PR Resource

It is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain positive public relations when a CEO is rumored to be leaving a sinking ship.  This is the situation that Marissa Mayer of Yahoo finds herself in.  Key executives have already departed, morale is low and Mayer seems to be out of ideas for turning the ailing company around.  If she does leave voluntarily or not, the future of Yahoo will be in peril.  Mayer was billed as the last, best hope of the company, which never made the transition post Google to a mature but growing business.  This is the fate of many internet companies, so Mayer needn’t be embarrassed by the failure, but if she is to continue trying to stabilize the franchise, she will need to work on morale.  Now is not a time to be trumpeting the company publicly.  It is the hour when she has to mobilize the troops to storm the hill one more time and see if they can hold it.  

The tally is out and the most deadly terror group in the world is not ISIS but West Africa’s Boko Haram.  Why then has the group not received the same news coverage and headlines as ISIS?  The answer appears to be that they are exploiting their own in Africa and not working outside of the continent to spread terror.  In other words, it is not our problem.  That’s sad because the people of Nigeria are suffering terribly from the group’s raids and indiscriminate murder.  Let Boko Haram attack in France, Spain or somewhere else in Europe and the headlines will be there plus the attention of the governments to wipe them out.  But, as long as they stay in West Africa, diplomats can express horror but armies remain idle.  The power of news media coverage is on Paris now, but it could have easily been on Nigeria.  We express sympathy for the citizens of Paris but do we think about Africans?

A celebrity tries to hide something in the internet age.  It costs him $10 million in extortion, and he still can’t keep it a secret.  That is the predicament in which Charlie Sheen finds himself.  He finally told the world that he is HIV positive in an interview on national television.  That is what he should have done in the first place.  It would have saved him a pile of cash.  Instead, he is much poorer and one hopes, wiser.  His experience should be a lesson to all that transparency is the better route and outcome.  PR practitioners have long known this, but they are dismissed as often as they are heard when they push for openness.  Charlie Sheen must have a publicist and one wonders whether he told that person of his condition.  I suspect not.  Otherwise, his publicist should have urged him to make an announcement as he ended up doing anyway.  New articles paint Sheen as a troubled person with dissolute behavior.  One wonders if this $10 million lesson will change his trajectory in life.

A prerequisite of public relations is freedom of speech, the ability to take popular and unpopular positions and argue for them persuasively.  That is why this trend on college campuses is disturbing.  One can no longer voice one’s opinion, wear a costume or publish anything that might offend a student’s view of what is correct.   The prohibition has reached the level of absurdity and has created a generation of students for whom the First Amendment is only acceptable if it fits their values.  What is worse is that campus administrators are bowing to their demands rather than affirming the need for many types of opinions.  College is a time to study a broad range of ideas — some innocuous, some dangerous and some dated.  Students should finish their studies with a well rounded view of the world.  The sad part is that is no longer happening on many campuses. We’re creating a generation for whom freedom from speech is the ideal.

The attacks in Paris were an example of negative publicity.  ISIS wanted to let the world know it can strike wherever and whenever it wants.  And, it was successful in that effort, killing 129 people and injuring hundreds more.  ISIS leaders may be basking in their glory for what was achieved, but the rest of the world was horrified.  The problem with negative publicity is that it motivates people and organizations against one.  The tit for tat of the French attacks was bombing in Syria against ISIS strongholds.  In other words, the rebel leaders are worse off today than they were on Friday night when the attacks took place.  That is often the outcome of negative publicity.

It has long been said that the best management tool is a good pair of shoes.  This notion has been turned into an acronym — MBWA — Management By Walking About.   Here is an example of a CEO who works as an Uber driver to learn how people feel about travel. It makes no difference to him that he is a multi-millionaire and founder of a successful company.  He is aware that he can’t know what customers are thinking unless he rubs shoulders with them.  He is not alone.  Retail CEOs conduct store visitations to see how they are working and to hobnob with customers. CEOs of fast food franchises spend time each year behind the counter to remind themselves what is important.  It is smart management and PR to stay in close touch with the bottom, customer-facing side of a business.  It grounds one again in what is important to the success of an enterprise and closes the gap between customers and the top of an organization.

This might be a poor PR decision and practice of the auto manufacturers.  While run-flat tires can take one a distance and puncture kits might work, that might not be enough for the individual whose auto is stuck by the side of the road and no way to replace a tire.  Granted that car makers are looking for anything to save weight and increase mileage, but there ought to be a limit of common sense.  It is easy to envision a scenario in which a driver is out of luck — for example a tear in the sidewall of a tire.  No run-flat kit is going to fix that.  So, in order to reach regulatory mileage per gallon, the spare tire is sacrificed.  I’ll try not to purchase a vehicle without a spare.

Sometimes there are no good answers to an event.  Whatever one says or does carries severe penalties.  There isn’t even a way to weigh the lesser of two evils.  This is one case.  Slovenia is building a border fence to bar migrants from the country.  Slovenia already has tens of thousands and is struggling to care for them.  With winter coming, the country feels helpless to handle thousands more.  If it had left its border open, it would have had a humanitarian crisis.  But, by closing its border, it is sparking a humanitarian crisis.  There is no good way to handle this situation.  Political principles fail.  Migrants are desperate, cold and ill-fed and they will be that way whether or not the fence had gone up.  The citizens of Slovenia cannot bear the responsibility of handling all the refugees.  The resources aren’t there.  Only time will tell what happens to the asylum seekers and chances are it won’t be good.  It is a tragedy.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been going for so long that no one quite remembers it was originally and still is a publicity event for the store.  The parade has taken on a life of its own.  Macy’s to its credit has allowed the parade to expand and include a little of everything from bands to balloons to dancers and pop and Broadway stars.  The publicity is immeasurable and defines Macy’s as an essential part of Christmas cheer.  It is not often that an entity can create something that at its heart is commerce but in its presentation is community relations.  As such, the Thanksgiving Day Parade deserves a close examination for how it got started and how it grew.  The first couple of years it was a publicity stunt on the part of the store, but then it turned into something else and over time as the balloons were added it became a parade like none other.  Today, tens of millions line the parade route or watch the parade on television.  Children who don’t know Macy’s from K-Mart stare wide-eyed at the passing characters they know from cartoons.  Their parents know and that is enough for Macy’s.

The University of Missouri is feeling the power of protest with its football team stopping practice and a call for the president of the university to step down.  The situation that sparked this was a swastika drawn on a residence hall.  African-American students rose up united to descry the incident and to call for action.  What they are doing shows the force of mass persuasion.  Organizations cannot run when their participants refuse to cooperate.  It is the same for strikes and all other crowd uprisings.  From a PR perspective, leaders have to realize that they are only in control through the power of positive persuasion and while people have a tendency to go along, there is always a chance they will not. When that happens, organizations break down and societies rupture.  At this juncture, it would probably be best if the President of the school did step aside.  It is too late for him to react and calm the crowd.