"Share This" Part 7

Part 7 of "Share This," which is about (and is accordingly entitled) industry change, has a lot of insights to share about the changing nature of social media and public relations. What I want to focus on specifically here is toward the very beginning of the part, in which the book quotes Steve Jobs in asserting that "You've got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology--not the other way around." The book says the same applies to communication, and that in considering what a communication is going to be, the channel/tool used should be low on the list of priorities.

I won't pretend that I have any really strong feelings on this issue, but I'm inclined to agree. It does seem natural that having determined the substance and nature of a message, determining the appropriate way of communicating it would be easier. For instance, if a great deal of information needs to be conveyed, a traditional print ad may be a bad choice because it can only convey this information in a relatively non-attention-grabbing sort of way, whereas conveying it through the Internet could allow for more interactivity, making the information able to be conveyed in a more stimulating manner.

However, on the other hand, if one knows what their channel of communication is going to be in advance, irrelevant of what the message they must convey is, one must find a way to tailor that message to work well in the channel that's being used. So if, for instance, one knew they were going to be making an online video ad, they should keep that in mind in deciding exactly what message they would try to convey. This is really sort of stating the obvious, but it's a noteworthy caveat to the rule the book lays out, in my opinion.

Pepsi's Ad Snafu

Apparently, the past couple weeks have not been good weeks for our top cola manufacturers. Coca-Cola recently had its incident with a Vitamin Water cap that had a questionable (to say the least) phrase printed on it, and now their rival Pepsi-Cola has had a small issue of its own with a recent print ad. Nothing was out of the ordinary when Pepsi decided to partner up in an ad campaign with a Japanese clothes retailer called "A Bathing Ape" that was promoting a line of clothing called AAPE. However, due to a poor choice of font, some rather large ads promoting these two products appear at first glance to read "Pepsi x Rape."

Predictably, a spokesperson for the company has apologized to anyone who was offended and promised not to use said design in the future, and of course it's hard to imagine there's a real reason to be offended here as it was clearly a mistake on the company's part. However, one has to question how this advertisement actually got this far with no one realizing the problem with it. Of course, once it was released Reddit was all too quick to notice the problem, as one might expect.

Obviously, Pepsi-Cola was right to apologize for their mistake and not to use this design in the future, and it's sort of doubtful this will be any huge PR crisis for them (it certainly doesn't deserve to be). However, this is certainly quite a failure in advertisement design, and is even more inexplicable than Coca-Cola's failure to realize that perhaps pairing an English word with a French one could result in some bad combinations. Overall, it's hard to believe any serious harm was done even if it's a bit hard to comprehend how no one could have noticed the flaw in the ad.

Week Five

More than a month since the year's begun, and things are definitely starting to heat up. In my English Studies class, we had to deal with a literary theory that confused almost everyone by arguing that it's basically impossible to derive any single meaning from a piece of literature. For obvious reasons, this was something a good deal of the class found a little difficult to accept. Luckily, we haven't had to apply that theory too much yet.

Meanwhile, in Intro to Creative Writing, we had to write three poems by Friday. As a non-poet, this wasn't the easiest thing in the world for me, and against my better judgment I decided to put it off until Thursday night. Nevertheless, I did actually manage to get the poems done before class the next day, though I don't know whether they were really any good (poetry really isn't my thing).

I mentioned a film festival in my last entry, and pretty much everyone who went to that film festival agreed that it was probably a bad idea to show a documentary about a gang-related murder on Friday night, which I can sympathize with. I didn't really have any big events I went to this week, but classes were pretty interesting at least, and I did manage to write poetry, which is an accomplishment for me.

Share This Part IV Response

Part IV of "Share This" is entitled "Online Media Relations". Its subject matter follows accordingly. It discusses tools such as press releases, newsrooms, brand journalism, and so on and so forth. There's really not all that much in it to respond to, but I'll consider a few things that were mentioned in the book in this entry.

Press releases are discussed in the first chapter of Part IV, and the book mentions increased animosity toward old-style press releases. This is pretty understandable, as it's hard to doubt that press releases can be abused by companies and fail to provide any meaningful information, amounting practically to spam. The alternative is the new social media release, often using quotes, videos, and so on in order to carry some authority and be stimulating. The one thing I might criticize here is I think the book is somewhat vague as to why these social media releases are so preferable to press releases; it throws around ideas like "supporting facts" but doesn't really acknowledge that it's a given that such facts will be cherry-picked. However, I suppose from a pragmatic standpoint, as long as social media releases are more convincing, it does not matter if they're truly more substantive.

I also found it interesting when the book gave an example of a corporate blog post that backfired and caused a drop in the company's stock. This does seem like a legitimate risk, but also a difficult one to avoid, as stocks can be highly responsive to almost anything. It's hard to say what a company should or should not post on its blog just based on how the stocks will respond, and in any case it seems that whatever details are divulged would probably come out eventually anyway, which the book does not address. These are, however, just a few musings on the reading, not highly substantiated critiques.

Navy Yard Shooting and Gun Control

Monday of this past week, a gunman killed twelve people in a Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Somewhat disturbingly, there have been enough mass shootings over the past year that the shock one would think this sort of incident might inspire has been mostly nonexistent, but aside from it will nonetheless be part of the ongoing PR battle between those who favor gun control, led at the moment by President Obama, and those who oppose it, led by the National Rifle Association.

The idea of using tragedies for PR purposes would probably seem tasteless to many, and rightly so, but it is a necessary evil in the system we have for those who want to accomplish anything. President Obama has already spoken again in favor of gun control in light of the recent tragedy, making the same points as he made after previous shootings--that we need stronger gun control to keep ourselves and our children safe from tragedies such as these. Obviously, the desire for safety among people in general is a strong urge, so it makes sense to appeal to that desire in promoting gun control measures (whatever one may think of the measures themselves).

On the other side, the NRA, led by Wayne LaPierre, has inevitably made an opposing set of arguments. While it is an obvious strategy to tie gun control to safety, LaPierre and friends must counter this by arguing that gun control is ineffective and the true key to safety is "good guys" with guns to stop the "bad guys" with guns. These arguments, no newer than the argument that gun control will make the country safer, have shown up already from gun control opponents. Further, a common strategy of the NRA, whether one agrees with it or not, is to argue that gun control violates the second amendment, thus appealing to Americans' respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Further, in recent times LaPierre and others have shifted the focus from guns to mental instability, arguing that the mental health system in America is doing a poor job of keeping track of dangerous individuals, which conveniently takes attention away from the guns the NRA wants to keep readily available to the average citizen.

Thus, as ugly as the reality of it may be, and wherever one's sympathies may lie, both sides of the gun control debate have and will continue to use tragedies such as the navy yard shooting to promote their agendas--and given the current political system, such a strategy is their only choice.

Week Four

The fourth week of the year passed without anything of great significance, but it wasn't a boring week either. In Philosophy and Film we watched "Memento", which basically succeeded in confusing the whole class, as the movie tends to do. That class has also assigned its first paper, which I have yet to start admittedly. I did, however, get back the first paper I wrote for this year, and I got a pretty good grade on it, so academically this year is going all right so far.

For my screenwriters' workshop, I had to go to a film festival this Friday, which was a fairly interesting experience. We saw a few short films which we were pretty funny, followed pretty jarringly by a documentary about a murder that happened in Findlay a few years ago. Everyone seemed to agree this was not a good way to get excited for the weekend.

Lastly, Saturday was family day, so my family came up for the first time since move-in day. Everything went pretty well, as we checked out the street fair and went to Lima to eat. I had to answer all the inevitable questions about classes, my roommate and so on, but it was still pretty enjoyable overall. All in all, it was a pretty good week.

Share This Part III Response

Part 3 of "Share This", entitled "Networks", is about using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for PR purposes. The book has chapters on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and blogging in general, listing both the advantages and drawbacks of each medium. The main drawbacks, it seems, are the possibility for users to express dissatisfaction with companies. Of course, this can happen whether or not the company itself is engaged in the site, so it's hardly an argument against companies having Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and so on (and the book does not pretend it is an argument against it).

Interestingly, in discussing Google+, the book notes the failure of one of Google's previous projects, called Buzz. This was perhaps slightly prescient, as Google+ has not been a smashing success and has been mocked in some circles for the lack of impact it made. However, the chapter as a whole discusses it in a rather optimistic way, which isn't terribly helpful in allowing to see why Google+ failed (to the degree that it did fail), not that the book can be blamed for this.

The book did seem a little pessimistic on blogging, in terms of its potential to be used by companies. I can understand this, since blogging is personal and companies are by definition not, but I still think the book undersells the potential use of blogging, as it seems that a company could use a blog to share relevant information about upcoming products and the like. The book seems to worry that it's difficult to come off as "authentic" in corporate blogs, but I personally ask, why try? Corporations don't have personal experiences and their customers are interested in their products and services, so why can't a blog be used for information about said products and services?

The book also paints a rather glowing picture of Twitter's importance, mentioning its role in the Arab Spring. I personally have mixed feelings here, as I think the truth is that it's quite difficult to communicate anything too meaningful or well-thought-out over Twitter, although it did certainly play its role as the book says. Twitter should certainly be useful for companies, due to hashtags in particular, but I think the book might be slightly over-hyping its general influence and power.

Syria and PR Part II: Putin's Op-Ed

Having addressed the role PR has played so far in the Syria situation last week, I guess it's appropriate, with new developments having occurred, to address perhaps the most significant from a PR perspective. A few days ago, Russian president Vladimir Putin had an op-ed published by the New York Times on the subject of Syria. (All quotes in this entry will be from the op-ed, which can be found here).

Putin exhibits some expertise in the op-ed, beginning by noting both the times the US and Russia were at each others' throats (i.e. the Cold War) and when the two countries were allies, during World War II. Putin has both acknowledged the differences separating him from his target audience (Americans) and emphasized the similarities, thus avoiding the appearance of cherry-picking the similarities while at the same time finding common ground.

Putin continues to try to create common ground throughout the op-ed, stating that "No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations", which is why it's important for the US not to act unilaterally on Syria in his view. He appeals to common concerns in arguing against a strike, warning of escalating atrocities in Syria and disrupting international law and order. At the same time, he does his best to eliminate the typical image of the Syrian conflict as being a battle between a tyrant and supporters of democracy, arguing that "[t]here are few champions of democracy in Syria." He then appeals to the fears of his audience by mentioning the presence of al-Qaeda in Syria.

Putin proceeds to try to create a positive image of both himself and his government, stating that they are not defending the Syrian government (which is understandably unpopular) but rather simply trying to defend international law by seeking a peaceful settlement of the conflict. He appeals to Americans' war-weariness and the unpopularity of wars such as Afghanistan by highlighting the similarities between them and a potential strike on Syria. He appeals to his audience's sympathy by mentioning the civilian casualties, "including the elderly and children".

After highlighting the similarities and common interests between himself and President Obama, Putin pulls a particularly bold move by challenging the notion of American exceptionalism, stating that "we must not forget that God created us equal." This is a particularly shrewd move in appealing to members of the most heavily religious country in the first world, whose patriotism by and large could perhaps only be outdone by their Christianity (which Putin happens to share). To think Putin's op-ed is sincere is fairly laughable, but that fact only emphasizes the truth of what it really is, that is to say, a skilled example of PR.

Third Week In

Three weeks into the year, things have begun to pick up a little bit. I've already had to write my first paper for the year, which luckily wasn't too difficult, though I don't have a grade yet for it. I like most of my classes pretty well so far. My philosophy class in particular is nice since we watch movies every class, although so far they've been one's I've already seen.

In terms of social events and the like, there was the English Department picnic this week, which I did go to for a while. Unfortunately, it had to be on one of the days that was about 90 degrees, which was not especially pleasant. Aside from that it was okay. I saw a lot of people I know and there was free food, which is always a plus, even if I did have to bear through the icebreaker which no one really wanted to do because of the heat.

So far, I think my grades are going okay as well, though I haven't really seen them. There are definitely some classes that are presenting me with challenges, but I think I can probably handle them. Of course, it's important not to get overwhelmed, but I haven't had that much work so that hasn't been much of a problem yet. Overall, nothing too big has happened yet, but the year is beginning to start for real.

"Share This" Response

The first part of "Share This" didn't have any great revelations to make, though it had some interesting observations. I found it interesting that it essentially argued that social networks are "nothing new" but merely a new hi-tech version of the sort of association that has been going on since the beginning of humankind itself. The idea is somewhat thought-provoking, but I can only partly agree.
It is certainly true that social networks are analogous to clubs and other organizations to some extent, as those are also ways for people with similar interests to meet one another. The parallels are fairly obvious, and I agree that social networks are just building off a basic part of human nature, that is to say, sociability (as the term "social network" would imply, obviously). From this standpoint, there is nothing new to them.
However, I think social networks have  a defining difference between previous forms of social interaction, which is that they can take place with little personal contact. While certainly forms of communication such as letter-writing which involved no direct contact predate social networks by many years, these were primarily for people who knew one another to communicate with each other. Social networks, on the other hand, open the possibility of "meeting" people without having actually met them, which certainly separates them from clubs or anything of that nature, which involve physically being in the same general area.
Basically, while I found the premise the book started out with to be sort of interesting, I don't think it's entirely accurate.

Syria and PR

It may seem strange to try to connect public relations to the debate about intervening in Syria, but the government, like a business, must use PR tactics--the business uses them to sell its products, of course, while the government must keep its citizens appeased. In the end, the tactics are pretty similar much of the time.
President Obama and his cabinet have argued that the bombings they support are to enforce international law and protect innocent civilians. Naturally, these are two relatively popular ideas, and by trying to attach their proposed to such ideas, they attempt to win the public's support. However, their strategy has largely failed, as little support seems to exist for their proposed bombings. Likely this is because 1) the public does not the strikes will be an effective way to do either of the things the Obama Administration has tried to associate it with and 2) the idea of trying to enforce international law and save lives is not enough to overcome Americans' caution toward military intervention in Middle Eastern countries. This traces back to the PR campaign preceding the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which, while successful enough at the time, led to a war that became both costly (in both money and lives) and extremely unpopular. The Obama Administration's PR campaign has some large obstacles to overcome.
More important than the general public is Congress, whose approval Obama has chosen to seek before taking action. This, too, was essentially a PR move, as Obama had taken criticism for intervening in Libya without congressional approval. Congress, however, does not appear much more likely to be won over by the PR campaign than the public at large, for similar reasons, and because of the public's opposition itself. Many representatives have received letters, emails, etc from their constituents--their "target audience"--opposing the bombings. As the representatives must each manage their own PR campaigns to get elected, many will oppose intervening to create an image of themselves as being in touch with their constituents. The point, in any case, is that, like it or not, PR plays an important role in the Syria debate, on all fronts.

Dawn of a New Year

It's hard to believe that it's already been a year since I first started college. Freshman year went fast in a lot of ways. As for this year, I guess it'll take a while before I know if it's a fast year or a slow one. So far, there hasn't been anything too major to talk about for this year. All my classes have been okay so far, though unfortunately I've already missed a class, which isn't a great thing in the first week of school. Too late to worry about that, though.

I've got a few organizations I'm thinking about joining. Mainly, clubs and things like that that I signed up for last year but never showed up for. I might be a little more proactive on those sorts of things this year, though it doesn't help that I have a 6:30-9:15 class on Tuesdays. The clubs include the Environmentalists,  World Student Organization, and a couple others.

As for classes, they seem to be more centered around my major (creative writing) this semester, which is a good thing. The only downside to that is that I'll have to write poetry, which isn't really my forte, but I guess I can deal with that. Other than that, I have a class where we get to watch a movie every class, which is pretty cool.

In terms of goals this year, I do have a few. Grades are pretty obvious. I'd also like to meet some new people. I suppose getting involved in those groups I mentioned might be helpful in that area. But for the most part, I guess I'll just wait and see how things play out.