Murky Murdoch And The News Corp.

(This article originally appeared in MediaPost’s Marketing Daily, where I am a contributor)

A bit of distrust in the media is never a bad thing. It's good to keep people on their toes. For News Corp., however, a "little distrust" has turned into full-blown doubt and disgust for readers and viewers in the UK and just about everywhere else.

When a colleague asked recently what I would do if News Corp. were a client, I responded: "In the UK, I'd do nothing -- they made their bed a long time ago, and now they have to lie in it." And an imagined question directly to News Corp. executives: this wire-tapping has been tossed around for over four years; how could you allow it to crescendo into such a devastating crisis? You could have sought our counsel back in 2006.

Alas, we seldom have such an opportunity to get into the game prior to a crisis. But what actions, if any, could help resurrect News Corp.'s reputation in the UK, criminal proceedings notwithstanding? For a company facing this much fallout, it would take a massive overhaul of staff, a great deal of public groveling, and the creation of the strictest code of ethics one has ever seen in media. And even then, I'm not sure how much good it would do.

With zero credibility and so many changes needed, it's better to start afresh.

The U.S. News Corp. Problem

The problem at the WSJ irks me -- not at the publication itself, as I feel it is comprised of hard-working, ethical journalists, and editors -- but because of Murdoch's ill-fated decision of allowing longtime friend (and News Corp. veteran) Les Hinton to become CEO of Dow Jones in 2007. By letting Hinton cross the pond, Murdoch provided one (and as far as we know, the only substantial) link to the wiretapping scandal in Britain.

Until 2007, Hinton was executive chairman of News International, publisher of News of the World. After the 2006 wiretapping scandal involving Clive Goodman, royal editor of News of the World, Hinton told parliament there was no widespread involvement in wiretapping. Okay, fine: an illegal embarrassment under Hinton's watch dies down, Goodman is jailed, and the scandal is confined within the U.K. Now we come to my issue with Murdoch.

Why would anyone who just dodged a bullet -- or a rain of bullets, for that matter -- send a tainted newspaper publisher/CEO across the Atlantic to head an upstanding, nationally respected publishing company and its subsidiary newspapers? It doesn't matter whether Hinton had knowledge of the wiretapping in 2006 or not -- it happened while he was in control. It's unbelievable (not to mention foolhardy), and it's up to Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, and their public relations experts to do the damage control.

Let me be clear: I don't believe that there was any illegality involved here regarding Murdoch, Hinton, and The Wall Street Journal. It just wasn't a good idea in light of all the scandal that surrounded News International at the time.

The takeaway from all of this?

The business of public relations has as much to do about crisis prevention as it does about crisis management. Did Murdoch understand the potential jeopardy he was putting Dow Jones in? Did he ask anyone around him -- like, for example, the public relations team?

Click here to continue reading.

Holy Talking Vajayjays! Summer's Eve Scandal: Too Much, Not Enough, or Just Right?

Is it possible to go too far with damage control? Summer's Eve hit the news again last week when it pulled the "controversial" Hail to the V campaign promos after the ads were called racially insensitive. While talking-vagina hand puppets will certainly get tongues wagging on their own, it wasn't Summer Eve's creative representation of the “V” that led to a wave of criticism. As if a company still associated with woefully old-fashioned (if not dangerous) douching doesn't have enough PR hurdles to begin with.

For those of you unfamiliar with the "V" campaign, it consists, consisted of three videos with three apparent audiences – and those audiences appeared to be neatly divided by race and their stereotypical interests - the white girls are the gym bunnies; the Latina punctuates her rant with an “ay-yi-yi.” When Huffington Post polled their readers, 56.14% responded that the ads were “offensive!” 43.86% disagreed, choosing “nothing to see here.” Personally, I'm more offended by Fox's assault on my intelligence than these videos.

PR executive of Richards Group Stacie Barnett told Adweek that the ads were pulled because "Stereotyping or being offensive was not our intention in any way, shape, or form. The decision to take the videos down is about acknowledging that there's backlash here. We want to move beyond that and focus on the greater mission."

The response, however, has me wondering if they should have handled the damage control without yanking the campaign offline. Taking them down was not only an acknowledgement of backlash but also guilt of racial stereotyping by poll, and failure by client pressure. The client saw the ads, everyone agreed they were edgy - so why take them down? Only the week before, The Richards Group defended their videos, doing a much better job of explaining their (albeit poor) campaign-planning process. Talk about flip-flopping.

Now I'm not saying the ads weren't questionable, but audiences were split on whether or not they were actually racist – while Summer's Eve vehemently stated that that they weren't. Pulling the ads prolonged coverage of an overall lackluster campaign whereas an explanation or simple mea culpa could have done a better job of righting wrongs than simply removing the campaign.

In fact, a recent study in 2011's Retail Consumer Report shows that companies willing to interact come out ahead – they don't necessarily need to pull products or ads. 61 percent of consumers in the study said they'd be “shocked” if a company responded to criticism online. Upon receiving a response, 33 percent of reviewers would go back and post a positive review, and 34 percent would delete their original negative review. If nothing else, it certainly makes a case for a well-worded apology.

Creative agencies should stand by their work, even if they need to apologize for it later. If not, they risk being relegated to order-takers and compromise-driven lackeys. I’d rather see work that is controversial and has people engaged in discourse rather than homogenized “creative” that appeases the masses and skirts around “private parts.”

Is Google+ Really Worth It?

Google+, a replacement for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter? Stop right there. While Google+ is a major (and exciting) advancement on the social side of the web, no one can determine how fast and how far it will go just yet -- and how much it will offer marketers. So while it’s definitely worth exploring, corporate communicators shouldn’t be abandoning ship on existing social strategies just yet. Um, if they even have one….

Even though Google+ is touting itself as the be-all in social, we know that a single social media platform can’t offer everything we need for every client - especially considering the variety of niche social media news and bookmarking sites (hello Tip’d and DesignBump) adding value to companies and to their exposure built on search results. Even if a single social media platform did had everything we wanted in one place, we’d be asking where our existing competitors, partners, and supporters were, because we need to establish and maintain a presence in their corner of the web as well. With so many factors at play, it’s neither likely nor plausible that Google+ will whisk away the majority of users from large-scale social media platforms in the early stages.

There will, of course, be lovers and haters of Google+, if for more nothing more than it appearing to be an also-ran. And while Google+ might be a latecomer, it’s a latecomer that has had years to evaluate what makes social networking platforms fail and falter with users -- and what makes them win. From my initial research, privacy and integration are two major factors attracting Google+ users: they’ll be able to integrate their mail and applications with Google+, and G+’s limited-user test allows Google to address security issues before opening it up to a wider audience. It’s also the first social network that allows users to download captured data on them at any time. Nice one.

So what’s my advice to marketers exploring Google+? Understand how functionalities absent from other sites, like Circles, can help boost business. Google+ is the fastest-growing social net ever, and it’s not even open for business profile creation yet (although this is slated for fall 2011). Google+ can aid traffic development and content generation, and although preparing to expand with Google+ is a must, researching how it can specifically work for you is the very first step.

It isn’t social media’s panacea – but it could be a great start.

Say Goodbye To Soaps, Shampoos And The End Of An Era

The following article originally appeared in Luxury Daily, "Soaps, shampoos and the luxury hotel."

Traditionally, luxury has been marketed through exclusivity, status, quality and excess – the latter of which implies “more,” not “less.”

This is what ran through my mind recently as I read a Reuters article, “Greetings trump giveaways at luxury hotels,” about how luxury brand hotels are doing away with the fancy freebies – amenities such as shampoos, lotions, soaps – and replacing them with more “enhanced” service in the form of personalized greetings. Whatever that is, anyway…

In my mind, this is very misguided thinking on the part of luxury hotels.

Bar none
Speaking at the Reuters Global Luxury and Fashion Summit last month, Arne Sorenson, chief operating officer of Marriott, expressed the view that, as rates rise back to pre-recession levels, customers will expect more.

“I think, as rates begin to go back up, which they have been doing since roughly midyear last year, you start to see customers expect more … as they expect more, it will cause us, on balance, to increase service in most brands,” Mr. Sorenson said at the Reuters event.

So, tell me, if consumers are expecting more, why do the soaps have to go?

The disconnect here is that while hotels admit that customers are expecting more with increased rates, hotels are, in fact, giving them less by taking away amenities.

So, in place of this bundle of amenities – a staple of hotel luxury over the last few decades – hotels are expecting that “Hello, Mrs. Smith, welcome back!” is somehow going to excuse a lack of shampoo in the room?

How will hotels convey this message to Mrs. Smith, “Sorry, Ma’am, but instead of shampoo, we’ve memorized your dossier.”

It sounds silly, as it is meant to, but it highlights an important point: luxury hotel guests like amenities, will expect amenities, and given the absence of amenities, will ask for them.

Are hotels ready to explain to Mrs. Smith that it is due to cost cutting, when she is paying a higher rate?

Is the front desk ready to tell Mrs. Smith that her shampoo was replaced by a smile and greeting as she entered the lobby just a few moments ago?

Won’t wash
In working with travel brands and hotel companies, I understand the financial argument: replacing costly extras with enhanced personal service always looks better on the books.

However, luxury customers do not care much about the hotel’s books.

Such customers are willing to pay more, to get more, in both service and amenities. And if they do not get what they want – or expect – they will simple go elsewhere.

Both amenity products and enhanced personal services are part of the “experiential” nature of luxury goods – something that we are going to see a lot more of from travel and hotel brands.

When Mrs. Smith buys a service, she purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on her behalf.

But when she buys an experience, Mrs. Smith pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages to engage her in a personal way.

It could be argued that when luxury guests check-in, they are buying into such an experience from the hotel.

Personalized greetings, enhanced services, and superior products – products that are different than what they normally use – all combine to form the entertainment and escapism necessary to provide luxury consumers the experience that they are expecting.

Additionally, in luxury marketing, enhanced and personalized services are seen as “a special touch,” or a unique way to make the customer feel even more exclusive.

Luxury consumers see such services as an added bonus – one that adds to the experience.

In no way are these services seen by the luxury guest as a replacement for a bundle of physical products that the he or she has received and enjoyed for many years.

Suds, not duds
The only time that luxury brands should even consider getting rid of amenities is in a recessionary, low-rate period, since the customer might excuse the loss of amenities at the lower rate.

To continue reading at luxurydaily.com, click here.

To Like, or Not to Like?

What does it mean to “like” something online? That designation was vague from the get-go, and with the power-punch of overzealous marketing and social media campaigning, we've become veritable liking machines. Every post has a heart, a thumbs-up, or a plus sign next to it, and after it gets published (whether it's a sentence or a full article), there's StumbleUpon, Tumblr reblogging, and Google +, in addition to standard Twitter retweeting and Facebook liking. My brain hurts already…

In reaction to our increasingly noncommittal “liking” trend, Neil Strauss of the Wall Street Journal mourns the loss of the real online opinion. Gone are the those pioneer days of internet nonconformity, which Strauss blames on a blend of general development and advertising, served with dashes of greed and the ever-present search for “opportunity.” Plus, the internet's gone the way of approval-seeking and of time-wasting, he adds. It isn't only the lack of comments and the bland “+1” labels that reek of herd mentality, but the time-suck of retweeting and view counting that could be funneled into worthwhile internet activity – say actually opining in the comment box.

Lest you write off this post as the ranting of a disillusioned blogger, remember last year's drama when Facebook changed its previously-titled “fan” system to the maligned “like.” Critics also rallied against the switch from “Old Facebook,” but this was something different. Instead of aesthetics, this was about definitions - and clever marketing tactics. In Facebook's case, studies showed that people were twice as likely to click “Like” rather than “Become a Fan,” and that's most likely because the word is nonthreatening, bland, and well, noncommittal. Is that the definition of engagement? Um, no.

Sarah Jacobsson, in a PCWorld article, expounded her issues with “liking” things on Facebook: “'Liking' something on Facebook is a quick, easy way to acknowledge something—give it props, say—without having to be involved at all. […] Facebook seems to think that it's the language that's stopping me -- and that I view 'liking' something as less involvement and therefore easier to click on than 'becoming a fan' of something. This, at least, is true -- I do view 'liking' something as less threatening than 'becoming a fan' of something. But that's because it is true.”So really, “liking” is a very lazy direction to take when it comes to online interaction.

Think about it from the other end: if you're publishing an article that took you hours, would you rather see 50 “like” clicks, or 50 comments on the content you've produced?

That question should be a no-brainer, much like the act of “liking” itself.

A Life Before Email? Does Not Compute

Our tablets, phones, and laptops of 2011 chug away in harmony, not unlike J.C.R. Licklider’s 1960 vision of human-computer symbiosis. Licklider—a veteran of Harvard and MIT computing-based endeavors—maintained that the human-computer connection would allow machines to address mundane, time-consuming tasks in a highly efficient manner. For the field, his work was outstanding; for a trained psychologist, his contributions were absolutely incredible.

Licklider saw computers as tools with tremendous capability, even convincing his employers to purchase a $25,000 computer in 1957. Imagine? He imagined future work desks as command stations tethered to the wall, with the essential “umbilical cords” completing a “telecommunication-telecomputation system.” Much like his conceptual sketches of electronic libraries and information retrieval (hello eBooks!), Licklider was years ahead of his time.

In fact, Licklider's ideas were accurate enough that they seem basic to us today. Using a computer for essential tasks? Sure. Plugging in at work for the ultimate human-machine team? Done. We use our “machines” to handle the mundane and necessary, and that includes email, which originated with two geeks leaving “Read Me” notes on disk files in the '60s. They wanted electronic mail for practicality's sake, and we still do today – despite the naysaysers who claim that email is dead. But were we productive back when we weren't answering emails every few minutes? We were, but just not as concerned with hearing back from someone a few seconds later. Others argue that we're getting worse in the productivity department: according to a recent study, American office workers spend up to three hours daily on tasks that aren't work-related (44 percent of that time “playing” on the internet), with lost productivity cost employers an estimate of $750 billion last year.

It's also about expectations—and memory retention. Once we know what our machines can do, it's easy to decrease acceptable communication waiting time, permanently. But while Grandma still says that handwritten thank-you notes are more considerate (and, of course, human), there's another reason to turn to paper occasionally: permanence. If you don't want your words to be edited, muddled, or misconstrued in the digital age, making hard copies wouldn't be the worst idea—this New York Times piece says it all. Plus, with new studies showing a 15 percent to 20 percent increase of memory retention in 3D digital media, we're in for a wild ride in advertising.

And I don’t care what anyone says, email is definitely not dead.

What Happens When “Hearsay” Goes Viral and Global?

Gossip seems to travel faster than ever these days. When a rumor about a company picks up steam via Twitter or Facebook, it can send a PR division into a complete tizzy and overdrive on clarifications and retractions. With that kind of speed, companies have a rock-solid reason for finding social networking-savvy PR representation—unless they want to become a post-gaffe trending topic.

Even if a company has a huge budget for PR backing, crises can and will occur. Delta Air Lines, for example, which got hit hard after making a switch. The rumor? Delta and Saudi Arabian Airlines (SAA) joined forces, meaning that Jewish passengers couldn't board Saudi Arabia-bound flights. It began with an article published by WorldNetDaily, which spread to the Huffington Post. With headlines like USA Today's “Jews Not Able to Fly on Delta Flights to Saudi Arabia” (title since removed), things were not looking good for the largest airline in the world.

Delta could very easily have quashed the ill-intended rumors and clarified any controversy with a well thought out and timely statement. Instead, it seems that paralysis struck its crisis team – panic took over in the anti-Delta free-for-all, which lead The Economist to say that its efforts were “incomplete, unhelpful, and basically added fuel to the fire.” In any case, Delta's full response was submitted far too late to have any real effect - and that battle would be considered lost by any PR company.

For the record, Delta hasn't banned Jewish travelers. Saudi Arabian Airlines joined SkyTeam Alliance, so Delta will be offering tickets from SAA. As Saudi Arabia has their own visa requirements, some Israel-born Jews will have difficulty buying tickets, although this isn’t anything new - and there are workarounds. But does it matter anymore, considering how much negative feedback is still present on Delta's explanatory post?

It's not just Delta, of course. Facebook went under fire for changing its privacy policy, later switching it back after The Consumerist broke the story. In 2008, musician Dave Carroll claimed that United Airlines damaged his $3,500 guitar, which the airline refused to reimburse until he went all out on YouTube. Another PR issue of note happened in 2009 when Toyota's ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, offered $15,000 in prize money in a Toyota-sponsored video contest, and then proceeded to choose one considered not only sexist, but “lewd.” Despite public outcry, there wasn't much response from Toyota to smooth things over—and this drama claimed Get Satisfaction's blog's lowest rating. And then there was the safety issue… but that’s for another post.

Crisis or not, bad news moves fast regardless of whether ­truth has little weight in initial rumblings. That means that PR companies need to hustle a lot faster, have a crisis plan in place, and have crackerjack monitors watching (bad) buzz to deliver a swift attack right back. It might not be easy for every company to do this, but surely the world’s largest airline could spare a few team members to ward off boycotts, inflammatory headlines, and tweet storms that stretch for a week.

And before crisis management? How about trying some crisis prevention, front and center.