Tag: Public Relations

How not to do damage control in your public relations

An article in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle offered textbook examples of what to do, and NOT to do, if your company gets involved in damage control. I’ve never seen a contrast so clear-cut.

Here’s the backstory: an animal welfare group named Compassion over Killing shot a video of cattle allegedly being brutally mistreated at Central Valley Meat, a slaughterhouse in California. The video was turned over the USDA who immediately sent inspectors out. Finding conditions just as bad as depicted on the video, they shut the operation down.

In-N-Out Burgers was, it turns out, a customer of Central Valley Meat, and quickly severed the relationship. Quoting from the article: “Mark Taylor, chief operating officer, said Tuesday the company acted immediately upon becoming aware of it. ‘In-N-Out Burger would never condone the inhumane treatment of animals and all of our suppliers must agree to abide by our strict standards for the humane treatment of cattle,’ Taylor said to The Associated Press in a written statement.”

Reaction was instant and decisive… absolutely no question as to where In-N-Out stands on this. They defused a nasty situation as soon as they were associated with it. That’s the good example of damage control.

But here’s the bad: instead of making themselves available to the press, the owners of the plant (who are identified by name in the article) declined to comment, explaining they had not seen the video. They then hired a PR firm, which issued the following statement: “Central Valley Meat takes these issues very seriously and is now developing a plan of action to present to (the Food Safety Inspection Service) to remedy any potential violations of USDA guidelines,” the statement said. “Based on our own investigation and 30 years of producing safe, high-quality US beef, we are confident these concerns pose no food safety issues.”

Maybe that’s true, but it’s hard to believe in the context of the USDA’s shutting them down. They first ran from the issue, then stuck their heads in the sand. And shame on the unnamed PR agency, which was apparently hired in the middle of a crisis and responded by issuing a hard-to-believe press release. You couldn’t find a worse example of crisis management.

Toyota’s epic PR fail

In spite of my own recent issues, I had thought Toyota was doing the best it could with its massive recall. James Lentz, president of Toyota USA sales, was all over the press shows last weekend with the two key statements considered essential in the post-Tylenol era: “we screwed up and are sorry” and, “we care about our customers and are very concerned.” (Tylenol took a similar open, earnest tack when someone poisoned some of its bottles in the late 1980s and, coupled with an intensive “get to the bottom of this” campaign [they never did, but they were obviously trying]  it saved a brand everyone was writing off. For how NOT to handle a PR disaster see “Woods, Tiger”.)

But today I read this Reuters article that points out Akio Toyoda, the REAL president of Toyota, has said not one single word on the recall problem. And that another Toyota executive blamed the problem on (presumably inferior) U.S. made parts, chosen out of a charitable desire to help struggling American economy! Meanwhile the recall expands to the Prius (different problem, but nobody’s tracking the details any more) and Twitter #Prius traffic, which I’d been following because of my own recent posts, goes from sleepy to through the roof.

Concidentally, my original post about my dead Prius battery has become one of the most-read articles ever on this blog. Lots of new readers are discovering it linked to articles on the Toyota recall as they lick their chops for other Toyota schadenfreude. Speaking of which, my request for some financial relief led to timely response and some nice talks with friendly people in the Toyota Customer Experience Center, but a firm turn-down. I was frankly surprised at that.

[UPDATE for new readers: Toyota has now paid for the replacement battery. Details here.]

My casual research suggested a hybrid battery failure at 70K miles was extremely unusual if not unprecedented. It would seem like a good investment to fix an anomalous problem and placate a good customer who’s been evangelizing your product. Instead, here I am writing another post about problems at Toyota. How is that good for their brand?

New rules of PR at CES 2010

This year I pre-registered as a blogger at CES, and as a result I’ve received hundreds of press announcements via email over the past couple of months. Coincidentally, I was reading the just-released new edition of David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR
on the plane coming out. Scott’s premise is that the internet has changed public relations because, instead of hawking their message to the media, businesses can now promote themselves by speaking to the public directly—via blogs, content on their own website, posts and responses on networking sites and viral media.

I did an evaluation of the PR emails I’d received with this in mind. The pitches that grabbed me were the ones that were written like news stories and tied to a course of action I could take at CES to find out more and bring it to my own readership. Find out why Apple is up but Sony dropped seven spots in the Greenpeace rating of green manufacturers. Team up with Dr Dre, Lady Gaga and Monster to fight AIDS in Africa. See how Natralock ends “wrap rage” with the end of hard-to-open clamshell packages.

The interesting thing is, many of these are the kind of made-up stories or manufactured events that used to be easy to make fun of: a marketer whipping up fake news because they couldn’t find a legitimate product benefit. Now I’m reading them as a recipient of information, not a conduit, and they become relevant. I’m eager to blog about it and add my own spin, and then the flack’s work is well rewarded.

By comparison, landing side by side in the inbox, traditional press releases just didn’t cut it. (“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: La Cie announces new server for business.”) And some of the senders show a lack of finesse in using email as a medium. No-nos in my book include emaiing the press release as an attachment rather than including it in the body of the email (with this sea of info, why would I take an extra step to read your release?); addressing me as your bud because, you know, it’s email (e.g. starting with “hope all is well” or “hope you had a good holiday”); and sending a graphics-heavy announcement without ALT tags which is basically illegible unless I download the visuals (I’m looking at you, Vizio).

Scott’s theory is that there is a huge sea of traditional flacks who are trying to hang on or just don’t get it, and I guess this would be evidence. Meanwhile, I’ve got a couple of upcoming posts in the hopper, based on those pre-show emails I received.