Altyrian View

Circuit City board room:

“Here’s what we are going to do. We are going to fire all of our over-paid employees and replace them with people who we don’t have to pay much.”

“Gee, wouldn’t that get rid of our most loyal, best-trained employees?”

“Nahh. They could re-apply for a job after three weeks. At that point, we can hire them for less.”

“So what are we going to tell our employees and the public.”

“The absolute, no-holds-barred truth.”

Of course, I’m paraphrasing. Let’s face it, companies make these decisions every day: Overhead reduction by laying off highly-paid staff. What is unusual is that a company take the insane approach of Circuit City and spell out exactly what they are going to do.

Before we discuss how best to break this news, let’s step back for a minute and look at the wisdom of such an approach by CC. Indeed, they are removing their best, most loyal employees. Worst yet, they are sending the message to their other employees (including the managers that run the store) that there is no room for financial advancement at CC. If I’m looking for a job, I’m headed to Best Buy.

There are tons of ways that they could have done this better. First, you don’t have to fire all of those employees. CC should have offered optional pay reductions. Sure, 9 out of 10 of the employees would have run out of the front door, but that sure plays better in the media. Better yet, you get to keep some of those “highly-valued” employees.

If CC was really determined to lose those employees, they should have done some of it quietly by attrition. Let the employees know that cuts are coming, and their salaries are not safe. You quickly trim some of your staff without a major announcement and without ruining your pool of potential employees.

It’s rare that the honest approach is not the best approach, but in this case, the truth is so inhumanely dumb, you would think that CC would have at least tried to spin something positive out of it. But the stock did go up – only to fall again yesterday.

It’s obvious that social media is going to play an important role in the next presidential election. Just a few weeks ago, everyone was going to the ‘Net to announce their candidacy. I’m sure that as more enter the race, that trend won’t change. Now, it looks like people are using the Web to post political advertisements. I use the word “people” because it’s not clear that candidates or even political parties are creating or endorsing the new viral ads.

This morning someone emailed me a political ad that was anti-Clinton and pro-Barack Obama. It’s a spin-off from Apple’s very successful 1984 Superbowl ad. After watching it, I was tempted to blog about the ad, but since this is not a political blog, I didn’t want AltyrianView to be considered as such. That was until I saw the ad on some news Web sites – and on TV. At this point, no one knows who produced the ad, but I suspect by the end of the week, most will have seen it.

What’s stopping people from making more ads like this? What’s stopping people with an axe to grind from making ads that throw false accusations at our candidates. Absolutely nothing.

On the other hand, what a great opportunity for candidates to create “grassroots” ads. Here’s an idea: Get some regular people to talk about why they are going to vote one way or another.

So, who is going to create the best political ads this year? Might not be the candidates….

eMarketer has released some really interesting data about advertising through social media Web sites and podcasts. No real surprise, both categories of spending are on the rise. For online social networks, ad spending was $350 million last year, is expected to be $865 million this year and up to $2,150 million by 2010.

The upward trend in podcast advertising isn’t much different. According to a report on eMarketer.com 2006 was $80 million, 2008 is expected to be $240 million and 2011 is expected to be $400 million.

Every semester I visit Elon University to talk to students about social media. When I first visited two years ago, I was surprised at how few students read blogs and listened to podcasts. When I visited last week, i was equally surprised at the complete turnaround – nearly all of the students were reading blogs and / or listening to podcasts. The media around online social networks is definitely growing. It’s certainly a good opportunity to reach a wider audience in conjunction with traditional advertising.

Of course, if you would like to sponsor our podcast…

I read an interesting post at PR Studies about the press release. It got me thinking about why I think media types hate press releases.

I think the problem with the press release is three fold:
- Everyone *thinks* they can write them
- People have forgotten who the audience is
- It isn’t news

Point number 1: Press releases *look* so easy to write that everyone thinks that they can throw a few words on a piece of paper and send it to the media. This often results in tons of junk that the reporter has to wade through to get to the *real* media releases. Often these “written by myself” press releases are too long, lack focus, aren’t written to be published or produced, have pathetic grammar, aren’t really news, etc. No wonder media hates press releases – so many of them are junk.

Point number 2: Too often releases are ads with “For Immediate Release” written at the top. They are focused on sales and not on providing news. Again, it’s a wonder that any release ever gets read by the media.

Point number 3: That one’s pretty self-explanitory.

In case you avoided news over the weekend, an infant was abducted from Covenant Lakeside Hospital in Texas by a woman posing as a nurse. Fortunately baby was found safe in New Mexico a couple of days later. I take great interest in communications around abductions like this because I prepared the crisis communications plan for The Women’s Hospital of Greensboro when I worked there about 8 years ago. Since the majority of our patient population was newborns, we worked up an abduction crisis for the plan. It has been a long time, but I’m pretty sure one of our plan steps was not “hide under a rock.” That’s what Covenant Lakeside has chosen to do.

Unfortunately, I did not see Covenant’s first statement, and it’s probably a good thing. Although I didn’t see it, I’ve been told that it was something along the lines of “clearly we need to strengthen our security measures.” Ummm, yeah. Since I didn’t find the statement with a Google search, I figured I would visit the Covenant Web site to check things out. (To be fair, I can only say that this statement is hearsay until I find the link. If you can find a link to the statement, pass it on, please.)

Nothing about the crisis. The latest “news” is a new president and CEO. As a matter of fact, I learn that every link to Lakeside has been deactivated. I’m sure that this was not a coincidence. I’m sure that reporters in Texas are getting the runaround because of “HIPAA privacy regulations.”

Covenant, it’s not too late! Use your Web site as a way to manage the crisis. Even if you are speaking to local press, it’s not enough. So much of your audience is looking to the Web for news. Help your patients feel safe. Don’t tell us what you are going to do tomorrow; tell us what you have already done to keep this from happening again.

If you live in the Southeast region of the US, you know that tomorrow is pretty much a holiday. At noon, most workdays will be over. Schools won’t be closed, but books will be. It’s the ACC tournament.

For those of you not from the area, the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament is a pretty big deal in this area. (There is a PR lesson here, stick with me while I gush about the tourney.) From where I am sitting right now, I am within an hour of Wake Forest, Duke, North Carolina State and the University of North Carolina. The rivalries are fierce, and anyone can win it all. Over the next four days, there will be 11 hotly contested games. I can’t wait!

Although people talk about the life lessons of basketball, there is a great PR lesson that we can learn from this past week’s action. During Sunday’s Duke (I’m a UNC fan, but I’ll refrain from spelling Dook “correctly”) / UNC game, there was a hard foul on a UNC player at the end of the game that drew some blood. Actually, a lot of blood. Since the UNC / Duke rivalry is so intense, this is obviously what sports writers have been talking about for the last 5 days. Coach K (Duke’s coach) said all the right things at the press conference until he made this statement:

And the game was over before that. I mean the outcome of the game, let’s put it that way. That’s unfortunate, too, that those people were in the game in that play.

If you read between the lines, he was saying “the game was over, and UNC should have pulled its starters.” In a small way he was blaming UNC’s coach for still having his star player in the game.

Here’s our lesson for today. No matter what happens, never, ever, ever blame the victim. Even if it was his or her fault. As soon as you do that, people stop talking about your apology, and they focus on your being caddy in your remarks. In this case, Coach K is catching lots of heat about the situation, and unfortunately, he could have killed it at the end of the game during his first press conference. Every interview he has done for the last 5 days has centered around this situation. That’s way the first statement you make is always the most important one – no matter how short it is.

So now I’m off to see how this plays out. Go Heels!

Back in the day (about 8 years ago), I carved out a great little niche in my area creating Web sites. I’m not a techie (well, not a professional one anyway), and I’m not a particularly good designer. I am, however, a good marketer and communicator. In the early days of Web development, Web site projects were generally handled by the IT department. It’s almost laughable today, but the marketing / PR departments were generally not at all involved in a company’s first Web site. Fortunately, companies in this market recognized that they needed marketing’s help in the development of the Web site. Yes, Web sites began to become marketing tools.

Fast forward a few years. Today I read a report that Web sites are declining in Web development standards. In other words, Web sites are becoming less effective as marketing tools. Not because people are using them differently; it’s because the sites themselves have become less consumer centric.

Here’s the reason: communicators (marketing / PR / advertisers / etc) are not keeping up with the technology. Brochureware Web sites (Web sites that are nothing more than an online brochure) are a thing of the past. Every company that has a sales component, needs e-commerce on their Web site. Every company that offers a service, wants to provide direct interaction with their clients – often through some social media component. Now, more than ever, it takes a complete fusion of design, technology and marketing to build a Web site. Because of the early days of Web development, companies are quick to let IT take the wheel again, and communicators don’t know enough to stay at the table. Web sites are being built around the technology and not around their marketing purpose. Unfortunately, many communicators don’t understand the technology or the concepts their customers are demanding be incorporated in their Web sites.

If you’re reading this blog, you are probably a step up on the majority of your communications colleagues. Next time you are at a PRSA or IABC meeting, bring up social media. Sadly, you’ll get some blank stares and lots of “you are such techie.” As an industry, we don’t get it yet. Until we do, expect Web sites to get worse before they get better.

I don’t guess kids playing MMOs is a new thing, but it struck me yesterday how aggressively companies are trying to woo young players. I have young kids (6 and under), and we watch our fair share of Nickelodeon. Yesterday while watching Sponge Bob, my 6-year-old says “Dad, look! You can build a room, and you don’t have to clean it!” He was talking about the much advertised Nicktropolis. Add to that, 3pointD tells us yesterday that Lego is building an MMO for kids. Looney Tunes had been advertising one for a while, but I couldn’t find it with a Google search. I could have asked my kids, but I didn’t want to remind them that Daddy said “no” to joining the Looney world.

Every company has a Web site. Are we headed to an era when every company has an MMO too? Clearly companies that target kids think that the expense in building an online world is worth the return. Given that many young males spend more time playing video games than watching TV, it may not be long before companies make MMOs specifically for their products and services.

The Daily Dog has a write-up of the Taco Bell crisis communications centering around the rat-infested restaurant. Yuck! And I’m not just talking about the rats.

First a little background: Yum Brands owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. ADF Companies is a major franchisee that owns more than 350 fast food restaurants – not a mom & pop franchisee. So what happens? Yum Brands closes the rat restaurant and a few more in NY pending inspections. Gee thanks. ADF, the company that should be stepping up to the plate, seems totally out of the loop on this one. As a matter of fact, the spokesperson didn’t even know exactly how many stores were closed!

First, ADF & Yum need to be on the same page here. Day one, they should have a team – I don’t care if it takes just one exterminator – a team of exterminators to get rid of the rats. Close the store for a few days – even if it only takes one – to make sure that the problem is solved. Demand another inspection. Blame the inspector for not finding the problem (nicely, of course) – do you expect the $10 / hour high school kid to be looking in cracks trying to find rats? Behind the scenes, check out the other restaurants to make sure that rats aren’t a problem.

Instead, Yum destroys its brand in NYC and across the country. If a store has rats, one might guess that they could have traveled next door – maybe down the street. It’s less likely to believe that rats are taking rides in people’s cars and stopping at the next Taco Bell. According to Yum, rats in NYC have singled out Taco Bell as the place to hang out. Yum is saying, “our stores are nasty, and because of poor management, we have this problem all over the city.” WTG.

Doug Fisher at Common Sense Journalism got his hands on a memo from the executive editor and the managing editor of the Washington Post talking about story length. Below is the rough overview of article length. Check out the post for the full memo.

• A small event, or an incremental development worth noting can be a digest item. The digests are important for readers.
• A day story, significant enough to write for our readers but based on one event or development – 6 to 15 inches. We frequently end up with 12-inch holes in the paper. Let’s use them to the best advantage.
• A single event with multiple layers or levels of information, 18 to 24 inches.
• A more complex news feature of ambition and altitude–25-35 inches.
• Major enterprise, involving in-depth reporting or narrative story telling–40 to 50 inches.
• Extraordinary long-form narrative or investigation, magazine-type stories–60 to 80 inches or, rarely, more.

If those are the “rules” for length in newspaper articles at the Washington Post, should we not try to follow those same rules when we send releases to them? I find it increasingly annoying when I review a release that is much, much too long for the subject. We should make our press releases as long as the news requires.

Yesterday, I read a post on the Making News blog where David Henderson posted an entire release from Apple. This is the whole thing:

Cisco and Apple(R) today announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the “iPhone” trademark. Under the agreement, both companies are
free to use the “iPhone” trademark on their products throughout the world. Both companies acknowledge the trademark ownership rights that have been
granted, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark. In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for
interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.

Wow. No boilerplate. No quote. Nothing but the news. Can we get away with sending out releases like that for our clients? Will our clients accept releases that are that short or do they feel like they need more from their public relations agency?