Monday Morning Media Minute

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

If it’s not already there, “The Hurt Locker” will soon be coming to a theater near you.

As the big winner at last night’s Academy Awards, the little-seen movie will be cashing in on its new celebrity — as it should.

You probably won’t win six Oscars in one night.  But don’t forget to cash in on positive publicity that comes your way.  When it comes to media coverage, the coverage isn’t the goal.  The goal is to reach your audience in a way they’ll notice and remember.

Some things to do when you get positive media coverage:

• Forward it to your customers / constituents by email or via your company newsletter.
• Put a link to it on your Web site.  Consider making a PDF copy of the story and linking to that if the story’s likely to disappear from the news site where it first appears.
• Link to the story from Facebook, if you have a Facebook account.  You don’t have a Facebook account?  Why not?
• Get reprints and give them to your sales staff as collateral, if appropriate.
• Frame the story and display it at your place of business.

You probably can come up with more ideas.  Here’s the point.  If you get positive coverage, do whatever you can to leverage that coverage as much as possible by spreading the word yourself.  Even if your company gets a lot of news coverage, there will be stories worth sharing beyond their natural reach.  Failing to broaden the reach of positive coverage is a missed opportunity to tell your story.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

The Vancouver Olympics got off to a rocky start:  Bad weather, not enough snow, an athlete killed during a practice run on the luge track and a snafu during the opening ceremony.

Those are just some of the things that triggered negative press before and shortly after the games opened.

The event was a huge success.  And it’ll be remembered that way.

Anyone or anything that generates a lot of media coverage will encounter some negative coverage.  That’s a given.

If you or your organization are in the news a lot, you’ve had to deal with bad news.  Don’t let it keep you from telling your story.  I’m not suggesting you ignore bad news.  But if you have a good enough story to tell and you keep telling it, the bad news often will be forgotten.

It’s like the truth all good performers know:  If you make a mistake, keep going and keep smiling.  If you make too many flubs — or even one really bad one in some cases — your mistake will be remembered.  But if the rest of your performance is good enough, most of us will forgive and forget the flaws and remember how well you did.   It’s no different when you’re telling your story through the media.

Don’t get so distracted by bad news that you forget to tell your story.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Reporters will always demand more information when they’re working on a story about how you screwed up.  That doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.

The deciding factor that determines how much information you need to share?  Consequences to the public, not the visibility of the story.

For example, it’s hard to imagine a more visible story than Tiger Woods’ public apology last week.  There was grumbling from the media because the apology was scripted and he didn’t take questions.  But Woods was right on target with the approach he took.  The public’s interested in the Tiger Woods story because of his celebrity — not because what he did affects the rest of us.  More information would have satisfied our curiosity.  But it wouldn’t have told us anything we need to know for our own well-being.

We all drew our own conclusions and made our own judgments of Woods based on how we feel about the sincerity of the apology.  But providing more information to the public wouldn’t have done anything positive for Woods or anyone else — except reporters looking for juicier stories.

Meanwhile, Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda will be in Washington this week to appear before a congressional committee.  He faces a much different situation.

He won’t be able to get away with the same kind of performance as Woods.  Why are the situations so different?  Because Woods’ transgressions were private.  Toyota’s problems could kill any of us, even if we don’t own one of their cars.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill was famous for saying “all politics is local.”  All news is local, too.

So, at least one Denver TV station led its Sunday evening news with the story of a Colorado resident winning the first-ever U.S. medal in the Nordic combined competition at the Olympics.  And Canada is celebrating its first-ever Olympic gold medal won on Canadian soil.

Every story can be localized.  Localizing yours will increase your chances of turning it into news.  A few thoughts about that:

• Do you have a local angle that ties into a global story already making headlines?  Then you have an opportunity to take advantage of the story already making news to turn your story into news.

• The more locations you can include when localizing your story, the broader your reach.  State Farm has gotten tremendous coverage for years with their annual 10-most-dangerous-intersections list.  There’s a built-in “local” story in every community that has an intersection on the national list.  State Farm localizes the story even more by doing state versions of its list.  Newspapers that ignore the national version because it doesn’t include any intersections in their readership area run stories about of the list for their state.

• Localizing a story is about more than geography.  It’s also about shared interests.  Is there an angle to your story that will interest golfers?  Senior citizens?  Teachers?  An ethnic or professional group?  If you can tailor your story to focus on the interests of any sizeable group, chances are there’s at least one reporter who writes for and about that group.

• You can “localize” a story by finding an exotic angle.  When a Seattle-based chain of coffee stores opened its first store in Tokyo, the Seattle Times ran a story about the local company expanding to Tokyo because there’s something exotic about that.

• You can also do the reverse of localizing, using local folklore or local color to entice reporters in distant cities to write stories local reporters would ignore.  Travel magazines do this all the time.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Toyota began fixing the accelerators on its cars last week, but the threat to its brand got significantly worse.

At least two reasons for that:

• The fix may not solve the problem.  Toyota’s fix is mechanical.  But there now are reports of a possible electronics problem with the accelerators.  The mechanical fix won’t fix the electronics problem, if there is one.  Are Toyota’s executives still in denial about a second problem with the accelerators?  I don’t know.  But if they are, then the company’s reputation may take a hit that will make its current problems pale by comparison.

• Toyota may be forced to recall some of its Prius hybrids because of a problem with their brakes.  In fact, at least one newspaper says this recall will come this week.  Not good anytime.  Potentially disastrous with another high-profile recall at the same time.

Toyota became the world’s largest car maker based on its reputation for quality and reliability.  People buy Toyotas expecting them to be more or less trouble free.

The sticking accelerators put a chink in that aura of quality.  If there’s yet another problem with the accelerators, the damage to the company’s reputation will rise exponentially – and be much longer lasting.  The simultaneous problem with the Prius makes this a truly dangerous situation for Toyota.

I have some personal experience with this.  Some years ago, while I was at U S WEST (one of the Baby Bell phone companies), the company’s executives chose to cut back on investing in the company’s phone network to increase profits.  The result?  U S WEST’s reputation for quality began to suffer.

For a while, we were able to counter the negative hits by trading on our reputation, just as Toyota is trying to do now.  But U S WEST’s executives ignored suggestions to fix the problem before the complaints grew any louder.  And the company paid a huge price — financially and otherwise — for many years to come.

What’s the lesson for the rest of us?  Today’s nagging problem could be tomorrow’s reputation breaker.  These problems almost never develop overnight.  But there are immense pressures within any organization to ignore them until they turn into a crisis.  Then the fix is much more expensive.  That’s where Toyota is today.  It’s in danger of becoming another U S WEST.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Truth in advertising.  I’ve always thought Domino’s pizzas tasted like cardboard.  But I never expected them to agree with me.

So, I was pleasantly surprised a couple weeks ago when I saw the Domino’s ad, you’ve probably seen it too, acknowledging what I already knew — their crust tastes like cardboard and their sauce tastes like ketchup.

Well, they were just repeating customer complaints.  But they also said they’ve fixed the problem.  And they’re hoping a lot of us will buy one of their pizzas to see if their new pizzas really are better than the ones they used to make.

It’s great advertising.  And it makes several points worth noting:

• Great storytelling starts by grabbing your audience’s attention.  They did that.  Looking for a way to get your audience’s attention?  Start by telling them something that surprises them.

• Conceding obvious weaknesses in your story can help you gain credibility for the messages you really care about.  This is a point I often make during media training.  Don’t try to defend every point — especially the ones you know are indefensible.  Acknowledging a mistake or two is a great way to gain credibility for the things you really care about.  Okay, your pizza tasting like cardboard isn’t a small point.  Unless, of course, enough of us believe it that it’s hurting your sales – and you can tell us with a straight face that you’ve fixed it.

• No matter how strong your story, the proof is in the . . . pizza.  Domino’s “cardboard” ad works as an ad because it got our attention.  But the real proof of whether it worked will be decided by whether enough people who give them another try agree they’re now making good pizzas.  I think the verdict is still out on that one.

I also heard from several of you last week who said Toyota is mishandling their big recall.  I don’t agree.  I think the verdict is still out on that one, too.

Crisis Communications 101:  Acknowledge the problem, fix it, and make a credible promise to assure us it won’t happen again.

Toyota has stepped up to the problem.  And they say they’ll begin fixing it this week.  If they do, and if they live up to their promise of restoring our confidence in the quality of their cars, then they will have done a good job.

But they’re in the same boat as Domino’s.  What they say will be less important than what they do.  If they’ve really begun cutting corners that affect quality as some analysts have suggested, and if that shows up in more problems with their cars, then Toyota’s reputation will suffer.  Ditto, if they screw up the repairs to the cars they’ve recalled.

But if the accelerator problem proves to be an aberration and if they fix the problem, they’ll ultimately come out of their current crisis just fine.  In fact, if they do a great job of fixing the accelerator problem, this incident could actually help their reputation. But the jury’s still out on that.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

What would you do?

I found that question from MMMM reader Neil Hrab of Toronto in my mailbox last week — along with a New York Post story about billboards put up in three cities by the jilted mistress of Charles E. Phillips, president of Oracle and a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

My answer:  I wouldn’t do anything to respond publicly to the billboards.

That’s essentially what Phillips did.  Phillips and his wife filed for divorce in 2008, but recently decided to get back together.  That’s what prompted the billboards.  He issued a statement acknowledging he had an eight-year “serious relationship” with YaVaughnie Wilkins that “has since ended, and we both wish each other well.”  Except for that, he’s had no public response.  Good choice.

Why?  Because most of us aren’t affected by what’s happening.  Except for the curiosity factor of someone spending a lot of money to publicize being jilted — estimates I’ve seen ranged from tens of thousands of dollars to as much as $500,000 — most of us don’t care.
So, anything Phillips does to respond publicly would simply keep an embarrassing story alive.

In fact, at least one of the billboards has already come down.  So, has the Web site that showed pictures of Phillips and Wilkins together during the eight years of their relationship.  Maybe Wilkins figured out she was making herself look foolish.  Or maybe Phillips’ attorneys intervened with a cease-and-desist letter that worked.  Remember, I said I wouldn’t respond publicly to the billboards.  Legal action to shut down defamation is another matter.

The billboard incident brings to mind three other troubled marriages that have been in the news recently.  Each will have a different impact on the careers of the principals involved.  And that, too, offers an interesting lesson in crisis communication.  For example:

• John Edwards.  His political career is done, thanks to his infidelity.  The former presidential candidate finally admitted last week what most of us suspected — he’s the father of the baby girl born to Rielle Hunter, the woman he was sleeping with while running for president and his wife was undergoing treatment for cancer.  His political career is done.  Not only did he cheat on a woman liked by the public, he’s lied about it repeatedly.  New disclosures — acknowledging the affair, acknowledging it continued while his wife was sick and finally admitting he’s the father of the baby — have come one by one and only after he had no choice but to admit them.  It’s hard to see how he can resurrect a political career, which involves asking the public to trust him.
• Tiger Woods. His image and bank account have both taken big hits.  His marriage may be over.  But if he continues winning whenever he returns to the PGA tour, he’ll quickly regain his standing as the world’s greatest golfer.  Working on his personal reputation will be important, too — if for no other reason than regaining some of his lost sponsorships.  But that one will be tougher.

• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Technically, not married.  But apparently splitting up.  Not likely to affect the career of either one of them.  If anything, the publicity will prove to be a plus for both.  Why won’t a breakup affect Pitt and Jolie the way infidelity hurt John Edwards and Tiger Woods?  What happened with Edwards and Woods violated their public personas.  Not true with Pitt and Jolie.

One final thought.  I always remind media training clients about their Media Miranda Rights.  When a reporter calls, you have the right to remain silent.  If you give up your right to remain silent, anything you say can be used in a story and attributed to you.  Sometimes it makes sense to talk to reporters.  But not always.

All of the principals involved in the problems discussed above have good reasons to keep quiet.  At times, so will you.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Former Major League home run hitter Mark McGwire finally confessed to the obvious last week — that he used steroids back when he was hitting all those home runs.

It may be too little, too late.  But it’s also too early to tell.

A basic tenet of crisis communication is that you need to act as quickly as possible to acknowledge your mistakes, fix the problem and take convincing steps to prevent the problem from happening again.

Even with last week’s confession, McGwire falls short on all three counts:

• His confession is late.  And self-serving.  Five years ago, McGwire refused to answer questions about drug use during a congressional hearing, saying he was “not here to talk about the past.”  Five years ago, he wanted to protect his reputation and avoid legal liability.  Now he’s talking because he’s accepted a job as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and apparently has gotten advice that a preemptive confession would make it easier to keep the job.  In short, the reason for his confession is self-serving.  And he’s still making the unbelievable claim that he would have hit all those home runs even without the drugs.  He only took them for “health” reasons, he says.  Really, Mark?

• He can’t “fix” the problem.  The Major League record books still list all those home runs, including the 70 he hit in 1998 to “break” Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61.  Statistics are a really big deal for many baseball fans.  McGwire and others who rewrote the record books while on steroids have created a huge statistics problem for Major League baseball.  And McGwire is still trying to argue his records should stand because the drugs didn’t affect his performance.  Of course not.

• McGwire retired nearly a decade ago.  He certainly can urge younger players not to follow his example.  But he can’t undo what he’s already done.

I heard at least one on-air suggestion following McGwire’s confession that he be banned from baseball.  Baseball commissioner Bud Selig almost certainly will face pressure to do just that.

McGwire’s already been passed over several times for baseball’s Hall of Fame because of suspicions about his drug use.  The early evidence is that finally coming clean won’t improve his chances.  If anything just the opposite is likely to be true.

There is one thing that may work in McGwire’s favor.  Apparently, he’s still popular in St. Louis.  McGwire received a standing ovation this weekend from local fans in his first public appearance in St. Louis since making his confession.  Popular support may help him keep his new job.  But stay tuned.  This story isn’t over yet.

In the meantime, what’s the lesson for the rest of us?  The opportunity to begin restoring your reputation by acknowledging your mistakes is short-lived.  Wait too long and it becomes virtually impossible to do.  Just ask Pete Rose.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

The big political news here in Colorado last week was Gov. Bill Ritter’s surprise decision to drop his bid for re-election.

Ritter said he was dropping out of the race to make his family a bigger priority.  I’m willing to take him at his word for now even though the pundits and others will be speculating for quite a while about Ritter’s motivation.

Politics aside, there’s an important question underlying Ritter’s decision:  Why?

Ritter asked himself why he was running and whether it was worth it.  I’m an advocate of asking why any time you embark on a campaign to tell your story.  Why do you want to issue this news release?  Why do you want to talk to this reporter?  What do you want to happen as a result of telling your story?

I know this sounds obvious.  But I frequently find clients and others haven’t asked that question.

Your answer to that question may not be as dramatic as Ritter’s.  But it’s worth asking every time you set out to tell your story.

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?

By Jerry Brown, APR
www.pr-impact.com

Happy New Year.  Do you have an agenda for 2010?  Do you know what your story is for the next 12 months — and what you want to happen during that time as a result of telling it?  If not, I encourage you to stop what you’re doing and develop one.

Something to keep in mind as you do:  Nothing is permanent, good or bad.

If you’re starting from a position of strength, don’t assume you’ll stay there just because of where you are today.  Remember PanAm, MCI, Burger Chef, Compaq, RCA, Lionel, Pullman, Montgomery Ward?  At one time all of these companies were national icons, leaders in their respective industries.  Today, they’re all defunct.  There was a time when just about every boy in America, including me, wanted a Lionel train.  Burger Chef once was second only to McDonald’s in the fast food industry.  America shopped at “Monkey” Ward’s, Sears and J.C. Penney.  And Pullman was synonymous with sleeping cars on passenger trains.  Those days are gone forever.

Who would have predicted in the year 2000, just 10 years ago, that Google, Facebook and Twitter would be major forces in our lives?  Or that we’d be buying cars from Korea while American car companies teetered on the brink of possible extinction?

If you’re beginning the year from a position of strength, how will you tell your story this year to help your company stay there?  If you’re just starting out or if you suffered setbacks that mean you’re starting the year weaker than you were a year ago, how will you tell your story to start 2011 in a stronger position than you’re in today?

That’s my two cents’ worth.  What’s yours?