dana

I am researching the Healthsouth Scandal for an assingment in one of my PR classes.  I want to include a variety of viewpoints both from the PR aspects and from personal aspects.  I know that many many people have very strong opinions about Richard Scrushy and the company as a whole.  What I really find interesting is how PR has had to change stockholder’s opinion as well as public opinion after such a huge scandal. 

I have family from the Birmingham area and also like to keep up with Birmingham news, and I know that the company has dramatically changed, but I haven’t heard alot about these new changes in the news.  Likewise, I know of a few (still upset to say the least) stockholders who have lost large quantities of money but still have their Healthsouth stock because they have no other choice. I think that these people should be the first to be informed of the postive changes in the company.   I think that Healthsouth’s PR should be more active in trying to convince these stockholders that the company not only has changed it’s outside, but also it’s inside.

 So, basically my research is going to include what has already been done and what should be done from a PR aspect to promote the company back to it’s superior status. 

 

This except came from this article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=2222583

“Disrespect came flying down out of the stands as the Tigers walked past the Georgia band. A plastic Diet Coke bottle, about one-third full, somersaulted past Auburn punter Kody Bliss’ head. He picked it up, unscrewed the cap, took a swig and threw it back, cap off, Diet Coke splashing out.

The Bulldogs band and dance squad booed. The Auburn players smiled and held their hands to their ears. Down here in the South, where they care more than anywhere else, the emotions were raw and exposed.”

I got this link in my email this morning and I LOVED IT.  Because I’m in PR, it makes me identify and appreciate articles that are negatives and postives from a PR aspect.  I think this article represents the best kind of publicity that results in the BEST kind of PR for Auburn…. and conversely the WORST kind publicity for the University of Georgia PR.  This one player’s spur of the moment, rather heroic act, is awesome to describe the Auburn Spirit while a few Georgia fans are representing the whole University of Georgia negatively.  In my opinion the article represents the purest, most truthful form of PR there is. 

War Eagle!

Last week in one of my PR classes we discussed interviewing.  I noticed that many of the rules and suggestions for good interviewing were similar to concepts for good PR execution.  

The general idea of PR is to communicate with the public.  Likewise, individuals regularly communicate with others on a personal basis.  So, it only makes sense that we engage in PR every day with our friends and family.  This got me to thinking about an idea that I’m going to call personal PR.  

    When it comes to an interview, the interviewee has to act as a public relations practitioner for themselves.  Much like a PR practitioner communicates the positive aspects of the organization to the public, an interview must communicate the positive aspects of themselves to the employer.  Likewise, both the PR practitioner and the interviewee must be able to act quickly and research as well as anticipate and plan for potential surprises or crises.  

This personal PR is not isolated to job interviewing situations, but should be used in our everyday interactions and relationships.  I think that the ability to be able to execute good PR for yourself is the basis for being able to do it for others.

 In my opinion it’s fairly logical that if someone can’t deliver a successful interview then they probably couldn’t execute a successful PR campaign.  Therefore, simply understanding the technical aspects of public relations is not enough, we must be able to use it in a variety of life situations.

    There are so many different facets to how “ethics” or “ethical behavior” is defined.  In fact, each person and organization defines the idea differently.  In my opinion, The Golden Rule, “If we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, harmonious public relationships will result,” should be the basis for all other ethical rules.
    A big discussion that has been raging in PR ethics, is the debate over whether skewing the facts and omitting the facts is unethical.  I believe it is.  
Something I have noticed a lot lately, and frankly don’t known how the publications get away with it is speculation presented as fact. These publications and programs will publicize facts that have been skewed merely for their own personal gain in viewership.  
An example would be the Jessica and Nick divorce rumors.  Several different magazines and news programs have made feature stories proclaiming Nick and Jessica Over for Good, Nick and Jessica Split, or Jessica Not Sleeping at Home.  All the time while the stories are on newsstands the spokesperson for the couple is denying the allegations.  Somebody’s lying!  
I think that if these facts are speculation that are being reported as news that it is unethical, while similarly if these facts are true and the couple’s reps are denying it then that is unethical too.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051106/ap_en_mu/50_cent_billboards

I read an article about advertising and community relations at yahoo.com.   The article states that offensive billboards advertising 50 Cent’s new movie “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” are being taken down in a Philadephia community.   They are being taken down in the Philadelphia area only because community leaders say that the billboards show 50 Cent with a gun and a microphone.  Community leaders say that this implies the message that you can solve problems with violence as well as make a lot of money. The billboard company has worked amicably with the community to fulfill there wishes and community leaders are even quoted praising the company saying that they showed “corporate responsibility.”  However, a question I have is why are these billboards being removed only in the area where there are protests.  In my opinion if there is reason enough to have them taken down in one area then they should be removed in all areas.  Now, I do understand that different communities have different values of what they will and won’t allow in their community.  Henceforth… Bourbon Street vendors can have advertisements in their windows that say…vendors in a suburban residential neighborhood can’t.  HOwever, it just looks to me like a company that does business and caters to many different markets would be more careful in what they choose to stand behind and present to their publics.

I was recently introduced to blogging via Robert French at Auburn University.  I now have my own blog at dana.prblogs.org.  Mr. French has made me aware of the growing importance of blogging communciation on the internet.  While I am very conscious of the benefits of using a blog in PR related activity, I never thought about blogging being used in the educational environment outside of college.

However, I read an interesting blog post that brought to my attention the introduction of a blogging service directed towards elementary and high school students.  Visit http://blogsavvy.net/introducing-learnerblogsorg-and-uniblogsorg for the entire post.

This domain offers free blogs called leanerblogs.org and edublogs.org  Just recently introduced to blogs myself, I have found many uses for blogs, and know that their are countless ways that blogs could use This got me to thinking about how teachers and faculty at a typical K-12 school could use blogs.

Principals and teachers could use different blogs to communciate with their different target groups; parents,students, and each other.  Parents, who would otherwise not have a large amount of communication with one another could also communicate with each other.

Furthermore, blogging within the students themselves would give them invaluable skills dealing with an increasingly popular form of news and expression.

When I was thinking of a topic to write about in my blog, the first thing that came to mind is something that has been waying on my mind for the past couple of days.  My roommates planned for an elaborate Halloween party all day Friday.  They had specially made a trivia drinking game complete with an Alex Trebek and Vanna White costumes, door prizes, and a buffet of food and drinks.  However,when 9:30 rolled around not one person showed up.  Okay, now my roommates are really nice pretty girls with many friends.  So, I wondered what went wrong with the failed party? So, I researched and found a few tips about the pubic relations aspect of getting people to show up at an event.  I also used these to identity potential reasons why people didn’t come to the party.

Rule #1Send an invite at least 2-3 days before the event and know that it’s okay to call prior to the event to make sure they’re coming.

Problem with Roommates Party: Maybe their friends didn’t hear about the party, and the roomies should have called to make sure.

Rule #2Make sure time is convienient and location is easily accessible.

Problem with Roomates Party: Maybe there was another party or event scheduled at the same time.  Likewise, maybe the active towing at our apartment complex discouraged attendees to park.

Rule #3Give them an incentive.  Let them know how the event relates to them and why they should come and that they will be missing something if they don’t come.

Problem with Roommates Party:

The roomies should have let their friends know that other friends were coming and that a good time would be missed if they didn’t show up.

I hope these tips in the PR aspect of party planning helps you out.  I will definitely share these with my roommates.

Do you remember the Bill O’Reilly sexually harassment accusations?  Who doesn’t?  I mean, you have this mega conservative outspoken icon who rants and raves on his self-entitled network program and he gets accused of sexual harassment by one of his employees. What should you as a PR practitioner do?

Although the PR side knew few facts about the allegations, when the accusations met light the Fox/O’Reilly PR team immediately released statements acknowledging and denying the accusations and vowing to investigate.  Although like I said this immediate reaction stated only the few known facts at the time, it cut down on much speculation that could have further damaged O’Reilly’s career.

So in other words the answer to the question What should you do is DO ANYTHING!  

Understanding how people and groups involved are likely to react is extremely important to planning a response.  In this case, it was very important to understand the overwhelmingly republican conservative audience and supporters as well as democratic liberal non-supporters.  Both of these publics were key in PR’s target to get the facts out there and save face. O’ Reilly’s PR team later made sure to publicly deny any wrong doing and gave proof of O’Reilly’s good moral character and perceptions of female employees.  Because much of O’Reilly’s audience are conservative, O’ Reilly PR team knew that these conservative values must be upheld in O’Reilly’s actions dealing with the accusations.

 I think that the PR team dealing with this scandal did a good job in cutting down on widespread speculation by just getting the facts out as fast as possible.

As I said before a major aspect of public relations is crisis communications.  This stimulated my thinking and prompted me to read the crises section of one of my PR books.  However, as I’m told time after time, these books cannot in any way prepare one for real life.  So, what I would like to know is how are some of the points from the book different from what would be important in reality.

  Major points in the book suggested that an organization should have a crisis communication plan, have trained employees, have one spokes person to communicate with the media, and should remember to provide only information that is known for a fact.  And most importantly an organization should remember to ANTICIPATE and PLAN.   This preparation for a crisis could save the organization time, money, and possible their reputation by cutting down on media and public speculation.  

 Like I said, the book really stressed for an organization to prepare and have a plan.  But what I really want to know is how effective and efficient is it to plan for multiple types of crisis.  It looks to me like it would be impossible to make a generalized plan for every potential crisis.  In my opinion a crisis is something that CAN’T be planned or anticipated.  What is some real-life advice on dealing with a crisis as a PR practitioner?

http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46092

I found this article posted in a blog on Marcom Blog that is titled WHY DOVE IS LUCKY TO BE KNOWN AS THE FAT BRAND.  However, I didn’t fully agree with all of it’s points.  I certainly hate to be the one to disagree with the “better real than ideal” view. 

 Okay, here’s my argument.  I dated a this guy who’s dad is a psychologist so I learned random facts about psychology.  Anyway, he told me than women enjoy looking at a Victoria Secret magazine just as much as men.  Why?  That’s exactly what I asked.   He told me that we all see images of perfect people modeling this or advertising that and we envision that ideal perfect person or image as ourselves.  Crazy…but I find him have a credible opinion and be a credible source.

 It does somewhat makes sense that these ads are selling us what we want to be….not what we really are.  If we wanted to see someone who needed to lose a couple and tan a little more we’d look in the mirror, and we wouldn’t need the product. 

I really not just trying  to play the devil’s advocate, but I really do understand how these ads can be new and innovative because they are in stark contrast to everything else, but I can’t help but think that they won’t be here long. I am very interested to see if these campaigns catch-on on a large scale.