PR Resource

This is worth reading in its entirety.  The author defines six modes of shareholder value that a company can take.  The first, corporate fundamentalists want to boost profits and share price immediately.  Nothing can sway them from the goal.  The second are corporate toilers who want to boost share price but are more patient about it.  The third group, corporate oracles want to boost share price but do so in light of societal/legal changes that will be coming down the road.  The example is becoming a green company before it is mandated.  The fourth, corporate kings, are so successful in creating shareholder value that they can ignore it for awhile and still succeed.  The fifth are corporate socialists who believe shareholder value is not as important as the needs of society.  The sixth and final group are corporate apostates who ignore shareholder value completely and use the money they make for other purposes.  Companies can move from one category to another based on their leadership’s views.  The article is a nice summary and worth noting because it shows how communications should shift based on a company’s concern for shareholder value.

Three D movies and broadcasting always seems to be a future technology.  The industry tried again last year to sell 3D TV sets but once again failed in the attempt.  Although some movies are coming out in 3D, the movie industry has not adopted it on a major scale.  There are reasons why.  People don’t like to wear glasses when watching a movie.  3D is often used gratuitously rather than advancing a plot.  Some movies don’t lend themselves to 3D.  The technology is not new.  It has been around in various forms since the 1950s, but it failed to sell then too.  It seems 3D is a medium of a future that never quite comes.  The same thing happened to the picture phone.  AT&T introduced the concept in the early 1960s, but it didn’t sell then or anytime in the next 30 years.  It wasn’t until the internet was firmly established that people began “face-timing” one another and then they weren’t using a landline phone but their computers and later, mobile phones.  It is a mystery that some technologies fail to impress even when they have proven benefits.

The stodgy auto industry is becoming new with the advent of driverless vehicles.  Old habits are being shucked for collaborations with tech companies that have the software and hardware for autonomous cars and trucks.  This will necessitate a change in PR for manufacturers and marketers who have for more than 100 years touted the pleasures of steering a machine in all sorts of environments.  It is likely that driverless vehicles will be promoted as a safety feature to begin with.  That is how current technologies are being  featured — backup camera, auto braking, self-parking, steerable headlights, lane keeping.  From safety the PR will eventually move to convenience — working in a car while it is driving, watching video without distraction of lane changing and turning.  The old-line manufacturers will test autonomous vehicles for a million miles or more and will proceed cautiously with a roll-out.  In the meantime, they will study the consumer base to see how driverless machines will be accepted.

To attack a much-honored civil rights leader because you don’t like what he said about you is incorrigible.  Yet, that is what President-elect Trump did on Twitter.  He has no shame nor any sense of PR.  He thrives on publicity, which he demands to be positive about him.  Anyone who would dare criticized him for his behavior is anathema.  It is sad that we are looking to four years of this kind of vituperation.  (I can’t believe that Trump will serve a second term.)  The best we can do is to ignore him rather than let rage get the best of us.  If we can achieve a point of balance and simply acknowledge that he is a buffoon, then we might be able to move forward.  It is too early to know the damage he might cause to the economy and foreign relations.  We will need to take that step by step.  It is too much to hope for an impeachment.  Trump is a fool who skates on the edge of the law, but he seems to have an instinct for where soft spots are and he barely misses them.  The Republicans in Congress are going to have to discipline him by refusing to go along with the worst parts of his behavior.  Meanwhile, ordinary citizens like us have to learn to live with him.

The San Diego Chargers are now the Los Angeles Chargers.  Leaving San Diego after 50 years has produced a psychic wound among fans of the football team.  Many will say, “Good riddance.”  Some will follow the team north and continue rooting.  The move is not unprecedented.  The Oakland Raiders moved twice and returned to the East Bay.  The Indianapolis Colts left Baltimore in the dark of night to the rage of forsaken fans who have never forgotten the slight.  The PR challenge for the Charger’s owner is now to build a new fan base, and that won’t be easy with another franchise in town, the Los Angeles Rams who also have moved twice.  The two teams are getting a new stadium. This was the friction for the Chargers in San Diego where a vote for a new structure was defeated.  The question now is whether Los Angeles can support two franchises.  That will not be known for years to come.  Thus far, only New York has been able to support two teams — the Jets and the Giants.

Nearly all big box retailers are cutting back, laying off retail workers and closing stores due to poor sales.  Wal-Mart is different.  It is cutting back on corporate staff but keeping store employees untouched.  The company realizes its PR is at the store level and between floor employees and consumers.  Stores with fewer retail staff tend to be dirtier, have inconsistent inventory and are harder to find items in.  Keeping retail staff boosts morale in its aisles.  Wal-Mart has been a target for unionization for years.  So far, the company has beaten back activists, but it recognized that it couldn’t go on paying the minimum wage and win the reputation war.  Now that it is keeping its retail workers and cutting corporate staff, it is showing good faith to consumers and its own workers.

This is a discussion of why the White House press corp is no longer needed nor valuable to the media or citizens.  The problem is that it is an anachronism, and it never worked well anyway in terms of covering the President objectively.  President-elect Trump has successfully end-run the mainstream media with his twitter and social media presence.  He has stiffed reporters for months at a time because he doesn’t like them — and the feeling is mutual.  The White House press office is a medium and it is no longer as effective as it once was.  Good PR dictates that one change a medium when it no longer works well.  Will the reporters and journalists now scatter across Washington to report on how the President is doing?  Don’t bet on it.  There is a magnetic pull toward the locus of power even if one is shut out of its considerations.  Look for more junior reporters to staff the room now even though it is a dead-end, and there might no longer be daily press briefings.

A tech company creates a new product.  It takes the market by storm and the company scrambles to keep up with demand.  Meanwhile, its other products mark time or wither and R&D struggles to develop the next big thing that equals the curve of the current product.  When skyrocketing growth stops, the company finds itself in trouble because it doesn’t have a replacement for the maturing device.  This, more or less, is the transition Apple is experiencing.  The iPhone drove the company for 10 years but sales are slumping because everyone who wants a phone has one, and the replacement market is a fraction of previous demand.  It is a tough position to be in from a public relations perspective.  Company fans are asking, “What’s next?”  Apple has answers but none yet are as appealing as the iPhone.  It might not find the next big thing, if history is a guide.  I’ve seen this scenario 30 years ago when a company rose and fell on the creation of word processing.  The business wasn’t ready for a technological shift in the marketplace and it went bankrupt when it could no longer sell dedicated word processors.  Apple is in no danger of going broke, but it does face a struggle to create new marketplaces that cumulatively are the same size as the iPhone.  Meanwhile, it has to keep its fans happy and customers coming back.  Messaging will be important during this period.

This week is the beginning of an extended run of political theater.  The President makes his farewell address.  The incoming President meets with the media, but most of all, the Senate takes up a pile of confirmation hearings for Trump’s cabinet.  The predictable will happen.  Republicans will praise the nominees and Democrats will throw stones, ask hard questions and otherwise try to derail picks they don’t like.  The media, attuned to good theater, will run stories about the controversial picks and barely mention those that skate through the process.  If the incoming President were a Democrat, reverse the roles and play the script exactly the same way again.  One wonders why both the politicians and the media don’t get tired of the theater, but they don’t.  Since the cast of characters are new, each occasion is presented as a different play, one never seen before in Washington and not to be seen again.  But, voters are suffused with boredom.  They’ve seen the drama too many times.

The new governor of Puerto Rico says he will push hard to achieve statehood for the island.  That is a tough PR challenge from several points of view.  Puerto Rico is a financial disaster at the moment, and people have been leaving the island for the US.  Previous governors of the island have wanted statehood and never succeeded.  Congress isn’t of a mind to grant statehood.  The governor has to convince not only his citizens but the populace of the US that his island is worthy of joining the ranks of 50 states.  If he should succeed, the island will be the first with a native language that is different — Spanish — and it will be the first Caribbean country to link to the mainland.  A positive note for the governor’s efforts is the close relationship between Puerto Rico and cities like Miami and New York where tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans dwell.  But still, it won’t be easy.