PR Resource

Watching a brand die is an ugly, disheartening experience, especially when that brand once dominated the marketplace.  That is what is happening to Sears.  People of a certain age remember when the retail chain dominated America’s malls.  It was an anchor store. Tens of thousands moved through its aisles monthly.  Then it was bought out by a financial engineer who thought he knew how to run retail.  He wrecked the chain and along with it the struggling K-Mart stores.  Now he is doing the only thing he knows how to do — closing stores and retrenching in a process of slow strangulation.  The problem with Sears is that consumers don’t need it.  They have plenty of shopping options whether online or on the floor of other stores.  Sears has not kept up and the harder it struggles, the worse it gets.  There is no compelling story behind the brand, no sense of flair, nothing to entice consumers into its space.  It needs lessons from Target, which has a sense of style that Sears is missing with its stodgy approach.  Sears should be a reminder to marketers and communicators that nothing is safe in the marketplace.  One needs to work each day to advance a brand or watch it slip quickly into irrelevance.

It is good that a medium can call Silicon Valley publicity what it is — hype.  In a review of 2016, Wired reports that the “hype machine sputtered.”  All the promises of forthcoming and groundbreaking technologies failed to produce a major breakthrough.  That, however, didn’t stop the drum beating and flacking.  The Valley has over-promoted itself for decades and still gets listeners in the media who write about the next big thing before it is fully developed and tested in the marketplace.  PR practitioners have been willing accomplices in this hype machine since the beginning.  It is profitable business for them, but they stretch the truth daily to please their clients, which is not good.  How many times can one proclaim the next revolution before members of the media become cynical?  It hasn’t happened yet, but articles from media like Wired are a harbinger of tougher reporting.

Many were glad 2016 ended.  It was a difficult year with notable deaths and a shocking result of the presidential elections.  2017 isn’t offering much in the way of promise.  For one, the presidential inauguration is days away, and we will have a new leader who must choose between acting the buffoon or behaving responsibly.  For another, terrorism hasn’t slowed, and although the economy is better, it still might slow again.  There is no way of knowing at this point.  While it is traditional to look at a New Year with a sense of hope, this year instills a sense of danger.  PR practitioners should unfold their programs with caution, being prepared to change or pull back their messages.  If all goes well, come next December one can breathe easily.  If not, one can rest on being ready.

I’m taking a vacation until Jan. 3.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

It is safe to say that Ikea, the furniture and home furnishing store, is the only chain in the world having this problem.  Teenagers infiltrating its stores and conducting overnight sleepovers is an odd PR crisis.  Any number of things can happen and none are good.  The chain is right in trying to end the trend before it gets too far along.  So far, 10 of its stores have had illegal sleepovers and more teens will try.  They are motivated by a YouTube video which shows two teenagers prowling the store at night when the store is closed.  An Ikea spokesperson said it was no fun being in a store with its sensors activated, but that is unlikely to stop daring teenagers.  Ikea might have to expand security until the urge to sleep overnight in it stores passes away.

New York Life, Georgetown University, Volkswagen are but three of several institutions grappling with their history.  New York Life revealed that it wrote insurance policies on slaves as property.  Georgetown learned that its founding fathers had slaves that they sold to keep the young college afloat.  Volkswagen dealt with the use of slave labor in its factories during World War II.  Each instance is a public relations challenge.  How are the institutions going to handle it?  How will they atone today for deeds of long ago.  There is no easy answer.  Whatever one does is hardly enough for the descendants of those enslaved.  All three have taken the first step and researched the past to reveal the truth.  It is not clear in every instance what the second step should be.  Georgetown has initiated several programs.  It is unclear what New York Life might do.  Volkswagen seems content with a thorough research and making findings public.  There are no rules or protocols.  Hence, each institution can respond in its own way.  Whatever they elect to do, the past is present in PR programming.

Do people pay attention to what a CEO posts on a blog?  Yes, they do.  Tim Cook’s blog entry for employees at Apple sparked media discussion.  The journalist’s story projected the messages farther than the original target.  And, it lent additional credibility to the posting by affirming what the CEO wrote.  Often, CEOs feel they don’t have time or interest in feeding back to employees through blogging or tweeting.  They would rather do a town hall or other live session, but it is difficult to arrange those on a regular basis.  Social media can serve well in the interim.  Why don’t more CEOs blog or tweet?  It was not built into their routines as they rose in management.  They are not used to it and don’t see the value.  The more that immediate communication moves into social media, the greater the need for CEOs to adapt.  Secondary communication will never take precedence over primary, but it has a power of its own that savvy CEOs should be exploiting.

Islamic terrorists are daring the Russian government to get into a pitched battle with them — and they have succeeded by killing its ambassador to Turkey.  The shooting was an act of war — a public statement of enmity, a challenge.  Putin will almost certainly not back down from the punch in the gut.  The terrorists are foolhardy in their belligerence.  They blow themselves up in an effort to kill others.  They kill indiscriminately.  They rape and pillage and justify all of their actions in the Koran.  Peace-loving Muslims are horrified, but there is little they can do other than to cooperate with authorities in isolating radicals and turning them in.  The more that acts like this happen, the greater the burden on Islamists to prove they belong in the 21st Century and are not throwbacks to AD 700.  The communications gap is growing by day, and there is an urgency to stop its growth and close it.

Facebook is undertaking a campaign to combat fake news.  It is a belated recognition that false stories on its web site were influencing people in negative ways.  Some commentators accused Facebook of throwing the election to Donald Trump because it had not policed fake news to that point.  Facebook understandably rejected that claim but it accepted that phony stories are a public relations issue for the company.  So, it has put in place machinery and human judgement to root out the trash and keep bonafide stories.  Is it perfect?  No. Nothing can catch fake news 100 percent of the time.  But, if Facebook can reduce false stories by a high percentage, it will make a stride toward protecting its users.  That in itself would be good PR.

This is an interesting essay about women in management.  Essentially, the author says that most women choose the “Mommy Track” rather than the corporate management ladder. Professional women are beating the publicity drums for more women to stay in the company environment, but they are having a tough time getting colleagues to listen.  What the activists have missed is that Motherhood is a profession as great as anything that a corporation could confer on an individual.   Many women choose not to divide their time between the office and home.  To them, the home is more important.  Kudos to them.  That, however, leaves professional women gnashing their teeth because the upper ranks of management are dominated by men. There is no easy answer for this.  Some women can split their time successfully.  Some can’t.  There should be no shaming of those who choose not to remain in the corporate ranks.