Measuring Up

Oh, to live the life of Tiger Woods...

Tiger Woods was in a car accident. It was serious enough that a neighbor had to call 911 and an unconscious  Woods (lying in the middle of his street) had to be rushed to the hospital.

Over the last few days, the police have tried three times to interview Tiger about the accident. This is normal protocol for any U.S. Citizen. But apparently nothing about Tiger is normal because he is above our law. Er... that's at least what Tiger seems to believe.

Wouldn't it be just peachy if we could all pick and choose which laws we want to follow, like Tiger does?

From what I read, Tiger is upset with gossip reports questioning his fidelity. The latest statement on his Web site asks for privacy during this personal time and does a fair job of lashing out at the media who have covered this fairly typical celebrity tale.

I have no idea whether Tiger's supposed affair has anything to do with his accident or not. But, the world's number one golfer looks like a big, spoiled brat right now. And by the way, everyone (even those who don't like golf) have now tuned into this bizarre story because Tiger is stonewalling the authorities. And, we all want to know why.

Talk about creating your own public relations disaster. The man's image is sinking by the hour because in the absence of information from Tiger, (any details would be fine,) he is leaving himself wide open to all kinds of speculation. And, this makes little sense coming from a living legend who has spent many years carefully sculpting his professional image for kids and adults alike.

Is he simply frustrated and needs time to stomp his feet and cool off? Or, is there something more insidious to this fire hydrant car wreck story?

Either way, I have a few basic public relations suggestions for Tiger that might help to stop his image from crashing and burning. (Sorry for the pun, but i couldn't resist.)

For starters, I’d recommend that he immediately remove his lawyers, agent and managers from being his mouthpiece. This entourage comes across as cold and too calculated. More to the point, it makes us feel like Tiger can't deal with every day crises or problems at all (which is clearly the truth.)  I'd also tell Tiger to break his silence now. Speak to the police and let the world know that you don't truly believe celebrities (like you) can live by a different set of rules than all the regular Joes who watch, root for and adore you. Sure, rehearse what you need to say and have a lawyer present to protect anything that needs protecting. You've already had three days to get this part right.

Tiger, the clock is ticking and your reputation is on the line.

Made in the USA

This is the line that the powerful senior senator from New York is harping on loudly these days. Specifically, Senator Schumer is accusing Adidas of being unpatriotic because it plans to cease manufacturing NBA uniforms in its upstate New York factory.

Instead, this well known sneaker/apparel company is moving its manufacturing operations to Korea where the labor is cheap and its profit will undoubtedly grow. Of course, the good senator is upset because a few hundred constituents in his home state will lose their jobs.

It's unfortunate when anyone has to lose work these days. But, Schumer's logic is kind of laughable for how hollow it rings.

For starters, how can Adidas be viewed as un-American when it is a German company? Sure, it has a U.S. subsidiary and wants to build a strong bond within this country (largely to sell more products). But, the fact remains that it can't or shouldn't feel the least bit of patriotic guilt because there is no sense of American nationalism that can possibly exist.

The Senator is also trying to tie his guilt rhetoric around the neck of American basketball, a pastime in this country. He implies that the NBA is as American as Chevy, apple pie and mom. And, anything connected to this U.S. institution clearly needs to remain on this domestic soil or.....it would be anti-American.

Hogwash, I say. The NBA has been touting its international moniker for almost a decade now. It recruits heavily from Europe and China. Has wholly-owned farm leagues in countries there and (in case anyone has forgotten), includes a team in its league that is based in another country known as Canada.

For all intents and purposes, the NBA has become an international phenomenon. Therefore, if we subscribe to the senator's philosophy, then the NBA should have been derided many, many moons ago for expanding outside our borders.

With all of this said (or written), the distinguished senator is no dummy. He understands what negative, anti-American jobs publicity can do to any company based here. And, I'm sure that Adidas is now feeling the heat from those Lou Dobbs-like activists.

Still, based on its own merit, this story shouldn't be one. And, in this case, the senator has very little to gripe about.

Air travel is all about taking us out of our comfort zone…

As I mindlessly moved through the airport onto my flights during another business trip this week, something  new occurred to me. I realized that the whole flying experience has been turned into an ordeal that truly takes adults out of their comfort zone. On top of that, it makes us (or at least me) feel like a school kid who is scared that the strict teacher is about to rap my knuckles with a big ruler.

I’ll explain. To begin with, think about what typically happens as you go through the security line in each airport. It’s mighty stressful. I realize that it’s needed, but the process is identical each time. As quickly as possible, you whip off shoes, belt, coat, anything metal and throw it all into 3-4 bins, all the while the people in back of you are politely pushing and edging you forward. God forbid you aren’t quick enough in dislodging your materials into these bins. Someone jumps in front of you and that creates more anxiety. Of course, throughout this process, the security people are herding each one of us like cattle going to market to get through the line and walk under the x-ray post.

No time to take a deep breath at that point though. Because, just as quickly, you’re expected to grab all items you have on the belt coming out of the other end, or the people’s stuff behind yours will pile right on top. I have to believe it would be really funny for someone to be a fly on the security wall and watch us poor travelers hopping on one foot to get a shoe on, while simultaneously trying to put our lap top back in a briefcase and also slip that belt back on.

I find myself tense, stressed out and needing a vacation after experiencing the security line more than once in a day.

Then, after a few hours of waiting and finally piling on to the plane, the next experience typically happens which makes me feel like a child. When those airplane doors close, flight attendants, who are actually customer service representatives, instantly transform into your worst disciplinarian teacher. And, each of us becomes nothing more than a child forced to follow every single directive and rule. Again, I understand why many of these rules are in place, but it just strikes me as a little zany as to how adult passengers lose all control during the experience.

For example, ever try to get a little more use out of your Blackberry before taking off? I find myself becoming so sneaky just to hide the PDA from any possible flight attendant who could be coming up in front of me, or even scarier… from behind.  I typically place the Blackberry between two magazines so that it appears that I’m reading and then sneak a few peaks and write some last minute emails before we ever take off. Getting caught is a brutal experience though. The look isn’t something I’ve seen since my mother used to catch me (after the fact) holding parties in our house (as a teenager) when my parents traveled.

Sometimes it’s even the little things that make you feel just as bad though- How about trying to lower your seat just a tad before take off because when it is upright, it’s just so comfortable to the back? I’ve gotten that glare and have been reprimanded on more than one occasion. God forbid ones briefcase isn’t stowed perfectly under the seat. The resulting lecture from Sister Mary Flight Attendant is the same.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that all of these aspects of flying actually make the experience dreadful. I can take all the waiting around flight delays. But, no one wants to be taken out of their comfort zone so often and the way that makes adults feel like children. Not much anyone can do about it and I understand why the rules are what they are. But, it doesn’t mean that I’ll ever like it.

Selling to the CEO

That doesn't happen all too often for agency executives. Yes, we meet with CEOs and often present to them.  But, typically our plans, programs and campaigns are thoroughly vetted and approved by their communications and marketing heads well before such a greeting ever takes place.

So, when I have an opportunity to spend any significant time and find out what makes a Fortune 500 CEO tick, I really try to take full advantage of it.

And, just the other day this happened. One of our newer clients is a start up. The company's founder and CEO just recently spent a number of years running a $5 billion financial services company (which we also represented.)

Now, with his new enterprise in startup mode, we found ourselves trading knowledge in a way that I never thought would happen. He's just learning to be an entrepreneur for the first time and is anxious to make the right decisions out of the gate (I guess from my mistakes.) And, I'm extremely interested in hearing his views on what in my little world of communications, PR and marketing actually matters to the leader of a large, international company.

Boy, did I get an earful that I won't forget anytime soon.

Let's start with the topic of something near and dear to my heart – measurement. This client is a financial/ operations guy. Most people assume that number crunchers always want everything measured. More to the point, the belief is that they need to see what we call ROI (return on investment). Did a $100 spent on PR bring back $200 in value?

Not surprisingly, he confirmed that this is important. However, he threw out a big but..."But, too many communicators are measuring things that I don't care about. And, most of them feel they have to show a return so much quicker than is realistic. So, the result is that costly measurement programs, that offer me very little insight into whether a campaign actually could work, are presented to me.  As a result, we waste money and I lose respect for them."

He also thinks it’s fascinating that communicators are typically very artful in presenting ideas and campaigns. Yet, they fumble all over themselves with ugly, much too lengthy PowerPoint metrics presentations. These boring meetings provide way too much analytical information, yet very little prescriptive strategies into how the program can be improved. That is one of his big pet peeves.

His next topic for me was a good one. He referred to it as, "Stop squeezing your square peg into my round hole."

That means much of his experience with professional marketers is based on them pushing (or selling) in services, products, disciplines and even campaigns that just don't really fit into his business needs. The problem is that many communicators think alike and try to solve business challenges with the same tool from the overly used tool box rather than dig extra deep into the business issue at hand and create a new tool that really has a chance to succeed.

He cited as an over simplified example the ad agency executive (who used to work for him) who thinks that to penetrate deep into consumer markets, a full blown ad campaign is a must. What he never really understood is that the trust issues (or lack thereof) within his particular industry are so egregious, that commercial messages are largely unbelievable and can work against a company if not handled correctly.

I had the fortune of asking a number of other topical questions. And, his responses were equally hard hitting (and most definitely welcomed.)

I hope to have many more discussions like this in the near future. This type of one-on-one market research is really invaluable. It allows agency executives to "stop drinking their own Kool-Aid" and conduct real account planning based on what the ultimate client really cares about. Because nothing else really matters.

You really do get what you've paid for....

This is the oldest cliché. And, call me naïve. But, I’m really not sure why it's taken me so long to believe that it's almost always true. In this case, it has to do with buying the annoying, yet necessary product called car insurance.

Like most consumers living though this recession, I've tried to be smarter about personal finances and have cut costs over the last year. Considering I rarely ever have an insurance claim with any of our family cars, finding a carrier with a cheaper policy seemed like the natural thing to do. I should preface this story by stating that I've always had pretty high end insurance (from Chubb.) The service was always top of the line and the few claims that I submitted (I think two over last 10 years) were handled in a first class way. The issue at hand was simply how expensive it was to insure three cars on a Chubb policy.

So, I went comparison shopping. That's an interesting experience. When price becomes the main consideration in buying this product, it's pretty easy to understand why companies like Progressive and Geico are key players in this ball game. With very little change in my deductable and general coverage, very friendly customer service representatives on the phone, and close to $800 per six month period (or double that per year) savings, Progressive made my choice to switch very easy.

So, we cancelled our Chubb policy and handed everything over to this low cost provider. And, I felt pretty darn good.

Then, the trouble began. To obtain Progressive's low cost, every customer has to install this "thingamajig" (that's what I call it) under the dashboard of each car. Basically, it's a monitor that allows the insurer to become "big brother-like" to see how fast you are driving and what types of turns you are making. Theoretically, I had no problem with this. But, these thingamajigs are difficult to snap into the cars and they always seem to keep falling out. It started to become a real hassle when the one in my car fell out every week and Progressive started sending me email after email pleading with me to put them back in. My point in all this: Progressive's initial friendly customer service wasn't all that customer centric after all and caused me to waste a lot of time dealing with an issue that I should never have had to think about.

Next issue: Someone smacked my wife's car. It wasn't too bad, except the front right bumper/side was smashed in. My wife went through the process of filing a claim. This meant taking the car to the one, middle-of-no-where garage that Progressive deals with and getting a quote on how much it would cost to fix. What we found out is that the garage basically offers up a low ball quote on what Progressive will pay to fix it, not what the actual cost will be to do it right. There was a $700 gap between those two variables. That really annoyed me. In the end, we simply sucked it up, went to the Honda dealership and paid for them to do it the right way. Now, I was starting to experience firsthand how a low cost provider could make real margins.

The final straw that broke my camel's back was when the six month initial insurance coverage period was over. I don't have a lot of time to continually search for new insurance providers, so even though I wasn't feeling good about Progressive, canceling my policy wasn't an option yet. That was until they sent me a new quote for the same coverage. It was almost $600 higher... for no real reason. I called them to inquire why and received nothing substantial for why the price was so much higher. That's when it became clear to me that this initial cost was really a way to reel me into their world. Then, when they had me, they could change everything and make some real money.

Many people rave about Progressive. Clearly, I will never be one of them. But, I'm not sure that I have any real lingering negativity towards the company because of my experience (although I am changing carriers.) Instead, I've looked in the mirror and hopefully have learned enough to not be fooled again to think that cheaper could be better (or at least just as good.) Whether it be around insurance, healthcare, consumer products or even PR services, you get what you pay for in life. If you decide to go really cheap, then you better reset your expectations on what the outcome will be.

The pot calling the kettle black

Ever notice how many famous (or highly regarded) public figures who go through scandals (or are disgraced) rehabilitate their image only to jump right back into the spotlight a few years later? I’ve always been intrigued with the ease that most gain acceptance. And, although their lapses aren’t forgotten… typically they are forgiven.

Don’t get me wrong. In many cases, these former politicians, dignitaries or celebrities come back even stronger and have every right to do so because their new found visibility has little to do with past crimes or indiscretions. One case in point is Martha Stewart. Martha went to jail for insider trading (actually the official crime was lying to the government.) With her jail term served, those who cherished Martha’s wise home living advice and tips before, accepted her quite affectionately again by enthusiastically watching her shows, reading her magazines and books and maintaining their overall fan status.

Take a look at Eliot Spitzer and we see a completely different scenario, albeit an interesting storyline. It wasn’t so long ago that the former Governor of New York went through this state’s largest political scandal in recent history when the news broke that he was caught red handed frolicking with an expensive call girl. The governor quickly resigned from office and then created his own Richard Nixon-like, self exile scenario. We thought that would be the last of Mr. Spitzer, until 18 months later when he appeared on many talk shows to offer his very relevant commentary on the plummeting financial markets and Wall Street’s blame in the economic disaster that had resulted. Yes, people were shocked to see the disgraced governor in the spotlight again. Some were even outraged. Yet, in the end, this was most likely the smartest move Mr. Spitzer could have made to rehabilitate his image because the only positive and credible piece of his reputation that still existed was forged over a 12 year period as having an Elliot Ness approach to fighting Wall Street corruption and greed by standing up for all those ‘little people’ who needed to be protected.    

Then, there exists a few hypocrisies that I simply don’t understand. These include real life examples of larger than life successful people who fell from grace because of some misdeed, or simply because their success was built on a lie. Yet, somehow, they managed to come back in the most credible and public way to provide counsel or advice on the very same issues or manners that caused the controversy in the first place. One such example I’m thinking of is the former dot.com super star analyst Henry Blodget.

Do you remember Henry? I certainly do. Think back to 1998 or 1999. This young buck was seen as a God within the investment/technology community for his outlandish Internet investment picks. At that time he worked at Merrill Lynch and instantly reached star status after predicting that Amazon would rise to become a $400 stock (which it actually did.) Every technology or Internet company wanted to get on the radar screen of young Henry after that. He was paid at the highest Wall Street levels, treated like a rock star in all public circles and seen as a new sage on Wall Street. This all worked beautifully well until the Internet bubble busted and it was later found out that Henry and others from Merrill’s research/analyst department were conducting questionable activities within the firm.  He was sharing information (and more importantly) helping Merrill’s investment banking customers prosper by writing favorable financial reports on questionable business models. The Wall Street Chinese Wall relationship between research and investment banking was torn down because Henry (and others) helped Merrill make lots of money through these investment banking relationships at the expense of individual investors. In return, top analysts like Henry also received special early investment considerations into a number of the firm’s hot IPOs.

In the end, Henry’s picks all went south and his conflicted relationship within Merrill caused then New York State Attorney General to investigate him. Though he wasn’t ever convicted of anything, Henry was later barred from the securities industry and paid a fine of $2 million.

That’s why it makes no sense to me and truly comes across as the ultimate hypocrisy when I see that Henry is a top anchor and host on “Tech Ticker,” a heavily watched Internet news segment which dissects and analyzes the latest developments on Wall Street and within the technology world. I’ve watched these videos for over a year. While they are entertaining, it’s absurd that Henry actually plays the ‘heavy,’ watchdog role at times by beating up Wall Street executives and their companies for having ethical lapses and questionable judgment.

I’m not sure how Henry could be seen as credible by any audience on this topic based on a history laced with suspect decisions himself. Talk about the worst case of the pot calling the kettle black…

All the news that isn't fit to be relevant

Check out this photo. You see it, and, of course, you're led to believe that because these two Phillies are high fiving, their team won the World Series game on Saturday night. Right?

Not so. That high five took place in the early innings when the Phillies advanced to take a 2-0 lead. In the end, the Yanks caught up and won the game. Too bad the New York Times sports writer and photographer had probably already gone to bed, though. If someone had stayed to report the full game, we might be viewing a different photo.

This is just bad journalism. I rarely ever say or write this about The New York Times. But, it's Sports section has always been a cut below standard. Although there is some small print below the photo which tells the reader to go to NYTimes.com for the latest news. No reader wants to be unintentionally misled about the game results (a pretty important game) with the largest photo on the front page.

For years, The Times advertised that it had the best sports section around. What a crock that is. Yes, the articles are well written and the section does provide the reader with lots of important statistics and data. But, one area it always failed miserably in is providing the most recent, relevant news, like other rival papers do. And, I for one, have always had a problem with that.

In this case, it would have simply been better to not put any World Series photo front and center on the cover page. At least it wouldn't be wrong.

I never understood why this paper can't find a way to report any game played late at night in the next morning's paper. I guess with shrinking staffs and resources, this reality will never change. That's life. I just hope The Times understands when news isn't reported the next morning, it isn't really news at all.