Bendgate 2014

It has been a less than joyful week for Apple.  By the close of the day on Thursday, the company’s shares had fallen by more than three percent. This descent in shares wiped close to $23 billion off of Apple’s overall stock market value (YIKES). Well, it’s all due to the release of the long-awaited iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, along with iOS 8.

The PR nightmare has slowly started ascending upon Apple ever since the iCloud hacking in August, which resulted in the release of several celebrities’ nude photos. Then came the unexpected download of the new U2 album, which surprisingly enough, not everyone wanted in their music library! Shocker. It all snowballed out of control when reports of a very glitchy iOS 8 and an unusually bendable iPhone 6 surfaced. Now being dubbed as Bendgate and iOSgate, it’s needless to say that Apple has a lot on its plate at the moment. The PR nightmare has officially come to life. 

Apple has taken several steps to correct the wrongs, but according to the three percent drop in share, it’s not enough. Apple did do one thing right; it pulled iOS 8 within the first hour of the release so that it could fix the bugs on the operating system. The tech giant has now released iOS 8.0.2, which has reportedly fixed the bugs that were in the previous version. Apple did not address the case of the bending iPhone, however, until a week after the story surfaced. This is a HUGE mistake on Apple’s part, in my opinion. Instead of apologizing for selling iPhones that bend, Apple defended against these reports by saying that warping is “extremely rare” through normal use. Granted, there are only nine reported cases of an iPhone bending, but Apple is essentially saying that it knows that it’s a problem and that it isn’t going to do anything to solve it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my phone to bend and break. Let alone a phone I’m paying upwards $600 for. Luckily, I am not someone that has purchased an iPhone 6, but if I had, I would be extremely upset over the matter. Apple is unknowingly sending the message that it simply does not care about a possibly huge problem with its product.

Unfortunately for Apple, the damage is done. When it comes to crisis management, the company’s response must be immediate. The weeklong response only added fuel to the fire. Additionally, if more reports of bent iPhones come in, they will have no choice but to fix it. This will make Apple look like a hypocrite, which is not a good look for any company. The company essentially tainted its own credibility by ignoring the problem, and Apple shareholders see this.

The PR team at Apple has a lot on their hands this upcoming week. If it does not reverse the negative attention that Apple has been receiving this past week, shares could possibly dip even further. I think we can all agree that this outcome would be no bueno for everyone.

I like Apple, and in no way is this a hate on Apple post, but it’s a clear cut example of how bad PR can instantly affect a company, no matter how big it is.

The Chicago Tylenol Murders

In the year 1982, someone decided to tamper with the Tylenol sold in the Chicago area. The unidentified person laced several bottles of Tylenol capsules with the poison potassium cyanide, causing a series of deaths in the Chicago area.

Johnson & Johnson is Tylenol's parent company, and its actions during this debacle have gone down in history as one of the most notable examples of a crisis management situation. The company immediately looked into the plant operations to find the root of the poisoning, but quickly learned that the tampering did not occur at its plants. This meant that it must have taken place once the product had reached Illinois. J&J faced a dilemma, how best to handle the crisis without damaging the reputation of the company, when the company had quickly established that it could not be held liable for the tampering.

In the case of crisis management, PR practitioners must make quick decisions, and this could easily lead to backlash if a wrong decision is made. J&J's PR team made the life-saving decision to put its customers first. The following is a list of tactics that were used in salvaging the Tylenol brand:

• A nationwide voluntary recall took place, involving approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, representing more than $100 million in sales 
• Consumers were told not to use any type of Tylenol product until the cause of the tampering had been established
• Production and advertising of Tylenol ceased 
• The company offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules that had been purchased for Tylenol tablets
• Relations were quickly established with the Chicago police, the FBI, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• A toll-free crisis phone line was set up for concerned consumers 
• Senior executives, including CEO James Burke, were readily accessible to the media. 
• As part of a longer-term response, the company reintroduced Tylenol capsules with new triple seal tamper-resistant packaging

The decision to recall $100 million worth of product is not a favorable option in the eyes of shareholders and business executives, but when the future of your brand is at stake, $100 million is a small price to pay. For Tylenol and J&J, the risk paid off immensely. Thanks to the rescuing efforts of J&J’s PR team in 1982, we can all walk into any store today and easily pick up a bottle of Tylenol.

A PR practitioner is always looking for opportunities to build relationships between its clients and its client's publics. That’s essentially what they are paid to do. In the case of the Chicago Tylenol Murders, J&J's emphasis on the safety of its customers instead of its finances enhanced its corporate reputation and salvaged its future as a moneymaking brand. As most business people will say, trust is a difficult virtue to acquire among customers. Johnson & Johnson's PR efforts built a level of trustworthiness in the Tylenol brand that did not exist before the crisis, and if it had been handled differently it would be hard to say if Tylenol would have ever recovered from the crisis.

Good Grief, NFL

Okay, so it's pretty likely that you have heard of the Ray Rice/NFL scandal that's going on at the moment. Just in case, let me fill you in.

Ray Rice is a running back for the Baltimore Ravens. Earlier this year, Rice was arrested and charged with assault after him and his then fiancé, Janay Palmer, were involved in a physical altercation in the elevator of Revel Casino. The NFL suspended the player for only two games, and then allowed him return to play for the Ravens.

On September 8, TMZ released video footage of the incident, which shows Rice knocking out Palmer and then dragging her out of the elevator. The video caused fans to question and criticize the morality of the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL for allowing Rice to keep playing. As a result of all the backlash, the Ravens terminated Rice's contract, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.

Now, the NFL is under a lot of scrutiny for two reasons:
1. Rice's 2-game suspension was nothing more than a slap on the wrist, and many people think that it was an inadequate punishment for the acts he had committed.

2. The Baltimore Ravens and the NFL only took a stronger action against Rice once the TMZ video was released. This made the NFL look like it had not care to investigate the case thoroughly enough, or it had already gotten its hands on the footage and overlooked the brevity of the manner.

The other individual coming under fire is the NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell, who initially gave Rice the mere 2-game suspension.

There's absolutely no up side for the NFL or Goodell at the moment,  and it is safe to assume that it's PR team is in deep crisis mode. No PR team in the world can right the wrongs that have already been committed, but there are ways to entice the public to forgive the NFL for these events.

Step 1: Apologize, apologize, apologize, and then apologize some more. This won't change anything, but it shows that the NFL acknowledges the bad judgment call that was made when initiating the 2-game suspension to Rice.

Step 2: Enforce a stricter "no tolerance" policy on domestic violence. Currently, the NFL's punishment for a player who is charged with assault is a 6-game suspension. This punishment still seems mediocre compared to the charges. It is my recommendation that the NFL implement a "no tolerance" policy against players who are officially charged with assault in an instance of domestic violence.

Step 3: The NFL must make a generous donation to a charity that supports women who have been abused by their significant others, such as the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The donation will symbolize the organization's sorrow and deep regret for the mishandling of the Ray Rice debacle. However, the key to making this donation a successful tactic, is to not make a big show out of it so that the organization does not look like it's trying to get attention. Instead, the NFL should urge its fans to follow suit in support of the National Coalition of Domestic Violence, which also gives the NFL the opportunity to reach out to its female audience.

There's really no way that the NFL can survive this scandal without obtaining a couple bruises. In time, those bruises will fade, and the public will eventually forget that this ever happened. It is the duty of the NFL's PR team, however, to make sure that the organization comes out on top. This can be done by implementing the tactics above in order to achieve the public's forgiveness.

Web 2.0

So, I recently read an intriguing article about "Web 2.0." (You can find it here) With the introduction of "Web 2.0", the importance of public relations sky-rocketed. Businesses had to find a way to interact with their publics on multiple web platforms, which is why the article resonated with the ascending importance of PR in the early 2000's. Below I have detailed a brief summary of the article, but I highly recommend that you check it out for yourself.

     Tim O’Reilly, author of "Web 2.0," is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, an American media company that publishes books and web sites. In the article, O’Reilly writes about the emergence of a new kind of Internet. He explores the differences between the companies that first emerged as successful in the beginning stages of the Internet and those that became successful later on. He includes analyses of Google, Yahoo, Netscape, AdSense and Overture. O’Reilly provides insight into the qualities of the companies that have emerged in “Web 2.0.” Those qualities include: providing services with cost-effective scalability, trusting users as co-developers, harnessing collective intelligence, using software over a single device, using lightweight user interfaces, development models and business models, providing great customer service, and control over data. O’Reilly has strong opinions and uses relevant examples to back up his ideas. Anyone that is curious in the Internet business would easily find this article to be beneficial.

Hello and Welcome!

     Public relations is a newly recognized aspect of business, but an important one at that. In order for any business to succeed, it needs to attract customers. Advertising and marketing reels in customers, but a company will only successfully keep its customers when it relates to its audience. Nowadays, it is so important for a company or business to maintain a good image within the public eye, and PR practitioners are the ones in charge of doing so. This blog will aim to showcase both effective and ineffective PR campaigns in an effort to prove its significance in achieving a successful business.
     I am interested in the topic of public relations for two main reasons. The first being that I am majoring in public relations, and the second being that I have seen the diverse need for public relations in several different fields. The internships and jobs that I have held have given me insight into the importance of PR in virtually any business. The campaigns that I have studied have shown me how good PR work can improve a company or brand, such as the extremely successful Obama 2008 political campaign. On the other hand, I have also seen how easily mismanaged PR can take down a business or brand in the blink of an eye.
     I have thought about several different posts that I will make, and most will break down successful and unsuccessful PR campaigns. They will be a lot like mini case studies that will outline the components of each campaign as well as the effects that each campaign had on the company. A typical PR campaign can have several components, and its success is measured in "number of impressions." This term refers to the amount of people that the campaign reached. The higher the number of impressions, the more successful the campaign was.
     Within the blog, I will include several case studies from all types of businesses including healthcare, political, automotive, entertainment, and lifestyle. I would also like to dive into instances where a PR team was called upon to help manage a major crisis, such as the Malaysian Airlines disaster and that time customers found poison in Tylenol.
     Publicity within the entertainment field spikes my curiosity the most because of my experience working at an entertainment PR firm. Entertainment PR is quite different from the corporate PR world. An entertainment PR agency's client is a human being, not a corporate entity, which alone requires a completely different approach from the traditional form of public relations. So, in my blog, I will focus a couple of posts on the exploration of the publicist's role in the entertainment realm.
     All in all, public relations is a topic that peaks my interest because of its diverse nature and importance in today's world. It is also a topic that most people don't know much about, which is why I am looking forward to researching the topic. In the end, I hope to sway my audience into seeing the significance that PR has in their every day lives.