PR Resource

A tidal wave rolls onto land then recedes leaving wreckage. This tidal wave is surging again and again and the retail industry is helpless to stop it. The public has been well trained by Amazon and other online vendors to look first to the internet. As a result, store owners are looking at their market shrink by the month. It is a perilous time to be in physical retail. One has to offer goods that are not widely available on the internet or must be ready with pricing and service that are unobtainable online. That is hard to do. The public’s relationship with retailers has fundamentally changed, and it is unlikely to be restored to what it was before. Something dramatic will need to happen to slow the public from using online. This could be a pervasive malware the likes of which is plaguing Europe at the moment. But even that might not be enough to halt the wave of store closures.

Dictators don’t listen to citizens. Rather, they tell their publics what to think and do. In an era of democracy, it is harder to be a sole power, but not impossible. There is Erdogan of Turkey, Maduro of Venezuela, Kim Jong un of North Korea and several more authoritarians on the world scene. They have stifled opposition in their countries and have kept their troops under control to protect their positions. Public protest is put down savagely. They might masquerade under a concept of democracy, but there is no free choice and the public learns to control its thoughts to survive. Those who cannot endure a dictatorship flee and look for a better life elsewhere. This causes dictators to close their borders to keep their people in. Dictators survive in an era of global communications by cutting off or regulating the internet. The concept of public relations is laughable to them. The public is just a thing to be crushed.

A gate agent is the point of contact between an airline and customers, and it seems that an open season has been declared to rough them up. It makes little difference that agents might merit some pushback for unreasonable behavior. When pilots strike, agents take the brunt of protest. When there is an altercation over ticketing, agents are in the middle of it. They aren’t prepared for the customer nastiness that results, so they fall back on procedure which isn’t adequate. An airline’s public relations takes a hit each time a set-to occurs. Would you book a flight on Spirit Airlines after the melee in Florida? At least you would think twice before taking the risk. The problem is that agents have limited power. They can’t conjure a plane and a crew, and if neither are there, no one is flying. Disappointed customers vent their wrath on the agent as the representative of the company. That agents haven’t handled anger well is understandable. Airlines are falling down on the job.

A story like this should make a CEO shudder.  A Teflon reputation can disappear in a second.  It only takes one article that captures the public interest and one’s credibility can be threatened.  CEOs should resist reporters who want to write about a company’s enduring esteem in the eyes of the public.  They should emphasize to employees that reputation is delicate and easily lost.  Hence, one should work constantly to uphold it and avoid flaunting it lest one become too satisfied.  Amazon has had some difficult stories to overcome — mainly, the way it treats employees — but it has not hit a downdraft like Uber.  For that, it can be thankful, but it should not feel righteous.

Here is a fellow who has cried “Wolf” too many times.  Even if the US would like to remove him (and it certainly does), who is going to believe South Korea and the CIA have assassination squads in the North? Kim Jong-un is paranoid and self-inflated. He is also brutal and has had several of his top executives murdered because he suspected them of disloyalty. In such a bubbling stew of intrigue, anything is possible and the only survivor is he who rules with an iron hand. Comparisons to Stalin are appropriate, but the country is tiny and insignificant but for its weapon and missile programs. Kim has progressively cut himself off from the outside world. He has rebuffed China, his only ally, and he is an active threat to South Korea and Japan. As his weapons technology improves, he becomes more dangerous by the year and his fear of assassination is entering the realm of reason.

Silicon Valley technologists are trying to help California’s farmers save water.  Eighty percent of the liquid goes to farming, so more efficient use is essential.  Already, more than 500,000 acres have gone fallow in Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley because of a lack of irrigation. With an inevitable return of drought conditions, the problem of keeping plants and trees alive and growing will once again be critical. But, farmers aren’t welcoming technologists with open arms. Agriculture is a conservative business. It is hard to change routines and processes that work for something unproven. This is why technologists have to go to farms and listen to farmers first. It is ground-pounding PR one farmer at a time until thinking changes and everyone starts to use a new way of producing food. And that is as it should be. One bad crop can wipe a farmer out. There is a fundamental need to test technologies thoroughly before introducing them.

If there is one failure that annoys citizens no end it is the spam robocall.  They come at all hours of the day and their pre-recorded messages are maddening. The Federal Communications Commission has admitted defeat in stopping them, so it is writing new rules and procedures to slow if not stop them.  Will they work?  It is much too early to know, but its appeal for help from the private sector indicates that the government body is none too confident it has the answer. Robocalls are not just poor PR. They are anti-PR.  Senders have no interest in relating to the public. They just want its money and they are willing to do just about anything to get it. It is telephonic theft.

One way to look like a fool is failure to know history. President Trump is learning that lesson — or maybe not.  He doesn’t know much or anything about those who came before him in the office, and it is creating a PR problem for him.  A schoolboy would know that Andrew Jackson had nothing to do with the Civil War and that Lincoln was a Republican, but not Trump.  It demonstrates yet again how ill-prepared he was.  Add to the mix that he doesn’t read but watches television instead, and there is little hope for educating him. If he were half-smart, he would avoid topics about which he knows little, but he sails in with confidence of the ignorant. Those about him cringe, but there is little they can do while he controls the Oval Office.  At this juncture, it is hard to believe he can be more than a one-term president.

New documentaries mark the 25th anniversary of the LA riots that occurred after the police beating of Rodney King.  It was a watershed event because a civilian with a video camera recorded police brutality.  Since then, with miniaturization and the rise of cell phones, video of events has exploded. Police are not the only ones being watched. So too are criminals.  It is hard to think of an incident now in which there is no video. Police departments are handing out body cameras to patrolmen and analyzing their actions. It is part of community PR to have video to defend oneself or to prosecute cops for bad behavior. Still it doesn’t prove or disprove absolutely what has occurred. Actions are often obscured during stops. A policeman can claim a person was reaching for a gun, and it is hard to prove that didn’t happen even if no gun is found. Video, however, gives a new set of eyes on police behavior and that is welcome.

Google has a PR challenge in how it uses raters.  These are contracted staff who perform daily tasks on Google, including making sure advertising is not placed opposite inappropriate content.  The challenge is making these 10,000 people feel like they are part of the search giant.  They aren’t.  They are outsourced employees of separate companies and as such, they enjoy none of the benefits of Google’s hires.  Because they are not part of Google but still a vital part of the search giant’s work, they should be treated better than they are, but they aren’t.  Google has taken a hands-off approach, which is what clothing and shoe companies did in Asia.  It took activist pressure to change the ill-handling of employees there. Google could be facing the same kind of force to revise relations with raters and setting standards for its contracting companies.  If Google were canny, it would move now before its brand is smudged by more sad stories of a rater’s life.