Public Relations Rogue

One of the most interesting developments of the Web 2.0 revolution is the explosion of freeware on the intranet - free applications, software, games, sites and programs available to all for little more than the time for easy registration of approval of simple legal disclaimers. The latest example - as detailed in this post by Andy Sernovitz - is Adobe’s free web-based version of Photoshop. As Sernovitz mentions, Adobe likely had no short-term economic imperative for introducing this free software - in fact, they could probably make more money by continuing to charge for this essential and popular application. But in the new Web environment - with a proliferation of free applications online, collaborative product development and higher expectations by customers - the old business rules aren’t necessarily the right ones. Customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth may get more of a boost by opening the door wider, rather than squeezing every opportunity for revenue. Needless to say, this concept is anathema to Wall Street priorities and valuation.

I’ve seen essentially four reactions to this development. Some (including a surprising amount of folks involved in IT) are basically unaware of the trend and have no idea of the incredible range of free online products and services. They’ve never heard of Google Docs, WordPress or even LinkedIn. Others are both cynical and skeptical, and doubt that any smart company would actually provide worthwhile applications online at no cost. “It just doesn’t make any sense” they claim, or go on to suggest the software or applications are probably of dubious quality. Some just seem to be more comfortable with the tried-and-true; they’d rather pay onerous licensing fees and stick to the well known companies rather than take a chance on upstarts. Finally, there is a group (in which I include myself) that is thrilled to find so many free or cheap choices online. It didn’t take long for me to be convinced of the value of this trend - I am using a free platform to publish this blog.

Can this new economic model be sustained? Well, I suppose we can observe Google as an example of success - at least in the short term. They provide a wide menu of services for free and leverage advertising as their main source of income. Presumably, this approach fosters strong brand loyalty and repeat visits to their plethora of products and business explorations. Whatever the rationale or outcome, I am very glad they gave it a try. Call me one of the new breed of customers.

This recent account of Korn/Ferry’s rebranding efforts - which seem to be thoughtful and totally integrated across internal and external audiences - raises the question of why something so fundamental and logical as internal branding campaigns seem such a tough sell in many companies. Indeed, while many executives embrace the marketing principles behind the idea of promoting and celebrating a distinctive brand identity to customers, they often balk at applying the same logic with their own workforce. Why do we need to talk about our brand with employees? Don’t they already know who we are? Does this really help drive the business? Isn’t this just empty cheerleading? And what is the ROI of any internal brand campaign?

These are all appropriate questions, but they ignore the reality that ensuring employees understand, accept and deliver the brand promise is critical to a company’s success. And this is true whether the company sells directly to consumers or is more of a B2B operation. At the basic level, employees need to know what they must to do to deliver on the brand promise. Even better if they actually want to do their jobs well. On a higher level - perhaps harder to articulate and quantify - employees need to “live” the values and personality inherent in the brand. Ultimately, they have to be advocates of the brand across both personal and professional situations. None of this happens through osmosis or simply reheating marketing materials intended for customers.

All makes sense, right? So why is it so difficult to secure the funds for internal campaigns designed to educate employees about the brand and corporate identity, illustrate the brand attributes through examples or best practices or even celebrate the brand to generate enthusiasm and discretionary effort? It may be that executives are looking at all activities that fall under the umbrella of marketing and advertising - whether internal or external - with a more skeptical and cautious perspective these days. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, given the dubious track record and flawed logic of many marketing mantras (e.g. Super Bowl commercials are worth the cost.) Or it may be that in difficult economic times anything beyond basic communication about the nuts and bolts of the business seems superfluous.

Whatever the reasons, executives who ignore the internal profile and resonance of their brand do so at their own peril. Employees want to know who they work for and what their company stands for - not just how to do their job. And most employees want to feel proud about their company’s distinctive heritage, achievements and/or identity.   

Throughout the Microsoft-Yahoo merger dance, it’s been fascinating to try and detect how these companies were managing their internal communication strategy. There have been tantalizing hints provided through leaked memos and insider comments.

Yahoo appears to be doing things right - at least judging from this initial memo to employees (assuming it’s legitimate.) That means treating your employees like a critical audience on par with potential partners and sharholders and making sure they are informed and supportive of your position. Given the sorry track record of mergers and acquisitions - many of which are derailed due to cultural factors and lack of employee support - this would seem like a prerequisite.  The messages of Yahoo’s leadership team - pushing alternatives to Microsoft, appealing to cultural pride and suggesting Yahoo still has a promising outlook and sound strategy - are likely to be resonant among its employees. Despite Yahoo’s well documented troubles with Wall Street, it appears Yahoo employees appreciate their working environment and want to safeguard their culture.

Microsoft, on the other hand, may be fighting an uphill battle trying to convince its own workforce that the deal is worth fighting for. According to several reports, including this one and a recent expose in the Wall Street Journal (can’t read this one unless you have a subscription) there is strong opposition within Microsoft and employees are unhappy internal updates have dried up since the initial announcement. It’s difficult to tell whether this will be a critical factor in Ballmer’s decision making, but it should be.

Whether or not these insider accounts are accurate I don’t know. But the lesson here is that companies would be wise to treat their employees as a critical audience before, during and after any merger process. Is pre-merger employee anxiety to be expected? Do companies sometimes have to make tough decisions that entail difficult change in order to sustain their growth? Is dramatic change always a difficult sell? Yes, yes and yes. But executives shouldn’t ignore the comments and questions of their employees, who are often well positioned to understand the potential gains and pitfalls of any merger or acquisition. After all, they are the ones who have to make it happen.

I’ve been on the road most of the past week in  the US and UK and have watched with fascination as the Beijing Olympic Torch relay unfolds. Though the coverage across the various global media channels varied - I got info from everything from the BBC to USA Today to Le Monde - the story was fairly consistent. China’s attempt to burnish it’s reputation as a country and global leader through the Olympics is in shambles - at least so far. By any measure - save perhaps the assessment by the Chinese government officials - the relay has turned into a PR fiasco of historic proportions. After the carefully planned relay devolved into brawling and demonstrations - all captured by the global media TV cameras - Chinese officials tried to control the message by staging surreal non-events - such as the relay in India which banned any spectators and involved the runners going around an enclosed stadium dozens of times. They also added about 15,000 police for good measure. Subsequent stops were similar - heavy-handed security, private events and stitled celebrations with forced smiles all around. Beyond the politics of this development, what are the lessons here for communication professionals? Here are a few suggestions:

• In the digital era where global media -and citizen journalists - provide 24-day massive coverage of most events instantly, the stage-managed style of PR favored by countries like China is becoming more disingenuous and less effective. The only place where China can successfully control their message is in China, due to draconian censorship and state controlled media. China is learning that their propaganda productions don’t work so well in the real world. Welcome to the Web 2.0 world!
• There’s probably a lesson here how powerful the Internet has become as a news source and force for social movement and debate. Based on what I saw the Web served as an important platform in the planning, promotion, discussion and coverage of the torch demonstrations. Conversely, China seems able to control much of the internal national discussion through their tight censorship of the Web - though they are happy to loosen the reins when their citizens jump with nationalist frenzy with cries to boycott Carrefour stores.
• If anybody needed another reminder, companies that align their marketing with famous stars or countries with dubious track records do so at their own peril. Just yesterday Coca-Cola announced it was ”adjusting” its marketing plans for the remainder of the torch relay. Whether any of the countries can benefit from the Olympic Games themselves probably depends on whether China can turn the PR tides and stem the loud global criticism and avoid major boycotts. Either way, I suspect Lenovo will come out as the biggest loser. As a Chinese company, this is their global coming out party. Bad timing.
• Issues blend and overlap into a messy public relations morass where the public dictates the communication agenda, not corporations or governments. China clearly thought it could segment (or ignore) geo-political issues like Darfur, Tibet, tainted medicine and food and the environment and keep these distasteful issues from the Olympic Games. No such luck. Many saw the Games as precisely the right time to lump all these together into a loud proclamation for change by China. It will be interesting  to see whether China will try to defuse any of these issues (probably behind the scenes) or just continue to plow forward.
• Finally, I note that China’s main crisis-management strategy seems to be to paint demonstrators - and the Dalai Lama - as dangerous malcontents with a nefarious agenda. (Strange how Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe did the same thing this week, accusing critics of trying to re-colonialize his country.) In other words, when in trouble go on the attack. The track record of this tactic seems to be very bad, and I doubt it will work this time.

This is PR on a broad world stage. Let’s watch and see what happens. It’s shaping up to be an interesting summer.

Read an interesting post by my fellow Canadian at Buzz Canuck that does a good job of capturing the paradox that as online blog quantity grows blog quality appears to be going downhill. It does seem increasingly difficult to find good blogs that contribute original, insightful commentary rather than diatribes or just a digest from the usual aggregators. But another point that hit home for me, as a blogger, is the ongoing challenge to keep posts current, relevant and fresh. Like many others, I’ve cut down on the number of posts I write but strive to pack more punch (nutrition?) when I do post. That’s not always easy. I have as much trouble as anybody finding the time to write, let alone the content. And I probably don’t do a good enough job of engaging in conversations with fellow bloggers (commenting on their sites) rather than just using their posts as thought starters. But despite the warts, the blogosphere remains a vital part of my personal and professional development. The greatest value for me is that it forces me to listen, learn and think.

This post by Brian Solis provides a good summary of the uneven, messy and often frustrating struggle of the PR industry as professionals seek to understand and/or adopt Web 2.0 technology and beliefs. There’s plenty of good observations here - notably the vast chasm between those who get it and those who have no idea what the rest are talking about - but perhaps the most interesting insight is how our industry seems intent on continuing to trip on its own shoelaces. After falling into disrepute over the past decades - fostering the reputation or PR practioners as hacks, shills, thinly-disguised marketers or (gasp) something called publicists - we’re now surrounded by numerous examples of PR folks using social network tools with limited understanding, in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons. Put another chink in our collective reputation.  

Like Solis, however, I choose to be an optimist. The evolving Web provides an incredible opportunity for PR - an industry build on fostering relationships across audiences, after all - to reinvent itself and find a new ethical compass. As Solis writes in his post:

PR 2.0 is the understanding and practice that communications is a two-way process and incorporates the tools, principles, strategies, and philosophies for reaching, engaging, guiding, influencing, and helping people directly in addition to the traditional cycle of PR influence.

That’s as good a mantra as any. It’s our collective responsibility to learn about the new technologies and trends, to understand and adopt the progressive ethos of Web 2.0 and to educate our colleagues as best we can. Why? Because it works…and it’s the right thing to do. Every day I have at least one conversation about the need to drive candid conversation, avoid hype or consider the needs and concerns of the audience. The checkered legacy of the PR industry will not be fixed overnight, but this is our chance to turn the page.

If you needed more evidence that the hard sell on the Web is the wrong approach, check out this article in the Harvard Business Review. (Sorry but you need to buy the article. I found an excerpt in the Dallas Morning News of April 6th.) The article, by Andreas Eisingerich and Tobias Kretschmer, suggests Web retailers are thinking too narrowly - hewing closely to the traditional approach focusing on price and product - and seeing disappointing sales as a result. The suggested prescription to increase sales: try for more engagement rather than more hard selling.

According to the authors, many retailers are unhappy with their online sales and see online customers as disloyal and unwilling to spend. But the article argues these disgruntled web retailers are paying the price for having sites that focus - almost exclusively - on information about products and services for sale. Many marketing managers apparently believe that anything that diverts the consumer from an easy purchase is negative, and should be avoided. This article, along with other studies, suggests just the opposite.

From what I’ve observed - and based on my personal experience - consumers often take a circuitous path to purchase and are sometimes interested in information and services related to the core product that can help them select solutions based on their needs. That’s where contextual information and user rankings and recommendations come in. Though studies repeatedly show that consumers put peer rankings or references at the top of their decision-making criteria, many retailers are still fearful of allowing this user scorecard on their sites. (This may be a naive stance since the reviews exist on other sites anyway.) What consumers are looking for, according to these authors, is information, advice and ideas that help them think of how products can bring add value to their lives. This soft-sell approach in turn wins their loyalty and entices them to buy…sooner or later. All of this describes the concept of consumer engagement: listen to consumers, provide them with valuable information and resources, provide a forum for dialogue and sell them the products and services they want…when they want to buy.  

The research quoted in the article found that only 17 percent of e-commerce managers planned to change their sites to improve sales despite the fact almost 60 percent were disappointed with online sales. Most believed that price was the only (and best) way to attract online customers. That’s a disappointing reflection of the obstinate, insular stance of some marketing leaders. The customers that were polled, meanwhile, said they cared most about the following (in order of importance): personalized shopping; clear categorization; order tracking; in-depth products or service-related information; and, customer engagement through information on related products and services. The authors site Ralph Lauren’s website as an example of a smart, engaging online presence. Not surprisingly, sales for the RL site are strong.

Plenty of good food for thought. Let’s hope marketing executives start paying attention to all these studies and trends.  

Last night I watched the new documentary on the Rolling Stones, Shine a Light, which features concert scenes from a couple of years ago in NYC. What does this have to do with PR? Well, for one thing they proved that stereotypes are shallow and often misleading generalizations; these guys were a bit ragged - which is part of their charm - but they could still easily blow most contemporary bands off the stage. They were powerful, mesmerizing and totally impressive. I asked myself what made them so compelling, and the answer was simple: they are undeniably and unabashedly authentic. Sure Mick plays to the audience, but it appears their love of the music and each other is deep, genuine and contagious. At times, the audience seems almost incidental to their pleasure and communion…and clearly they are not doing this for the money or adulation. I was never bored, often in awe and got chills at some of the most touching, unvarnished moments - such as Keith on his knees, head down, hanging on the neck of his guitar for what seemed like minutes after the last note, apparently not wanting the magical evening to end. Or the bandmates hugging and bowing to the audience after yet another show.

In a sea of hype, invasive marketing, clumsy advertising and superficial celebrities, these guys are the real thing. Love them or hate them, you know who they are and what they stand for. And they clearly do what they do because they still love rock and roll. The lesson here for PR professionals is simple: be authentic and foster real connections with fans (or consumers.) We’ll all be better off for it.  

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (which I can’t link to due to their arcane online search function) provides an interesting analysis of Ford’s recent advertising struggles, and their Sisyphean quest to find a campaign that can revive both their lagging business and their tired brand. The latest candidate: “Ford. Drive One.” Other than the obvious call to action, this is about as memorable - or distinctive - as their last few slogans: “No Boundaries”, “American Innovation” and “Bold Moves.” What are the chances this new campaign will catch on? Not very good, I would suggest. Here’s why.

Absent some smart ads from Volkswagon over the years and perhaps the Zeppelin-fueled Cadillac campaign, automobile advertising is hopelessly formulaic, shallow, dubious and - the worse crime of all - boring. Campaigns are introduced with great fanfare but often dropped several months later, fostering consumer confusion and inattention. The stubborn lack of imagination of typical car marketing - car driving down scenic roads, endless 3/4 shots of the gleaming metal, superficial appeal to stereotypical hooks (macho & flag imagery for trucks, quirky and green for hybrids) - makes it virtually impossible to differentiate what ad is for what car. Witness the recent blizzard of boring ads related to President’s Day in the United States. I was more bored and insulted by the insistence and vapidity of the ads than anything else (perhaps because I’m Canadian and the appeal to Americana had no relevance to me.) Too often the ads are trying hard to convince consumers of the inherent value or the latest model, a brave aspiration but one which has to be based on realistic assumptions of what consumers will believe. And to make matters worse - as the article points out - these global campaigns often have no linkage to local marketing driven by the dealers. So the result is often a confusing stew of loud, repetitive claims (which appear to me like desperate pleas), mechanical minutae, financial incentives and contradictory local campaigns. Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, many auto companies continue to spend hundreds of millions on these clarion calls in the hopes of rehabilitating their brands and driving sales.    

Like too many other campaigns - for automobiles or otherwise - this latest effort by Ford has little chance of getting their cars under”consideration” by consumers, or providing a cogent, clear image of their brand. To their credit, Ford apparently worked hard with the dealers to ensure they would help reaffirm the campaign and become local advocates. And they obviously did a fair amount of research on the brand positioning of Ford and its peers. But I don’t give the campaign a big chance of getting any traction, let alone changing the minds of consumers. The article claims the inspiration for the campaign was Nike’s legendary “Just do it” tagline, one of the most memorable advertising slogans in history. But there are so many ways Ford cannot hope to replicate the impact of Nike’s efforts. For one thing, Nike can leverage a rich, credible heritage that supports their smart, innovative marketing which conveys a consistent, positive brand experience across advertising, local marketing, online platforms, retail experience and the products themselves. And yes, the product does matter.

Ford’s new CMO apparently wants this latest campaign to help position Ford as the “smart, green, quality and safe” choice. Sound a bit ambitious? Notwithstanding the merit of trying to latch on to themes like safety - which has essentially been owned by Volvo for years - this new brand identity is diffuse and hopelessly aspirational, rather than grounded in Ford’s resonant attibutes and values. In short, it may be too much of a stretch. You’ve got to give the Ford team plenty of credit for trying and they are doing some things right, but I suspect they will be back to the drawing board within a year. I wish them well…nobody said marketing was easy.  

There is plenty of commentary on Comcast’s recent decision to stop slowing data transfer among users - notably the large files used by folks who use file-sharing applications like BitTorrent. Check out this post for a good summary of the various sides in the polemic. I realize that there was plenty of heat from the FCC on this one, but I see this as yet another example of the immense power of online users - the network or community, in social media speak - and the perils of trying to spar with online consumers. I suspect Comcast’s late conversion to civility and good citizenship has as much to do with their increasingly horrid reputation online (check out the vitriol on this popular site) as their desire to play nice with Kevin Martin at the FCC. Chalk up another win for the consumer.