Jour 4470 Blog 5 - Fin

What did I take away from Jour 4470? Quite a few companies lack common sense. It actually amazed me a little bit to see a decent amount of case studies where companies lost their status or public because of a lack of common sense.

Trouble occurred after a code of ethics, whether advertising or public relations, was not followed. Any of the codes of ethics are simple concepts. They are values that are usually learned at a very young age. Accountability, honesty, fairness and etc. aren’t complex subjects.

I wasn’t expecting the openness of class discussion. It caught my attention, though. The frankness of the comments given by both the professor and students was interesting to hear. This was a good transition class because it took whatever filter differentiated a classroom setting from a work setting.

Do I think this class will help when I enter the “real world?” Of course, after this class I have a better understanding of the law in reference to journalism. I also like the insight I acquired through class discussions from students of a different major. It was helpful hearing their points of view on some touchy issues. Issues like, marketing techniques geared to encourage children to consume sugary cereals. Who’s responsible for the child’s eating habit, the parent or the marketing company pushing the cereal?

While the professor did a wonderful job putting together the necessary information we needed, the most impactful lessons came from moments that weren’t in the lesson plan.

Jour 4460 Blog 14: The "No" in Domino's Pizza

Domino’s pizza has been through many changes in the past few years. In my opinion, of the mainstream pizza chains, like Pizza Hut and Papa John’s, Domino’s pizza markets its products in the most aggressive manner. It revamped its pizza recipe, created artisan pizzas and added chicken to the menu. The company has also experienced some foul moments. Such as, when Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle aired a commercial featuring an unappetizing photo of a pizza delivered to a customer in Minnesota. Another incident is when two Domino’s employees posted a video online of them committing unsanitary acts with food that was said to be on its way to be delivered.

Whether the topic of the company’s current campaign was positive or negative the message that came out from the company was always clear. The understanding I get from watching Domino’s commercials is the company wants to be honest with the public. There’s no vague jargon or flashy commercials. It’s almost like the Domino’s thought process is keep it simple.

In Domino’s latest campaign about it’ artisan pizzas, the company issue the message it will not alter any of the ingredients of its artisan pizzas for any customer. This is different for any pizza company because most pizzas are made to order. Telling a customer the pizza is perfect the way it is seems kind of…bossy. I do wonder how the company would handle if someone had allergies to a certain topping. Would they take off that topping in order to serve the customer and prevent a health hazard? Would they say, “I’m sorry we can’t change the pizza, but you can order something else”?

I think Dominos should write a book explaining bullet by bullet how to send a message to a public. After viewing or reading content the company has put out I don’t really have a lot of questions or any confusion because of the clarity of the delivery. If I do have questions, they are in regard to if the kitchen the commercial was shot in is real or if it’s a set that was put together.

After the scandal of two Domino’s employees violating food and posting the video to YouTube, the company respond by issuing an apology video and posting it on the same medium the two employees posted theirs on. A simple act, but very affective. Domino’s is a company that is really embracing social media. It also calls action to its customers so they are a part of the company (sending photos of their pizza in.)

Truthfully, I believe it is Domino’s marketing and PR strategies that helped up their status and sales (changing the recipe helped, too.) The pizza is still very greasy, though.

Usually, I would have comments about how the company could improve its communication strategies, but I have no suggestions for this company. Domino’s Pizza is on the right track. I just hope the company doesn’t lose site of the image it’s creating and continues to progress down this path.

Jour 4470 Blog 4: A Lot of Libel

I don’t understand why a professional journalist would want to risk their career and reputation by printing lies. Yet, the definition of libel states it is the printing of untruths that can harm another’s reputation or quality of life. Libel can also occur if a truth is published with malicious intent.

Former Texas Tech football coach, Mike Leach, initiated a libel suit against a public relations firm and ESPN in November of 2010. “The suit filed in Texas district court claims the network's coverage of Leach's firing last year was ‘willful and negligent defamation’ and that it failed to ‘retract false and damaging statements’ it made from ‘misinformation’ provided to ESPN by Craig James,” according to an article on ESPN.com.

Reading articles about Leach’s firing made it seem like there were five different versions to the same story. So, to be honest I’m not sure what exactly the truth in this situation is. A question I have is how did Leach know the information provided to ESPN was given by Craig James. I’m sure ESPN has other capable journalists who can find information on their own.

Spaeth Communications is the PR firm in the libel suit. The claim is that Craig James hired the company for "purposes of creating public opinion hostile to Leach," according to ESPN.com.

In my opinion, Leach’s case would be hard to prove. There was so much back and forth between the two parties they both in some way suffered damage to their reputations. Leach is probably more passionate about the damage done to his reputation because his public extermination from his job at Texas Tech University.

The defamation of Mike Leach occurred through what is now known as traditional media, but has the law caught up to the culture of social media? March of 2011 a lawsuit was initiated against public spectacle, Courtney Love, for defaming a designer, Dawn Simorangkir, and costing her the business she started.

After a quarrel over a $4000 payment for a dress, Love took to Twitter, MySpace and Etsy.com, calling Simorangkir a “whore,” a “convicted prostitute,” and other defamatory comments. The thing that stands out to me in this last sentence is that Love actually used MySpace. Who still uses MySpace?

Love argued that the comments weren’t the cause of the designer’s business failing. She said the comments actually helped Simorangkir with her company by noting they had business together. Love also argued that she was simply expressing her opinions.

This case was high-priority news partially because “would have been one of the first high-profile cases addressing the question of what amounts to defamation on social sites and whether alleged defamatory remarks disseminated on social sites have more or less impact than if they were broadcast or published in traditional media,” according to an article on the New York Times website.

The Love case is important because it seems like laws have a hard time catching up to current trends. Twitter and other social media sites like Facebook are filled with people tearing each other apart with arguably defamatory comments. Ultimately the case was settled out of court. I would have liked to hear the court’s decision, though.

Bryan Freedman, Simorankir’s attorney, was quoted saying, “Just because you decide to use 140 characters about how you are feeling at the moment doesn’t exempt you from legal exposure, Mr. Freedman said. “It goes back to what I was taught as a child: Think before you speak,” according the nyt.com article.

The common factor the two previous cases have in common is a well-known figure. The guidelines of libel and slander make it harder for public figures to prove libel. Since, their lives are so open to the public proving an invasion of privacy or any other of the ways to commit libel or slander almost impossible. Almost.

David Beckham wasn’t in the “almost” category previously mentioned. February of 2011 a U.S. federal judge dismissed the case Beckham had against In Touch Magazine. Beckham was suing In Touch for publishing an article stating he cheated on his wife with a prostitute. “US District Judge Manuel Real said in his ruling that Beckham is a public figure and his lawyers hadn't shown any evidence In Touch published the story with malice. He also said that allegations of any infidelity by Beckham would be of interest to the public,” according to an article on northernstar.com.au.

I don’t agree with this reasoning. Even if Beckham is a public figure he is still a person. It seems unfair to me to punish those who have attained success in their lives by denying them the right to their own privacy or to allow others to publish lies about them. Beckham was denied the opportunity to conduct depositions proving he was in London visiting his sick father during a time it was said he was with the prostitute.

People are always going to have an opinion about someone. Even in the age when young people feel the need to treat their social media accounts like diaries it’s still important to monitor what you put out in the world.

Jour 4460 Blog 13: Dole Went Bananas

This past month Dole has initiated a recall on bags of salad because they pose a threat to Salmonella exposure. The bags were distributed in “Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin,” according to an article posted on abc.com.

The recall was initiated after a random sample in New York tested positive for Salmonella.

Dole did issue a recall, but according to Brandon Uttley’s article posted on prdaily.com Dole made nine mistakes.

First, the company didn’t get the word out the public quick enough. Uttley said Dole knew about the possible Salmonella threat a few days before they sent out the message. Their press release about the outbreak is buried on their website. News about the recall didn’t “appear on any of Dole's social media channels (that I could find) until about 1 p.m. EST Monday, two full days after its press release was issued,” according to Uttley.

Second, Dole didn’t make the recall news prominent on their website’s home page. There were no prominent directions on where to go to view information about the news. Nothing was under the website’s “Nutrition Facts” tab. In order to find news about the recall on the Dole site you would have to click “Company Information” then precede to the “Press Releases” tab. This isn’t the most convenient way to distribute the information to the public.

Third, the context of Uttley’s article led me to believe that Dole did not have a presence when it came to social media and that the company didn’t have any social media accounts setup.

Fourth, Dole did not have a company blog. So, with no blog, no social media presence and a buried press release how are your consumers supposed to find out this certain bag of lettuce could possibly have Salmonella?

Fifth, when consumers were venting online Dole didn’t respond. Ignoring the issue won’t help your case.

Sixth, Dole didn’t respond to those who posted on its Facebook page. Instead a status was posted about a sweepstakes the company was sponsoring. It wasn’t until a couple days later that Dole posted information about the recall on their Facebook.

Seventh, Dole’s twitter accounts had no information on either accounts.

Eighth, there is a Google+ account for Dole, but Uttley believes the creator of the site is questionable. In either case there was still no information of the recall posted on the account.

Ninth, Dole’s Pinterest account is pretty extensive. Except, there was no way for the company to communicate the recall.

What’s the biggest thing I took away from Uttley’s dissection of how Dole handled the recall of Seven Lettuces bags? Communication is everything. This is something I already knew through experiencing in any relationship communication is the key to success. The way Dole handled things gives me two different impressions:

• ·      Dole doesn’t think the recall important enough to spread the word
• ·      Dole has something to hide and tried to clean it up quickly

In any case, such a large company should have known better than minimize the information that could prevent a medical mishap in a consumer.

Jour 4460 Blog 12: Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

Naming a product is probably one of the most important steps in marketing. The name has to compliment the idea or image behind the product and the company that produces it. What would you think of a company that named its product after an oppressive unit who were known for their vicious attacks against civilians, after another company already made the same mistake? Well, that’s what Nike did.

Nike releases seasonal shoes. This year for St. Patrick’s Day the company released the “Nike SB Black and Tan Quickstrike.” According to Mark Hanrahan of the Huffington Post the shoe “is named after the Black and Tan drink made by mixing stout and lager -- usually Guinness and Harp or Bass -- in a pint glass, according to the Belfast Telegraph.” What’s the harm in naming a shoe after a drink?

Well, for many Irish the phrase “Black and Tan” has another meaning. During the 1920’s, Britain created a group of ex-soldiers to suppress the rising Irish revolution. The nickname “Black and Tans” was given to this group because of their uniforms. This group was known for its aggressive attacks on Irish civilians and “quickly acquired an unenviable reputation for ill-discipline,” according to BBC. Not exactly the brightest idea to insult the culture that is associated with St. Patrick’s Day.  That’s not all.

Ben and Jerry’s made the same mistake in 2006, naming and ice cream flavor after the alcoholic drink. Lee Holden, a spokesperson for Ben and Jerry’s, was quoted in The Guardian saying, “"We have had a small amount of contacts from people letting us know how Black and Tan originated. We were not aware of that.”

Both companies should have done research about the phrase “Black and Tan.” Was no one in the office curious to the origins of the drink? A simple search on Google brought me to quite a few websites about the history of the Black and Tans, pertaining to the drink and the history of the brutish group.

According to www.washingtonpost.com, Brian Strong, a Nike spokesperson, issued an apology for the misunderstanding stating, ““This month Nike is scheduled to release a quick strike version of the Nike SB Dunk Low that has been unofficially named by some using a phrase that can be viewed as inappropriate and insensitive. We apologize.  No offense was intended.”

Unless I’m mistaken, companies usually put quite a bit of time and effort in conducting research about how a product’s name will do in the market. Did Nike just decide to skip this step? Would it not be a good idea to ask some people of Irish decent how they feel about the design and the name since they released the shoe in conjunction with St. Patrick’s Day?

In my opinion, there is no excuse why this situation should have occurred. Hanrahan quoted “Ciaran Staunton, President of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform…[saying,] ‘It would be the American equivalent of calling a sneaker 'the al-Qaeda'... Is there no one at Nike able to Google Black and Tan?’”

Jour 4460 Blog 11: Zero Tolerance for Laziness

One situation any company or organization doesn’t want to get into is a finger-pointing predicament because of a simple mistake. Coca-Cola made a simple mistake. March 29 Coca-Cola had an outside ad agency stencil “ads for Coca-Cola Zero on flagstone sidewalk panels and cement surfaces in the French Quarter, the Central Business District and Treme,” according to Steve Goldstein’s article on prnewsonline.com, around the Final Four host city, New Orleans. The company didn’t check if it was okay with the city and “the stunt violated multiple city ordinances. New Orleans forced Coke to power-wash all the logos away by Friday afternoon,” according to Michael McCarthy’s article on usatoday.com.

Picture is from the USA Today article

The accidental violation isn’t the major reason that Coke received public backlash. According to McCarthy’s article, “The iconic French Quarter is treated as a living museum by New Orleans residents.” It seems that Coca-Cola did no research for this project. Strictly speculating, it seems to me that if the company would have asked permission to put up the stencils the city probably would have told them “yes, just don’t put them in the French Quarter,” and explain to the company why. It’s not safe to assume anything. I’m sure that Washington D.C. and Austin, Texas have city ordinances for street advertisement as well simply because they are major cities and need those ordinances to keep the city in order.

Coke also blamed the illegal advertising on the outside ad agency. Now, in the PRSA Code of Ethics it says, “We are accountable for our actions.” Coca-Cola spokesman Jefferson Parish is quoted in Goldstein’s article saying, “Essentially there was a miscommunication between our (New York advertising) agency of what the permit that they saw from the city allowed, but it was clearly a miscommunication on the part of our agency.” Coca-Cola hired this company. How do you not know where your money is going? If I hired a company to run a campaign for product I would want a detailed plan of what’s going to happen and how much it’s going to cost. It just seems like the easy way out to use a smaller outsourced company as a scapegoat in a legal ordeal. In my opinion, Coca-Cola actually made the situation more negative than it had to be by pointing its finger.

The public didn’t have to many nice things to say about the matter either. In McCarthy’s article an excerpt from Paul Lukas’ of ESPN.com Uni Watch blog said that Coke, “Outsourc[ed] the dirty work to some small-timers and then hang them out to dry when the s--- hits the fan, all while feigning surprise and regret over the way things turned out.” This is the reaction most people had upon hearing the story, and with good reason. The Coca-Cola brand is huge, but its action mimics those of a child.

The lesson from this mistake, if you are going out of town to do a guerilla ad campaign check with the city to see what is legal and what is a violation. If you still make a mistake after the research is done then own up to it. You’ll get more respect for it.