PR Resource

There is a site that purports to guide one in writing the perfect e-mail.  It assembles data from the internet and builds a profile of the person to whom you want to communicate with instructions for how to do it.  Has it come to this?  Having taught e-mail writing to business school students, there is a need to change habits.  Many have difficulty getting to the point or lose the point completely.  That said, PR practitioners are often no better.  The essence of e-mail is the short message that states what one wants to say in as few words as possible.  There are exceptions — i.e. pitch letters to reporters, although these are questionable.  There are reports but the key message should be in the first line.  E-mail was never meant to be a lengthy communication.  It got that way because people have trouble getting to the point.  If the site helps one condense messages, more power to it.

Sometimes, in spite of all information given to the public, some citizens persist in their beliefs and actions.  When their actions are harmful to others, PR ends and the law steps in.  Consider this case.  There are a significant number of well-educated people in California who refuse to vaccinate their children because they believe vaccines cause autism.  Their children are endangering others who for health reasons can’t be vaccinated.  No amount of evidence and reasoning has been successful in getting these parents to protect their children.  Hence, a bill is pending in the California legislature to ban unvaccinated children from school populations.  Parents protest:  They cannot see the harm in their actions.  Everyone else understands.  PR can’t eliminate such blind spots.  It assumes that reasonable people are willing to engage with a message.  When citizens are unreasonable, communication ends and compulsion begins.

The Comcast Time Warner Cable merger has been hung up for over a year.  Now, Comcast’s reputation for compliance with FCC requests is at issue and is being used as a reason why the merger shouldn’t go forward.  For leaders who don’t think reputation matters, it is a lesson.  Comcast is determined to see the merger through or it would have given up by now.  The government is pecking it until the company sees the light.  Had Comcast’s reputation been sterling, consummation of the combination might not have been blocked for so long and might be done by now.  As it is, the company is looking at months more of government examination of the deal and millions more in lawyers and lobbying.  Reputation counts in cash and time.  It is not some ethereal ideal.

In a case of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped, a Sony lawyer sent a warning letter to the media not to use any of the material that was hacked from the company in late 2014.  Predictably the media were not impressed.  The lawyer forgot or didn’t know that once information is public, people can and will use it, especially in the Internet age.  The solution to Sony’s problem was not to get hacked in the first place.  Its cyber security was deficient, and the embarrassment the company suffered cannot be masked by a lawyer’s missive.  Sony will be struggling for months with the fallout from the hacking incident.  The lesson is not to let it happen again.  A company’s reputation can take only so much damage.

Here is a PR challenge. Norway is going to shut down its FM radio stations and move completely to digital transmission, but 50 percent of the listeners aren’t prepared for the shift.  They are happy listening to FM.  Norway has given itself two years to make the shift and that should be enough time for its citizens to purchase digital radios for homes and cars, but, of course, it won’t be. People procrastinate, and many won’t understand what has happened until the day they switch on their radios and nothing comes out.  Norway has two years to saturate the public with messages about the coming of digital radio.  If it fails, look to its D-day to move.  Officials also should be prepared for long and loud complaints from people who want to be compensated for buying new radios.  However, it is better that a relatively small country is making the change first.  Imagine the protests in the US.

Google’s social media platform, Google+, has been a failure.  Some are declaring it dead.  The question that has not been answered is why a company that is so successful in search is unable to launch a popular social media site?  There have been plenty of reasons given for it, but it is likely that it is a case of too little too late.  Facebook got there first and won the market share.  Google had missteps along the way from which it has never recovered.  Given that, what kind of PR campaign would Google need to be competitive again?  Or, as with many technology products, is it too late and the company should just shut down the whole operation?  It must be painful for the firm to see its hard work go for naught, but it is the Darwinian nature of high tech for this to happen.  Google might have to content itself with being the largest search company.

It is not often that one witnesses true humility in a public figure.  Here is a rare case.  The Chief Justice could have made known to the court and his fellow citizens who he is, or he might not have shown up at all, claiming privilege of his high office.  He did neither of those things.  Instead, he took his place in the queue and he was questioned like any other juror.  The only sign that he might be someone special were two security officers accompanying him.  That was almost certainly a requirement.   In PR, we spend too much time burnishing the clay feet of clients and trying to make digits look like metal.  It’s nice to have a leader who doesn’t need it.

When the stakes are high, companies spend millions in PR and lobbying to win.  That is the case over the competition to build the new stealth bomber for the Air Force.  The face-off is between Boeing-Lockheed Martin teamed together and Northrop Grumman.  Both sides are using retired generals to make their cases, and they are fighting for a budget of at least $55 billion. The odd part of the competition is that no matter who wins, the victory will be short-lived because the other side will appeal and the bid might be run again.  Winning the right to build the bomber is a long-term campaign with as many twists and turns as a mystery novel.  It should be simpler than it is but that is the way of contracting to the Pentagon.  It will be many months yet before a final decision is made.  Meanwhile, the largesse of campaign contributions will run freely to Congressmen and Senators who are in a position to influence the outcome.  It’s not a pretty sight.

A dry lake bed, 11 cars and as many drivers produced a good publicity stunt — a message to an astronaut in space.  This is the kind of creative idea that PR has long been known for, although it is not clear that PR had anything to do with coordinating and making of the message.  The stunt was designed and filmed to go viral, and it has.  Hyundai also has submitted its message to the Guinness Book of Records as the largest message ever made using car tire tracks.  It’s a feel-good stunt that works because it is the daughter of an astronaut signalling him in space.  Hyundai has done well by doing good.  Kudos to the company.

Google has announced that it is going to install high-speed fiber to the home in Charlotte, NC.  Suddenly, Time Warner Cable announces it is going to provide six times faster speeds to Charlotte subscribers at no extra charge.  How come TWC didn’t offer it before?  This kind of action opens a credibility gap for the incumbent.  If TWC really cared about its users, it would have boosted speed all along.  It won’t be surprising if Google takes major market share in Charlotte once it has fiber installed.  It might cost a little more but it is so much faster than what cable has to offer, even after TWC boosts speed, that it is worth it. Monopoly continues to give cable providers a PR black eye.  Perhaps, they should welcome competition to keep themselves in better touch with their markets.