StevenSilvers.com

Toyota and Tiger: Brands never really get fixed

Pundits and news media are debating whether Toyota or Tiger Woods will bounce back more quickly from their respective scandals.

But it’s wrong to think a celebrity brand returns to where it was before the stuff hit the fan. There’s no repairing a brand image that has been demolished by bad behavior. There’s only repositioning a brand to succeed in spite of it.

Toyota and Tiger will never be the personas they were before.  That’s not to say they won’t again dominate their markets.  They might.  But they’ll do so on different terms, from a new starting line.  Consumers and the institutions that influence them will align their affinity in context to what went down and how it impacted them.  They may feel totally jaded or think the whole thing is overblown.  But they’ll definitely consider it. 

The 24-7 news cycle and the Internet’s indefinite shelf life means that scandal will be part of the Toyota and Tiger consciousness for a very long time.   Even if there were no more nasty headlines to come – don’t bet on it -- it could be a generation before the smoke clears.

For high-profile brands embroiled in controversies of their own making, it’s an important distinction:  Even the best-spun apologies and damage control aren’t the end of the matter. They’re the beginning.
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What Tiger Woods and other scandals really tell us about crisis management

PR and media types over-analyze the Tiger Woods mess.  There are only a couple of lessons here.  But they’re big ones.

Here’s the first: The threat of discovery doesn’t stop some people from behaving badly.

Tiger’s melt-down isn't the failure of a crisis plan. There wasn’t one. None of Tiger Inc.'s image handlers prepared memos outlining what to do if it came out that Mr. Woods enjoyed extramarital affairs like some people collect snow globes.  Damage control strategies started after the truth.  Not before.

Today’s Internet-driven reality TV culture means we’re following scandals more than ever.  We’re very familiar with the “PR angle” of every story.  This has created a belief that PR is the end result of itself.  We assume that image is a universally valued currency to be saved or squandered.  But this confuses how we rationalize self-destructive behavior by prominent people.

Take for example a recent Harvard Business Review article on responding to scandals.  In it two researchers argue that Chinese executives who added melamine to milk sold in the U.S. might have acted differently had they only anticipated people's emotional reaction people to media coverage about dead infants.

The world doesn’t work that way.  Businessmen who poison food to increase profits are criminals.  And criminals are psychopaths that by definition don’t care what happens to others. They’re bad people, not bad public relations planners.

True story.  Many years ago I was in my hotel room watching the local news when suddenly the TV showed a mug shot of my client.  The government official at the center of our at-risk youth campaign had been arrested for soliciting a teenage prostitute. 

We had nothing prepared for this.  What we did have, however, was an appreciation of how things would get worse if people thought we were treating the scandal as primarily a PR problem to be resolved with spin and posturing.  That got us through it.

In the same way, Tiger’s self-destruction also reminds us of the second lesson: That effective crisis planning is having the ability to respond to situations nobody sees coming. 

In the real world, that has to include people in charge being caught doing very bad things.

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The staggering speed and scale of Internet culture

Less than 12 days after the first headline, a Google Web search for “Balloon Boy” returns more than 11.1 million results – more than the number of people in New York City and Los Angeles combined.
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How breaking news becomes grist for the pop culture mill in only three days

The Balloon Boy hubbub proves a rule that companies in crisis should keep in mind: News is entertainment at the  speed of the Internet.

Here’s how it happens:

The incident goes live. In this case, Balloon Boy’s parents called the TV stations.

The incident becomes breaking news. A herd mentality takes over competing media outlets. Nobody wants to miss the shot that everybody else has. Time elapsed: About half an hour.

Breaking news becomes a national story. Local coverage feeds into national outlets, and everything feeds into the Internet. Live event coverage goes viral. News links and commentary fly around email, Facebook and Twitter. People at work see headlines on the little TVs in the elevators. Time elapsed: About an hour.

The story becomes a controversy. News reports contradict earlier reports, creating scandal. Questions, rumors and speculation become a constant din interspersed with breaking news updates of even the most minuscule facts. Talking heads on cable and radio blame liberals or conservatives for allowing things like this to happen. Internet coverage and chatter multiplies a thousand-fold. Time elapsed: Three to four hours.

The controversy becomes pop culture. The people who started it get interviewed on Larry King. Leno and Letterman make jokes that night. Saturday Night Live refers to it in a promo for this week’s show. Three times the number of media outlets show up the next day, and so do dozens of other people from all over. Some bring alcohol, others bring hand-made posters. Internet coverage and chatter multiplies several thousand-fold. Supermarket tabloids do cover stories. Time elapsed: One to two days.

Pop culture becomes the story. Media coverage and Internet chatter is the same as follows a popular reality TV show. People take sides with and against victims, villains and heroes. Everyone becomes a celebrity. Journalists – many of them ticked off for being played -- investigate school transcripts, arrest records and anonymous tips. Web sites pop up.  Talk shows devote whole hours. Authorities launch formal investigations. Politicians express concern. Somebody announces a book.

Media critics blame the news media. News media blame consumers. Consumers find Balloon Boy Halloween costumes on the Internet.

Total time elapsed: About 72 hours, give or take.

(Photo: The New York Post reported that an online gaming company in San Francisco put “Balloon Boy Game” on the Internet in only about six hours after the news story went national.)
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• The Harvard Crimson:  Sailing away with Balloon Boy
• American Chronicle  |  The "Balloon Boy" and the White House:  Good lessons for not mixing "news" and entertainment
• Philadelphia Inquirer  |  Mr. and Mrs. Balloon Boy did it because we will watch
• Washington Post  |  Balloon Boy, media stunts, dream up your own
  

A business primer on the new FTC transparency rules

Representing its most sweeping action in 30 years, the Federal Trade Commission’s new rules governing endorsements and testimonials will change how marketing is done.

Here’s what the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising say:

ACCOUNTABLE FOR BLOGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA.

The FTC already directs online reviewers to disclose if they’re being paid by advertisers. Under the new rules, however, every blogger, Twitter user or social network member must disclose any “material connection” with a company, product or service.

Taken literally, this connection could result in fines for bloggers who fail to disclose anything from getting a sample can of chili in the mail to having a spouse who owns company stock. While consumer advocates support the guidelines, some prominent bloggers argue that the rules in effect force them to disclose every business relationship they’ve ever had.

Enforcement is another matter. The FTC says it will primarily go after the advertisers rather than individual bloggers, though it will take into account how companies encourage transparency in their paid reviews and freebies. Beyond that, the agency will decide matters on a case-by-case basis – which basically means they’ll know deceptive advertising when they see it. What makes things even more convoluted is that the agency doesn’t say by what means it will handle these situations.

Given that the new transparency standards for bloggers are higher than what’s required of commercial news media and politicians, the FTC rules are generating considerable debate among marketers and social media proponents alike. Stay tuned.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR TYPICAL RESULTS.

Ads that feature individual consumer experiences with a product will have to state clearly what kind of results everybody else can expect. Soon to be history are those ubiquitous ads that whisper “results not typical” while showing some guy who lost 300 pounds drinking vitamin shakes.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR EMPLOYEES.

Employees that promote their company or its products online must “clearly and conspicuously” disclose who they work for.

The FTC urges that companies have social media policies as one way to avoid fines or other actions when employees pretend to be someone else – say, a happy customer or invigorated shareholder.

Keep in mind, however, that a recent Deloitte study found that a third of all employees don’t even consider what their boss might think before posting something online.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR CELEBRITIES AND RESEARCH.

A warning to every company that uses movie stars, retired quarterbacks and 70’s sitcom actors for promotional tours. Under the new FTC guidelines, both advertisers and their celebrity spokespeople can be held liable for making false claims as part of a commercial endorsement.

The ramifications are huge. Celebrities making the rounds of late-night talk shows, state fairs and Twitter feeds must disclose their business relationship with any company or agency that’s paying them to pump movies, books, products or even charities.

Companies that quote research must also disclose if they paid for the studies, or if they have any business relationship with the organization that did the research.

These standards go way beyond front groups and hidden clients. From now on, any failure to disclose corporate affiliations could be considered deceptive advertising. That’s going to hit a lot of marketing PR campaigns.
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Download a PDF of the revised FTC rules here.

KFC free chicken promotion runs around like a PR stunt with its head cut off

It will go down as one of the least thought-out marketing publicity stunts since Sony used a decapitated goat to promote a video game.

The idea seemed simple enough.  Strike a deal to have Oprah to "give away" two pieces of KFC's new grilled chicken to everybody in America.   Tell people to download an Internet coupon and show up at a store.  Publicize madly.   Post a Tweet from Oprah reading, "You're Getting a Chicken! You're Getting a Chicken!" 

But like many good intentions gone bad, this campaign didn't plan for the most obvious potential PR problems:

Contingency:  Not enough Internet.   The servers crashed from so many people trying to get coupons at the same time.  Maybe we understand how the Colorado Rockies weren't ready to sell World Series tickets, but how can one America's largest consumer companies not have the plumbing worked out?

Contingency:  Unprepared stores.   Consumers didn't read the fine print and assumed every KFC was a participating store.  Many stores were overwhelmed. Some locked the doors.  Other taped hand-written "no Internet coupons!" signs to the door.  Police were called.  Managers freaked out, politicians called for action.

Contingency:  Consumers gone wild.   People who didn't get their free chicken behaved like they were being denied the right to vote.  In New York, angry citizens staged a sit-in while the world's news media looked on.  The Internet exploded with smarmy bloggers, angry customers, finger-wagging criticisms and conspiracy theories.  Talk shows had a field day.

Contingency:  Caught in a lie.   Animal rights activists loathe KFC.  But just last year, PETA gave Oprah its "Person of the Year Award" for helping to expose factory farm abuses, including a show titled "How we treat the animals we eat."   A Huffington Post column called it Oprah's "most hypocritical move yet."

Both KFC's and Oprah's PR machines are in full swing.  They'll survive.

But companies with fewer resources for damage control should be paying close attention.
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Ten years later, the face of Columbine looks in a mass media mirror

National media played up Oprah Winfrey's decision to pull a previously-taped show that was to commemorate the Columbine High School massacre ten years ago.  Winfrey decided that the show "focused too much on the killers."

One of the people on the canceled show was Columbine High School principal Frank DeAngelis, who's had a constant presence in media coverage leading up to and during the ten-year anniversary.

Some critics argue that media is focusing far too much on Columbine's principal as well.

Westword media columnist Michael Roberts finds something "unsettling" about how eagerly DeAngelis seems to be engaging with the press, considering the criticism and lawsuits that alleged he had not done enough to prevent two teenage boys from murdering 12 students and a teacher. Roberts writes:

Perhaps he's simply trying to be responsive to press inquiries, of which he's no doubt swamped on a regular basis -- although saying "yes" to every request tends to reinforce the equating of Columbine and school shootings, as opposed to emphasizing that the school has moved on...

Or maybe he's interested in establishing himself as the person most responsible for bringing Columbine back from an unimaginable nightmare, as opposed to helping to fuel problems that may have contributed to the event.

Sure, DeAnglelis wants credit.  He deserves it.  But to suggest there's no more to it echos an unfortunately typical black-or-white, sincere-or-insincere interpretation of people who put themselves in the media limelight after such tragedies.

People are more complicated than that.  And that includes people like DeAngelis, who looked a killer in the eyes and missed being killed himself by a few inches before kids slaughtered kids in his school.

"You start reading about yourself, and people are saying you have blood on your hands," DeAngelis told the Denver Post. " You receive threats on your life. And it gets to the point where you ask, 'Are they right?  Am I a bad person?'

Being public through mass media seems one way that the face of Columbine is helping to answer to those questions.
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(Photo courtesy of the Denver Post)

America's pundit problem

In the aftermath of Wall Street's collapse, experts are pointing to the negative impact of experts.

An Emery University study, for example, asked students to consider making several personal finance decisions.  When those students were given advice from a recognized expert, the decision-making and calculating parts of their brains simply simply shut down.

What makes this really scary is how experts are so often wrong.

New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof recalls how professor Philip Tetlok spent 20 years tracking 82,000 predictions from 284 experts.  Tetlok found that the pundits were only slightly more correct than random guesses.  It didn't matter if they were doctors, politicians, economists or financial advisers.

"Indeed, the only consistent predictor was fame - and it was an inverse relationship," Kristof writes.   "The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones.  That had to do with a fault in the media.  Talent bookers for television shows and reporters tended to call up experts who provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites.  People who shouted - like, yes, Jim Cramer!"

Will past mistakes mean fewer experts?  Hardly.

Pundits are to mass media what baseballs are to the major league.  They're cheaper than staff researchers or reporters.  They compete for exposure by being available and quotable.

Most importantly, subject-matter authorities are rarely held accountable by the industry that relies on them for content.  Sometimes they're even celebrated for being so wrong.  A few years ago, the Rocky Mountain News profiled a "controversial" aviation consultant who had become an international media darling by giving "colorful" sound bites insisting that Denver International Airport would go bankrupt.  DIA hasn't lost money since it opened in 1995.

The public brain-freeze over pundits is what makes John Stewart's skewering of Mad Money's Jim Cramer so telling.  Mainstream media is full of experts laying blame for the financial crisis.  But it took a comedy show host to publicly chastise one of Wall Street's biggest media celebrities for his part in it.

Indeed, there are partisan watchdogs like the conservative Business & Media Institute and the liberal Media Matters, which recently launched a new website targeting financial news and opinion.  But these groups are politically biased in their criticisms and don't reach nearly an audience like The Daily Show with John Stewart.

But they're among the closest things we have to Consumer Reports Guide to Pundits.  And right now we need all the critical reviews we can get.

At least, that's my expert opinion.
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Photo courtesy Associated Press

PETA responds

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals President Ingrid Newkirk responded to my post, "PETA president says eat me when I'm dead" by suggesting I don't understand the importance of protest theater.

What I said was that PETA's publicity stunts -- like asking that her remains be made into a purse -- are fanatical by design.  She says the same thing.

Here's the entire letter:

Dear Mr. Silvers,

It seems that something has blinded you to the importance of political protest ("PETA President Says Eat Me When I'm Dead," 22 Mar.).  Just as Lady Godiva felt compelled to make her point by riding nude through Coventry, and colonists made theirs by throwing tea into Boston Harbor, PETA must be colorful in order to get animal issues into the public eye, even if some of what we do makes us look a bit silly.

My will came about one day after the plane I was in almost crashed.  It left me wondering how my advocacy for animals in trouble could live on after I die.  That's when it hit me that I could use the various parts of my body to protest grotesque forms of cruelty such as force-feeding geese and ducks to make foie gras (hence my liver is to go to France for a demo) and killing animals in order to make them into fashion accessories (some of my skin will be made into a wallet).  I will have no use for my body when I'm gone, animals need help, and getting media coverage reaches the most people.

Please go to PETA.org for information on a cruelty-free lifestyle in which no one gets hurt.

Very truly yours,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
501 Front St.
Norfolk, VA 23510

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More good reasons to not do my timesheets

When the going gets calamitous, the calamitous get going:

... Famous book-selling pastor David Wilkerson predicts an "earth-shattering calamity" of Biblical proportions centered in New York City that will spread around the world.

... Prince Charles says we have 100 months to save the world from cataclysmic climate change. That's 8.333333 years. We have even less time because this week is already this week.

... Russian Foreign Ministry School dean Igor Panarin says President Obama will order marshal law this year and the U.S. will collapse before 2011.

... A group called "End World 2012" lists several reasons why the big send-off might coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar on December 24 that year.

... Billionaire Warren Buffett said the nation's economy has "fallen off a cliff."

On the good side, the Wall Street Journal has discovered Twitter and "Octomom's" second publicist quit because his client "got real greedy." Maybe there's still hope for us all.
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