PR 101

About 20 years ago, my wife and I saw a t-shirt vendor get busted in the parking lot of the old Milwaukee County Stadium. We were there to see Elton John perform. The vendor was arrested because he didn’t get permission to use Elton John’s face or logos. He violated Elton John’s trademarks and copyrights.

I think the Internet is heading the same way. In fact, it has already started. YouTube used to allow anyone to post anything – including copyrighted material. No one sued for the simple reason that YouTube had no money. When Google purchased YouTube, all of the copyrighted material was taken down. The reason for the reversal was simple. Google has lots of money. Pots of money as big Google has make litigators drool. Google knew the owners of those copyrights would come after them.

Companies and organizations work very hard to build and maintain their brands. Those organizations want to maintain as much control over what they created. They don’t want their messages distorted by an outsider, no matter well meaning that outsider might be.

Plus, those logos mean money. Why do you think an official league jersey costs so much? Everybody gets a cut.

Now I know the social media argument about companies having to be willing to give up some control of their image. I make those arguments and I understand their relevancy. It reflects the major change that is happening in marketing – companies no longer can rely on looking for customers, customers have to find them.

More and more businesses get that. They understand they have to provide the right offerings to attract their customers. However, more and more companies and organizations are also drawing lines about what the public can use.

Like any sports fan, I have joined Facebook pages of the teams I back. I looked at some of those pages. On a fan page for the Green Bay Packers, there is the Packers helmet. I cannot tell if the site is blessed by the Packers. I don’t know if the people who created the page realize this, but the Green Bay Packer “G” logo is trademarked.

This is nothing new, by the way. When George Halas founded the Chicago Bears right after World War I, he paid Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis. $100 to be allowed to use the now famous Bears’ “C.” It was Carroll’s logo first, they owned the rights, and Halas had to get permission to use it.

Now, I realize that much of the use of logos, trademarks and other such things is often perfectly innocent. Fans just want to show how much they love their team or their automobile. The law does not make that distinction though.

What has saved both groups, so far, is that the Internet has been the Wild West of the law. Meaning currently there is not a lot of law governing this kind of thing. But there will be. Eventually, national and international courts will establish guidelines on the use of logos and other proprietary material. Treaties will be negotiated and boundaries will be drawn.

Like the Wild West, eventually the Internet will be plowed, fenced and “civilized.” The free range will be taken away.

Yes, I know I am far from the first person to make the observation that social media is the best way for small business to market. But, Green Bay Packer President Mark Murphy drove the point Friday morning at a “Power Breakfast” sponsored by the Milwaukee Business Journal.

In giving a report on the state of one of the oldest franchises in the National Football League, Murphy stated the team was actively exploring using social media to stay in closer touch with its fan base.

At first, I was surprised. You have to understand there is no more fanatic fan base in all of sports than the Packer Nation. As a note, I am a proud member of that green and gold clad horde.

Before you start bringing up other teams and their fans, let me give you a few facts:

• According to the Packers’ website, the team has sold out 285 straight games at Lambeau Field – 269 regular season, 16 playoff – since 1959. Packer fans go to away games just to get a chance to see the team play in person.
• Heck, 20,000 or so people will show up to watch an outdoors practice.
• The Packers do not sell single game tickets. There is no need.
• Murphy said there are approximately 80,000 people on the season ticket waiting list. According to former Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly, an average of 70 people a year give up their tickets. Tickets are usually handed down through the generations. You do the math on how long it will take to cut that season ticket list down.

So, why would a team who is not just in touch with its fans, but seemingly joined at the hip with them, consider jumping into the social media pool? Because like any other small business, the team knows that it cannot rely on what has worked to keep working.

Yes, the Packers are small business in the NFL sense. Their home base is the 257^th largest city in the United States. Yes, they are the state of Wisconsin’s team. Even adding the people who live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, those people in Northern Illinois who decide to root for the Pack and those from Iowa who aren’t Viking’s fans – the Packers have a potential fan base of around six or seven million people. I think there are that many people trying to get through New York City’s Lincoln tunnel on a Friday night.

Plus those fans are changing.

“My kids don’t read a newspaper,” Murphy noted. Most under 30s do not. So while the older of those in Packer nation still read print media, the younger do not Murphy clearly knows he needs to go where the fans are. For in this time of decreasing brand loyalty and fickle fans, no smart company is going to take anything for granted.

So rather than rely on Wisconsin’s newspapers and television stations, the team is turning to channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are several lessons to be learned, but I think the major one is that the Packers are being pre-emptive. They are morphing their marketing efforts before there’s a problem. It is a lesson all businesses should learn.

There’s a song by the late Jim Croce where the refrain goes:

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

“You don’t spit into the wind.

“You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger

“And you don’t mess around with Jim.”

© 2007 Ingrid Croce

The point of the song is that you don’t stupid things – or mess with things you know nothing about. I think that last line could be to paraphrased to: “And you don’t mess around with social media.”

ESPN, a number of pro football teams, some college football leagues, and a number of companies are messing with social media. The companies and leagues are banning fans, players and employees from using social media during games and work hours. In fact, the web security company ScanSafe has found that more companies ban the use of social media than ban weapons, according to a study it released Aug. 19.

According to Scan Safe’s study: “An analysis of more than a billion Web requests processed by the company each month confirms a 20 percent increase in the number of customers blocking social networking sites in the last six months. Currently, 76 percent of companies are choosing to block social networking and it is now a more popular category to block than online shopping (52 percent), weapons (75 percent), alcohol (64 percent), sports (51 percent) and Webmail (58 percent). Surprisingly, employers don’t take the same stern approach to online banking and less than half (47 percent) of our customers block this category.”

So, there are companies that allow their employees to drink and pack heat, but not update up their Facebook page. ScanSafe opines that companies think social media reduces productivity. Frankly, I think a three martini lunch will have a much greater effect on productivity than tweeting about what one’s dog did on his morning walk.

As for blocking social media use on the job, it is harder than it seems. While a company will know if an employee is using a company computer to access social media – what are they going to do about smart phones? If it is not a company supplied smart phone, how are corporate executives going what their employees are doing? More and more social media apps are moving onto smart phones. How is a company going to know what an employee is doing on their own smart phone?

Plus, I would want my employees to access social media to talk about my company. Several studies have shown that employees are  the best brand ambassadors. If the price to be paid for employees talking up a new product is having them look at their Facebook pages once in a while, so be it. Remember, social media is about a building a community. That community building should start with your own employees.

On another front, the NFL has banned coaches, players, other personnel, or anyone representing them, and journalists from updating their status on Twitter, Facebook or other social media during games and up to 90 minutes before and after, according to TechDirt. Referees are banned from ever using social media while the league employs them, the site said. Apparently, this stems from an online apology from a ref over a blown call. We cannot have the refs admitting they are human, now can we?

I am not sure if this applies to the NFL itself, as it has its own Twitter account. The ban does not extend to players and other personnel when they are on their own time. The NFL is understandably trying to protect its lucrative broadcast outlets. Frankly, I happen to enjoy seeing a player tweet during a game. To me, it’s better than some sideline interview done with the coach where he hands out canned responses.

(On an unrelated note, just once I want to hear the coach of team who won by a huge margin not say something like: “the game was closer than the score indicated.” What I want to hear them say is what I suspect they are thinking: “what was that other team thinking even being on the field with us today? We wiped the turf up with them.”)

What is particularly troubling to me is banning journalists from using social media during a game. A very long time ago – when print media ruled the world – sports reporters would do inning-by-inning updates of the game they were covering. These updates would be read on radios and posted in newspaper offices for people to see. If it was particularly big event, say the Dempsey-Firpo fight in 1923, a newspaper might print extra editions to tell people what was going on.

No one had a problem in those days about giving out information during a game. The practice lasted until television came along. Then there was no need for it because everyone had access.

Now, with more and more sports events moving to cable and pay-per-view, many people no longer have access. Social media is way for fans to stay in touch and feel connected to their teams. Don’t teams want people to stay in touch? Fans are no longer willing to wait until the next day – or even until the late evening news – to find out what happened.

I think this policy is going to backfire on them – as it has with so many other companies.

Companies from Comcast to United Airlines have found out the hard way what happens when you mess with social media. I think a lot of other organizations are about to find the hard way they are in a fight they cannot win – just as Big Jim Walker found out when he messed with Willie McCoy. Big Jim thought he was the toughest man on 42^nd Street, until he ran into Willie. A lot of organizations are liable to find themselves in the same fix – in a figurative way – the Big Jim did.

And when the cuttin’ were done

The only part that wasn’t bloody

Was the soles of the big man’s feet

Yeah he were cut in bout a hundred places

And he were shot in a couple more…”