PR Resource

How can a security company continue to operate when it admits it lied about protecting customers?  This is the situation in which Lifelock, the so-called security firm, finds itself.  Lifelock has paid a $100 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving customers.  Yet the business continues.  It lacks credibility.  It doesn’t do the job it claims.  About the only thing in its favor is a fear that one’s identity will be stolen.  I would not be surprised if the business goes bankrupt in a matter of months.  On the other hand, if Lifelock can continue to play on people’s angst, it might squeak through.  Would you trust a security company that cannot protect your personal data?  Lifelock is a cruel joke played on a naive public, and it is next to impossible to do public relations for a business like that.

Thirty four Muslim nations have formed a coalition to fight ISIS.  The question remains open whether it is a serious effort or spin.  It will be public relations if the coalition acts to destroy ISIS.  It will be spin if it doesn’t.  PR is what one does and not what one says.  Action needn’t be dropping bombs on ISIS targets, but it could be strong coordination in rooting out cells of the terrorist group and giving them no place to go. It also could be committing ground troops to the fight in Iraq and Syria. The potential for action is broad but the will to act is the question.   Time will tell how successful the coalition is. Banding together is just a start.

It takes marketing insight and creativity to solve long-standing consumer headaches.  Here is a successful example.  Every householder has a need for maintenance services demanding capabilities beyond the householder’s skill level.  And, therein is the headache.  One doesn’t know who to call except by asking neighbors or clicking through web sites.  The problem with web sites is that they don’t tell one whether the service provider is prompt, knows what he or she is doing and charges a fair price.  The Happy Home Company solves those issues.  Rather than 10 or 20 calls, there is just one call to make, saving time and angst, and a case manager is assigned to the issue to make sure it is resolved.  That is smart marketing.

Often, facts fly in the face of conventional belief.  Consider this case.  It is hard to believe that lettuce produces more greenhouse gas than a pig.  But, if the scientists have calculated correctly, vegetarians contribute as much or more to global warming as carnivores.  Try explaining that to a skeptical reporter.  Sometimes PR requires persuasion against popularly held notions and the task is doubly hard.  One needs to find a journalist who is open-minded and willing to take facts as they are.  Not surprisingly, members of the media have biases whether they accept it or not.  They are convinced that a CEO of a company is a crook and all the evidence in hand won’t change their minds until the CEO is tried and found innocent.  Even then, many, if not most, will say the CEO got away with it.  One thing is certain. In a counter intuitive circumstance, one must have powerful facts in hand to shake the worldview of the party being persuaded.  Opinions won’t change minds.

What is a definition of publicity?  This is one — the lavish opening of a new Star Wars film.  Disney is known for its show business skill, and it put it to work for the grand opening of a film that cost it $4.3 billion to make — if you count the purchase of Lucasfilm into the production cost.  Disney expects to make $2 billion of that back with just this film.  The economics of Hollywood are boggling.  The publicity for the film had been going on for months leading to the premiere.  Disney left no opportunity on the table to make sure that Star Wars fans are panting to see the movie.  Disney’s public relations is the film itself — does it equal or better previous Star Wars features? Initial whispers are that it does.  That means the fan frenzy that Disney has whipped up will be satiated and primed for more.  What else could a movie studio want?

How do you regain your credibility once you have lost it?  It is harder than one might think, particularly if you were in the public’s eye as CEO of a standout company.  This is the tough task that the CEO of Theranos has taken on.  She was the toast of the media until stories appeared that claimed her technology for blood testing doesn’t work well, or in some cases, at all.  Since then, she has been under siege.  Her task is to prove her blood testing units do what they are supposed to achieve and at the low price point claimed for them.  This is the only way she can re-establish her vision for her company.  The extravagant claims before the negative publicity set the company up for failure, which is what occurred.  now she needs a humbler approach based on results.  That might be impossible to reach and her multibillion valuation of the company could dissipate instantly.  A CEO in this kind of crisis earns her pay, but then she should not have allowed it to blow up in the first place.  Realistic claims based on facts from the beginning would have served her well.

SAP, the German software company is doing well by doing good.  It is hiring 650 workers suffering from autism to become specialist technicians. It turns out that people with the brain malady are exceedingly logical and attentive to detail.  This is just the kind of worker SAP needs to debug software among other things.  The company wins by taking on a group that hitherto was considered unemployable and by gaining important skill sets.  One suspects that the company also is paying less for an autistic technician than for a software engineer.  If the company’s experiment proves successful, it will set a standard for other software companies to follow and the mentally handicapped will find themselves in demand.  Smart PR is good business.

A restaurateur’s nightmare is poisoning people who eat his food.  Even worse is the inability to find out what caused it.  Add to that a failure of the logistics chain that delivers ingredients to make sure foodstuffs are not contaminated.  All three crises are underway at the restaurant chain, Chipotle.  It can’t get a break.  The poison is E. coli bacteria that somehow has worked its way into its food from the West Coast to the East.  A headache for the chain is its dedication to using fresh, locally sourced, organic ingredients, so it can’t go to one or two suppliers and trace the contamination to its roots.  It is dealing with dozens if not hundreds.  This has compromised the firm’s strategy and marketing appeal.  There is little for the company to do now than to work as quickly as it can to pinpoint the source or sources of the bacteria and to get the restaurants operating again.  Almost certainly, Chipotle will have to modify policies and procedures to prevent future outbreaks and this might compromise its marketing message, but better that than a collapse of the entire business.

Just as liberalization laws are passing to allow people to smoke marijuana, scientific studies are indicating that some types might be harmful to the brain.  They are cannabis crossbred to produce higher levels of THC, the chemical that causes euphoric effects.  However, science is a step behind the law.  There is no clear link yet between THC and mental health. This raises an interesting dilemma.  Are we repeating the history of cigarettes in which science did not catch up with marketing of tobacco for decades, and when it did, it took decades more to reduce smoking.  From a PR perspective, it makes more sense to complete the scientific studies before opening the door further to smoking cannabis.  The public should know what it is getting into rather than manufacturing another health crisis. However, it looks now like society is ready to repeat past mistakes with another crisis in the making.

Consumers fall for illusions regularly.  They know better but the perception that they are getting a good deal, for example, is stronger than the actual value of the offering.  Consider outlet stores.  There is no way they can offer discount prices on excess merchandise from mainline emporiums.  For one, there isn’t that much of it.  Secondly, there are too many discount outlets.  In fact, discounters offer cheaper merchandise whose value is reflected in the price, but shoppers come anyway.  It might be that consumers are not fooled at all by the discount store label and are price-sensitive.  If so, both the retailer and buyer accept the perception that the shopper is getting a good deal when they know they aren’t.  Humans are far from fully rational creatures.