As PR pros, we’ve all made some embarrassing mistakes, even sending press releases or pitches to the wrong media list. But some mistakes are bigger than others. Eric Govan, PR manager for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, sent an e-mail titled “Ghetto Prom” — featuring photos of black people in formal attire and commentary denigrating the outfits — to the team’s entire media distribution list.
Oops. Govan was fired.
Maybe it’s because I’m bitter that I didn’t get into the St. George Marathon, but I thought that I’d rant a bit and use a recent e-mail as an example of the importance of knowing who you are targeting.
As some may know, I’m an avid runner. I’m not very fast and most of the time I do it as a social experience — nothing like taking off on a long run with your buddies on Saturday mornings. But yesterday I got an e-mail from a local running store that I recently bought a few GUs who put me on their mailing list. I’m OK with it, afterall I agreed to giving them my e-mail. But yesterday was an example of why you need to know your who you are targeting instead of just blasting a mass e-mail (or in PR’s case, mass pitching).
“Diva Night” is a women’s only event filled with women specific information including apparel, bra fitting, getting into triathlons, etc. Diva Night will be Tuesday night, May 15th, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at XYZ Company located at XXXX Dr.
Highlights of the night include:
1. “Women in Running and Triathlon” presentation by Nicole DeBoom, Ironman Champion and founder of SkirtSports. Hear first hand the exciting opportunities for women in these sports through the experiences of Nicole DeBoom.
2. Flattering fashion show allowing those present to see what the apparel looks like when worn, not on the hanger. Featuring the latest in running, multisport and active lifestyle clothing by companies like Nike, Pearl Izumi, SkirtSports, Hind, TYR and more!
3. Bra-ology 101 – Learn how the right sports bra should fit, how it can help improve your performance and receive a free bra fitting from one of our specialists.
4. Packet Pick-up for the TriUtah “Women of Steel” triathlon – packets for this triathlon can only be picked up at “Diva Night” or at the TriUtah expo the night before the race. No packets will be available the day of the race. For more details on the TriUtah “Women of Steel” triathlon go to www.triutah.com.
5. Mingle and get your questions answered with Debbie Perry (Co-owner Salt Lake Running Company, Triathlete and Sport Nutritionist), Nicole DeBoom and the women of Salt Lake Running Company.
This will be an evening not to miss. Women of all levels are invited to attend. Please invite and bring a friend. The atmosphere of this evening will be exhilarating! Come feel the excitement of women in running and multisport.
Happy Running,
(I didn’t want to disclose name)
Runner/Manager
OK, maybe they are hoping that I pass it along to my wife or think that I am in dire need a man-zirre or a bro, but this made me mad since this company isn’t that big and the database wouldn’t be too hard to maintain. I started to think about the editors I pitch and how upset they must get is they are a running editor and get a mass pitch from someone about enterprise technology or something outlandish.
The bottomline is obvious: know your editor/audience. But in the fast-paced business of PR when all the client demands is results, it is easy to forget some of the fundamental principles of the trade and by doing this you might be burning a bridge that needs to be crossed in the future. In this case, though I wasn’t a frequent shopper at this store, I’m less inclined to shop there in the future.
Do the new rules of social media apply to media training? Blogs and podcasts allow PR pros to communicate with target audiences in a transparent and conversational way. Should these principles also be applied to media training? Journalists are getting less tolerant of canned answers, and while bridging to key messages in an interview is important, it needs to be carefully done. Executives should not memorize answers, but think in terms of themes and keep the interview conversational.
In the recent Republican Debate, Mitt Romney did a great job. One criticism, however, was that his answers seemed too canned and rehearsed. The example cited was his answer to stem cell research which sounded very scientific and, according to The National Review, “somewhat over-educated”. However, it’s worth mentioning that The National Review praised Mitt’s performance in the debate: “And the winner is: Mitt the Good, the Perfect, the Gosh-Darned Smartest of Them All.” Mitt has recieved extensive media training, mainly from the PR firm Coltrin & Assoicates, during the 2002 Winter Olympics (I worked for Coltrin at the time). While his media training has obviously paid off, his messages still sound a bit rehearsed.
I’m at the end of a successful Boston/New York press and analyst tour. The client I was representing was Gary Kennedy of RemedyMD. Gary is the former President of Oracle USA, former CEO of Tenfold and PRC. Needless to say, an experienced and high-powered executive. During the tour we focused on keeping the interviews conversational while still delivering key messages and sound bites. The interviews went very well.
It’s no secret that new media is changing the way PR pros operate; delivering a strong message in an interview is no exception.
One thing that you need to remember when being interviewed for a television or radio piece, especially if it refers to a product and or company, is to state your product or company name a lot. Instead of saying, “We are proud to blah, blah, blah.” you should say, “ABC Company is blah blah blah” or “ABC Product helps blah, blah, blah.” Why? Because in television pieces the super (graphic) shows up for only a few seconds and can be missed since stories are fairly short, and unlike in print or online where you can go back and read the piece to see who the quote is attributed to.
Research In Motion (RIM) has given us yet another example of bad crisis management. RIM “remained largely quiet” during an outage that left an estimated five million users of the popular BlackBerry wireless email device without service. As all crisis managers know, a lack of immediate response leads to a vacuum which is almost always filled with negative perception and commentary. The company was sharply criticized for not immediately responding to the public.
For example, let’s look at the Wall Street Journal coverage: Black Berry User Stew in Wake of Outage
The article also quoted some key customers who were very unhappy. This is extremely hurtful to the company and its sales force in particular, and makes an already negative article that much more damaging:
When criticized for not issuing a statement, “a Research In Motion spokeswoman said that determining the full root causes of the outage would take more time.”
This is the number one mistake made in crisis management. RIM should have immediately issued a statement, followed by updates, which would have helped control the message and mitigate negative commentary.
Ultimately, RIM shares fell $1.88, or 1.4%, to $132.49.
Rutgers Women’s basketball/Imus
The Rutgers Women’s basketball team also had an opportunity to turn around and better control a hurtful message, but instead the team met with Don Imus and issued a statement addressing race relations. This is disappointing, they had an opportunity to talk about their accomplishments as a team and steer away from the controversy , but instead fell right into the debate trap started by Imus, Al Sharpton, and others. Thus the story remained about Imus’ racial remarks, and not about the unbelievable accomplishments of the team.
The crisis management principles remain the same, yet we continue to see organizations make the same classic blunders. I suspect we’ll continue to see more.
[Derogitory comment by Don Imus] = 1*
[Mention of Imus’ comment in news] = 1,076
* Don Imus apologized.
The Irony/Hypocrisy of the News Media
Somehow it’s okay for the the media to continue using (and profiting from) the demeaning statement that Don Imus used once. (It still doesn’t excuse what he said). It’s been repeated thousands of times during the past two weeks, and anybody who understands the media business knows that more readers and more eyballs means more dollars. Let’s face it, if you want people to read your story online, what phrase should you be putting in your headline? Oh the irony.
CBS leads the way with the hypocrisy train.
Could You Call Oprah A Nappy . . . (you know the phrase)?
Nancy Giles tries to turn it into some story about more women having a voice. I agree with her idea, but she’s spreading the same ugly message Imus did, and she’s doing it under the leadership of the very company that fired the old codger.
“Nappy (demeaning phrase) Or African Queen? Rutgers Graduate Pens New Book Entitled I’m African and Proud
I hope this lady’s book is great. Does she realize I found this page in Google news because she’s using the phrase to try and sell books? Oh the irony.
ROKER: There is no joy in what has transpired . . . via MSNBC
Good for Roker for not using the term in his headline. He actually buried in his column somewhere.
Read The court of public opinion if you want. This is a follow-up to that post.
I’ve been thinking lately about how often the media shamelessly convicts people in the court of public opinion because it’s good for news. That’s a lie. They do it because it’s good for business.
Chris Knudsen touched upon it himself just today A note on society, and that post actually reminded me of some examples that show how people get convicted for crimes in the public’s eye but not in the courts or by actual juries.
Example One: Geek Squad/BestBuy sued for tech videoing girl in the shower
Thoughts: First off, Consumerist needs to get it’s headline straight. The tech allegedly did the videoing, not the company. I think we all know why the girl (who you often see smirking in the video) is suing a deep-pocketed company instead of some perv with a fake badge and a white shirt and black tie. Is he guilty? That’s exactly what I don’t want to decide in this post.
Court of public opinion?
Watch the news story, the journalist says “This news conference has just ended, so we haven’t had time to contact either BestBuy or the Geek Squad.” That’s because the evidence seems to say guilty and the attorney didn’t want BestBuy to comment before hand. She knew the media would jump all over it and wouldn’t miss the press conference.
More examples will come soon. p.s., I actually have a new website being developed right now that will address these very issues in the media and with PR people. Stay tuned.