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Did Apple solve its PR problem?

Pat Burns, Facebook and the Hockey Hall of Fame

Recently, we told you about the social media campaign we started to get former NHL coach Pat Burns inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010 (Burns has terminal lung cancer). Over the course of a few weeks, more than 70,000 people joined the group, helping to generate extensive media coverage for the cause.

 

The Hall announced their 2010 inductees in late June and to the amazement of many, Burns was not included in this year's class. His omission generated a significant amount of negative media coverage for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Here's a sampling:

The Globe and Mail: What were the Hockey Hall of Fame voters thinking?

Toronto Sun: Hall of Fame could have done something special

New York Post: Former Devils coach Burns stabbed in the plaque

NHL Hot Stove: HHOF says 'Thanks, but no thanks' to Pat Burns

National Post: Opening doors to Hall of shame

ESPN: Hall selection process needs big overhaul

Canoe: Hall passes over Burns

The New Jersey Star-Ledger: Pat burns fails to be elected to Hockey Hall of Fame

Yahoo Sports: In Hall of Fame Class of 2010 roll call, it's all about the absences

Fanhouse: Hall of Fame election committee member acknowledges Burns snub

Inside Halton: Campaign a success despite Burns being overlooked for Hall of Fame

A big thanks goes out to all of the reporters across North America who supported this campaign from its earliest days and who took the HHOF to task for this bewildering error in judgment. I owe each of you a cold beer. Email me if you'd like to collect.

Burns will be inducted some day. But instead of making the speech himself, it will likely be his wife or one of his children. That's a shame. The HHOF missed a great opportunity to do the right thing for one of their own. Here's hoping the former coach is still with us in 2011 when we try again.

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Note: This story is taken from our 'Manage your Message' e-newsletter. To get your own copy sent to your inbox each month, sign up here.

A Refreshing Dose of Honesty from CNN Anchor

Recently, CNN anchor Campbell Brown announced she was leaving the network. The reason for her departure? Her show's poor ratings. "Of course I pay attention to ratings," she said. "And simply put, the ratings for my program are not where I would like them to be."

 

Brown wasn't fired. She quit. And to her credit, she didn't try to sugar-coat or manipulate the optics of her departure. Answering questions about her motivation for leaving, she said, "As for why, I could have said that I am stepping down to spend more time with my children (which I truly want to do). But I have never had much tolerance for others' spin, so I can't imagine trying to stomach my own. The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else."

 

Most companies (BP comes to mind) would be better served if their executives adopted Brown's refreshing, no-BS approach to media relations.

Campaign to get Pat Burns into Hockey Hall of Fame surges past 50,000 members

I started this group a few weeks ago with some friends because it felt like the right thing to do. If you're a hockey fan, a Pat Burns fan, someone who has been touched by cancer, or just a decent human being, please take five seconds to visit www.patburns.ca and join this facebook group. Thanks, WW

Campaign to get Pat Burns into Hockey Hall of Fame surges past 50,000 members

OAKVILLE, ON, April 8 /CNW/ - Less than two weeks after its launch, an online movement to fast-track former NHL coach Pat Burns into the Hockey Hall of Fame has attracted over 50,000 members.

Burns, one of the most accomplished and respected coaches in NHL history, has terminal cancer. In late March, three Oakville, Ontario residents launched a Facebook group called 'Let's Get Pat Burns into the Hockey Hall of Fame - NOW!' The group has attracted more than 50,000 members and has been profiled by media outlets across North America.

"We're sending a message to the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee that we'd like to see Pat Burns on the ballot on April 15 and that the voting and induction processes should be accelerated in light of his illness," said the group's organizers. "This isn't a debate about whether Pat Burns belongs in the Hall of Fame - his accomplishments speak for themselves, and 50,000 hockey fans agree. This is about expediting the process so he and his family can enjoy this great honour while he's still with us. It's about the hockey community seizing a rare and fleeting opportunity to do the right thing for one of their own."

The Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee must submit its nominations for this year's class by April 15.

"The larger our numbers, the louder our voice," said the organizers. "We're asking Canadians to take a few seconds to visit www.patburns.ca and join the group to show their support for getting Pat Burns into the Hockey Hall of Fame now."

Burns won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2003. He is also the only NHL head coach in history to win the Jack Adams Award (for Coach of the Year) three times. His exceptional coaching career, which included 501 regular season wins, was cut short by a cancer diagnosis in 2004.

To show your support, please visit www.patburns.ca.

For further information: Warren Weeks, (416) 238-6361, warren.weeks@elevenpr.com; John Perenack, (416) 238-2576, perenack@room-40.com

Reward for missing hockey equipment - brilliant PR move by Reebok Canada

Reebok Canada has offered a $10,000 reward (no questions asked) for the return of the stick and gloves Sidney Crosby used to score the gold medal winning goal at the Olympics.

What a brilliant PR move.

There must be numerous companies kicking themselves for not coming up with this idea. For Reebok (which is a long-time sponsor of Crosby and the maker of the missing equipment), it's a no-lose proposition. If the offer leads to the recovery of the equipment (which has been estimated to be worth as much as several hundred thousand dollars), Reebok comes out looking like a hero. In the meantime, they're getting some great (free) publicity with the offer of the reward. And even if the equipment never shows up, Reebok will be remembered as the company that tried to make a difference. Brilliant.

As the manufacturer of the missing equipment, Reebok is the natural choice to offer a reward. But any number of organizations could have come up with the same idea. It's too late for them now. Anyone else who offers a reward (unless it was for much more money) would be left in Reebok's shadow.

So who dropped the ball by not coming up with the same idea? Here's a small list...you could probably think of others too:

- Canada Post, Purolator, Fed Ex, UPS, etc. (just imagine the coverage of one of them delivering the found equipment to Crosby on national TV)

- The Hockey Hall of Fame (duh)

- Any of Reebok's competitors (this would have been very 'Art of War')

- Roots (perhaps the founders decided not to offer a reward because they're actually American)

- Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, etc.

- Any of the big Canadian banks or insurance companies

- Any of the Canadian lottery providers

- One of the national newspapers

- Air Canada, WestJet, etc.

Reebok has already generated much more than $10,000 worth of media coverage with their offer of the reward. This is a great example of how PR (when it's done properly) is much more effective than traditional advertising.

An early Christmas gift

A true feel-good story for the holidays...

Disclosure - RPNAO is one of our clients.

David Letterman gives a lesson in crisis management

Even if you didn't watch the Late Show with David Letterman last Thursday night, you've likely seen the news coverage that followed it.

 

Letterman used 10 minutes of his show on October 1st to tell millions of people about an alleged extortion plot against him. If you're unfamiliar with the story, a CBS News employee was charged with trying to blackmail Letterman for $2 million in a plot that forced the late night host to acknowledge having intimate relationships with some of the women who have worked for him.

 

The 62-year-old Letterman has a reputation as an intensely private individual. So it might have seemed incongruous to many when he dedicated a significant portion of Thursday's broadcast to providing such a detailed account of the story -- an account that culminated with Letterman telling his audience, "I have had sex with women who work for me on this show."

 

While the 10-minute story/confession was surely unpleasant and embarrassing for Letterman, it was also a textbook example of good crisis management. Please note that this doesn't excuse or condone the veteran talk show host's behaviour. But given the situation in which he found himself, he handled the PR component well.

 

Letterman knew this story (which had been brewing for three weeks) was on the verge of becoming public and he knew that it was going to be big. Rather than hiding from the press or making denials after the fact, he got out in front of the story on his own terms and via his own show that has an audience of millions. If you haven't seen the video, it's worth watching. You can view it here (for now...CBS has been removing versions of the video from YouTube, so we will try to keep a current link posted).

 

Letterman delivers his 'story', as he calls it, with equal parts earnestness, sensitivity and self-deprecating humour. And at the end of the stunning monolgue, he indicates that this is his one and only statement on the matter, saying, "I don't plan to say much more about this particular topic."

 

Where others failed before him (Bill Clinton, Mark Sanford, Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards...the list goes on), Letterman succeeded. Rather than lying about his indiscretions, hiding from the media or blaming his behaviour on someone or something else, Letterman came clean in an honest, forthcoming, refreshing way. By acting swiftly, he was also able to control the first news cycle and set the tone for all of the media coverage and Internet chatter that followed. Just imagine how differently the situation might have unfolded if the story had been broken by TMZ or Entertainment Tonight.

 

While there is no real winner in this situation, Letterman opted for the best course of action in a difficult circumstance. So far, none of the show's advertisers have pulled out of the show (FYI, advertisers spent more than US$135 million on the Late Show from January to June of 2009). CBS also issued a message of support for Letterman on Friday, saying in a statement that, "We think it was appropriate for Dave to disclose the matter publicly as he has, and we are continuing to co-operate with authorities." The show also benefitted from a bit of a ratings bump, as pre-publicity for Thursday's broadcast led to ratings that were 22% higher than Letterman's average numbers for this season.

 

That's not to say Letterman will emerge from this crisis smelling like a rose. His actions have disappointed some viewers who may choose not to tune in again. And this public airing of his private life is likely to cause him some grief on the home front. Having said that, his PR strategy is a good example of getting in front of a story, taking accountability and being honest with the public. And so far, it seems to have worked for him.

Employee communications done right by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

Internal communications often gets the short end of the stick.

Employees are arguably an organization's most important audience. They're the lifeblood of any company. They need to be the first audience you communicate with and the message needs to be clear, honest and free of B.S.

Sadly, too often internal communications happens like this... Long after the communications plans are written, the key messages have been approved and the news release is being prepared for distribution, someone invariably says, "I guess we should do something for employees too".

The following letter was written by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to that company's employees, explaining the sale of Zappos to Amazon in a $900 million deal. The letter is long. But it is also an excellent example of how to communicate a complex, important message to your most important audience. It has just  the right tone, answers the burning questions with openness and outlines the rationale for the deal in an easy-to-understand and compelling way.

If part of your job entails internal communications, print out this letter, give it a thorough read and save it. It's a great example of employee communications that you'll find yourself revisiting in the future for inspiration and ideas.

The content of the letter follows below:

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009
From: Tony Hsieh (CEO - Zappos.com)
To: All Zappos Employees
Subject: Zappos and Amazon

Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully read this entire email. (My apologies for the occasional use of formal-sounding language, as parts of it are written in a particular way for legal reasons.)

Today is a big day in Zappos history.

This morning, our board approved and we signed what’s known as a “definitive agreement”, in which all of the existing shareholders and investors of Zappos (there are over 100) will be exchanging their Zappos stock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange is done, Amazon will become the only shareholder of Zappos stock.

Over the next few days, you will probably read headlines that say “Amazon acquires Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon”. While those headlines are technically correct, they don’t really properly convey the spirit of the transaction. (I personally would prefer the headline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”)

We plan to continue to run Zappos the way we have always run Zappos — continuing to do what we believe is best for our brand, our culture, and our business. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are switching out our current shareholders and board of directors for a new one, even though the technical legal structure may be different.

We think that now is the right time to join forces with Amazon because there is a huge opportunity to leverage each other’s strengths and move even faster towards our long term vision. For Zappos, our vision remains the same: delivering happiness to customers, employees, and vendors. We just want to get there faster.

We are excited about doing this for 3 main reasons:

1) We think that there is a huge opportunity for us to really accelerate the growth of the Zappos brand and culture, and we believe that Amazon is the best partner to help us get there faster.

2) Amazon supports us in continuing to grow our vision as an independent entity, under the Zappos brand and with our unique culture.

3) We want to align ourselves with a shareholder and partner that thinks really long term (like we do at Zappos), as well as do what’s in the best interest of our existing shareholders and investors.

I will go through each of the above points in more detail below, but first, let me get to the top 3 burning questions that I’m guessing many of you will have.

TOP 3 BURNING QUESTIONS

Q: Will I still have a job?

As mentioned above, we plan to continue to run Zappos as an independent entity. In legal terminology, Zappos will be a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of Amazon. Your job is just as secure as it was a month ago.

Q: Will the Zappos culture change?

Our culture at Zappos is unique and always evolving and changing, because one of our core values is to Embrace and Drive Change. What happens to our culture is up to us, which has always been true. Just like before, we are in control of our destiny and how our culture evolves.

A big part of the reason why Amazon is interested in us is because they recognize the value of our culture, our people, and our brand. Their desire is for us to continue to grow and develop our culture (and perhaps even a little bit of our culture may rub off on them).

They are not looking to have their folks come in and run Zappos unless we ask them to. That being said, they have a lot of experience and expertise in a lot of areas, so we’re very excited about the opportunities to tap into their knowledge, expertise, and resources, especially on the technology side. This is about making the Zappos brand, culture, and business even stronger than it is today.

Q: Are Tony, Alfred, or Fred leaving?

No, we have no plans to leave. We believe that we are at the very beginning of what’s possible for Zappos and are very excited about the future and what we can accomplish for Zappos with Amazon as our new partner. Part of the reason for doing this is so that we can get a lot more done more quickly.

There is an additional Q&A section at the end of this email, but I wanted to make sure we got the top 3 burning questions out of the way first. Now that we’ve covered those questions, I wanted to share in more detail our thinking behind the scenes that led us to this decision.

First, I want to apologize for the suddenness of this announcement. As you know, one of our core values is to Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication, and if I could have it my way, I would have shared much earlier that we were in discussions with Amazon so that all employees could be involved in the decision process that we went through along the way. Unfortunately, because Amazon is a public company, there are securities laws that prevented us from talking about this to most of our employees until today.

We’ve been on friendly terms with Amazon for many years, as they have always been interested in Zappos and have always had a great respect for our brand.

Several months ago, they reached out to us and said they wanted to join forces with us so that we could accelerate the growth of our business, our brand, and our culture. When they said they wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand (as opposed to folding us into Amazon), we decided it was worth exploring what a partnership would look like.

We learned that they truly wanted us to continue to build the Zappos brand and continue to build the Zappos culture in our own unique way. I think “unique” was their way of saying “fun and a little weird.”

Over the past several months, as we got to know each other better, both sides became more and more excited about the possibilities for leveraging each other’s strengths. We realized that we are both very customer-focused companies — we just focus on different ways of making our customers happy.

Amazon focuses on low prices, vast selection and convenience to make their customers happy, while Zappos does it through developing relationships, creating personal emotional connections, and delivering high touch (”WOW”) customer service.

We realized that Amazon’s resources, technology, and operational experience had the potential to greatly accelerate our growth so that we could grow the Zappos brand and culture even faster. On the flip side, through the process Amazon realized that it really was the case that our culture is the platform that enables us to deliver the Zappos experience to our customers. Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) made it clear that he had a great deal of respect for our culture and that Amazon would look to protect it.

We asked our board members what they thought of the opportunity. Michael Moritz, who represents Sequoia Capital (one of our investors and board members), wrote the following: “You now have the opportunity to accelerate Zappos’ progress and to make the name and the brand and everything associated with it an enduring, permanent part of peoples’ lives… You

are now free to let your imagination roam - and to contemplate initiatives and undertakings that today, in our more constrained setting, we could not take on.”

One of the great things about Amazon is that they are very long term thinkers, just like we are at Zappos. Alignment in very long term thinking is hard to find in a partner or investor, and we felt very lucky and excited to learn that both Amazon and Zappos shared this same philosophy.

All this being said, this was not an easy decision. Over the past several months, we had to weigh all the pros and cons along with all the potential benefits and risks. At the end of the day, we realized that, once it was determined that this was in the best interests of our shareholders, it basically all boiled down to asking ourselves 2 questions:

1) Do we believe that this will accelerate the growth of the Zappos brand and help us fulfill our mission of delivering happiness faster?

2) Do we believe that we will continue to be in control of our own destiny so that we can continue to grow our unique culture?

After spending a lot of time with Amazon and getting to know them and understanding their intentions better, we reached the conclusion that the answers to these 2 questions are YES and YES.

The Zappos brand will continue to be separate from the Amazon brand. Although we’ll have access to many of Amazon’s resources, we need to continue to build our brand and our culture just as we always have. Our mission remains the same: delivering happiness to all of our stakeholders, including our employees, our customers, and our vendors. (As a side note, we plan to continue to maintain the relationships that we have with our vendors ourselves, and Amazon will continue to maintain the relationships that they have with their vendors.)

We will be holding an all hands meeting soon to go over all of this in more detail. Please email me any questions that you may have so that we can cover as many as possible during the all hands meeting and/or a follow-up email.

We signed what’s known as the “definitive agreement” today, but we still need to go through the process of getting government approval, so we are anticipating that this transaction actually won’t officially close for at least a few months. We are legally required by the SEC to be in what’s known as a “quiet period”, so if you get any questions related to the transaction from anyone including customers, vendors, or the media, please let them know that we are in a quiet period mandated by law and have them email tree@zappos.com, which is a special email account that Alfred and I will be monitoring.

Alfred and I would like to say thanks to the small group of folks on our finance and legal teams and from our advisors at Morgan Stanley, Fenwick & West, and PricewaterhouseCoopers who have been working really hard, around the clock, and behind the scenes over the last several months to help make all this possible.

Before getting to the Q&A section, I’d also like to thank everyone for taking the time to read this long email and for helping us get to where we are today.

It’s definitely an emotional day for me. The feelings I’m experiencing are similar to what I felt in college on graduation day: excitement about the future mixed with fond memories of the past. The last 10 years were an incredible ride, and I’m excited about what we will accomplish together over the next 10 years as we continue to grow Zappos!

-Tony Hsieh

CEO - Zappos.com

Q&A

Q: Will we still continue to grow our headquarters out of Vegas?

Yes! Just like before, we plan to continue to grow our Las Vegas operations as long as we can continue to attract the right talent for each of our departments. We do not have any plans to move any departments, nor does Amazon want us to because they recognize that our culture is what makes the Zappos brand special.

Q: What will happen to our warehouse in Kentucky?

As many of you know, we were strategic in choosing our warehouse location due to its proximity to the UPS Worldport hub in Louisville. Amazon does not have any warehouse locations that are closer to the Worldport hub. There is the possibility that they may want to store some of their inventory in our warehouse or vice-versa. Right now, both Zappos and Amazon believe that the best customer experience is to continue running our warehouse in Kentucky at its current location.

Q: Will we be reducing staff in order to gain operational efficiency?

There are no plans to do so at this time. Both Zappos and Amazon are focused on growth, which means we will need to hire more people to help us grow.

Q: Will we get a discount at Amazon?

No, because we are planning on continuing to run Zappos as a separate company with our own culture and core values. And we’re not going to be giving the Zappos discount to Amazon employees either, unless they bake us cookies and deliver them in person.

Q: Will our benefits change?

No, we are not planning on making any changes (outside of the normal course of business) to our benefit packages.

Q: Do we keep our core values?

Yes, we will keep our core values, and Amazon will keep their core values.

Q: Will our training/pipeline programs or progression plans change? Will there still be more growth opportunities?

We will continue building out our pipeline and progression as planned. The whole point of this combination is to accelerate our growth, so if anything, we are actually anticipating more growth opportunities for everyone.

Q: Will we continue to do the special things we do for our customers? Are our customer service policies going to change?

Just like before, that’s completely up to us to decide.

Q: Can you tell me a bit more about Jeff Bezos (Amazon CEO)? What is he like?

We’d like to show an 8-minute video of Jeff Bezos that will give you some insight into his personality and way of thinking. He shares some of what he’s learned as an entrepreneur, as well as some of the mistakes he’s made.

Q: I’m a business/financial reporter. Can you talk like a banker and use fancy-sounding language that we can print in a business publication?

Zappos is an online footwear category leader and Amazon believes Zappos is the right team with a unique culture, proven track record, and the experience to become a leading soft goods company; Zappos’ customer service obsession reinforces Amazon’s mission to be the earth’s most customer-centric company; Great brand, strong vendor relationships, broad selection, large active and repeat customer base; Amazon believes Zappos is a great business — growing, profitable and positive cash flow; Accelerate combined companies’ scale and growth trajectory in the shoe, apparel and accessories space; Significant synergy opportunities, including technology, marketing, and possible international expansion.

Q: What is the purchase price?

This is not a cash transaction. This is a stock exchange. Our shareholders and option holders will be issued approximately 10 million Amazon shares on a fully converted basis. The details of the deal terms and how the shares will be distributed will be filed with the SEC on Form S-4 and will be publicly available when it is filed.

Q: Can you talk like a lawyer now?

This email was sent on July 22, 2009. In connection with the proposed merger, Amazon.com will file a registration statement on Form S-4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission that will contain a consent solicitation/prospectus. Zappos’ shareholders and investors are urged to carefully read the consent solicitation/prospectus when it becomes available and other relevant documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the proposed merger because they contain important information about Amazon.com, Zappos and the proposed merger. Shareholders and investors will be able to obtain the consent solicitation/prospectus when it becomes available at www.sec.gov or www.amazon.com/ir.

Certain statements contained in this email are not statements of historical fact and constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements reflect current expectations, are inherently uncertain and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from expected results include those set forth in Amazon.com’s Current Report on Form 8-K, dated July 22, 2009.

Q: Can you please stop?

okthxbye

Airline screens video of staff in buff

This is a great example of effective PR.

New Zealand's national airline recently launched a new version of its in-flight safety video. Unlike any such airline video before it, however, the crew members in this one are wearing nothing but body paint. The video, "The Bare Essentials of Safety", is shot quite discretely but certainly has a slightly hip, irreverent feel to it. It has also gone viral online, generating millions of views on YouTube in a matter of a few days (1.6 million as of this writing).

This video is effective for two main reasons. First, it encourages passengers to actually watch a video that could help save their lives in the event of a mishap (passengers around the world have been ignoring the in-flight safety video for years). Second, it's generating a ton of free publicity for the airline, helping to raise its profile, increase awareness and ultimately supports its sales and marketing efforts.

Really, AIG?

$165 million in bonuses to your employees? Really?

In the wake of the $170 billion government bailout the company has received, this move defies reason and only serves to underscore the prevailing greed that has created this global financial disaster.

The best quote I've seen so far was from New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo, who said, "A.I.G. made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing a taxpayer bailout. Something is deeply wrong with this outcome."

The company says these bonuses are needed to persuade employees to stay on with the company. Where else are they going to go and work? The companies that haven't imploded are significantly impaired. These folks are lucky they still have jobs at all.

It is shocking to think that no one at A.I.G. saw the awarding of these bonuses as an impending PR or business disaster. But apparently sound judgment is not something the company is flush with.