Post-Modern PR Lesson: Don’t Let Legal Letters Speak for Your Company Online

One of the first things a good corporate communications exec explains to his or her CEO is that the communications department — not the legal department — should direct all important communications to the public.

While this might seem like a no-brainer to those of you who have never worked in a corporate environment, the reality is that it can be a constant battle to protect the communications function’s strategic role — particularly in times of crisis, when the lawyers start to get panicky.

As I’ve explained before, corporate attorneys are trained to shield themselves and their clients against risk. But sometimes, you have to take on a little risk to succeed in business — and specifically, in talking to the public.

When a company makes the ultimate PR mistake by saying “No comment,” for example, there’s usually a risk-averse lawyer, not a PR person, to blame. When Exxon committed one of the worst PR mistakes in history by not sending its CEO immediately to the scene of the Valdez oil spill, lawyers — not PR people — were behind the decision.

Now, in our post-modern PR world, cautious companies face even greater risks from attorney-driven PR. That’s because corporate legal letters, intended to be private, are increasingly ending up online — effectively turning your lawyer’s most formal (and often snippy) communications into your brand’s public persona.

I’m reminded of this by an interesting little online battle between two photo scanning companies, ScanCafe and DigMyPics. DigMyPics has chosen to aggressively attack its competitor, claiming that ScanCafe intentionally downplays the fact that it ships customers’ “one-of-kind photos” to India for processing, among other charges.

DigMyPics’ PR strategy is one I would never recommend. For one thing, it kind of gives me the same queasy feeling as those “American Owned” signs at roadside motels. And from a marketing standpoint, negative attacks generally hurt both brands involved.

That said, I’m not a fan of ScanCafe’s response, either. The response has been to ignore the attacks, even though they pop up on the first page of ScanCafe’s Google results and are surely a hot gossip topic in the photo-scanning space. Instead, ScanCafe has taken what it calls the “high road” by making no public statements.

It has, however, sent some pointed legal letters to DigMyPics — which DigMyPics immediately posted online. This has effectively enabled DigMyPics to frame the dispute and to present itself as the straight-talking defender of the consumer in its battle against ScanCafe, its offshore scanners, and its “lawyer talk.”

Here’s the lesson for marketers:

In 2007, you must understand that your legal letters are now part of your marketing and PR program, because people will post them online. So while they aren’t intended to become part of a public battle, they can and will be used against you.

In the absence of other voices, legal letters become the spokesperson for your organization by default — which is never good.

A better option would be for ScanCafe to use its CEO blog to address the issues (and non-issues) raised by its competitor. Frankly, I think ScanCafe could turn DigMyPics’ arguments around pretty effectively if it tried — and wouldn’t have to lose the “high ground” by simply defending itself.

Guilty as Charged: Seven Marketing Buzzwords I Promise Never to Use Again

Our friend Joy Jennings has penned another post for Media Orchard that might even top her last one. Here it is.

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Who can we blame for all the buzzwords that have crept into our day-to-day speech? We never seem to use these words outside of the office, but boy, do we love ‘em in meetings and e-mail. I think some people hear a good one, then can’t wait to trot it out in their next conference call.

See if you cringe at these top seven offenders. I confess to having used these, usually against my better judgment. Feel free to send your own least-favorite buzzwords to me.

1. “mission-critical”

I guess this one came around when some management guru told everyone to start writing mission statements, vision statements and elevator pitches. And then like glassy-eyed converts, we all spent 18 months bickering over conference calls about the best wording for such claptrap so that we could print it on the back of our business cards and hide it on a never-visited page of our Web site. Then anything critical became “mission-critical.” Well, folks, abort the mission.

2. “key”

This is a synonym for “important” that irks me no end. Primarily because it’s uttered throughout organizations on company time, but is never used when you’re talking with your friends and family about what’s important. Lose your keys. Please.

3. “initiative”

Companies used to have projects or maybe new products. Now any endeavor, particularly a new endeavor, is an “initiative.” God help me, I never want to write another press release about an initiative.

4. “strategic”

This is maybe the worst adjective on the list. Companies love to have “strategic” business partners. I suppose this makes the partners feel better. But really, wouldn’t you guess that any partner is going to be a business partner? And isn’t any business partner part of some kind of strategy? (And isn’t “partner” a legal term that we need to stay away from entirely?) The other crap-tastic usage is the strategic business unit. Two of those words are simply unnecessary. It’s just a unit, end of story. Basically, if you need to clearly label what you’re doing as strategic, you have bigger problems.

5. “going forward”

In the future, we’re all going to live our lives going forward. From now on, we’re going forward with a new plan. And we’ll continue our business careers, eschewing buzzwords like “going forward.”

6. “functionality”

Engineers and other product designers love to list the functionalities of their beloved products. I’m here to point out that “function” is a very useful noun that means the same thing. “Feature” is also an oldie but a goodie. “Capability” can also serve your needs quite well. Let’s all agree to do our very best to find other words instead of this grating buzzword.

7. “solution”

I feel guilty about this one because it is in the name of the last company I worked for. I couldn’t avoid it. But any business journalist will tell you that they particularly dislike this buzzword. Lots of technology companies can’t bring themselves to say that they have products, systems or even services — no, they must have solutions. But never to problems. Nuh-uh, that’s a bad word that is rarely uttered. No, they have solutions to “challenges.”

You probably have other buzzword examples. I do too. “Value-added,” “heads-up,” “learnings” and “think outside the box” can all drop out of the lexicon yesterday if it was up to me.

Buzzwords are bad because they get in the way of clear communication. Our colleagues think they make them sound smart — or they’re so immersed in corporate-speak that they truly can’t think of a better alternative. As communicators, it’s up to us to show them the way.

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Five Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Communications Plan — Without Scaring the CEO

I was honored to be a featured speaker and panel facilitator on Wednesday at the Oklahoma City PRSA’s 2007 Professional Development Day. Seems lots of folks — even in conservative industries like oil and gas — are beginning to gravitate toward new media.

My presentation focused on case studies of some of my clients, including Black Star and eDrugSearch.com.

I concluded with five quick tips for communicators who’d like to get the social media ball rolling, but aren’t sure where to start.

They are:

1. Monitor blog mentions with Technorati and Google Alerts.

2. Sprinkle social media “fairy dust” on your news release distributions.

3. Make company news releases available by RSS.

4. Begin distributing and pitching to blogs (but carefully!)

5. Begin blogging internally to communicate to employees.

These steps amount to little more than putting a toe in the water — but there’s no reason why any communications department can’t begin doing them today.

If You’re Going to Sell Your Principles, at Least Demand a Fair Price

Blogs are by nature personal. Therein lies the beauty — as well as the danger — of company-sponsored blogs.

When most people write about the pitfalls of corporate blogging, they touch on issues such as libel, the risk of public companies releasing material information improperly, and so on. Indeed, those are real risks — for corporations and their shareholders.

But the biggest risk in corporate blogging isn’t to the company at all. It’s to the individuals who blog in the name of the company they work for.

What’s the risk? Put plainly: To lose your soul. To lose your sense of who you are, and what you believe, by presenting your company’s viewpoints as your own — by substituting your company’s profit-based objectives for your own moral compass.

I’ll give you the example that made me write this post:

A young ad rep for Google, three years out of college, writes for the Google Health Advertising blog. The blog is meant to spur healthcare companies to use Google advertising to get their message out at a time when they are taking a whole lot of grief.

As this young rep puts it in a post she calls, “Does negative press make you Sicko?”:

Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.

Nothing wrong with that. This is America, and everyone deserves a fair trial. More power to Google — and to the ad rep.

If she’d only left it at that.

Unfortunately, because we’re in the world of blogs and not of brochures and press releases, the ad rep didn’t leave it at that. She felt compelled to include her own personal critique of Michael Moore’s “Sicko”:

Moore attacks health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst. Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.

OK, do you see where a line was crossed here? It’s the line between representing a company or client’s interests — and telling the world that you personally share those interests.

Of course, it’s possible that this young ad rep has always been a big fan of the U.S. healthcare system. Perhaps she was so enthusiastic in her personal convictions that she asked to be assigned to Google Health Advertising so she could do her part to help insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers fight baddies like Moore.

But it makes you wonder: If the same ad rep were assigned to build a Google ad campaign for Moore’s movie distributor instead U.S. healthcare companies, would she be writing the same post? Would she refuse the Moore account because of her principled viewpoint that his film is unfair?

I won’t answer for her, and I feel a little bad for singling her out in this way. But I think the lesson is a critical one — particularly for young people just starting out in their careers.

Let me break it down into the following words of wisdom for early-career marketers and communicators:

1. Being in PR and advertising does not mean you have to personally agree with your employer or client on every issue.

2. If you don’t agree with your employer or client, don’t say you do.

3. Even if you don’t have a strong opinion on an issue, don’t personally take your employer or client’s side simply because it’s convenient or in your financial interests to do so.

That way, you retain who you are — your personal moral autonomy. You don’t have to sell your principles to anyone to succeed in your career; don’t listen to anybody who tells you that you do.

I touched on the difference between representing your personal views and your client’s views sometime back, when I complained about a former reporter friend who “called me out” in the following manner:

I was working in corporate communications, she was still a journalist, and she was writing a story about a controversy involving my company.

The conversation went like this: She asked me a question, and I told her my company’s point of view on the issue. She didn’t agree with this viewpoint; furthermore, she didn’t believe that I agreed with it, and blurted out the following:

“Scott, you’ve sold your soul!”

Notwithstanding the utter lack of comprehension of what PR people do — i.e., we represent our employers or clients, not ourselves — this former colleague’s comment goes to the heart of what bothers me about some journalists. Put simply, they think they are better — that their jobs have a higher moral and ethical purpose than that of the lowly PR practitioner.

In that situation, I felt completely justified in being pissed off.

But you know what? If I had just stepped over that little line and said “I” held a certain position, rather than that “my company” held that position, that former colleague would have been right.

I should add that you don’t always get off the hook simply by hiding behind a client’s position. Personally, for example, I could never work for a tobacco company, or most big energy companies, or most fast-food companies, or most big pharmaceutical companies. Most choices in life are not black and white.

Which leads me to this: I want to say something specifically to the ad rep who wrote the Moore post, should she happen to read this.

When I was younger and feeling my way in my career, I made plenty of mistakes — including many worse than the one I suspect you might have made here. It’s only by screwing up again and again that I’ve come to be able to offer whatever insight I have.

And if in your heart of hearts you truly believe that Michael Moore is being unfair to U.S healthcare companies, and that your advertising clients have the moral high ground, I’m sorry I used your post in my example.

For God’s Sake, Do Not Try to Tell Us What a Blog Is

We’re getting tired of people trying to define the word “blog” for us — because usually the definitions reflect at best an overly narrow and, at worst, a self-serving interpretation of the word.

This has been the case ever since the first ubergeek began writing content in reverse chronological order. In the 10 years since blogging started, we’ve been told by various self-proclaimed authorities that blogging is:

a personal diary

a stream-of-consciousness ramble that is “inauthentic” if it has been spell-checked or properly punctuated

an exciting new way to argue with and attack our fellow man — er, we mean hold a “conversation”

Now, of course, blogging has evolved well beyond these limited (and limiting) definitions. We now have group blogs that are similar in content to magazines, blogs that gather or aggregate news around certain topics or interests, and so on and so forth.

And yet, when it comes to corporate blogs, everyone wants to go back to ubergeek rules:

The blog must be written by the CEO, and he must put his name on it, and he must actually write all the words himself, and he must accept criticism in comments and respond to that criticism.

In other words, it should be a personal diary with lots of authentic typos and bad writing, and the CEO should be willing to argue about it with any schmoe who takes 30 seconds to post a negative comment.

Um, excuse us but — SAYS WHO?

Here’s what a blog is: A series of entries on a Web site that appear in reverse chronological order, per the standards of blogging software.

Beyond that, have at it! Do what you want with the format! Change it. Expand it. Adapt it to your specific needs.

If you want a ghostwritten CEO blog, for example, go for it! If it’s of value, people will read it. If it’s a bunch of PR fluff, they won’t — no matter who composes the words.

CEOs don’t have the time (or in many cases the writing skills) to prepare their own speeches, letters to shareholders, and on and on. Same deal with blogs.

Try all you want to hold companies to ubergeek rules; it’s just not practical and it’s not going to happen.

If you want to create a blog that covers your industry rather than offering the typical company diary, that’s fine, too — even if the blog pharisees criticize you for not adhering to blog orthodoxy. Ultimately, it will be the quality of what you produce that will matter — not whether your ideas fit into someone else’s box.

When working with our clients, we’ve got one rule — and only one rule — when it comes to blogs and online communities:

Be honest. Don’t misrepresent yourself.

If you’re doing that, you should feel completely comfortable in standing up to your critics and creating your own model of what a blog should be.

We’re reminded of something we told Geoff Livingston not too long ago:

Web 2.0 started the way Web 1.0 started. That is, you had a bunch of techies and academics and anti-corporate types running everything and thinking they could make the rules for everybody else. But guess what? They can’t. We live in a deregulated market economy — and ultimately, where there is money to be made, the market will make the rules.

If you want a gold star from the blog pharisees, fine. But the market doesn’t go by ubergeek rules; it goes by what the consumer wants. And in the case of blogs, consumers will choose what they read based on the value of the content — and little else.

10 Dumb Things Smart Communicators Do

Our friend and former colleague Joy Jennings has penned an informative post exclusively for Media Orchard readers that we’re delighted to share with you.

Joy, by the way, recently left the comfort of corporate life to start her own communications consulting business — so if you’re looking for a talented freelancer for your marcom or PR projects, Joy would be an excellent choice.

Without further ado, here are Joy’s “10 Dumb Things That Smart Communicators Do”:

1. Use business jargon

Try to avoid cliches and jargon and speak in conversational English. (I’m sympathetic if the clueless COO is twisting your arm.) Like the proverbial bath, good writing couldn’t hurt and might help.

2. Put a copyright symbol on your press materials

Press releases, fact sheets and bios are meant to help journalists. So if you want them to use your stuff, don’t mark your materials as copyrighted.

3. Capitalize the name of your industry and other non-proper nouns

Do you promote your company’s role in the Fitness market or the Mainframe Maintenance space? Do your press releases quote the Vice President of System Push - CRM Resource Adjunct? Just stop. The names of industries are not proper nouns and neither are job titles.

4. Forget the online readers

Remember to use hyperlinks to get online readers involved. In a press release, you can link the quoted exec to his or her bio and link the product you’re describing to its page online. Link to external resources such as Wikipedia listings and even YouTube videos to enhance your text; links can be made from photos and logos as well as words. And while I’m on the subject, stop using the clunky phrase “click here” to create links. Very 1996.

5. Use the same style manual you’ve had since college English

I respect the Chicago Manual of Style and the authoritative Elements of Style, but today’s resource is the Associated Press Stylebook. Because it is used by media and PR folks alike, it has become the dominant style for non-academic and non-literary writing. Audiences today are subconsciously familiar with it because they see it in newspapers, magazines and online copy.

6. Bury the news

Don’t make journalists wonder what your release is about or mention your real news nonchalantly in the third paragraph, such as your CEO’s resignation or the launch date of the new product. Look at your announcement objectively and acknowledge what the real news will be.

7. Describe your company in such flowing terms that no one can tell what it actually does

I’ve seen this too many times. You’re so focused on the benefits of your services that you gloss over what it IS and what it DOES. Don’t make your vendors, investors, prospective employees, media, analysts and other non-customers guess.

8. Put more than four bullets per slide on your PowerPoint presentation

Brevity is the soul of presenting. If your presentation is going to be displayed or projected onto a screen, give your audience a fighting chance and make the bullets brief. Resist the urge to paste in a 20-cell spreadsheet or a dizzying pie chart. Crowded presentations defeat the objective of communication.

9. Focus on the words and forget the visual

What a nice case study you’ve written. So many words and paragraphs to dig into. Now step back and consider what could enhance it visually: your customer’s logo, a photo of the quoted subject, a beauty photo of the product or of people using it, a stock photo that conveys the service’s idea, a graph of the money saved or efficiency gained, a screenshot of the software, a photo of your building or your customer’s building, a callout quote of a significant statement in your text. You’ll find lots of simple ways to enhance communication. Do the legwork and don’t leave it to your graphic designer to “make it pretty.”

10. Be inflexible about your writing because you’re so proud of it

My favorite line to clients is that this isn’t my ninth-grade poetry. I can write their document nine ways to Sunday, so they aren’t hurting my feelings if they want to edit it. I’ll champion effective communication, and I’ll keep them from presenting themselves poorly, but I certainly won’t pout if they start making changes.

Effective communication is deceptively simple. Remember and respect your audience, and your communications will be the better for it.

Do Journalists Really Want Honesty from Flacks?

Traditionally, PR people have been trained — and have taught their clients or employers — to be careful about what they say to the media. “Controlling the message” has been a central tenet of the public relations business.

This approach ensures a jackhammer consistency in public statements and protects against media bloopers. But it is also the single biggest complaint that journos have against flacks.

Like the cop who thinks a suspect must be guilty because he’s hired a lawyer, many journalists wonder, “Why does a company even need a PR person if it has nothing to hide?” And of the PR person, the journo asks, “Why can’t you just be candid and spontaneous, and not be so guarded in what you say to me?”

It’s a nice thought; but is that really what journalists want?

On Tuesday, Jim Louderback, the editor in chief of PC Magazine, blogged about a comment made by Steve Rubel, the prominent blogger for Edelman PR. Rubel had Twitter-ed that his free subscription to PC Magazine “goes in the trash.”

Louderback’s response to this candid, spontaneous remark was less than forgiving.

Should I instruct the staff to avoid covering Edelman’s clients? Ignore their requests for meetings, reviews and news stories? Blacklist the “Edelman.com” email domain in our exchange servers, effectively turning their requests into spam? If we’re not relevant to Edelman’s employees, then how could we be relevant to their clients?

He concluded that “in the future, if I’m on the fence, I’ll probably be somewhat less inclined to take a meeting with one of Edelman’s clients.”

Louderback’s comments are flawed logically. Why assume that if one Edelman employee doesn’t read PC Magazine, others don’t, either?

The truth is, Louderback was simply offended by Rubel’s offhand jab — and, as payback, threatened to use his organizational power as a cudgel against Rubel’s employer and clients.

That’s a real argument in favor of honesty, isn’t it?

As you would expect, Rubel quickly assumed the position and apologized to Louderback, explaining that he only meant to say that he reads the online version of PC Magazine instead.

Is that the truth? It doesn’t matter, does it? It was the response demanded by Louderback, if Rubel and Edelman knew what was good for them.

In other words, be careful what you say in the media, guys. Watch your language and control your messages, or pay the price.

One final point. Even if you believe that Louderback is justified in wielding his power in this way, does this best serve his readers?

Essentially, the editor is saying that he’ll decide what his staff writes about, and what his magazine publishes, based on the standing of his personal relationship with a particular PR person or agency.

Hmmm. Shouldn’t Louderback be pursuing the best story ideas that come his way — without prejudice, no matter the source?

Candidly, yes.

Nine Ways to Commemorate 9/11

If you’re like us, when an anniversary as important as 9/11 approaches, you want to do something, but you’re not sure what. So as often as not, you just spend the day like any other.

Here are nine suggestions for commemorating 9/11 that may help you reconnect with that terrible day, as well as some of the valuable lessons it taught us (if in some cases we’ve already forgotten them):

1. Fly an American flag. Outside your door, on your lawn, or on your car. It’s the one symbol that binds us, and we’re all in this together.

2. Take time to reflect on the loved ones you have lost during your lifetime. Think about how much they meant to you; it will help you relate better to the emotions of the 9/11 victims’ families — as well as the families of all those who have died in war and terror in 9/11’s wake.

3. Treat people the way you did in the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Don’t honk your horn in traffic. Smile and say “good morning” to strangers you pass on the street. Call your friends and relatives just to tell them you care about them.

4. Listen at least twice as much as you talk. If you have a disagreement or confrontation with someone — over politics, religion, work or relationship issues, sports, you name it — try this exercise. Count it off in your head if you need to. Listening is learning; talking isn’t.

5. Don’t watch the major cable news channels. They simplify issues and stoke divisiveness to attract ratings; they’re about the heat of ego rather than the light of reason. If 9/11 taught us anything, it’s that the world needs more light and less heat.

6. Don’t listen to talk radio. Same reason.

7. Don’t read political blogs. Ditto.

8. Read the 9/11 Commission Report. We can best pay tribute to those lost, to those fighting, and to our own children by accepting our duty to be an informed citizenry. As Lee Hamilton says well, “In a democracy, public misperceptions carry an enormous cost.”

9. Finally, read the Bill of Rights. Consider it carefully, savoring every word.

It’s Hard to Fleece Your Way to Success

Since 1999, the Golden Trailer Awards have recognized “the creative people who make movie trailers and the best examples of their unique art.” The 2006 winners were announced last month.

We were particularly intrigued by one category: the Golden Fleece. This is the award for “the best trailer of the worst movie.”

The winner: the Jessica Alba flick Into the Blue. Go ahead — watch the trailer.

Indeed, it’s a great piece of work — promising lots of action and thrills that the film (and yes, we’ve seen it) doesn’t come close to delivering.

Which reminded us that this is how many people see the PR business — as creating false impressions about products or companies. In reality, this is no different from thinking that all trailers promote bad movies; it’s simply not the case.

A trailer is like every marketing vehicle — it’s designed to communicate a product’s essence in a compelling way. And so, we’re sure the folks at Craig Murray Productions who made the trailer for Thank You for Smoking are proud that they won the award for Most Original Trailer. Thank You for Smoking is a creative film with an original approach — and the trailer was able to capture that essence and communicate it to moviegoers.

That’s what we try to do at the Idea Grove. One of the things we’re always careful to advise our clients is to accurately position themselves in the market. That means putting their best face forward and doing it consistently — but not overselling.

We’ve learned over the years that the quickest way to kill a bad product is through good marketing.

Happiness Lessons for PR People

We saw this story on “happiness lessons” being offered to schoolchildren in the U.K. and thought it was a pretty good idea. We all need lessons in happiness from time to time.

Even PR people. So here are eight lessons in how to be happy as a PR person, courtesy of Media Orchard:

1. Always tell the truth — especially to yourself. That doesn’t mean you can’t represent a client that holds an opinion different from yours; it just means that you must present it as the client’s viewpoint, not your own. Too many PR practitioners cross this line without thinking about it.

2. Don’t work for companies or clients whose products or lobbying stances you detest. For example, we won’t work for a tobacco company, or a company that makes firearms, or any oil company that commissions pseudo-scientific studies to muddle the global warming issue. It’s not worth the ulcer to us.

3. Don’t overpromise. It’s worth investing the time with prospective clients to make sure they have reasonable expectations, rather than promising them the moon to get them to sign a contract. You’ll only disappoint them, and yourself, later.

4. Believe in what you do. We love helping clients define themselves for their customers, investors, the media and others. So many companies have great ideas and great people; they just don’t know how to get the word out effectively in a market full of noise. When we help a client do that, we feel like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady. If you don’t get a similar feeling, you may be at the wrong agency — or in the wrong profession.

5. Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you wanted to take your job that seriously, you should have become a journalist.

6. Stand up for what you know. When people of like abilities compete for the same goal, it is usually the confident one — not the “lucky” one — who succeeds.

7. Learn what you don’t know. Opening your mind to the ideas of others isn’t an indication of weakness; it is a sign of intellectual growth. Listening is learning.

8. Don’t talk badly about other people. It’s a quick-fix way to feel better about yourself; the more lasting way is through your own hard work. When you find yourself going ad hominem, think of your mind as being equipped with a pop-up blocker — and flick those negative thoughts away.

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