India's Kids Fall Into the GAP

No two words can scare a company or business more than "child labor." It's a hot-buttoned issue that brings controversy and emotions around whenever it is uncovered. Recently, a British news source broke the story of international retailer GAP using child labor in one of its Indian factories to produce clothes and accessories that would have hit the stores just in time for Christmas shopping. It should be clear that the GAP isn't directly responsible but an independent subcontractor is to blame for the hiring (most children weren’t paid) of children to do the work. Nonetheless, GAP faces a crisis just weeks before its most important time of year.

Going back to Guth and Marsh, this case can be evaluated using the RPCE formula.

Research- GAP did its research. They “launched an immediate investigation” as soon as the story about child labor violations within their company broke. They determined that one of their vendors that is responsible for a small portion of their orders was indeed using children as its main means of labor.

Planning- They have dealt with this situation before, so they seem to have been relatively prepared for the situation if it happened again. According to the press release published on GAP's website, they had a few tactics already planned. First, they cancelled the work order from that specific vendor. They also ensured that none of the clothes that came from that vendor would ever sell in stores. Finally, they called a meeting with all the suppliers in that region to go over and reinforce their child labor policy. This economic times article goes on to say that GAP also called a meeting with their domestic vendors. GAP has 90 people working for them to enforce their labor laws and last year alone stopped doing business with 23 companies for violating the rules they set forth.

Communication- As said, the GAP issued a press release on its website discussing the recent news. This is a good way to reach some of its publics. I was unable to find whether or not GAP was issuing a statement or release using any other means (postal mail, email, etc) to reach even more of its constituents. My guess is that they will.

Evaluation- Overall, I think the GAP did a pretty good job with the handling of this case. Their number one advantage was that this had happened before, and they were prepared for it. They stopped the shipments, called meetings to reinforce their policies, and got right to the problem as soon as it occurred.

Recommendation- I have a few recommendations for this case with GAP. First, they should put a link to the press release on their gap.com site so that public can be made aware of what happened. Second, they should launch investigations into other factories to make sure they don’t get hit with another bombshell in the coming weeks (reporters will be looking for a story). Last, since GAP owns Banana Republic and Old Navy, they should have a plan in case one of those stores comes under scrutiny.

JetBlue's Valentine's Day Blues

Many of you may remember the JetBlue snow storm crisis from this past Valentine's Day.

If you happened to miss the disaster, let me recap it for you. On February 14^th, 9 JetBlue planes full of passengers were stranded on the tarmac at the JFK airport for more than six hours each, as a wicked ice storm froze the plane’s wheels to the tarmac and much of the equipment that helps move and de-ice them. JetBlue was the only airline not to cancel flights. The planes couldn’t take off and there were no open gates to which they could return, so passengers sat on the planes for as long as 8 hours! Some of the planes weren’t heated, while others ran out of food, and the toilets got unbearably filthy. It was one of the worst cases of passengers being stranded on tarmacs in recent years.

A little background on JetBlue is that the airline began business in 1999 and quickly shot to the top of customer satisfaction surveys conducted by J. D. Power and Associates. For 2007 it was the top pick among low-cost carriers. This disaster was the first major crisis for the young company.

JetBlue had no previous planning in place for such an event, therefore, they had no contingency plans in place. However, once the disaster took place, it didn’t take long for a plan to come into effect. According to Guth and Marsh, this process of identifying issues as they emerge and preparing a timely response to address them is known as issues management (2005, p 7).

In David Weinberger’s book titled “Small Pieces Loosely Joined”, he says “companies talk in bizarre, stilted ways because they believe that such language expresses their perection...This rhetoric is as glossy and unbelievable as the photos in the marketing brochure. Such talk kills conversation. That’s exactly why companies talk this way.” JetBlue however did quite the opposite.

As for communication, JetBlue’s target message was clear and simple: the company had made a mistake. Many other companies use these long, complicated, and drawn-out statements to make an apology. JetBlue took the more traditional route with issuing its apology. The PR spokesman simply said, “what happened on Wednesday was totally unacceptable”. Their main goals were to satisfy disgruntled passengers, get people to understand the company made a mistake, and change the cancellation policy for future flights.

David G. Neeleman, chief executive of JetBlue, said he was personally overseeing the airline’s recovery efforts this week and also acting as chief apologizer. This was a smart and strategic PR move by JetBlue. It showed that the most powerful person in the company was very concerned about what had happened. He promised that JetBlue would have to be better prepared to deal with freakish weather in the future. “We will change our operational strategy based on this,” Mr. Neeleman said. “We would prefer to be in control of how we compensate customers we have inconvenienced.”

Neeleman released a video clip outlining all the changes that JetBlue would be making in the days following. He said, “we are going to make some major changes in our organization to make sure this never happens again.” For JetBlue to state that the company made a mistake and then shows how they will overcome the mistake gains credibility.

Neeleman did an interview with NBC Today, explaining why JetBlue had such a big problem with this compared to other airlines.

The day after the storm, JetBlue announced that passengers traveling on the airline from February 15^th to February 19^th could voluntarily choose to rebook a different flight for travel through May 22^nd. If customers chose to rebook the same route for different days, JetBlue would waive all change fees and fare differences. This helped ease the blow of many angry passengers.

The Tuesday following the disaster, JetBlue announced a new Customer Bill of Rights. This was a great move
by JetBlue because it shows that the company had long-term goals for this
situation. According to Wilson, strategic planning and management needs to be built around long-term thinking as opposed to short-term (2000, p 8).

The evaluation can be put into tangible results through the number of customers that still use JetBlue. After reading several different blogs, including this one it is apparent that people are still choosing to the low-cost carrier. As you read, you will see that many people commented that the President’s apology on youtube and the simple fact that their flights are cheap are two good enough reasons to keep using the airline.

I believe that overall JetBlue did a good job handling the crisis. When it comes down to it, I would still fly JetBlue because of the low cost, but it better be sunny out! Would you fly JetBlue?

Stupid is as stupid does.

To begin this post, I would like to quote an exact line from the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff:

"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Michael Chertoff (pictured on left) said. (CNN).

If you have not yet heard, watched, or read in the news, FEMA made a PR boo boo. Pat Philbin, FEMA's external affairs director, held a fake news conference to address FEMA's response to the victims of the wildfires in SoCal. "The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of reporters at the event Tuesday and question Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director" (FOXNews).

To see the entire news conference, including questions from phony media personnel, feel free to play the video below, compliments of YouTube.



Now comes the exciting part. Utilizing our knowledge of Guth and Marsh's (2005) RACE and RECAP, let's analyze how FEMA has handled the national exposure of this case:

After reading both the CNN and FOXNews articles, it appears as if some informal research was conducted by FEMA Director David Paulison. Paulison probably did not have any time to engage in formal research, but he most likely questioned Pat Philbin to see what exactly happened and why the fake news conference even took place. Through their informal research, FEMA probably identified their key publics as the American public, including the media and FEMA employees. The CNN article suggests that more formal research will be conducted in the form of an investigation of this incident.

The research that FEMA conducted allowed them to formulate a plan to handle the situation. Their main goals were most likely to a) publicly address Philbin's (pictured on right) decision to hold the phony conference by removing him of his duties and b) regain their credibility by releasing video coverage of the fake conference to the media and disclosing all information about the case. The message that FEMA wanted to send out to America was that of disapproval and apology for Philbin's "error in judgment" (FOXNews).

FEMA communicated its messages via the release of an internal memo from David Paulison (check the left side of this NY Times article for the pdf. of this memo), and via their formal letter of apology. This memo communicated Paulison's (pictured on left) disapproval of the incident, and highlighted the mistakes that were made. This memo was intended to reach its internal audience, the FEMA employees; since it was released to the media, its scope then widened to address the American public. Overall, the main message of FEMA (their disapproval and letter of apology) were communicated by using the memo, removal of Pat Philbin, and letter as tactics, and the mass media and FEMA website as a channel of communication to its publics.

Since this event has just become public over the past two days, FEMA has not yet had the opportunity (in my knowledge) to evaluate the success of their PR strategy for this case.

After analyzing this case in depth, I have a couple recommendations for how FEMA could, and still can handle this situation more effectively:

• The should have publicly addressed this situation much earlier. It took them six days to release their knowledge of this. A speedier response might have helped to better preserve their credibility. A speedy response is crisis management 101 (Seitel, 2006).
  
• FEMA should issue a formal, publicly televised statement of apology to the media, FEMA employees, and the American public. It was not until six days after the incident that FEMA issued any formal apology and that was only on their website.

Joe Torre Leaves the New York Yankees

Anyone who lives in the North East region, and probably most of those who don't, are aware of the man pictured to the left. This man is Joe Torre. He used to hold the title of New York Yankee's Manager; however, he most recently picked up one word in front of that title: former. For twelve years, Torre successfully managed the team leading them to three world Championships and numerous other titles along the way. Now, the challenge for the New York Yankees is to find someone who can replace the man who "is not just winning but a sense of attachment and identification that he effortlessly inspired among the fans and the players and the millions of sports bystanders." For an in depth account of Joe Torre and his New York Yankees team click here.

Now a big job for the New York Yankees is to find a new manager to replace Joe Torre and live up to his reputation. After Torre was upset in this World Series run, he decided not to take back his position of manager for the Yanks. (Okay Boston fans, that's enough!) Refer to www.newyorkyankees.com for recaps of the final games of the season and scores for the Series games.

Yankee fans say hello to your new team manager: Joe Girardi (to the right). The job of the public relations team is to inform the public that this is going to be the new manager and to get people excited for a new era of the New York Yankees.

The first step in the process by Guth and Marsh is research. The public relations team would have had to research to find the right audiences to pitch this story to. It is obvious that the Yankees would want to contact all major media outlets in the New York area such as this article in the New York Times. The Times being a very large publication would get the word out about this exciting event and to many different publics along the way. What the Yankees want is for the public to be excited about the new manager so that sports fans will attend Yankee games. They hope that a new manager means a new round of excitement for the avid fans. As far as researching to appoint a new manager. The team looked at different candidates, including Don Mattingly, and did an intense round of interviewing to chose the best new manager.

The next step is planning. I have not found much on how the PR team planned to get the word across about the new manager. However, it was just announced this afternoon that Girardi would be Torre's replacement. The did; however, hold one press conference when Torre decided to not accept the contract he was offered this year. This is planning on the PR teams part to announce that he was not coming back. I would assume that there is a press conference in the works to announce the new manager; however, I have not been able to find any evidence of one. The announcement is brand new; therefore, there are not any new plans yet.

In this video: Joe Torre announces at his press conference that he will not be returning to the Yankees.

The third step in the process is communication. The PR team has to find a way to communicate this event to its publics. Through press releases and different medias, they will get the word out that Girardi has accepted this position. Major press publications will cover the story such as the New York Times, Daily News, and many others all over the country. This is a topic that many sports fans, no matter what team you root for, are interested in. They also will get the word out to television media. Many news media will cover the story as well. They will set up interviews with important Yankee contacts and with Girardi to talk about his new position.

Lastly, evaluation must be done on this case. Since the case is so new, there is not much evaluating to be done yet. It is still in the beginning works, and there are many media channels that have not even covered the story yet. When they do end up covering the story, I am not sure how the Yankees will measure the success of their public relations dealings. They can see how many different publications cover the story, but until next baseball season, it will not be noticeable if the management change will help or hurt the Yanks.

For an unprofessional view of the press conference with Torre visit this website. It has one person's comments and criticism of the press conference as it goes on with a blog underneath.

As an endnote to the Yankee season:

Blog Discussion Period 2

Our second and final individual blog case study discussion begins on Monday, Oct. 29. I would like to kick off this discussion by addressing a unique example of how one person can inspire a world-wide movement through simple yet powerful communication strategies and tactics. I hope this encourages you to think out of the box in terms of public relations and have some fun with our discussion at the same time. Remember, for our discussion to succeed (and for you to achieve the desired outcome), each of you needs to post early, comment often, and invest creativity and intellectual energy in this assignment.

Searching Shel Holtz’s public relations blog, I found a reference to a social marketing campaign called Free Hugs. I started to collect information about the public relations aspects of this campaign by watching the movement’s video on YouTube. Click on the following image to watch the video, with theme music by Sick Puppies.




Inspired by the images and music on this video, I drilled deeper. I reviewed the Free Hugs campaign official Web site and discovered that the movement was launched spontaneously in an airport in Sydney, Australia by Juan Mann (allegedly a pseudonym for one man). Juan explained how his campaign began in the airport: “Standing there … watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family … faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me” (Mann, 2007, paragraph 6).

Thus, Juan engaged in little or no research before launching his campaign – but this is understandable, since the campaign began informally. However, I would add that Juan probably engaged in informal research. For instance, as he was “watching other passengers” (Mann, 2007, paragraph 6), he was practicing empirical observation (see the Wilson, 2000 readings). When Juan decided to make a sign that read “FREE HUGS” and stand at a busy intersection in the airport he engaged in participant observation, which is also a form of primary research. Still, he did little to identify specific audiences, instead picking public places like busy airports and city streets to interact with people at random. He was interested, however, in finding out more about people’s interest – or stake – in hugging!

Likewise, I could find little evidence that he did any formal planning for his campaign. His campaign seemed to evolve from his first spontaneous encounter in the Sydney airport. As he repeated this social experiment in other locations around Sydney, he was told that he had to stop because he did not have the required insurance and other permissions for his public demonstrations. As a result, he decided to start a petition, with the goal to enlist supporters for his actions. His overall message seemed to be clear. From Juan’s Web site, I know that he believes in the power of the human spirit to overcome social ills and give us hope. According to Juan, “In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal” (Mann, 2007, paragraph 2).

Juan Mann’s communication and evaluation activities were the most interesting aspect of his public relations campaign. First, just Google free hugs and you will see 4,450,000 results! He has his own Web site, a MySpace site, numerous videos on YouTube, a long entry in Wikipedia, appearances on major news media outlets like the Oprah Winfrey Show, and an active blog. He has executed many other communication tactics across various media channels.

While I couldn’t find evidence of Juan having established any formal goals, he seems to have achieved phenomenal success in spreading his messages about hope, the human spirit, and physical contact. You can find evidence of this in his Google returns and the way his message has spread like a virus across the Internet.

In terms of evaluation, it’s worth considering how Juan achieved this success:

1. Can we attribute this to excellent public relations, which is defined as management of communication between an organization and its publics (e.g., Grunig & Hunt, 1984)?

2. Or is the success due to an Internet-based viral marketing campaign? Public relations is often confused with marketing. The two practices are similar but have important differences. Cutlip, Center, and Broom (1999) wrote: “Marketing is the management function that identifies human needs and wants, offers products and services to satisfy those demands, and causes transactions that deliver products and services in exchange for something of value to the provider” (p. 7). Furthermore, Wilson (2000) (not the same Wilson from our readings) defined viral marketing as “any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication [and channels like the Internet] to explode the message to thousands, to millions” (paragraph 4).

Finally, thinking back to that petition that Juan planned in Sydney to allow him to continue his demonstrations, he obtained a very quantifiable 10,000 signatures, which enabled him to keep spreading his message.

Overall, I think this is a most interesting, worthwhile and successful public relations case. How about you? Also, what do you think about the public relations versus marketing aspects of this case?

Mark

P.S. If you liked the music behind the video, check out the Sick Puppies promotional music video, below. Oh, and how about a hug?