Accentuate the Positive, 3.0

Update time…

It appears that most of the local Salvation Army “Kettle Drives” were more than successful.

Just Googling around, there are many areas that showed a great increase over last year, even without the projected losses from being kicked out of Target Store parking lots.

Meanwhile, Target is reporting that same-store sales were up 11.3% over last year.

Like I predicted. No losers.

After years of sitting back, taking it on the chin from competitors and protestors, and growing like kudzu, Wal-Mart is firing back to clear its image.

I guess all of the complaints about overseas trade imbalances, lower pay for women, union-busting, benefit-shaving, inferior products, shutting down Mom-and-Pops, invading trendy neighborhoods, driving truckers to exhaustion, and pagan animal rituals finally got to the brass. (Okay, I made the last one up.) But the point here is that the others, whether substantiated or not, had been repeated so vociferously and so often that the substance entered the general consciousness as truth.

CEO H. Lee Scott took out full page ads in more than 100 papers. He says he’s not worried about how the tactic appears, as long as Wal-Mart tells the truth. “There are a lot of urban legends going round these days about Wal-Mart,” said Lee Scott, chief executive. “For too long, others have had free rein to say things about our company that just aren’t true. Our associates [employees] are tired of it and we’ve decided it’s time to draw our own line in the sand.” (Now that he’s thrown down that gauntlet, he’d better well stick to it.)

Conservative commentator and talk show host Armstrong Williams got his hand caught in the cookie jar.

USA Today broke the story Friday morning, detailing how Williams’ company got a $240,000 contract from the US Department of Education to highlight the advantages of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America’s Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, “to encourage the producers to periodically address” NCLB. He persuaded radio and TV personality Steve Harvey to invite Paige onto his show twice.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said he couldn’t comment because the White House is not involved in departments’ contracts. Education Department spokesman John Gibbons said the contract followed standard government procedures. Gibbons said there are no plans to continue with “similar outreach.”

Williams’ contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced “video news releases” designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers’ dollars.

Forget the ethical problems involved here. This is precisely the kind of trouble you can expect to get into when you aren’t careful about the multiple hats you wear. Williams deserves to be scolded, if for no other reason than for being stupid about how things will look under public scrutiny.

And Merry Christmas.

I’m on the road for a while, and can’t say for sure when I’ll get a chance to scout for further examples of good/bad/ugly.

Keep checking — and we’ll see you when we see you! God bless!

The Minneapolis-based retailer Target took a hard look at its solicitation policy, and made a harder decision to enforce it against Salvation Army bell-ringers.

As you might expect, there has been a media and consumer backlash. The Salvation Army announced that the ban outside of Target stores would cost the non-profit in excess of $9,000,000 for this season’s kettle campaign. And to make matters worse, some of the boycotters are adding their own agenda to the fire, claiming the bell-ringer ban is really an attack on Christians fueled by gay rights organizations.

Not content to sit on the sidelines, Wal-Mart is one of a number of competitors that has embraced the bell-ringing volunteers — and has even announced it will match those gifts dollar for dollar (up to $1,000,000) through Christmas.

The press attention has been extremely one-sided. Outside of the initial reports, there has been no mention of the fact that many shoppers might prefer not having to make a token donation each time they walk by. Recent stories have failed to take this into account. Also — not only will the Salvation Army more than make up that deficit because of the backlash, it doesn’t rely on the kettle drive for everything. By far, the biggest source of revenue for the Salvation Army is planned giving and bequests. The organization is in better financial shape than just about any non-profit in history. It will be interesting to see how the Salvation Army really fares at the end of the Kettle Drive, and even more interesting to see how Target’s holiday sales end up. It’s not out of the question that both will end up better for the deal — and Wal-Mart could sneak in and get a piece of that too.

Kurt Busch is a NASCAR champion, who was just a punch or two away from being the next Ron Artest.

Fortunately, some of his big-money sponsors saw the light, and staged a media training intervention.

Youth + speed + high exposure can be a formula for a real car wreck… it can also be a recipe for a media relations nightmare. If proper media training is lacking in your marketing plan, you run the risk of countering your own message.

The state of Alabama has taken a lot of grief from the rest of the country (here and here and here, and many others in Google News search results) over a failed statewide referendum to remove racist language from the Alabama Constitution.

Michael Ciammara with the Alabama Policy Institute is trying to correct the record.

He’s been making the rounds, trying to get people to understand that voters weren’t voting “for racism” when they narrowly defeated Amendment 2. He ought to know. He opposed the referendum, and he was the man who authored the thing in the first place.

Ciamarra says he’s resubmitting his original Amendment 2, without the additions that were secretly tacked on by a lawmaker. Meanwhile, the pounding continues.

Too much spinning can make you dizzy, and you wind up throwing up on your customer base.

DaimlerChrysler is reporting that the feds are calling for the recall of more than 600,000 Dodge Dakotas and Durangos.

NHTSA is making the recommendation after investigating reports of upper ball joint separation on dozens of vehicles. When that joint separates, the suspension can collapse and the wheel can fall off.

Those reports are tied into causing a number of accidents, but no injuries.

Now, as a spokesperson, it’s important to put the best face on a situation. DaimlerChrysler spokesman Max Gates was quoted this way in the New York Times:

“We don’t think a recall is appropriate,” Mr. Gates said. “We haven’t had any serious injuries or fatalities. We’ve been saying this is not a safety defect.”

CBS News first reported the request for a recall.

The traffic agency could force the company to recall the trucks, but that process could take years and could potentially be delayed by litigation.

Mr. Gates said the problems with the trucks generally occurred at low speeds during turns. He also said most drivers would have advance warnings of a potential problem because of excessive tire wear or unusual noises coming from the front of the trucks.

As a driver, that would make me feel more secure. As a DaimlerChrysler stockholder, I’d feel more secure if Mr. Gates didn’t leave himself open to creative editing. Some journalists will latch onto parts of your statement if you are not careful. Like in this Associated Press brief that hit dozens of television news sites, like this one:

The company spokesman says it does not think “it rises to the level of a safety defect.”

Wow. Big difference. And there’s no context to let you know that Gates has a point, instead of just blowing smoke.

How do you avoid this? It’s real tricky. Proactive techniques work with regular beat writers and producers, where you get a chance to explain the connection in a way they will understand. Lacking that opportunity, you need to phrase things differently, so the “juicy” part of the quote is harder to remove from its context:

“For this to be a real safety issue, wheels would be falling off without warning or at high speeds — and there’s no recorded instance of that. Most drivers were alerted by unusual front-end noise, or tire wear.”

That was just from the top of my head. It’s not perfect, but it demonstrates some principles in the war of words:

- The potentially damaging phrase is placed within a dependent clause. “We’ve been saying this is not a safety defect” can stand alone as an independent sentence. It is harder to take your phrase out of context when it is clearly dependent upon surrounding words for meaning.

- The potentially damaging phrase is shrouded in the cloak of possibility. “Wheels would be falling off at high speeds.” Now, the recall is cast as a precautionary probability, instead of avoiding a certain doom. Subliminal in effect, yet very effective. The glass is mostly full.

- The potentially damaging phrase is couched along with advice to drivers about what to look for. If I was a Dodge driver, and I heard that wheels were falling off, I’d be livid. If I knew there were a couple of easy things to check, I’d feel better about staying on the road until time for the recall repair. Because of the construction of that short paragraph, the information I would want is right there.

You can’t always gurarantee that reporters will write things the way you meant them. So write them in a way that gives less leeway for misinterpretations. Put on your “pretend journalist cub reporter” hat, and look at a few phrases or sentences in your statement. See which ones you’d twist or stretch if you were a competitor. Fix what you can, and then don’t sweat it. Your long-term credibility is more important than short-term spin.

NYU is staging a boycott of Coca-Cola products, because of allegations of child labor and human rights violations in El Salvador.

Coca-Cola responded to this nearly a half-year ago, detailing how it met with the Human Rights Watch on several occasions.

Apparently, the folks at NYU are still putting stock in the Human Rights report from June 4th, with little attention paid to Coke’s response of June 10th.

What’s really funny here is that since 1985, American Coke has been made with high-fructose corn syrup.

Bottom line, though — Serious accusations filed, Coke filed a quick response, but there’s something else you have to take into account: “A person can believe anything he wants, as long as he can disparage the motive of the debunker.” Therefore, it pays to be vigilant, and ensure that the general public isn’t bypassing your efforts to reach them with the truth.

Actually, Thomas Sowell said it this way:

“It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.“

A British cyber-security firm is reporting that the biggest looming threat on the net isn’t viruses or exploits… it’s good old-fashioned smear campaigns.

According to mi2g, Corporate hate sites are the new rage — or vent for rage, however you want to look at it. They surveyed 125 global CEOs to substantiate their warning.

Already, there are more than 10,500 anti-corporate hate sites online. Some are meant to vent grievances, others are more insidious. In some cases, the owners of the “hate site” offered to sell the domain to the smear target… which is really little more than digital extortion.

As the keeper of your corporate reputation, it might not be a bad idea to “google” yourself every now and then, or even use a tool like Google Alerts to do the web-crawling for you. Watch for website names that are variations of your company name, including words like “ihate” at the beginning or “sucks” or “myths” at the end.

Note to “self appointed public relations representatives”: Don’t skimp on the purple tee-shirts.

Seriously, we wish nothing but the best for Marengo County Junior Miss Contestant Elizabeth Hamilton (That’s her on the left, by the way. If you know her, apologize on my behalf for singling her out.) Though a little long, this article does carry some valuable lessons.

1. Puff pieces do get ink.
   When you see something like Special to the Times, that usually means someone at the paper took a press release that was lying around, and dumped it into the word processor. When you see a newspaper that has a lot of “specials,” you know where you can find an outlet for easy publicity.
2. Don’t laugh at the tee-shirts.
   It’s not the most sophisticated thing a marketer could use, and it certainly doesn’t always qualify as cost efficient. But then again, these pageants are highly political, and there’s nothing wrong with a little campaigning. When you have a limited target audience (a panel of judges), a little bit of well-placed advertising can help. Judges like to be popular, too.
3. Mom and dad are right.
   Pageant people don’t get enough credit for their training:
   

   One of the unnerving parts of the competition is the personal appearances. The girls have been warned they could be photographed at any time, and Beth already got a taste of what she is in for.

   “They stuck cameras in our faces during orientation.”

   To help her poise, she has spoken to the Demopolis Pilot Club and will speak at Kiwanis. She will be using a line from the poet e.e. cummings as part of her 15-second self-expression statement.

   She also is boning up on current events.

   “Mom kind of walks around the house and says ‘Beth, what do you think of…’.” laughed Beth.

   She doesn’t even get a reprieve from her father. “I thought he was on my side,” she said in jest.

   Yeah, 15 seconds doesn’t sound like much. But how many of you aspiring and current spokespeople can nail a perfect 15 seconds at a moment’s notice? With the camera in your face? On a random topic?

   Sounds like a winning training exercise to me.

Have a safe Thanksgiving weekend, everyone.

And don’t count on the turkey to knock you out.

Seriously — someone please step in and help Ron Artest

“I have been trying to make a big effort to change the image of the league. That’s not the image that David Stern wants to put forth. I have this album coming out. It’s positive. It’s about love. It’s not rap or hard core. I am trying to do nice things.”

Yep. You changed it, alright.

“I think that I never harmed anybody. That’s really important. You don’t want to harm anybody. And all of these suspensions, I am glad that nobody was hurt.”

…other than the guy that was clocked by the chair.

It’s one thing to lose your credibility by being silly. It’s another to lose it by being so factually wrong as to appear to live in an alternate reality.

Matt Lauer: “At any point during this melee in the stands and back on the floor fighting with another fan, did it pop into your mind: I have crossed the line here? I am way over the line?”

Ron Artest: “I think the tape speaks for itself. I think if you watch everything on the tape, you will be able to answer that. All I can say is I am trying to stay positive. That’s all I can do.”

…until Ticketmaster starts selling out my world tour.

Artest needs a PR intervention. Badly.

The guy who threw the cup (John Green) also needs a little help. It’s clear he’s got a lawyer crafting his statements:

“The cup got hurled from the general vicinity of where I was sitting. He [Artest] looked up. We were shocked that the cup hit him. … He looked up at us and started charging up there. It was pretty shocking. I didn’t know what to think.”

Gee, “the general vicinity of where I was sitting.” His hand just happened to also be in that general vicinity. Purely circumstantial.

His attorney (Shawn Patrick Smith) is really building a credible defense:

“The video is clear about what happens. I suggest anybody who wants to look at the video, there’s questions involved in what the intent was. John is saying, look at the video. The video speaks for itself.”

…and that video says — GUILTY! So why not own up to it? Be a standup guy. The entire Western Hemisphere saw you do it.

…courtesy of BenMac.com:

The FDA is throwing a cold shower on the “Wild Thing” Viagra ad. Even though the dude and the “blue horns” are still prominent on the website.

Now that Viagra is feeling blue, and Bowflex is getting all bent out of shape, what’s a guy to do to feel better about himself?

“Ah may be floppy, and ah may be fat, but I gots my hair.”

… is being Anna Nicole Smith’s publicist.

How do you explain that behavior?

You lie.

Which is easy, if you happen to also be her lawyer. (Not to imply that lawyers, and only lawyers, are allowed to lie. No siree.)

Ultimately, those in the media will have to figure out how much of it is real, and how much of it is self-aware self-promotion by the formerly-plump one. We’ll just have to keep an eye on the fortunes of Trimspa, the company that for the time being is standing by its pitchwoman.

Seriously… somebody help this woman.