PR 101

I don’t watch a lot of television, but when I do, I pay close attention to the advertisements. As a marketer, I like to see what major companies are doing to drum up business. Granted, I think social media would be far more effective, but a lot of companies still feel comfortable with what they view as the tried and true.

Watching commercials always reminds me of a major reason reasons I don’t like traditional advertising. The copywriters and producers constantly use stereotypes and half-truths to make a point. It is a lazy way to make a point. As times, those ads can be downright insulting.

As an example, Kellogg’s has been running a commercial entitled on YouTube “Fruit Loops Doctor Commercial 2009.” The commercial has a small boy playing the doctor, a small girl playing the nurse, and a small boy as a patient.

The commercial claims Fruit Loops can be good for you because it now contains fiber. That claim alone I find dubious. According to Kellogg’s, a typical serving contains three grams of fiber. The American Dietetic Association says children under 12 should be consuming at least an amount of fiber equal to their age plus three. There are a lot better ways for a child to get enough fiber. Fruit and vegetables come to mind.

In addition, the first ingredient listed for Fruit Loops is sugar, 12 grams in a typical serving. The American Heart Association says that’s the amount of sugar a child should consume in an entire day. Somehow, the ad doesn’t mention that.

What really frosts me though are the gender stereotypes. As I said, the doctor is male, the nurse is female. According to the May 6, 2010 New York Times, almost half of medical students are women. The last number I could find – from 2006 – said 33 percent of practicing physicians are women. So why did Kellogg’s or their agency decide the doctor had to be a woman?

Plus, since women make most grocery buying decisions, wouldn’t it be logical to show a sympathetic character?

As for another stereotypes, AT&T has been running a commercial showing a family that has just signed up for AT&T’s Internet service. With that service comes Wi-Fi. Only Dad doesn’t seem to understand how Wi-Fi works. He keeps asking for a cord to connect to the Internet.  He is told the cord is invisible. He asks for his own invisible cable. I mean, come on.

It always bothers me when a campaign singles out a parent – be it mother or father – to ridicule. Why make fun of anybody?

As for the dad in this commercial – I don’t anyone who calls a USB cable a cord. Second, anyone using the Internet on consistent basis must know what Wi-Fi is. What kind of a dolt is this dad?

To me, this kind of commercial is just a very lazy way of doing things. And, no is it not satire. It is just a lack of creativity.

I am a huge sports fan – baseball, football, soccer and bicycle racing in particular. Like most fans, I live to see moments that will go down sports history – Lance Armstrong’s record seventh Tour de France win, Red Sox Bill Buckner booting an easy ground ball, The Immaculate Reception by a Pittsburgh Steeler’s receiver and a lot of other things. I consider myself extremely lucky that I get to see such historic moments.

I am not so happy to see the records BP is now setting in the Gulf of Mexico. We have seen a whole of series of dubious achievements since the explosion April 21^st explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Since I am public relations and social media person, I am going to focus on one area in particular. British Petroleum has perhaps done the worst job of crisis communications in the modern history of public relations. I cannot think of another incident that has been handled worse than the Gulf oil spill.

This should be a lesson to every company. A disaster can happen anywhere, anytime for any reason. It takes about five minutes to destroy a reputation and turn the public against you if it is not handled correctly.

“BP is going to be first and foremost in people’s minds when it comes to poor crisis planning and response,” said Timothy Sellnow, communication professor at University of Kentucky and author of several books on public relations in a crisis told the New York Times. “They’ve surpassed Exxon.”

You know that old saw that goes if you locked 100 monkeys in a room with laptops eventually one of them would come up with Macbeth. Well, I think one monkey could come up with a better way to handle BP’s crisis communications that the company’s leaders.

To talk about all of the public relations things BP has done wrong during this crisis would take more space than I allocate for this blog. Let me put it this way – I cannot think of one thing BP has done right since the explosion. Every time a BP executive or spokesperson opens their mouth they make things worse.

The New York Times reported that Public relations experts say it appears both BP failed to follow the first rule of crisis communications: having a plan in place to deal with a potential disaster, .

“BP never had a plan in place for the worst-case scenario or they would have put it in place,” Kathleen Fearn-Banks, communications professor at University of Washington and author of the book “Crisis Communication, A Casebook Approach” told the Times. “I don’t think it’s a question of money. … They absolutely don’t know what to do at all.”

This should be a lesson to every company whether it has five or 50,000 employees. I constantly hammer on this with clients. A company needs to have a crisis communications plan. It needs to update the plan to reflect changing environments.

Most importantly, it needs to rehearse the plan constantly. Part of that rehearsal means media training the company’s primary spokesman. BP CEO Tony Hayward is a classic example of what happens when that doesn’t happen. If I had been BP’s spokesman when Hayward said he “wanted his life back” I would have resigned on the spot.

Hayward suddenly became the poster child for every out-of-touch CEO on the planet. Whether he meant it or not, he told the people of the Gulf Coast that he was more important than they were. In one five second sound bite, he destroyed any goodwill the company had. Any good leader knows his needs always come last.

BP has done a host of other things wrong, such as trying to ban the media from public areas; not accepting help from the fishermen who know the area best; and making promises they just cannot keep.

It is amazing to me just how inept this multi-national company has been. Let that be an example to every company. Be prepared or you will go down the same road BP is traveling on.

I did something Memorial Weekend that I have not done in years. I spent three days away from the Internet. I recommend it highly. I know this is not the advice you would expect to hear from someone who probably spends 30 or more hours a week online. Let me explain how it happened, why it was good for me, and why I recommend you do it once in awhile.

It happened because my son Shawn got married Memorial Day weekend at Purdue University. He and his wife Beth both met and graduated from there. They are confirmed Boilermakers. So, they wanted to get married at the Purdue Memorial Union.

Because of that, my wife and I made the three-and-a-half hour drive to West Lafayette, Ind. last weekend. As I was packing, I debated taking my laptop with me. I came up with a lot of reasons why I should: I am doing public relations for a major event to be held this coming Saturday and Sunday; I need to write this blog; I could work on my novel; I could catch up on my email; and I could work on a dozen other things.

Plus, I am flat out news junkie. I would be in touch with the world if I had the laptop. I could follow the BP oil spill, the controversy in Israel, other major world events, and the baseball scores.

I actually had the laptop shut down and ready to go Thursday night as I was packing. But, I decided not to take it. Why didn’t I?

I realized that while the laptop didn’t exactly run my life, it certainly dominated a large portion of it. All those things I listed above – well I do all of those and a lot more on a daily basis. I am not complaining. It is how I make my living.

Still, I knew I was getting stale. Blog ideas were becoming harder to come up with. My writing was suffering. I knew it was time to take a break. So, I left the laptop and briefcase home.

It was a smart decision. We got home Sunday evening. I did not turn the laptop on until Monday afternoon. Things were fresh again. I found myself completing tasks I had been putting off. I did a lot of organizational things. Things that were essential for me to function well, but that I had never wanted to deal with.

I now have a dozen ideas for blog posts. I working harder than ever to attract new business. I have been refreshed.

If you had told me last week that taking three days off from the Internet would have that kind of effect, I would have laughed at you. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

I have always built rest days into my bike training. I find if I ride three days in a row, take a day off, ride two more days and then take another day off, my training goes much better. If resting works for my body, why shouldn’t it work for my brain?

So, I am encouraging you to do the same. Take a weekend off from the Internet. Turn off the laptop, put away the smart phone and relax. Read a book, go for a walk, do something other than work. Give your brain a break. It will thank you for that.