Author: Jim Horton

CVS Health has stopped selling cigarettes in its drugstores.  Walgreen has not.  Its reason for continuing to sell tobacco seems specious at best.  Walgreen maintains that it is the duty of pharmacies to help smokers stop and drug stores are only a tiny percentage of the retail outlets for smoking.  The result of that thinking is “Let us help you stop smoking.  Meanwhile, here is another pack of cancer sticks.”  Aiding and abetting smokers while telling them to stop is curious.  It is not a positioning I would be comfortable taking, and one wonders whether Walgreen’s employees feel the same way.  CVS Health has chosen the high road.  Walgreen has chosen to muddle its message.  It is hard to say whether this will have consumer impact.  (People select drug stores out of convenience.)  But, CVS employees can hold their heads higher, and that in itself is something worth noting.

This publicity stunt is insensitive and dumb, especially on the heels of another journalist beheading in the Middle East.  It comes under the category of “What were they thinking?”   Celebrating Headless Day on Sept. 2?  Puh-leeze.  No wonder journalists took offense.  It is a case of creativity run amok.  One can imagine the brainstorming and the “neat” ideas surrounding the Headless Horseman.  No one bothered to ask whether the ideas fit into the larger consciousness of the public where news of journalist decapitations are fresh and raw.  So they ran with the campaign and to their horror realized they had erred.  Time for an apology.  That won’t help the reputations of the publicists behind the dumb promotion nor will it help the show.  At the least, the stunt backfired.  It is hard to tell what could be worse. 

News that airline passengers are fighting over seat room should not surprise anyone.  Airlines have pushed economics to the limit and so doing, have inconvenienced passengers beyond tolerance. Airlines make no apologies for their actions.  In order for them to make money, they have to fly full planes and the more they can pack in, the better financially it is for them.  At some point, however, regulators and Congress will step in.  Until then, airlines will continue to shrink seating space and cram in yet another row in the steerage part of the cabin.  One would think that if airlines considered public relations, they would set a generous limit on seat distance.  So far, only one or two carriers have moved that way.  The rest are redesigning seats to make them smaller and lighter so they can pack ’em in.  When is the public going to revolt?  Isolated instances of passenger melees might not be enough to make management think twice.  Any way one looks at the outcome, it is bad public relations.

As scientists discover more about primitive man and his relatives, they are finding that the urge to communicate through use of visuals and symbols was there from the beginning.  This ability to send messages through use of abstract and realistic figures is one of the hallmarks of homo sapiens. From the beginning there are those who could do it well and those for whom rudimentary scratches on rock walls was all they could muster.  It makes little difference to the paleontologist, and it should be much the same with us.  Clear, concise communication, unadorned  but direct, should be a goal in the modern day as it was with the ancients.  The magnificent cave paintings of Lascaux and Neanderthal scratches both reveal intellect in action that rings down to the present day.  Could our ancestors have known their work would last tens of thousands of years?  Probably not, but it did, and in the survival are vital clues to the origins of man.  Not bad for primitive communication.

Sometimes, a company can run too fast in its effort to stay ahead of the market.  Here is a case.  Had Zara spent an extra moment considering the design of the shirt with its large yellow star, it might have realized that it was too near the concentration camp clothing that millions of Jews wore during World War II.  So too, with a bag that had swastikas worked into its design.  The two incidents do not prove that the company is anti-Semitic but there is a case for carelessness.  What is needed in the high-speed fashion merchandiser is a steady presence that evaluates designs against world events and sensitivities.  It seems that in its mad rush to be first, it has overlooked customers’ concerns.  Rescinding and taking back clothing is not enough to allay suspicions about its intent.  Maybe, just maybe, if the company was a fraction slower, it could evaluate designs from a PR point of view.

This is a good example of conflicting witness reports.  Who do you believe?  It’s important because one view is that of homicide.  The second view is that of self-defense.  That eyewitness testimony is suspect is also a part of this case.  Maybe one or the other or both are stretching the truth or unclear in what they saw and are filling in mental lacunae.  That doesn’t mean they are lying.  The brain does funny things when encountering sudden and threatening events.  It doesn’t act as an impartial observer and it is hampered by the perspective the witness has — whether close or further apart or at an angle.  The case will most likely be made for or against on the forensic evidence, which is extensive and alarming.  The officer hit the victim with six shots.  What is needed to bring a suspect down?   I feel sorry for the jurors who will take this case.  They will be under pressure of public expectations to convict the officer, and maybe they should — or maybe not.  The courtroom is where this incident must be decided and not in the public arena language and agitation muddy opinion.

Military and political experts are making a public case for the need to destroy the Islamic group ISIS.  It is similar to the public opinion effort President Bush made against Saddam Hussein and his control of Iraq.  Much the same circumstances apply.  ISIS has performed outrageous acts of brutality.  The group is steeped in blood and trumpets its cruelty.  Call it an anti-PR campaign.  That has made the Western Powers’ work easier.  The more ISIS talks about blood, the faster the West will work to de-fang the group through bombing and perhaps, boots on the ground.  Meanwhile, the government of Iraq is a mess of conflicting loyalties that can barely manage to operate.  Whatever is done to ISIS will be in spite of Iraqis rather than with them.  The result is that the US remains stuck to the tar baby of the Middle East.  It is not a pleasant thought for Americans who want the US out.  Will public opinion in the US force disengagement?

One position a company does not want to be in is a political pawn.  That is where McDonald’s is in Russia.  There is nothing the company can do as long as Putin plays tit for tat with America.  There is no communication that can make the situation better.  The company has to wait until one side or the other blinks and backs off.  It is likely this gamesmanship will continue in countries with powerful political centers that don’t respect the rule of law.  Companies have to be prepared to lose their businesses at a moment’s notice.  It is a risky situation and corporations might choose not to invest in unstable nations.  Meanwhile, competitors can enter and solidify brand positioning.  Neither McDonald’s nor any other corporation deserves this kind of treatment, but who said governments are fair?

How do you communicate on behalf of a company that has reached the end of the road?   The marketplace has turned against it and efforts to find new products to merchandise have failed.  Its stock is pennies per share.  This is the unlucky position that Radio Shack finds itself in.  Consider what the company can say about itself publicly.  “We haven’t gone bankrupt yet.  We’re attempting yet another turnaround.”  Hardly positive news to the public and to shareholders.  The communications practitioners at Radio Shack have little material to work with and less as the days go by.  Radio Shack needs a savior and the rescuer needs time — just what the chain doesn’t have.

Is it possible to outsmart a search engine and hijack a company’s name?  Yes.  It has been done.  Consider this example. Activists faked-out Google and directed searches to a web page with an insult.  Google was apologetic, but there was little it could do except change its algorithm to block the page.  Gregg’s was good about the situation and Google responded in kind.  But, the episode raises a question for PR practitioners — how to protect web pages from re-direction.  The only way to know for sure whether one has been subverted is to check the web page daily and to respond quickly if something strange has happened.  For most practitioners, this is not a problem, because they are on the web page everyday.  For those who aren’t, it should become a habit.