PR Resource

One government lie of the modern era involves flood insurance. Federal bureaucrats are using outdated flood zone maps that give a break to homeowners who otherwise would be forced to get flood coverage.  This puts the program on rickety legs because inevitably massive flooding will hit zones where homeowners are under-insured.  It happened already in New Orleans where the government spent billions to help recovery.  Why don’t Federal officials update the maps, especially in light of global warming and sea level rise?  Because they don’t want to put up with outraged cries of homeowners and politicians who serve them when insurance bills arrive in the mail.  If actuaries properly calculated the risk of future flooding, hundreds, or even thousands, of homeowners would have to give up their seaside or lakeside or riverside dwellings and move to higher ground.  It has happened along the Mississippi river where rural communities have been forced to move to protect themselves from breaking dikes. Sooner or later, flood maps will need to be updated or the flood insurance program will go bankrupt.  Who needs that?

Recognizing employees for their work is always good publicity and smart PR.  Consider this case.  A McDonald’s restaurant worker went above and beyond the call of duty and saved a disabled passenger in her SUV.  The company is proud of him and the standard of customer care he delivered.  So, it publicized his action, and the employee is a hero for a day. He will be the envy of fellow crew members, but they can stand taller too knowing that one of their own has done so well.  What he did was positive for the brand and a community service.  You can bet his parents and those who know him are collecting news clips and mentions of his valor.

Yesterday was supposed to be a record snow day in the Northeast.  It didn’t quite turn out that way.  There was snow — lots of it north and west of New York City.  But, the urban centers got only eight to 10 inches.  The snow was wet cement and it froze overnight, so one walking on it this morning didn’t sink in.  The panic was caused by weather forecasters trying to figure out the collision of two low pressure systems from Washington DC through Massachusetts.  Weather models couldn’t predict where the Nor’easter’s center would be and that would dictate the amount of snow cities would get.  So, they sounded an alarm days in advance and governors and mayors of the affected states shut transportation down and readied their plows.  The blizzard wasn’t a bust, but it also wasn’t the end of the world.  The forecasters did their job as well as they could and publicized the potential danger.  As a result, tens of thousands stayed home and off the streets.  It was good they did.

A dirty secret of agriculture is labor exploitation.  Worldwide, field and and factory workers have been abused, enslaved and paid ill wages.  Much of this has happened because urban and suburban citizens won’t pay what food should cost if these hands were treated fairly.  Bringing transparency to commodities is a giant PR task that isn’t being done because no one cares as long as they don’t have to pay more.  Groceries are big budget items for families and no one will pay a dime extra for that avocado or peach, much less a cut of meat or fillet of fish.  So, we tolerate less than Third World conditions for agricultural workers unless they have been able to organize and demand better lives.  That happened in California with the United Farm Workers Union, but poverty is still the basic condition of the agricultural laborer.  It isn’t fair or just but it is the way society operates and few are out to change it.

This opinion piece argues that it is time for journalists to encrypt all of their communications given hacking.  Left unsaid is anything about PR.  One can contend that PR practitioners should be protecting e-mails and writing with similar ciphers.  There is need for confidentiality before publishing of earnings releases, some product publicity, some HR announcements, delicate corporate matters such as a change of executives and more.  Given that anyone can be hacked at any time, PR practitioners should expect their organizations will be embarrassed sooner rather than later.  It is better to anticipate rather than clean up after a document dump.

It takes a committed mind to fly in the face of science, to ignore evidence and to hold fast to a position even the public at large has rejected.  There is little PR can do for such a person without resorting to propaganda.  This is the situation at the Environmental Protection Agency where a new leader doesn’t believe in global warming.  One wonders what rock he has been living under.  PR practitioners at the agency have a difficult task. How do they keep the boss happy while simultaneously rejecting his key belief?  They may find there is no way to square the circle, especially if the boss is fanatical.  A “lifer” will take the position that it is but four years under the man and with Trump losing the next election, reason will return.  An idealist will look for other work and will leave the agency until the current boss steps down.  This is a choice being made up and down the ranks.  There is no good answer for handling a fantasist.

Some situations and companies are helpless.  There is nothing PR can do to save them or even to elevate them a little.  Consider Radio Shack.  It is bankrupt again.  The retail concept has no present or future.  Yet, there are still hundreds of the stores across the US.  Radio Shack used to be the source for parts and media like ham and CB radio.  There are few Americans left who use either.  The chain did not keep up with the rapid evolution of electronics or their availability from larger chain stores that themselves are in trouble.  It would be best for Radio Shack to stop trying and to close down for good.  Yet one more brand that ended in the dust bin of marketing.

One of the oldest tactics in communications is to report the progress of products and organizations.  It results in stories like this.  Some companies don’t believe in progress reporting — notably, Apple, which presents fully developed products to its customers. Progress publicity, however, serves a function.  It keeps stakeholders apprised of a company’s actions and timelines.  It shows proof of performance.  It builds interest and excitement.  It allays fears that an organization might have gone off track.  Such publicity is so taken for a given that few practitioners think about it until a client says no.  Then it becomes an exercise in justification for letting stakeholders know where an organization is in development.

This is a skill PR practitioners might need in months to come.  Exposing fake news is more urgent than ever.  One can’t simply go to Google and check because Google itself is subject to inaccurate reports.   Fake news already damaged a presidential candidate, and there is nothing to stop it from maligning individuals and organizations.  It is one more reason why monitoring is essential.  Trolls will continue to make things up and insert them into seemingly good web pages.  There is no way to stop it because if one site is shut down, they will create another.  Whether they are writing stories to sell advertising or to injure another, it is vital to guard against fake news.

Why do PR practitioners persist in communicating the same message repeatedly?  Because people don’t learn. Consider, for example, tech bubbles.  We’ve been through a number of them, but investors still queue for the “hot” stock, the one that is going to make them a bundle in a short time.  Like this one.  A rational person would know to avoid tech bubbles or bubbles of any kind because what soars also falls.  But, investors aren’t rational.  They’re greedy, and no matter how many times they are told to control themselves, they can’t do it.  PR deals with this kind of situation constantly and the best we can do is to tell people again and again in new and more creative ways to listen.  A percentage will, but usually only after they have been burned a time or two.  The rest keep chasing dreams like the lottery.