Brooke’s Blog

As I’m sure most are aware by now, Random House Publishing has had an extremely eventful week.  James Frey, author of “A Million Little Pieces,” has been exposed for lying about the content of the book.  Random House’s first problem came from publishing the book as a memoir as opposed to a fiction because it took the word of the author.  Secondly, when the news first came to light, Random House stood behind Frey because according to a statement released by Random House, “It is [the company's] policy to stand with our authors when accusations are initially leveled against their work, and we continue to believe this is right and proper.”  According to the statement, after doing some more research into the matter and questioning Frey, Random House learned that “we have sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished.”

In addition to admitting its mistake, Random House very straightforwardly and in detail outlined what actions it is taking in order to make up for the mistake.  A few of the actions being taken are adding a publisher’s note and author’s note to all future printings of the publication, posting the notes on the randomhouse.com website and placing advertisements in national publications outlining the new developments.

In my opinion, Random House has done a very good job of handling this crisis from a public relations standpoint.  They avoided jumping to conclusions when the news first surfaced, but after learning more, took an honest and straightforward approach to a tough situation.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often.

Organ donation and the lack thereof has been a topic that has concerned me for many years.  According to the U.S. Government’s organ donation site, every day an average of 74 Americans receive an organ transplant of some kind.  Unfortunately, due to a shortage of available organs from donors, another 18 people die every day waiting for a transplant.

The lack of donors is a serious issue in our country.  Luckily, effective public relations campaigns are helping to increase awareness of the organ donation problem.  One such campaign is R&J Public Relations, LLC’s “Going to Bat for Organ Donation” program.

R&J took the knowledge that Americans enjoy saving baseball cards and teamed up with the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network to create donor baseball cards.  A 20-game competition was created between the popular Newark Bears and the Somerset Patriots, both minor league baseball teams in New Jersey.  The winner of the competition was awarded with “The Sharing Network Cup.” 

The cards themselves featured the campaign’s spokesperson Rick Cerone who is a former New York Yankee and the president of the Newark Bears.  The cards were distributed in flyers at the baseball games.  

In addition to the cards, Cerone participated in public service announcements relating to the campaign and organ donation in general.  TV, radio and print announcements were all included in the effort.

The extremely successful campaign reached thousands of people directly, and the media coverage that the campaign generated got the message out to hundreds of thousands.  Hopefully this type of campaign will lead other communities to strive to bring attention to the important issue of organ donation in an effort to save lives.

As I sit at my computer this afternoon watching football and trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, I want to thank Kraft for helping me, a somewhat kitchen-challenged individual, once again plan a meal without consulting a take-out menu.

Kraft does a first-rate job of catering to its consumers. The website gives those who visit it many helpful tools. I use it mainly for obtaining recipes, which can be done in several ways. You can put in various search criteria such as ingredients, occasions and recipe types. The website then produces an extensive list of appropriate recipes based on the search.

Kraft does a great job of making sure that its website makes available a lot of different options for almost any situation. From planning an entire Thanksgiving dinner menu to finding a healthy alternative through its Sensible Solution program, Kraft is there to make cooking much easier for anyone who visits its site.

In addition to these benefits, Kraft also lets you set up a free account that allows you to keep track of your favorite recipes. You can also rate recipes, see how others have rated recipes and get weekly e-mails with new recipes and ideas. By doing all of these things, Kraft shows its consumers that they care about making them happy and making their lives more simple. In addition, by having the website set up the way that it is, Kraft is able to gain valuable information about its consumers through its free accounts and weekly e-mails. All in all, kraftfoods.com is an example of a successful and mutually beneficial relationship between Kraft and its consumers.

Hurricane Katrina’s devastation last year brought up ethics in many areas across the country.  One particular situation is centered on the hotels that opened their doors to Katrina victims.  The question is where to draw the line between goodwill and running a successful business.  Of course, ethics plays a major role in the decision.

At risk of sounding cynical, I feel the need to take the side of the hotels to an extent.  Obviously, housing the hurricane victims was intended to be a temporary arrangement.  An arrangement I believe to be extremely generous.  In the Oct. 6 “USA Today” article “Hotel chain asks Katrina evacuees to leave,” Hilton Hotels was criticized for trying to return to business as usual and honor reservations made by its customers.  Unfortunately, this required the hotel chain to ask Katrina victims to leave.

According to the article, the evacuees were told when they checked in that their stays would be limited based on room availability.  When the article was printed almost a month and a half after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Hilton Hotels Corp. found itself caught between a rock and a hard place.  If they forced the evacuees to leave, they looked heartless, which would obviously result in bad publicity, but if they did the opposite, they were loosing money.  A business not making money is a business looking for trouble.

At first I felt bad for Hilton Hotels.  It seemed that the company was in a lose-lose situation.  That was until I read an article from Jan. 8, in “The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,” which states that to date Georgia taxpayers have already been billed $19 million in order to pay for the housing of Katrina evacuees.  Also, according to the article, Hilton Hotels Corp. has been charging more to house the evacuees in Georgia that the other hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton in Buckhead.

In my search for an example of how to use public relations, I came across the website of a company that seems to try hard to become part of its community, IBM.  One example of how it does this is through its Reinventing Education grant program.  The program is based on IBM’s “global commitment to education.”  IBM has designated grant sites throughout the world to which the company gives support.  It does this by not only donating money to the schools, but also by giving the schools accessibility to technology, education consultants, and research the schools would not have access to otherwise.  Included in the Reinventing Education is the Change Toolkit which is a tool that can be used by educators to better the education of their students.

The Reinventing Education program at IBM is a good example of a company becoming a citizen of the community.  IBM seems to be attempting to really be part of the community by giving the schools access to consultants and research.  A more arm’s length approach would be if the company gave the schools money and then washed its hands of the program.  Although I am sure the donation would be appreciated, it would not make IBM a citizen of the community.  IBM seems to be doing a good job of proving it cares about the communities in which it operates.

In my PR Cases class last semester, our final project required that we analyze a company in terms of a PR situation and how it was handled.  For my assignment, I chose to research Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. and its current financial issues.  What was once a long-time, profitable company is currently having serious financial problems. 

The company began having problems in May 2004 when it had to issue a profit warning for the first time in the company’s history.  This announcement pushed the company’s stock price down nearly 25 percent, and the company’s stock price has continued to drop ever since.  Subsequent to the profit warning, a number of Krispy Kreme shareholders filed lawsuits against the company alleging that they had been misled by the company as to the direction in which the company was heading. To make matters worse, Krispy Kreme became the subject of investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in July 2004. 

To analyze the situation, I went to various news sources and Krispy Kreme itself in an attempt to get both sides of the situation.  From my research, I determined that Krispy Kreme has done a terrible job of using public relations to solve its problems.

If the Krispy Kreme organization has a full-time public relations department, I would be surprised.  This situation is a great example of what not to do as a public relations practitioner.  I cannot seem to find where the organization did any research other than forming the internal investigation committee months after the company began to have serious problems.  In my opinion, a company as large as Krispy Kreme should realize that public relations and research are key elements in maintaining a successful business.  They should have a team in place to research and troubleshoot before a crisis occurs, so that the organization does not find itself in this position in the future.

In Krispy Kreme’s situation, many small issues turned into major problems because of bad or no public relations practices.  If the company had been more straightforward with its publics and more importantly the SEC from the beginning, I feel like the situation would not have escalated as much as it did.  Also, the problems on the senior management level were brought to light almost a year before anything was done.  In my opinion, the only reason something was eventually done was because the organization had no other choice at that point.

I was recently made aware of an issue that I had not considered in my fairly new interaction with blogging, libel in regard to posts and comments on blog sites. It makes sense, and I guess I should have thought of it. After all, as a PR student I have definitely learned my fair share about the idea of libel, just not in terms of its effect on blogging. I am new to blogging and have plenty to learn.

The idea originally presented itself to me when I visited Jeremy Pepper’s blog site and read his article on the subject (libel). As I mentioned in a comment to the posting, I had never considered libel a blog issue. I had always considered blogs more of an opinion based forum and not a news source.

I have noticed that blogs are becoming more of an outlet for the media to get news stories. It seems to me that blogs are acting as the new press releases of the day. I’m sure the this issue of libel in blog postings will be seen more often in years to come as more and more people begin using blogs as a primary supplier of information. With that being the case, of course libel is an important issue that needs to be considered in both our posts and comments on blog sites.

According to Amy Gahran’s blog post Can Bloggers Be Sued Over Comments? Maybe (contentious), libel suits are even extending to comments by other people in your personal blog. According to Gahran, SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) suits are gaining popularity. It appears that some corporations are using these suits as a scare tactic to avoid criticism in blog postings. It is certainly an issue that anyone hosting or visiting a blog site should read up on and think about before hitting the publish button.

A type of advertising that has always peaked my interest is co-op advertising. I have noticed it by watching TV commercials over the years, but never knew what it was called or quite had my questions answered in regard to its nature, effectiveness or payment source. A retail management class I took last semester and an article written by Kathleen Gage on Bacon’s Customer’s Resource Site (http://resources.mediasource.com/articles_default.asp?pID=epr) were extremely helpful in satisfying my curiosity.

For anyone not sure of what co-op advertising is, to my understanding it is an advertisement that is paid for and represents the interests of both the manufacturer of a product and a retailer that carries that product. A noticeable example of this type of advertising is most Target commercials. The commercials promote both the Target store itself and the branded products that are sold there.

I had always wondered whether the retailer or the manufacturer or both paid for the advertisement, and if it were a conglomeration, why this type of advertisement wasn’t used more often. According to Gage’s article there are both positives and negatives for the retailer to consider when determining whether a co-op would be beneficial in an advertising campaign, which is typically the case in any decision. Pros include support from a highly knowledgeable manufacturing company and the most obvious, more money, which leads to a higher frequency of ads being shown. Cons in the joint venture can include too many restrictions by the manufacturer to allow the retailer to control the creative aspect, and of course, as with any project there is no guarantee that the project will be a success.

It seems that co-op advertising has a lot to offer a retailer and a manufacturer. Plan to see more of it in the future. Even hotel chains are starting to co-op with mattress manufacturers in their advertisements. I’m sure this helps not only with advertising dollars, but also I’d be willing to bet Sealy would give Holiday Inn a group discount if its mattresses were featured in all of the hotel’s commercials.

My name is Brooke. I am from Huntsville, Alabama.

I am a Public Relations major at Auburn University. I expect to graduate in May 2006.

When I graduate, I hope to find a job as an event planner somewhere in the Southeast. I enjoy playing Texas Hold-em in my limited freetime and have two dogs named Bella and Lulah.

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