Big Brand Campaings On The Way…
Will be interesting to watch how SBC/ATT and Intel handle their new brand efforts and what, if any, role Participatory Communications will play in that. The WSJ covers how Intel is about to embark on a major transition:
The changes include a new version of the company’s blue logo — without the dropped “e” that has long been a part of Intel’s branding — along with a new tagline “Leap ahead,” which emulates such campaigns as “Think different” from Apple Computer Inc. or “Just do it” from Nike Inc.
Intel will no longer use the well-known “Intel Inside” logo but is keeping the related marketing program that provides incentives to companies for using its products. – WSJ
Alaska Air’s Near Disaster Unfiltered…
I Hope Jeremy has big bandwidth and a big server because his account of the Alaska incident is scarry – and it’s going to attract zillions of eyeballs. Via Jeff Jarvis. Compare his account with news reports– some of which are featuring Jeff’s photos.
“Citizen Journalism” in action. Jeremy P makes a really interesting point that one lesson for any PR practioner facing a crisis is that you are going to need to manage transparency. It seems that Alaska employees are going nasty-comment-happy on Jeremy’s (the Jeremy on the plane) blog. Assuming he would never know I guess, they commented away. Jeremy simply looked at the originating IP addresses, which were from Alaska. And he was gracious enough to suggest that they might have been hackers using Alaska’s IP addresses. Not likely mate!
So, if your communications policy doesn’t cover commenting on blogs as an employee – then you might want to make sure it does.. and then make sure employees know it. And, if your crisis communications plan doesn’t feature monitoring of and communications with the blogosphere – better get on that as well.
The Other Side of Kryptonite
Slowly but surely the other side of the Kryptonite lock picking story is coming out. OK, some of the bloggers got it wrong – nothing new there.
I still maintain Kryptonite handled his terribly. Any crisis can be mitigated through effective communication. The vacuum of silence will be filled by misrepresentation, drivel and poison (I think Schopenhauer said that).
All the interviews reinforce for me is that as a business they responded well (except it turns out the problem had been flagged years before and they did nothing then). As communicators, they did lousy. If they knew about the commentary, but didn’t respond, it’s pretty much the same as not knowing and not responding. No response is no response.
And for the record, about that time I bought a neat new mountain bike. I needed a lock. The blog coverage specifically caused me not to buy their product. If they had communicated what they are communicating now, I might have done so. To answer the question posed by Kryptonite: "here are millions of blogs, but what are the audiences of these blogs?" – it’s me, the bike owner. The interview gets worse, reinforcing further cluelessness about the blogosphere: "We know that lots of teens and college students have blogs and, mainly use them to communicate with friends and family. These are our customers, but are they going to corporate blogs? Not so sure about that."
And then, worse still, they correct the misperception that they only found out about the problem in last year when bloggers started getting into it. Oh no, they knew about it in 1992 – and it would appear they did nothing? That’s meant to inspire confidence?
I had the privilege of working around some of the best crisis communicators in my agency days. I once asked why there were so few case studies on this type of thing. I got an interesting response – post crisis, all you want the focus to be on is how the business is moving forward – you don’t want to get into the mechanics of the crisis, it just casts further light on your problems. A pretty good idea in my book. Seems like Kryptonite is determined to teach us what not to do pre, during and post crisis.
Dan’s Center for Citizen Media
Dan is staring a “non profit Center For Citizen Journalism“:
Why do this? We need a thriving media and journalism ecosystem. We need what big institutions do so well, but we also need the bottom-up — or, more accurately, edge-in — knowledge and ideas of what I’ve called the “former audience” that has become a vital part of the system. I’m also anxious to see that it’s done honorably and in a way that helps foster a truly informed citizenry. I think I can help.
This is a nonpartisan initative. I aim to help anyone, regardless of political views, who has a constructive project and who is interested in expanding the reach of citizen media in an principled way.
Blogger Destroys Business
A tale of pain for one business – PriceRitePhoto – that incurred the wrathof a blogger after skewering him on a sales call. Having just been through a tragic experience ordering Christmas cards (the expensive kind) I don’t feel an ounce of pitty for the business. But more on that later. The blogosphere will favor the honest businesses that meet and deliver on their promises. Those that don’t, perish.
