Subscribe to Baradell.info: Dallas Online Marketing, SEO for Public RelationsNews Feed

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-24

April 24, 2009 by Scott Baradell  
Filed under Media Orchard

Comments Off

Tags:

Sometimes, Your Company’s Wins Are Nothing to Brag About

April 20, 2009 by Scott Baradell  
Filed under Media Orchard

Comments Off

david_goliath12061When your company scores a victory, it’s not always best to brag about it. In fact, it’s sometimes best for the public to think you lost.

I know this may seem a little counterintuitive to you transparency-preaching (if not always practicing) new-wave flacks out there, but bear with me a minute, OK?

Let’s look at the example of corporate lawsuits. I’m not talking about the kind of lawsuits where two corporate giants are battling each other over trademark infringement, a business deal gone bad, or other such snits. That may get the business wonks excited — but from the rest of the world, it elicits an “Is American Idol on yet?” yawn.

I’m talking about the lawsuits where an individual or group of individuals — a.k.a., “the little guy” — takes on your big, bad Fortune 500 company.

Beating the Little Guy

In the long run, John Maynard Keynes famously said, we’re all dead. Also in the long run (not quite as long, but close), deep-pocketed corporations usually beat the rap when they are dragged into court by an individual they have wronged (or allegedly wronged). This is true no matter how heinous the corporation’s misdeeds (or alleged misdeeds).

Let me guess: You don’t believe me. You’ve read too many of those “little guy wins big” headlines over the years, haven’t you?

Headlines like: “Old Lady Wins $3 Million from McDonald’s for Spilling Hot Coffee on Herself!”

It’s enough to make you pull at your hair and shout, “Damn lawyers!” — isn’t it?

The Fine Print

No one ever seems to read the fine print years later, after the esteemed legal counsel for those deep-pocketed corporations have earned their paychecks.

Remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which devastated the Alaskan coast in 1989? Despite a $5.3 billion judgment, Exxon didn’t pay a dime of it for nearly 20 years. The company only agreed to pay in 2008 — after the damages had been slashed by more than 90 percent.

As for that “old lady” who spilled her coffee — 79-year-old Stella Liebeck — she never did see the $3 million she was awarded in 1994. The judgment was reduced by 80 percent, and the plaintiff, who suffered third-degree burns, spent eight days in the hospital, and endured two years of treatment, settled for even less rather than wait through endless appeals.

And just last week, a respected photojournalist named Chris Usher, who sued Corbis after the stock photo agency lost more than 12,000 of his images — including coverage of the historic Bush-Gore presidential race — had to settle for compensation of just $7 per image after a seven-year battle.

See how it works?

And if you’re going to bring up the Greg Kinnear flick Flash of Genius, don’t even go there. Dude ruined his marriage and his life to win that case.

Hold the Press Release

What happens in these cases, almost invariably, is that it doesn’t turn out as well for the little guy as the media originally reports.

When the end finally comes, your execs may decide to take turns giving each other high fives in the boardroom. That’s fine.

But if one of them calls to tell you to put out a press release about the big win, I’d encourage you to pretend your cell phone is on the blink and to make a staticky hissing sound into the receiver. And if you’re on the office phone, I’d encourage you to pretend it’s your cell phone (the one that’s on the blink).

You see, this is the kind of victory that big companies shouldn’t brag about. Goliath beating David is not good PR for Goliath.

In fact, the best possible PR that companies can get in these situations is what they get without even trying. The media generally does corporations a big favor by losing interest in these legal battles long before the final verdict.

So sometimes when you win, it’s best to keep it to yourself.

Damn lawyers.

(Image source)

Tags:

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-17

April 17, 2009 by Scott Baradell  
Filed under Media Orchard

Comments Off

Tags:

Sometimes, Improvisation Is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

April 8, 2009 by Scott Baradell  
Filed under Black Star Rising

Comments Off

As a former newspaper reporter who later became the head of large corporate communications departments, I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with both photojournalists and corporate assignment photographers. And while many of the best assignment photographers I’ve worked with have also been photojournalists, I’ve found that some photojournalists don’t make the transition to corporate work very well.

There are a couple of reasons for this. In many cases, it’s an attitude thing. Just as many former newspaper scribes can’t make the jump to PR because they don’t like the profession, so many ex-newspaper photographers can’t transition successfully to corporate work because they can’t get passionate about it. And in creative endeavors, a lack of passion typically leads to subpar work and, ultimately, failure.

A second reason, which I’ve seen trip up more than a few former newspaper photographers, is an underemphasis on advance preparation for shoots.

The Art of Reacting

The best photojournalism is improvisational. It’s about capturing life as it is — the art of reacting. As photographer Mark Meyer puts it so well:

…street photography and photojournalism are essentially improvisational. Rather than improvising as a performer, the photojournalist is an improvisational audience. Rather than creating a work over time, they develop the art of seeing and capturing the moment as it happens. The skills required to do this well are similar to those of the performing improviser.

Many photojournalists — particularly newspaper staffers — are used to being sent out on an assignment and then quickly figuring out how to capture the moment. They show up at a plane crash or a city council meeting and have to come back with an image for the next day’s edition. Even on feature assignments, there’s often not a lot of time for advance preparation.

Unfortunately, that improvisational approach doesn’t always help on a corporate assignment — and can sometimes be “notably unhelpful,” as Donald Rumsfeld used to say in his cranky press conferences.

The Discipline of Preparing

I once produced an annual report in which the primary art was a series of photographs depicting my company’s employees posing alongside customers for whom they had gone the extra mile. One of the photos was to be shot in front of a firehouse, with a group of smiling firefighters standing with one of my company’s sales directors.

Since customers were involved, I decided to attend each of the shoots, which took place in various cities across the country. In the case of the firefighter shoot, I flew to meet the photographer and art director at the location at the appointed time.

I saw a group of men standing next to a firetruck in front of a firehouse — sweating profusely. The shoot had been scheduled at a time when the afternoon sun was beating down directly on the men’s faces, making the experience awkward for all involved. But because of the fire station’s placement, there was no other angle from which the photographer could get the shot.

No amount of retouching could completely repair the resulting images — or erase the forced smiles on the subjects’ faces.

This wasn’t bad luck. It wasn’t bad improvisation, either.

It was lack of preparation.

Vetting for the Right Kind of Experience

Corporate photography is different from spot photojournalism because of the amount of coordination that must be done in advance for shoots. For a photojournalist to make a successful transition to assignment work, he or she must learn the discipline of preparing for every conceivable thing that could go wrong on an assignment.

Many photojournalists have no problem with this — having done fashion, food and other kinds of staged shoots that require significant preparation. Others, however, have spent the bulk of their careers chasing down spot news and quick-turnaround features — and these are the photographers a corporate client should take a close look at before entrusting with assignment work.

In the case of the fire station shoot, if I could have done it over again, I would have requested to see the photographer’s resume and portfolio in advance, rather than simply leaving it to my design firm’s art director to make the hire. I would have ensured that the photographer had plenty of experience scheduling and organizing shoots of this kind.

Because, ultimately, when the shoot didn’t turn out as well as it should have, I was the one who had to answer to the sweating customers, the embarrassed sales director — and the disappointed CEO.

Tags: