning this particular skirmish more strategically.

Thumbs up or thumbs down for CEOs on Reality TV?

This tweet caught my eye this week:

MarkRaganCEO: The CEOs who go undercover in "Undercover Boss" are nudged  by their PR departments: http://bit.ly/cicjfE

Digging into the actual article in the Los Angeles Times, I confirmed that the lead paragraph does say that CEOs who are participating in this new reality TV series which makes the big boss work with the little people in his/her own company have been pushed to participate by their PR people.  What I did not read in the article, though, is any corroboration of this assertion or any quotes from PR people about why they would have encouraged this exposure of their chief executive officer.

Which brings me to my question for all of you who are involved in communications -- would you want your CEO or a CEO client of yours to participate in a reality TV program?  I wouldn't recommend it myself.

Think about the role of the CEO in your company or the companies you support from a communications standpoint.  We are in less of a celebrity CEO marketplace right now, but the CEO of any company represents that firm in everything the CEO says and does.  If your CEO is willing to be accessible to the media and through various non-traditional communications such as a blog or a Twitter feed, this is a good thing and can be done in a safe way.  The CEO can work with internal or external experts to do as much as possible to prepare for interviews and to have written materials vetted.  A CEO who is well prepared for an interview, especially a broadcast interview,  will be engaging and conversational while being careful about what is revealed and how he is handling certain subjects.  It is a fine line to walk and it is certainly not an easy task.  With a blog post or regular contributions to a Twitter feed, the CEO can get a sanity check from a trusted communications professional before posting something if the subject matter seems fraught with risk. 

There is a bit of a safety net available for the CEO and the CEO's company with all of these communications vehicles.  This is not so for reality TV, which is designed to film the participants so constantly that they are eventually immune to the cameras and can be off their guard.  They are also edited so conversations and situations are presented out of context for dramatic effect.  Last, the people who draw the most attention on any reality TV program are the ones who are willing to talk the most and be most candid about fellow participants on camera.  Given the competitive nature of most CEOs, who are paid to lead and to win for their companies, one could easily see them vying for the most camera time and the most attention, which can be dangerous to their reputation and that of their company.  Since "Undercover Boss" focuses on one CEO at a time, it is less dangerous, perhaps, than a program that pits contestants against one another.  However, it still presents communication risks, in my humble opinion.  For one thing, in a tough economy, does it make sense for the head of a company to be using this much time in what is essentially frivolous activity, even if it does put him in touch with working people in his company he did not know previously?  And shouldn't the CEO have other ways to stay connected to those people anyway?  Is the contrived TV approach really necessary or are we serving up the TV equivalent of Dickens' Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to rattle the Scrooge-like boss into behaving more like a human?

Perhaps if a CEO was notorious for being difficult and that image was hurting the company, then I might see PR suggesting that a program like this could rehabilitate that CEO's image.  Even then, though, it is risky unless you have editing rights.  And the rehabilitation of image can be accomplished in a much more controlled way over time without resorting to reality TV.

So for the CEOs we work with who have asked us about "Survivor" and "Dancing with the Stars," I would have to say my vote would be "don't do it."  What would your vote be?

Educate, educate, educate re: RegFD rules, or else

In its 40th year of existence, Boston's chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) is a great group of professionals who offer helpful and interesting sessions and education for local investor relations officers and communications professionals who work with public companies.  Yesterday, David P. Bergers, Director of the SEC's Boston Regional Office, gave his annual update to a crowded room.  He had a number of interesting points to make, discussing how the agency is flatter than it was a year ago and has made it easier and faster to issue subpoenas and freeze assets of anyone accused of defrauding investors.  The agency has added an Office of Market Intelligence to become the central repository of tips, complaints and data.  "Information management is key," Bergers said, reminding the audience that he is providing his own opinions and not those of the SEC.

The morality tale for any company that hasn't fully educated and reminded its senior team about all of the requirements and restraints related to Fair Disclosure, Regulation FD, was Bergers' description of the first Reg FD case for the Boston office.  As he explained it, it was not fraud, but it was still a clear violation of Reg FD.  A local public company learned that it was going to miss its Q2 earnings.  The CEO and CFO agreed to issue a press release to satisfy full disclosure of this news to all potential investors.  After the release was issued, the CEO and CFO went on a road show to visit eight financial analysts.  When they returned from the trip at the end of the week, the CEO suggested that the CFO put together a clarifying email to all of the analysts summarizing the points they had made during their meetings.  The CFO was working on this over the weekend when additional news emerged -- the company was going to miss its Q2 earnings worse than had been expected and had been reported with the recent press release.  The CFO included this updated information on the upcoming quarter in the wrap-up email to the eight analysts they had met with and sent it to them without discussing it with the CEO or anyone else at the company.  The CEO did not even learn about this until Monday and the company had to quickly issue a Form 8-K to make this important disclosure of new news about the quarter to its shareholders.  That's when the SEC got involved, as this was selective disclosure, a clear Reg FD violation.

The CFO in this instance was savvy about IR and knew the rules, according to Bergers.  One wonders if he lost sight of his responsibility to maintain full disclosure of this news because he was moving too fast to wrap up the email to the financial analysts they had met with the prior week.  As Bergers had noted, the SEC is set up now to investigate violations more quickly and they are a "disclosure-based agency."  The CFO in this case paid a $25,000 penalty for his mistake.  The company's stock took a hit.

As Bergers noted several times during his entertaining presentation, "it is especially important to make sure executives know the rules and keep getting reminded of them."  Companies need to have clear policies in place about what company executives and directors can and cannot say or do with regard to communicating with investors.  Independent directors in particular must be clearly informed of these rules. 

And just to round out the discussion and keep us all paranoid in a healthy constructive way, Bergers noted that the SEC is sharpening its skills and technologies for monitoring potential violations over social media channels.  Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

How Toyota Used Social Media to Stop Playing "Rope-a-dope"

Toyota's death by a thousand cuts crisis has been an interesting study in crisis communications.  

It felt like the company was standing by mute and helpless -- or worse, clueless -- as one bad piece of news after another was being revealed about recalls of popular cars, suspension of sales of some models, and speculation about the next shoe dropping regarding a recall of the popular Prius hybrid.  Throughout this painful period, Toyota has been relatively quiet except for the information regarding actions customers and dealers needed to take for cars that were recalled.  

Over the past week, the U.S. President Jim Lentz was accosted by an ABC reporter as he was leaving a meeting.  He admirably handled the assault interview, denied there was a cover-up of problems that first came to light in 2007 and quickly ducked into a waiting car.  The Japanese CEO Akio Toyoda received similar treatment from a Japanese network reporter when he walked out of a session at Davos at the end of January.  Through a translator, it was clear he was as gracious as possible, repeatedly apologizing for the situation until he could gracefully move on.

Over the past week it's been reported that Toyota brought in and activated a crisis team and it's clear that the first order of business was to get busy communicating proactively rather than sitting back taking the slings and arrows that are so damaging to a brand that has previously stood for high quality vehicles.

Goodbye Duck and Dive, Hello Diggnation

One of the more interesting aspects of this campaign to restore trust was Jim Lentz's decision to do a live interview yesterday with Digg Dialogue (embedded below), answering the community's questions that received the most "digg" votes from other readers.  It was fascinating that this social media interview was one of the initial tactics of Toyota's crisis communications campaigns, but it makes sense when you listen to Lentz's key message, which he repeats over and over again in his answers to Digg reader Qs:  "I can assure you we will do whatever is necessary to assure our customers' safety."  

Aside from the poor audio quality of the streamed Digg Dialogue interview yesterday afternoon, I'd have to judge it a successful effort on Toyota's part.  Lentz sat across from the Digg interviewer wearing a suit jacket with an open collar shirt and glasses.  His demeanor was accessible, honest and straightforward.  He used some gesturing as he spoke, but it was natural and contained.  One would assume his staff had been monitoring the questions deemed appropriate by the Digg community since announcing the interview would take place and had prepared him well for this interview, but his answers did not seem studied or stilted.

On Cover-ups and The Timeline

He used the opportunity to tell the chronology of events from Toyota's perspective, which went right at the accusations and rumors about problems arising earlier that had been ignored or covered up.  For example, to answer a question from a former Toyota attorney which said the company has known about these issues for about three years, Lentz went right at the accusation and outed the questioner.  "Mr. Miller left Toyota in 2007" and is suing Toyota (and some other parties), he explained.  "We vigorously deny his allegations."  He then explained that it was late 2008-2009 that it was discovered that pedals were becoming slow to react in European cars with right-hand driving.  He said there was one report of an issue in 2007 in the U.S. with a Tundra, but it could never be pinpointed as an inherent problem.  He then explained that it's really been since October 2009 that this has been identified as a critical issue and Toyota has quickly assessed this and is fixing it.  "What is most important right now is that the fix is in place, dealers have added additional staff . . . for customers.  That is where we start to rebuild the trust."

Lentz was asked what he drives, which was a nice softball question (and the most "dugg") and he elaborated that his wife and son each drive a Prius.  "I can tell you I would not have my loved ones driving cars I did not think were safe."

There were non-crisis questions included, such as why hybrid vehicles are so ugly, and a nonsensical (in my humble opinion) question about Steve Wozniak's problem with his Prius.  Lentz gamely answered each and was clear about when he could not give a definitive answer, but did not duck anything or seem anything but transparent.

Conclusion

In some respects, it was like a high tech version of NPR's Click and Clack.  It's too bad one of those amusing and very smart gentlemen didn't submit a question.  From a communications perspective, though, it showed Toyota is out there telling its side of the tale now and promulgating its messages about customers coming first.  I have to give them a B- overall, only because they had an Incomplete for so long before they finally delivered this A performance.

Why reputation management is as important as ever (hint: because Google says so)

Google changed the game for marketers and communicators last month when it became a real-time search engine.  Little was known about how Google's algorithms changed to integrate social media-based content into its search results.  But MIT's Technology Review got the scoop on that this week in an interview with Google Fellow Amit Singhal.

In essence, Google adapted its core algorithm to rank information like Tweets in much the same way it has ranked web pages for a long time.  Here is how Singhal boiled it down:

"You earn reputation, then you give reputation."

Think about this.  To Google, reputation is the most important thing.  This is true of basic web content, but now there is the added dimension of social content.  This is determined by how important others think you are, how credible you are to your public, and how much you help meet the needs of those in your (buying) community.

To me, this points to the importance of reputation management, something that communications and PR has owned for a long time.  As with many other things in business, reputation management is becoming more critical than ever now that a company's buying public can turn to peers for information and opinion as easily as traditional sources of information. 

It’s important to understand how to use social media tools, but it’s most important to have a baseline understanding of your reputation before you begin a social media program and to be using social media in the right ways at the right times. It isn't about sizzle through animated Facebook Fan pages or overdesigned social microsites. Earning reputation in this context comes down to how well you can tell your story in an authentic way that the buying public -- and influencers -- want to share with others.

What this means (and how we are working with our clients) is being informative to your buying public in the same way the best journalists are. It means letting the personality of your people come through your blogs in a way that allows your buying public to connect with them. It means providing as much context or examples as possible when talking about the problems you help customers solve. It means being willing to use social media to comment on what other influencers or competitors have to say about larger market issues (at the right time and in the right way).

It also means listening and understanding how others with reputation are talking about you and engaging them in a way that shows you are paying attention and you care what they have to say.  Finally, it means monitoring how your reputation changes along the way and adjusting your approach.

This is why a good communications partner is important for companies to adapt their approach to reputation management. It's a risk for you to rely on digital services firms for your social media foray, as reputation management has to include strategic communications people -- both the internal team and on the agency side — the ones who manage your reputation and your content every day.

I'd love to know if you agree or disagree in the comments, as we care what you have to say.

Clearing the Slates before Baseball Season, Mark?

I can see the scene now. 

Former MLB slugger Mark McGwire is sitting down with his agent and publicist or a PR team they recommended and tells them he needs to clear the air publicly so he can move forward with his new hitting coach gig for the St. Louis Cardinals without any distractions to the team.  The communications pros in the room start asking him what he needs to clear up and quickly learn that McGwire needs to make the big admission, finally, that he used performance enhancing drugs during much of his playing career, including the season in which he broke the single-season home run record.  But, he tells them, that doesn't mean I couldn't have done all of that without steroids, as I am a gifted hitter and always was. 

The communications people start looking at each other and brainstorming about how and when to get this news out.  They plan on a statement from McGwire and some well planned and carefully orchestrated interviews with supportive journalists who will let him make his admissions and offer his apologies in the most respectful way possible.  They decide to do it during NFL postseason playoffs when many rabid sports fans are still wrapped up in American football and are only keeping one eye on the Winter baseball meetings and pre-season trades and acquisitions.  They decide they have to pull the trigger after McGwire only received 23.7% of the Baseball Writers' Association votes on his fourth Hall of Fame ballot and, most importantly, before he would publicly get very involved in preparation for Spring Training with the Cardinals organization.

It was well orchestrated and, despite the skepticism and knocks from the media, it generated enough sympathy and benefit of the doubt from the general baseball-loving ecosystem, former players, and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig that it met its mission -- to start the reputation repair needed for Mark McGwire and get as much of the negatives out of the way before the baseball writers would be converging on him, the Cardinals, and LaRussa at Spring Training camps.

McGwire was well prepared for his selected interviews, based on the one he did with Bob Costas for MLB.com.

Pulling out my trusty interview feedback form, I watched the video clip of the interview.

Anchor Points: 

From McGwire's written statement, the anchor points are:

• I'm thrilled to be the new hitting coach for the Cardinals and i am glad to now be in a position to clear up the questions about my steroid use before this new position starts.
• Steroids were prevalent in baseball in the late 80s and 90s and I used them over the years, in some cases to treat injuries.
• I am sorry this happened and glad to come clean, but I don't attribute all of my success to steroids.

From his interview with Bob Costas, the anchor points were similar, but he made some statements that differed, such as stating he first tried steroids in 1989 and 1990, but started using them consistently in 1993 and 1994. 

I'd give him a solid B for sticking to his anchor points.

Pace and Delivery:

His interview pace was very calm and deliberate.  He paused briefly before answering most questions and he was good about answering and stopping.  His answers were concise.

He earned an A for pacing and delivery.

Sound Bites:

As for sound-bites, he had a couple good ones during the Costas interview:  "It is the most regrettable thing I have ever done in my life," referring to taking steroids.  Asked about when he told Tony LaRussa and whether this was difficult, his sound-bite was "He's like talking to my Dad.  Yes. I let a lot of people down.  It doesn't feel good." 

He did not use this one during the clip I saw of the Costas interview, but a CBS Sports columnist blogged about what he felt was the definitive sound-bite for McGwire, "Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era."  Now that's an interesting sound-bite, as it indicates his remorse and shame, but also makes the point that he was a victim of his times.  It probably is as angering many people in the baseball community as it is convincing them of his contriteness, but it's still a heck of a memorable statement.

Yes, he gets an A for sound-bites.  It's clear that he practiced that last one.

Bridging:

He did not really have to bridge away from any tricky questions in the Costas interview.  Frankly, it looked to me like the questions were agreed upon in advance, as nothing seemed to throw him at all.  For example, when Costas read to him from Jose Canseco's book that first exposed the world to the steroid use in baseball and included a section that described Canseco and McGwire using steroids together, McGwire was not rattled.  He simply responded, "there is no truth" to the Canseco stories, which were used to sell his book.  He did not bridge away from questions about why he did not speak up about this when he appeared before a Congressional panel about steroids in baseball in 2005.  McGwire said he was "willing, prepared to talk and wanted to get this off my chest," but he could not speak up because his attorneys were unable to secure immunity from prosecution prior to his testimony.  He was vague about why the hitting coach position with the Cardinals has now freed him to talk. Clearly, it has motivated him to talk, but it's still not clear why he feels able to come clean now rather than previously.

I'd give him a B- for bridging, as he is not completely addressing the questions about why he is doing this now.  He hasn't successfully put away all of the questions about this, although he could have by going a few steps further.

Demeanor:

His overall demeanor during the interview was casual, contrite and penitent without being maudlin. He did almost break down at one point and Costas even asked him if he wanted to stop.  It seemed a bit staged, but mostly pretty genuine and for a large man, he maintained his dignity amidst the emotion he was expressing.

I'd give him a solid B for demeanor.  If the emotion was staged, it was well done.

Overall Grade:

Adding up the grades, I'd give Mark McGwire a B and I firmly believe that in the long run his communications plan will succeed and put him on the road to repairing his reputation and letting him get on with his new baseball career on the coaching side of the equation.  The story will swirl for a while and it still will be the subject of his first interviews as hitting coach for the Cardinals come Spring.  But the worst will be over by then and if he does a good job for this team, it will get easier and easier.  As someone who loves baseball and had the privilege of seeing him play with the Cardinals, I'm personally hoping that my prediction will prove to be correct.

The Genie is already out of the bottle, GOP

As a communications person who has often counseled clients to "deprive the story of oxygen" in the face of difficult situations where clarifying or responding will only cause a negative story to flare out of control, I immediately recognized Senator McCain's attempt to use this strategy to get ahead of the Sarah Palin book tour and media blitz this week.  He asked his former campaign aides -- who apparently are skewered in the book -- to stand down and not comment or respond to the allegations.  Unfortunately, though, the same machine that built former Governor Palin into a political force is not able to contain her now with this tactic.  It's a completely different context, of course, but it reminds me of the line Glenn Close utters in the movie "Fatal Attraction" -- "I'm not going to be ignored, Dan."  Clearly Ms. Palin is not going to be ignored and is going to say her piece as widely and loudly as she can.

As an Independent who swings Democratic and supported the other candidate in the election, I'm amused by how this is backfiring on the GOP.  I'm also somewhat relieved that the pundits believe the notoriety that the book will engender is not expected to turn into campaign-ready capital for the next election.

It probably would have been a better communications strategy to try to neutralize the scorned VP candidate by acknowledging her reported issues and mistakes that may have been made during the campaign.  This would have lessened the she said/he said coverage that is starting to build and will only make her book tour more successful and give her a longer lived soapbox to decry her treatment at the hands of McCain's staff.  When you have lionized someone who bills herself as a "rogue" and you alienate said rogue, you can't shut the rogue by ignoring her.  Instead you play right into her hands by responding to her -- and into the hands of her book publicist.  Perhaps the best approach would have been the line Al Pacino delivered in another movie, "The Godfather Part II" -- "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."

 

Why PR is a partner to marketing now more than ever

AdAge today has an article that mollifies many thoughts I've had in the last few days about the evolving role of PR. Michael Bush wraps together the perspectives of three chief communications officers that also have responsibility for advertising and corporate marketing to explore the increasingly strategic role they play in shaping marketing strategy.

One of the perspectives came from Roger Frizzell, VP of corporate communications and advertising at American Airlines:

American's Mr. Frizzell said the airline's decision to bring both functions under one person was based on the idea that communications don't happen in a vacuum. He said the integration of the two, whether forced or natural, is happening for every marketer and it's due mainly to the advent and acceptance of social media and heightened social consciousness of Americans on environmental, governance and diversity issues. "When you're talking corporate reputation now you're talking marketing," Mr. Frizzell said. "As advertising budgets shrink and the economy gets tighter, you have to rethink your ad spend and PR can maximize that ad spend. In some cases it should compliment creative work and replace it in others."

Another major point in the article is that PR and communications teams bring an important perspective that helps shape the story the company wants to tell, especially when it comes to the benefits its products and services offer to customers. This isn't done in a vacuum, however, and is part of the perspective communications teams bring to the table. Through an ability to listen and understand just what customers think about a product or brand, PR teams can weigh in on how messages may be received if there is a different perception or opinion out there. Implicit in this is the reality that there is less control over the the message now more than ever.

It was ironic that Intuit's chief communications officer, Harry Pforzheimer, was quoted in the article, as his company is a good example of my last statement. One of the big tech news items last week was Intuit's acquisition of Mint. While tech blogs hailed it as a great exit for Mint, the reaction by both Mint and Quicken users was decidedly negative. The blog posts of both Mint's CEO and Intuit's community relations person garnered collectively more than 700 comments from customers that mostly disapproved of the deal, many of them former Quicken users that switched to Mint because of legacy customer service and usability problems for which the former is well-known (I certainly experience them myself as a Quicken user).

Mint and Intuit are advanced in their use of social media, and deserve credit for using their blogs as part of the communications around the merger announcement, as well as publishing all comments. It is clear that the communications team was well aware of the negative reaction, since both posts published updates responding to some of the concern -- although not enough to quell it. It also published a guest post by Scott Cook, Intuit's founder, on Mint's blog on Friday, to which the comments were slightly more favorable.  

While this is an example of the trend discussed in the AdAge article, it shows the breadth of perspective PR can bring and how much further it can go to lead in ensuring a company communicates in an authentic way. For example, why couldn't Intuit convey the messages it had to tack on through blog updates and Scott Cook's post in the first place? If the customer sentiment ran that deep, shouldn't that have calculated in the initial planning and execution? This is a role PR can (and perhaps did) play.

Avoiding the CEO Apology Letter

Every so often, a PR scenario makes the headlines and reminds me why it is so important to clearly understand what products do not do well, in addition to what sets them apart.

If you haven't read about it already, I'm referring to SIGG's recent PR fiasco around its enviromentally-friendly water bottles, which up until recently, were perceived by customers as BPA-free.

The CEO published an apology letter on the SIGG Web site last week explaining how he made a mistake in 2006 by not informing his customers that there were traces of BPA in the lining of the containers. Instead, SIGG published several third-party studies that documented that the liners did not leach BPA into the containers, but they never came right out and said they were BPA-free. Of course, then the company went on to market BPA-free containers in 2008, which raised ongoing questions that eventually led to the apology letter.

And the latest blow to the company came from its co-marketing partner, Patagonia, which publicly stated it has now severed ties with SIGG based on the situation and the fact that SIGG apparently told Patagonia in 2005 that their bottles were BPA-free.

A few thoughts on this situation:

1) Yes, consumers are angry and have made their voices heard on the Internet, but from what I gathered from the blogs and articles on the topics, no one really asked if they were BPA-free - they just assumed they were, based on the trust they had in the green brand, which the 100-year old, 127-person company had managed to create over the years. This supports the fact that brand loyalty often makes people forget to ask the right questions. SIGG clearly made a very large mistake, though consumers need to remember that brand blinders often exist and they are still responsible for doing their own research and asking the right questions.

2) When the company decided to research and develop BPA-free liners in 2006, it appears that no one questioned how they would end up launching these liners to a market that already thought they were BPA free? This is where PR counsel should have stepped in initially.

3) Steve Wasik, CEO of SIGG, was recently quoted saying there are higher standards of transparency for green companies, and I tend to agree with this statement. Yes, it's not fair, but whoever said life was fair. Green companies better understand this statement or they will eventually pay a steep price.

4) What is the lesson for non-green companies? Ask the right questions during product roadmap discussions, if you're developing a better product for the future (who isn't?), make sure your customers have access to public information that clearly outlines what your existing product can and cannot do.

5) And finally, as we all continue to experience, social media breeds an entirely new level of zealous citizen journalism that is hungry for the truth. So if you're hiding something, be prepared for it be discovered. And this goes for the 127-person companies out there, too. Crisis communications is not just a Fortune 500 corporate brand problem to worry about - it can happen to any company, of any size, with a customer base that has access to a computer.