PR Resource

Paul Ryan, the future House Speaker if news reports are accurate, has made an unusual effort to be transparent about the job.  He doesn’t want it if it interferes with his weekends with family or if there is any lack of support among Republican House members.   He is determined to overcome the fractiousness that doomed the present Speaker, John Boehner. Ryan’s effort to be clear about what he will do as Speaker is the result of an unusual advantage.  The House desperately wants him and will agree with just about any of his demands.  Most politicians don’t get that kind of leg up on an office, but it would be better if they did.  The credibility of Congress might soar if its members were open about their intentions to the public. Then again, some of them might never get elected in the first place.

Amazon.com is carrying on a public battle of words with The New York Times.  Amazon is outraged over the Time’s expose of working conditions inside the company.  The Times is standing by its lengthy story.  Amazon is breaking the basic rule of never fight with a company that buys ink by the barrel.  It would have been far better for Amazon to have said that it is investigating the working conditions that the Time’s story disclosed and it would act promptly to rectify them.  Instead, Amazon’s spirited battle with the newspaper smacks of arrogance and does little good for the company’s reputation.  Why do companies continue to make this mistake?  It might be that the top of the organization has lost touch with the bottom and doesn’t know what is happening there.  When it is pointed out, the company is stung to the quick and fights back.  Whatever the reason, it is a dubious strategy to pick a fight with the news establishment.

Fox news has removed a so-called expert from its group of regular interviewees because the fellow lied about his background and now is indicted for fraud.  The individual claimed to have worked in the CIA for 27 years, but apparently he didn’t.  He had been a frequent guest on Fox news since 2002.  One wonders why no one bothered to check his background.  That was both a journalistic and PR cock-up.  It wouldn’t have taken many phone calls to learn that the fellow was impersonating a former CIA operative.  My guess is that Fox news fell in love with the guy because he gave good interviews with just the right edge that the news organization was looking for.  So, now Fox News has egg on its face and the news guest is facing jail — a sour outcome for both sides.

Amazon is suing more than a thousand freelancers for their phony reviews of products.  Amazon is concerned that such fakery will harm the credibility of its own review system.  The suit is important, although it won’t stop false statements about products and services.  The web is too wild and free for one lawsuit to make a difference.  It is the epitome of an unregulated marketplace and a reminder to business people that free markets are not free but need basic regulation.  There is no surefire way to control the web.  Hence, the lawsuit.  Capitalists like to talk about open markets until they have to work in one.  Then they call for government control to rid the system of bad actors.  There is an element of hypocrisy that is amusing to the skeptic.

It is a constant lesson in business, often repeated here, that no organization or individual is safe in the marketplace.  In the last two days, we learned of two more examples of stumbles by major corporations — American Express and Wal-Mart.  This is why CEOs should exhibit a healthy paranoia about their businesses.  Some thing or some one really is out to get them.  The reputations of both companies are taking a beating and there is little either can do in the short run to stabilize them.  It is a major reason why PR practitioners when writing about their organizations should stick to facts and remain modest even when business is going well.  Always remember that everything can change tomorrow and the triumphalism of today can stick in the craw soon enough.  Even businesses with long-term track records of success like Amex and Wal-Mart have their day of reckoning.  No one is safe — ever.

It is hard to make a public apology.  One would rather hide or turn a situation over to lawyers to defend.  It is twice as hard to apologize when one’s institution is supposed to be above public scandal and a model for how to live.  Yet, here is the pope asking forgiveness for scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.  To skeptics, the pope has not gone far enough.  To believers, it is painful to watch a popular religious figure abase himself before the public.  Pope Francis wasn’t the cause of scandal, and some of it occurred before he was elevated, but he is taking responsibility by apologizing.  That is what a leader should do.  Still, there is damage to the relationship of the church with its members.  Some believers will ask why they persist in faith when churchmen can’t behave themselves.  Others will stop going to the Mass and sacraments.  It takes understanding to accept that the church is human and people err.  The pope is in a painful position, but he is taking positive steps to rebuild relationships with the faithful.

The soft drink industry has been under assault for sugar in its colas. There are now proposals to tax the beverages as a way to reduce consumption.  This is a long-term PR headache for Pepsi and Coke and the many regional drink makers, and it was made worse by Mexico’s example.  That country levied a tax on soft drinks and successfully reduced consumption, especially among the poor. There is no evidence yet that it has cut obesity and diabetes, but, it has demonstrated that price is a factor in soft drink sales.  As one would expect, the lobbying group for cola makers, the American Beverage Association, disputes the evidence and is working hard to keep taxes from driving up the price of drinks.  Time will tell whether the industry is successful.  Meanwhile the threat of taxation hangs over the heads of cola makers who are scrambling to introduce drinks without sugar.

A long-standing PR headache for pharmaceutical companies has been the price of drugs in the US by comparison to other countries.  It is a self-inflicted pain that the companies defend because they say it costs millions for them to discover and produce new cures for diseases and they have as many failures as successes.  That is true but it still doesn’t stop the drumbeat for lower pricing.  Sooner or later, pharmaceutical manufacturers will give in on the cost of their most popular remedies because the pressure will be too much to bear.  A combination of government and health insurers will force the issue.  Meanwhile, they charge exorbitant fees for some of their drugs and they are getting away with it despite criticism.  They know they are on borrowed time and the clock is running out. One would think that one or more of the companies would seize the PR initiative and voluntarily match the price of their drugs worldwide, but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Hollywood is notorious for ignoring science in its drive to tell cinematic stories, so it was smart PR to contact NASA for help in filming the current release, The Martian. NASA saw and took the opportunity to help and coincidentally announced proof of water on Mars about the time of the film’s release.  Most science fiction, like Star Wars, makes no effort to restrain the creativity of the film maker, and that is good in its own way.  But, the effort to get the scientific details right adds credibility to a film.  So, kudos to the director and to the space agency for working together.

Volvo has publicly assumed the liability for accidents involving driverless cars.  This, of course, is restricted to accidents in which the car and its software are at fault and not accidents in which the driver or third-parties caused the collision.  This is smart PR on the part of Volvo to get regulators on board to certify driverless vehicles.  Although driverless cars have already traveled millions of miles in testing, they aren’t permitted on the roads except in a few states like California and Nevada.  The onerous nature of getting permits can retard technology and slow the process down.  By taking the burden of accident protection on itself, Volvo has in a single stroke made regulation easier to handle.  Look for the other auto manufacturers to do the same thing.