Author: Jim Horton

It’s a PR and marketing gaffe to have authorities seize your product because it is deemed unsafe.  But that is what happened in the UK to the makers of hoverboards.  Fifteen thousand were impounded for various electrical and other problems.  That is pretty much all of the inventory for the holiday sales season.  The inevitable question arises.  What were they thinking?  Surely, the manufacturers knew of the safety questions.  Did they plan to overwhelm the authorities and thereby get some through? Did they ignore warnings? Did they stand behind their product as safe and dared the authorities to take action.  Whatever it was, they are in a bind now.  The hoverboard has been effectively excluded from the UK for failing to meet European safety standards.

This is an example of innovative PR that if successful will change the way we travel.  The idea that cars can race by themselves without a driver at speeds approaching 200 mph is revolutionary.  As the article points out, racing will entail passing, strategy and pit stops.  If the vehicles can do all of those things without human intervention, it is a small step to transplanting the technology to the street.  Formula racing already is integrated with sensor technology and engineers gauge hundreds of metrics during competitions.  Replacing the driver is a logical next step but a huge one.  Drivers keep their cars on the edge while circling a track and know where the danger spots are.  A robo-car might not have the same intelligence and could spin out or wreck.  Still, it will be useful and groundbreaking if a field of driverless cars were to line up on a grid and compete.  It will prove that self-driving cars are ready for everyday use.

Sometimes a company must publicly disavow use or abuse of its product.  Here is a case.  SAP, the software company, stated that its software wasn’t the cause of problems that  forced DHL,the German mail and courier company, to take a huge write-off.  SAP supplied its software to a contractor who was tasked with installing it.  The contractor ran into problems and the system has been delayed.  The media had already fingered SAP as a party to the problems, and thus it was forced to clarify its position.  It is an uncomfortable position.  SAP almost certainly wants to remain a supplier to the contractor, but it needs to protect itself against a worse public relations fall-out should the entire project collapse.  There will almost certainly be lawsuits and SAP needs to sidestep those as well.  The best it can do is to divorce itself from a messy situation.

Uber, the much criticized ride-sharing service, has formed a safety board with notable names on it.  The question one asks is whether this is spin or a serious attempt by the company to insure security for passengers.  Uber hasn’t made much of an effort since its founding to play by the rules.  It barges into towns and has squads of lobbyists to fend off complaints.  It seems to believe that it would rather be forgiven than ask for permission.  Thus far, its strategy has worked, but it has built enormous opposition to its tactics.  The safety board looks like a band-aid in light of its past behavior and only time will tell if the company is serious.

The eyes of the world are on Paris for the start of COP21 — Conference of Parties 21— the climate control meeting among nations.  It hasn’t been successful until now but the rapid warming of the earth has changed many minds and there appears to be a new willingness to cooperate.  There are a number of publicity elements and opportunities and they will be exploited, but the most important outcome is an agreement to lower emission levels.  This is an agreement that the US will follow along with the rest of the world.  To date, the US has absented itself from treaties to cut emissions, but it now appears ready to slash the amount it spews into the air.  If it does, President Obama can portray it as a PR triumph for his legacy.  If for some reason, the agreement runs into trouble, it will be painted as a failure in his administration.

It is embarrassing when a company sets out to benefit customers but inadvertently makes things worse.  It’s a PR black eye.  That is what happened to Dell computer recently when it tried to increase security for its customers but ended by creating a security hole in its system.  The lapse is more than an annoyance to its customers, it is a danger that has to be fixed soon or else.  One can ask how Dell made the mistake.  Surely it had engineers who had reviewed the change and gave their approval for it to be made, but somehow they didn’t see the problem and let the modification go forward.  It took a programmer in the field to spot the error and inform the company about it.  So far, no one appears to have been compromised, but it was and is a near miss.  Dell will be more careful next time:  It won’t soon forget.  One backfire was more than enough.

Happy and memorable Thanksgiving to all.  It is a beautiful day on the East Coast and the Macy’s parade is taking place in sunshine and with no wind.  The temperature is in the 60s, and a more perfect day could not be asked for.  May your meal be tasty and filling and the football games exciting.

What happens when the people on whom you rely to sell your product know little about it?  They won’t sell it or they will represent the product badly.  This is the dilemma facing manufacturers of electric cars and their relations with dealers.  Car salespersons have been steering consumers away from electric vehicles and back to gas engine autos.  There are reasons for this. The salespersons know little about electric vehicles, and they can’t sell follow-on service because EVs need little maintenance.  There is, in other words, not as much incentive to sell a battery auto.  There is one way auto manufacturers can attack this problem — educational PR.  That is, getting dealership sales staff into electric vehicles and showing them the advantages.  It is interesting if auto manufacturers haven’t done this already.  One wonders about their commitment to the EV.  Then again, it is a new world for builders as it is for sellers and the transition takes time.  Autos have relied on internal combustion engines for more than 100 years, and the engines are not going away soon.

This article condemns the payment of journalists in China to run one’s news.  It’s old style publicity.  Modern publicity started at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 20th Century with agents who paid local editors to run news stories about the wonderful new invention, the telephone.  Editors and reporters were given gifts and money during the holidays right up to the 1970s when post-Watergate news organizations put an end to such remuneration.  It smacks of the immaturity of the Chinese news organizations that they tolerate such behavior and perhaps, even encourage it because of the low wages they pay reporters.  There is no way of knowing when Chinese media will walk away from the red envelope and meanwhile corporations have to get their news out in some way.  So, they pay.  Earned media becomes bought and paid for news coverage, an ethical dilemma.

Hundreds if not thousands of individuals and organizations have been victimized because of their name — ISIS.  ISIS belongs both to an Egyptian goddess and the terror group in Syria and Iraq.  The name association between a divinity and the killers is coincidental, but that doesn’t make it any easier for those who are not linked in any way to the Islamic State.  Some companies are changing their name.  As for individuals, they might have to do the same.  Part of the problem is ignorance.  Many in the modern day do not know that ISIS was a goddess in Egypt.  Hence, they are incensed whenever they come across the name in modern usage.  Still, that is a small justification for their acts.