Kim Leslie’s PR Blog

The White House, a place that should be a pinnacle of good PR, could have responded better after Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed Obama’s first state dinner party. No one noticed the couple was out of place as they went through security and posed for pictures with the president.

The couple was being considered for the upcoming reality show Real Housewives of DC and may have attended the dinner as a publicity stunt. Records show that they were not invited and not on the guest list.

So how did they get into the dinner? The couple did not have an invitation to present at the gate, and claimed it was in their car. Yet, the Secret Service let them through. The Secret Service has publicly apologized, but they are not the only ones at fault.

White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers should be taking the fall for this mess. Rogers was supposed to be checking guests in, but put herself on the guest list, instead of the staff list. She refuses to testify, and stated that it was not her fault, since none of her staff were even there at the doors!

The White House should be presenting a united front and message, with one spokesperson citing all of the parties who are at fault. No one should be letting Rogers speak, and a good explanation for exactly why this happened and who was there to let the couple in should be presented to the public.

In addition, the White House keeps focusing on the fact that the couple posed no threat to Obama as they went through the same security screening as all of the other guests. That’s great, but everyone is still asking why the couple made it inside the White House in the first place.

For these reasons, the White House practiced bad PR in this situation. Next time, using PR tactics such as presenting one message, one statement of what occurred, and having one spokesperson would be more effective.

In early 2005, Eastern Health discovered errors in its hormone receptor tests for breast cancer patients. Patients who had been tested from 1997 through 2005 were affected by the errors. At least 27 patients died due to the errors out of the 386 who received inaccurate tests.

Immediately, the company’s President should have begun apologizing to patients through the media and the company should have begun implementing its crisis communication plan. Instead, Eastern Health practiced bad PR.

Eastern Health delayed telling affected patients and the public about the errors through the summer of 2005. The company would have waited even longer, but the media beat them to it by revealing the story in October 2005.

It took the company until the summer of 2008 to send apology letters to all patients affected. The company should have also immediately accepted responsibility for its actions and informed all patients that they could be affected. Eastern Health did not let its patients know there was a problem and they might be affected.

To further complicate the disaster, Eastern Health’s Director of Communications, Susan Bonnell, begged a national PR firm for advice on how to handle the situation. She revealed that the company did not have a crisis communication plan to adequately handle the testing errors.

Eastern Health’s own PR person did not know how to handle the crisis, could not handle the crisis, and decided to reveal this to the public.

Following Jennifer Hudson’s Oscar win for Best Supporting Actress in Dreamgirls in 2007, she described American Idol as her “stepping stone.” Simon Cowell was outraged by her comment and explained that many other American Idol successes purposely turn against the TV show which opened every door to their current achievements.

After Cowell’s comment, Hudson went on to say: “If I’d been any better at my job when I was at Burger King in my middle teens, I wouldn’t be here either, so should I thank them, too?” Hudson worked at Burger King when she was 16 and sang while working.

Instead of responding with criticism, Burger King took the opportunity to practice good PR for their company. Burger King used PR through their spokesperson to respond to Hudson’s comments. The company announced that it would be giving Hudson a prepaid Burger King Crown Card that will be reloaded for life.

Through this PR tactic, Burger King generated positive coverage of its company, communicated to its employees (an important stakeholder) that it truly cares about their success, and showed that it can turn a negative comment into a positive opportunity for good PR.

While this PR tactic may not be appropriate for every company, BK’s PR was in line with a statement on their company website about corporate responsibility. The company states that its corporate responsibility approach is stakeholder driven in four main areas: food, people, environment, and corporate governance.

BK’s response to Hudson’s comment reflects their commitment to two key stakeholders: food and people. Good job BK!

In 2002, Southwest Airlines came under fire for its policy of charging overweight/obese passengers for an extra seat. Since then, other airlines such as United have begun charging as well.

Southwest’s defense of its policy, called “Customer of Size,” was met with both opposition and appreciation from the media and bloggers. Some complained that Southwest was discriminating against larger customers, while others were overjoyed that the airline was finally listening to customer complaints about sitting next to overweight customers on flights.

Southwest’s response to media and online criticism, especially blog posts, is an excellent example of good PR. Despite criticism and media backlash, Southwest has successfully gained support for its policy from customers of a normal weight and the courts. The airline has had the policy since 1980, and has only been sued five times over it. Every time, Southwest won.

In addition, the airline demonstrated good PR in its response by posting a detailed Q & A on its website. The page explains the “Customer of Size” policy, how such a customer is defined, the reasons for the policy, and the protection the policy has under the law. The airline cites various laws and explains that they have not violated any of them with the policy.

The page defines a “Customer of Size” as one who cannot fit in a seat with both armrests lowered. The company explains that their employees will take every step to use discretion when explaining to passengers that they must pay for an extra seat and is not trying to embarrass any passenger.

Customers are charged a discounted rate for the second seat if they paid a discounted rate for their first ticket, or are charged for a child’s fare for the second seat if they paid full price. Southwest also refunds customers who have to pay for an extra seat after the flight if the flight is not full. What a deal, the site states that most customers receive a refund after their flight.

Finally, the airline justifies its policy because of numerous customer complaints of having a larger seatmate encroach onto their seat. The airline believes the seating situations are unsafe and uncomfortable for the customer who paid for their own seat. Southwest did not ignore the complaints of its customers, and has approached the situation in a sensitive way that is legally supported.

For these reasons, Southwest Airline’s policy  is an example of good PR.

The PR practitioner’s role in actively advocating and implementing successful internal/employee communication now extends to social media. The importance of this role is evidenced by social media mishaps which turned into full-blown crises. In other, but fewer cases, mistakes were corrected because organizations listened to and engaged conversations on social media. Media mishaps gone wrong include the Dominos YouTube videos, the Amazon.com gay and lesbian book sales ranking disappearance, and IBM’s silence to internal and external stakeholders a week after a VP of the company was arrested.

In addition, the Metro Bank name-change crisis tells of similar internal/employee communication problems. The crisis began as consumers posted stories about the complications they had experienced due to the bank’s name change. Metro Bank employees decided to join the conversation, and fueled the crisis. Employees discussed the disorganization and confusion within Metro Bank, all the way up to the Regional Presidents of the Bank. One employee even used profanity toward consumers and called them bad customers. If Metro Bank’s PR practitioner(s) had implemented a crisis communication plan for employees, many of the negative effects of the crisis could have been eliminated (the company also should have had a better crisis communication plan for external stakeholders, especially consumers). PR practitioners should have educated employees about social media use and its consequences for the company. Most importantly, PR practitioners and company executives should have focused on engaging employees. The actively disengaged employees who responded to consumers’ blog posts did not feel loyalty to or have a deep connection with the company. Thus, PR should mean engaging not only external stakeholders, but internal ones as well.

PR practitioners should have an active role in employee/internal communication within organizations. Employees should be viewed by organizations as their most important stakeholder group because employees determine whether an organization will be successful or not. Practitioners should encourage organizations to view employees this way and communicate with employees in a way that reflects this view. Engaged employees have a special connection with the organization that causes them to act in the best interest of the company, ultimately benefitting the company (often made possible by PR practitioners). In addition, engaged employees have an increased level of job satisfaction, lead to more profitability for the company, and lower turnover rates and operating costs. Not only do engaged employees provide these benefits to the company, they are also loyal to the company and stay employed there, perform well, encourage others to perform better, and serve as ambassadors that recommend the employer to others and build a positive image of the employer within the community.

PR practitioners can create programs that increase the number of engaged employees in an organization. To do this, practitioners must build trust with employees and encourage transparent internal communication. If internal communication is transparent, communication with external stakeholders will also be transparent, and the organization will be viewed as credible. Practitioners must ensure that internal communication is frequent, authentic, and builds quality relationships with employees. Practitioners already work to build these types of relationships with consumers and other external stakeholders, and are experts on how to engage various stakeholders.

If employee/internal communication and engaged employees are beneficial to organizations in so many ways, why are some organizations not turning to PR practitioners who can offer invaluable expertise?

The Brita Products Company exercises CSR in many areas, including its eco-conscious partnership with Nalgene to reduce bottled water waste. The partnership, called Filter For Good, urges consumers to fill reusable Nalgene water bottles with water filtered through Brita filters. The companies ask consumers to make a pledge to use reusable water bottles at least a few days a week to reduce the number of water bottles in landfills.

Brita’s CSR aligns with its “About Us” section on the company’s website. Brita “prides itself in being a good corporate citizen,” and uses the Filter For Good campaign and others like it to demonstrate that their company cares about the environment. Of course, these are PR tactics used to implement CSR, but this is where CSR begins for Brita, not where it ends. The Filter For Good campaign goes beyond the company’s statement that it cares about the environment. Filter For Good empowers consumers to adopt eco-friendly habits, instead of simply telling consumers how the company helps the environment. For example, Filter For Good partnered with the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and eliminated the need for the 50,000 disposable water bottles the Festival gave to attendees in 2008. Attendees were given complimentary Nalgene bottles and filled them with filtered Brita water located throughout the Festival. Not only did this reduce waste at the Festival, it encouraged consumers to continue to reduce bottled water waste in the future.

Brita’s CSR strengthens relationships with key stakeholders such as consumers, employees, and shareholders. Filter For Good helps to ensure that key stakeholders feel that their contributions (monetary or otherwise) to the company are making an impact in the world and making a difference. In addition, the Filter For Good partnership with the Sundance Film Festival exhibits Brita’s desire to place environmental issues and interests before its own self-interests. This is exemplified by the free filtered water Brita provided and the free water bottles provided by Nalgene. Donating their products in this way for environmental interests impacted consumers. Through the Filter For Good CSR campaign, Brita has demonstrated that others truly benefit from the company’s existence (the point of CSR).

Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has become an increasingly popular topic for PR professionals and PR firms. Despite CSR’s rising popularity, PR practitioners must proceed with caution when implementing CSR. PR firms and practitioners must ensure that their own companies and values meet the ethical standards of CSR. If PR firms and practitioners are not practicing CSR along with values-driven PR, then how can they expect to be credible sources in CSR implementation for other companies? PR practitioners must take on the role of practicing CSR themselves before they can counsel companies on corporate ethics.  They must go beyond teaching others about CSR and work to implement and advocate for ethical business practices for themselves and other PR practitioners and firms.

PR practitioners must also remember that their role in CSR is not to use it as a tool, but to use PR as a tool for CSR implementation. Unfortunately, many continue to view PR as just image building and publicity. Due to this, CSR must not become a tool used for publicity as part of a PR program for a company. Instead, CSR must stand apart from PR and become something that is embedded in a company’s core focus and values.

In addition, CSR cannot be used simply as PR to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders. As a result of a company proving through CSR that it seeks to promote and achieve more than its own self-interests, CSR should strengthen relationships with key stakeholders. Moreover, effective PR for a company should be a product of CSR implementation.

PR and CSR both target stakeholders such as employees, shareholders, and customers. Once a company has implemented CSR into its core values and mission, the company can use PR to inform key stakeholders of this. CSR means putting social and other global issues before a company’s self-interest. Thus, CSR implementation should begin before PR about CSR. Otherwise, companies and practitioners are missing the point of CSR: others should benefit from the existence of a company.

Many PR practitioners could learn a lot from implementing CSR themselves (and gain some credibility too).

Ethical PR begins with transparency, trust, and honesty. The widespread use of social media has raised new questions about PR ethics, specifically disclosure. Some PR practitioners have engaged in astroturfing, or using social media (such as blogs) to create grassroots support for their client, product, etc. Countless examples include the Edleman/Walmart disaster, where Edleman employees created blogs or “flogs” called Working Families for Wal-Mart. These blogs promoted Wal-Mart and seemed to show grassroots support for the company. Once Edleman disclosed that their employees had created the blogs, the ethics of this practice were immediately questioned.

Edleman responded to the controversy with a plan to evaluate and improve its company and employee ethics. The company asked for feedback online, and created a plan for ensuring ethical behavior and transparency in the new social media industry. The Edleman/Walmart fiasco caused PR practitioners to reevaluate their ethical standards online. The cry for transparency and honesty increased, and bloggers called for the creation of a code of ethics specifically for blogging. In addition, the ethical issue of disclosure was, and continues to be debated. People called for the writers of the Walmart blogs to disclose their true identities. Normal people, not just those in the PR industry, wanted the Edleman employees to disclose their identities and uphold ethical standards.

My answer to “Do people care about disclosure?” Yes, they do. Should they be regulating practitioners on blogs and other forms of social media? Is it the public’s responsibility to insist on disclosure, transparency, trust, and honesty when astroturfing practitioners violate codes of ethics? These, and other ethics questions concerning PR will continue to be raised as the use of social media increases.

As evidenced by endless lists of examples of PR faux pas due to inattention to cross-cultural communication, it is essential for PR practitioners to know how to communicate successfully with other cultures. One example of differences in cultural attributes (Guth & Marsh) is the Pepsodent PR Campaign in South Asia. The campaign used the slogan, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.” Unfortunately, the natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth, and black teeth are considered more attractive than white teeth. This cultural difference corresponds with the cultural attribute of attitudes about colors, numbers, and symbols (Guth & Marsh). White-colored teeth are ideal in U.S. culture, while black-colored teeth are ideal in parts of South Asia. The unofficial language, or nonverbal language, of colors in different cultures often conveys more than words.

If Pepsodent had taken the time to gain knowledge about the culture in South Asia, the first step to cross-cultural awareness communication, Pepsodent could have avoided the unsuccessful campaign (and the embarrassment).  On its website, Pepsodent prides itself on having provided oral care to Indonesia for over 30 years. Yet, the company did not take the time initially to research cultural attributes for that area.  The company did learn from its embarrassing campaign, as evidenced by its success as the leading toothpaste brand in most Asian countries.

Pepsodent’s PR blunder emphasizes the need for practitioners to research, research, research, especially before launching a campaign in another country.