JCOM 2300: Up for some Bathroom Talk?

Proctor& Gamble has announced that the Charmin Restroom, a fully staffed public restroom, will return to Times Square in New York this holiday shopping season but there will be a small twist. Charmin is currently looking for five "brand ambassadors" who will interact with the restroom guests.
A open casting call is being held on Nov. 5th and the five winners will be announced on the restroom's opening day. Charmin's brand manager said that adding "brand ambassadors"is a way to refresh the program and help five people earn a nice seasonal salary of $10,000.
Maybe it will be a hit, or maybe it won't. Either way it just seems a little to weird to me. Usually using the restroom is something I don't put a lot of emphasis on. It's one of those necessary evils that needs to be taken care of. I personally wouldn't want to be greeted and have a conversation with a Charmin "brand ambassador" upon entering or leaving the Charmin restroom. What potential questions might they ask, "How did everything go in there? " or "Did our toilet paper do the job?" I have a feeling that this is going to lead to a wealth of awkward interactions regardless of how sociable each of the "brand ambassadors" are.
Then again stranger things have found success in the world of business. Maybe this will become the next big thing, and businesses everywhere will have bathroom specialists there to greet you and assist you with your bathroom needs. If so, a lot of us will need to become more comfortable with a little bathroom talk.

JCOM 2300: H&R Block

H&R Block has organized and created a program to help High school students across the U.S. learn finance. The cause marketing campaign will focus on teaching skills of personal finance which is not in most high school curriculum. One beneficial element of the curriculum is a game that the students participate in which requires them to get a job and pay bills.
If the U.S. general education system needed some new curriculum this is it. The recession the U.S. and world at large are currently in is in many ways tied to poor personal financial decisions. Schools or most parents for that matter don't take the time to teach kids the vital financial principles of saving and spending in moderation. Most people don't have a budget system to follow and incur too much debt on luxury items.
H&R's effort to get this curriculum is brilliant in many ways. First, people love to support cause movements. Efforts to be conscientious and to give back to society are constantly gaining more momentum. This is a good cause, its needed and the public and other companies will get it and be more than willing to jump on board and support it.
The second reason this campaign is so intelligent is the new customer base that H&R will create for itself by running it. Once, high school kids are taught personal finance principles they will be much more likely to use financial services. H&R Block will be the first place that comes to mind for these students because their brand was all over the material that they were studying for their personal finance classes.
In the end this campaign will greatly build both H&R Block's reputation and revenue.
Source: PRweekus.com

JCOM 2300: Really a Soda Tax?

With as much publicity as health care reform is getting right now it's easy for other issues of similar concerns to be lost. One which has been a fringe issue and is slowly making its way into mainstream media is the idea of a soda tax. Supporters for the tax propose a small tax being added to the purchase price of soft drinks. The revenue that is created from the tax could be used to offset the cost of universal health care if legislation moves in that direction.
Personally I don't like it a bit. In the end the tax would punish people for drinking soda, something that many Americans do and it could really be debated how on damaging it really is to a person's health. Anything you eat or drink could be argued to be unhealthy if used in excessive amounts. Taxing soda labels it as something with severe implications to a persons health, and sorry in my view soda is not as damaging as cigarettes. So in the end I really hope this tax doesn't go through.
Luckily for me and any like minded people the soda companies are doing a lot of work early to make sure this tax doesn't go through. This week Coca-Cola has announced a campaign that is in the works which will, 1) Inform the public of the companies efforts to counter obesity and 2) Show how a soda tax will not effect obesity or help health care reform. Coca-Cola's early work and preparation will pay off according to Gene Grabowski, SVP of Levick Strategic Communications,
“One of the advantages that industry has is if they do get out in front of the issue and paint the picture first, it will be difficult for Congress or someone in the government to be able to create an effective picture that can counter it.”
I agree with Grabowski, timing is everything. First impressions are everything. If you are the first or the last to say something your chances of being remembered by your targeted public are greatly increased. With the revenue that companies like Coke and Pepsi have, combined with the fact that they will beat supporters of a soda tax to the public this battle is one that is over before it ever began.
Source: prweekus.com

JCOM 2300: GM- Finally Learning a Lesson From 30 Years ago

GM, I don't know about those guys. I guess deep down inside I want them to succeed, but they make it really hard to like them. Their new PR campaign is to promote themselves as "the new GM" which is supposed to be a totally different company. I'm sure if we looked into it they have the same managers, the same factories, and the same workers. The only new thing is a new PR firm representing them. 

   For years GM has been so stubborn and unwilling to adapt to the automobile environment and most importantly to what customers want. When the Japanese car companies really hit their stride in the 80s GM, and the other big American car companies for that matter, didn't look at why people liked the Japanese cars. Their strategy centered around this us vs. them mentality they pushed the idea of being "UnAmerican" if you purchased a foreign car. It even went to the extent of creating different car lots at the factories in Michigan. Workers with American cars could park in the close convenient lot while those with a foreign car were banished to the non-American lot far away.

First, that is so lame, pretty childish really. People can buy foreign cars if they want and  there is probably a motive behind the whole thing. Take a few million of your billions do a little research and analysis and then compete with what they are doing. A little environmental analysis never hurt anyone. 

Back to the new campaign. The focus will be on the four remaining GM brands, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, GM. Instead of the overall GM label each line will highlighted for its features. They want customer input as much as possible too. Before releasing a new model GM plans on testing it will customers to get some feedback on how it will be received, there also will be a website set up for people to post comments and suggestions. 

This strategy is obviously much better than whatever they were doing before but I can't get over how bugged I am that they are just deciding to listen to customers NOW. I know they can't go back and change what has happened but they have 30 or 40 years worth of mistakes. Asking your customers opinion isn't a bad idea but shouldn't you already have an idea what they want anyway? There should have been research, and questionnaires, some market analysis would have been nice too. As a consumer it is always nice when you don't have to tell companies what you want because they have been paying attention and already know. 

GM's strategy is better than what they were doing before no doubt, I just feel the lesson was learned a little too late. 

JCOM 2300: A Crash Course in Painfully bad PR

I won't lie, my first few posts have been painful to complete. I didn't end up typing and publishing much, most of my time was spent staring at the computer screen with not much going on upstairs.

Good News, I found something to write about, Carlos Boozer. The Utah Jazz forward defines bad PR, every week without fail I can get onto the Internet do a search and find something he has said that has ticked somebody off. If excelling on the court is something that comes easily to Boozer than inserting foot in mouth comments is a trait that he was inherently born with. People are fairly understanding when you let something slip because you're having a bad day, week, or even month. You get into the years and years of saying self-centered things and you begin to run out of fans. 

In July 2004 Boozer signed a 68 million dollar contract with the Jazz. The life changing contract didn't come without controversy. Before signing with the Jazz Boozer played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who had terminated the last year of his contract on the impression that Boozer would sign a long term deal with the Cavs in a price range they could afford. Upon release from his contract Boozer signed a big deal with the Jazz that the Cavs couldn't match. Boozer instantly became a villain in Cleveland earning the reputation of "money chaser". Obviously there was a miscommunication of some sort with Booze and the Cavs, a mistake. He  could of been having a bad day, so I forgave him. 

The "mistakes" continued when arriving in Utah. During the next five seasons Boozer missed about a third of Utah's games due to injury. When it comes to injuries obviously you don't have a lot of control over it. My problem was never with Boozer being hurt it was the way that he handled being injured. When one of your stars gets injured you want him back as soon as possible. Boozer seemed to take his time rehabbing, opted not to travel with the team on road trips, and spent most of his time at his homes in L.A. or Miami to recover. The Jazz play in Utah! Shouldn't he be with his team supporting them in whatever way he can? He oozed this horrible vibe of its all about me. 

In Dec 2008 while injured and traveling with the Jazz (a miracle) Boozer told an ESPN reporter that he would opt out of the final year of his contract with the Jazz his reasoning, "No matter what I'm going to get a raise regardless," Boozer said this after missing the previous 15 games with a knee injury. Most of us don't have the luxury of seeking a raise after missing a third of our work days, after that kind of performance we would be lucky to even have a job. This guy was demanding a raise from the 12.7 million . All I have to say about that is WOW, but it could have been a bad week or month I'll cut him some slack. 

Opting out didn't quite work out for the big guy in the end. After nobody wanted to pay him more than 12.7 mil for his services Boozer opted to stay with the Jazz for his final season. After opting in Boozer immediately began shopping himself around the league as a great trade option. Boozer held radio interviews with Miami and Chicago sports stations in which he announced that the Jazz had expressed a desire to trade him and both of those towns would be his top destinations. Boozer mentioned a conversation with Jazz owner, Greg Miller in which Miller indicated that Boozer was not in the team's long term plans. Miller denies ever having this conversation with Boozer. Among other things, Boozer cited Miami as a top destination because there is no state income tax in Florida, he wouldn't have to pay taxes on his wimpy salary 12.7 million! To pour a little salt into the wound Boozer mentioned that it was tough economic times for everyone and not paying income tax would greatly benefit him. 

Like I said earlier this guy doesn't have to try to say selfish slimy things they just flow out of him naturally. His fairy tale story with Utah isn't over yet. Boozer didn't get traded this summer and is back with the Jazz. On media day when asked about all the dumb things he said Boozer said simply, "Sometimes you put your foot in your mouth." 

And sometimes things are understated a little bit.

Sources: sltrib.com/jazz, ESPN.com 

JCOM 2300 Siemens gets into position

Siemens has recently launched its largest US marketing campaign in history. The German company hopes to position itself where they will be asked to answer some of the nation's biggest problems (health care reform, infrastructure, energy). 

The campaign is simply titled "answers" and is in many ways a continuation of a global campaign launched in 2007. Siemens PR rep Bill Stabile noted that competition has heated up as the recession has hit with competitors aggressively positioning themselves for some BIG TIME contracts that will come from the US hot topic problems. 

Whoever gets the primary responsibility to transfer medical records to an electronic database is going to make billions and billions of dollars. Watching GE, IBM and Siemens as well as others go after these contracts should be fun. Siemens has made a good decision putting emphasis on the US. The economy is down, but that has caused business leaders and politicians to focus on what needs to be fixed, If Siemens can effectively build a spread solid reputation they might be the lucky souls that get asked to fix the problems. 

Source: PR Week prweekus.com

JCOM 2300 Yahoo's new strategy

This week Yahoo! unveiled their new ad campaign. The campaign is essentially a brand campaign which hopes to build Yahoo's reputation with its customers as being user friendly. Taglines like "the Internet is under new management, YOURS," and "It's Y!ou," highlight Yahoo's aim to build credibility with new and future customers. 

The total cost of the brand campaign will be 100 million dollars and it will last approximately 15 months. There are critics of the campaign, which I agree with. Why would you spend so much money trying to get your brand name recognized when you are already the third most frequented website in the world? People know about Yahoo, the reason that people don't use it deals with how user friendly the features are. If Yahoo spent 100 million developing new features and improving their current content then I would be interested in checking their website out. If you have the best product you will naturally attract and keep customers. If you produce a good product, especially when you are one of the biggest names on the Internet word will get around. 

There is one other thing that makes me skeptical of Yahoo's new campaign, timing. Yahoo just hired a new CEO and reported its first loses in a quarterly report since 2002. In a competitive online marketplace Yahoo has struggled to stay ahead of the pack. This campaign looks like a re engineering effort to me. In order to stay in the mix they are looking to change their image, often times plans like this are too late. Companies that have surged ahead like Google will continue to innovate and grow, and the gap between them and Yahoo might follow suit. Yahoo's focus shouldn't be on brand recognition it should be on innovation. 

Source: PR week,  www.prweekus.com