Category: Reputation

Reputation Management

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Forrester Consumer Conference – NASCAR Presentation

Mike Helton, President of NASCAR, was a fascinating marketing keynote speaker. He talked about many things that as someone who was a big NASCAR fan as a kid, I was never even aware of that were amazing to learn. Two things stand out:

1. NASCAR is intensely focused on relationships and partnerships.

2. NASCAR has always been focused on customers.

It’s no wonder that they are so successful!

The thirty-one degree banking at Daytona built with customer experience in mind – being able to see the whole track at once! I never thought about it before, maybe the best customer experience involves things you don’t even notice. 

NASCAR is now the #2 sport on TV only behind only the NFL, 75 million viewers

Mr. Helton  believes that access to the drivers is critical piece of the success.

Recently opened a new LA office, NYC office, creating opportunities of NASCAR drivers to be in everyday life and making appearances in show business.

All of the sponsors work closely with licensing and headquarters. Sponsors are critical not only to underwriting the costs, but to other aspects of the sport as well.

NASCAR has always taken advantage of technology. (what a great mantra and it’s true)

NASCAR has racetracks, car owners and drivers who are independent – Mr. Helton expressed amazement that it all works sometimes. 

All in all, when I saw Mr. Helton on the agenda, I truly had no idea what to expect, I saw a new side of NASCAR, one that made me appreciate the other side of NASCAR.

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Costco (COST) – Needs Customer Focused Perspective – Post #2

On my last trip to Costco, September 3rd, I discussed some problems and things needing change.

My return visit today showed that they still haven’t changed any of the items mentioned, in fact some were worse today.

The Palmiers had not been restocked.

The romaine lettuce all had expiration dates two days from today. Being in a single person household, I don’t mind buying the six stalks, but I expect there to be stock that has expiration dates of at least a week from today at all times, I mean I’m not buying wilted lettuce from a half price store.

The cashier experience was again disappointing. Somebody in front of me had a paper check (why do they even still allow that at all?). The cashier then forgot to ring up the juice in my cart. Worse, there were long lines *again* due to not enough cashiers being open, yet there was an army of folks at the manager’s station. I mean every week this place acts surprised and like it’s a new experience to have customers come up the registers ten minutes after the store opens.

This store continues to be the most disorganized Costco I’ve ever visited, I wonder why they aren’t taking the customer feedback more seriously.

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Chicago GSB, Generation X and Some Changes Needed in Online Recruiting

As part of my ongoing discussions regarding the coming transformations in online recruiting, I will need to discuss the growing obsolescence and misleading nature of college and campus recruiting programs (The education is great, the actual access to certain career paths is not – I can say this as an alumni of the University of Chicago GSB MBA program). These serve to create artificial and inefficient job markets that work primarily to serve the future acquisition of students than it does to have corporations acquire the best talent available on the market.  As a society we are not using all of our best resources efficiently due to these outdated recruiting programs and lack of full utilization of Generation X, many have not been redeployed full from the 2000-2003 downturn. This is a major part of the many coming transformations necessary when the baby boomers retire and ones that most organizations are unprepared for.

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British Airways – Outrageous Decision to Fly On

Simply Shocking!!! The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a British Airways jet lost an engine due to fire on takeoff from LAX and decided to continue onward with the flight to London!!!

“The Los Angeles air-traffic-control tapes, obtained by The Wall Street Journal under the Freedom of Information Act, show that controllers who saw the fiery engine failure with the jet just 296 feet in the air were immediately concerned about the flight and ready to guide it back to the airport. But the decision to return or keep flying rested with the captain and the airline. Ever since, pilots and aviation regulators have debated the decision of the pilots and British Airways. Their questions: Even if the plane was capable of reaching its destination, and perhaps legal to fly, was it smart to try? And was it safe?”

The incident raises extremely serious questions about British Airways choosing economics over safety of human life due to the reduced margin for error. The LAX tower deleted flight 268’s flight plan beceause they were certain that they would return to the airport.

“Flight 268’s decision clearly surprised Los Angeles air-traffic controllers. The flight took off at about 9:24 p.m. on Feb. 20, 2005. Trouble was soon visible, as evident in radio discussions of “Speedbird 268 heavy.” (“Speedbird” is aviation’s call sign for British Airways; 268 was the flight number; “heavy” refers to jumbo jets.)

“Remember that Speedbird I told you about?” the controller asked a colleague.

“Yeah.”

“He’s engine-out — No. 2 engine out. He’s going to continue to his destination or as far as he can get,” the departure controller said.

“OK. I have no flight plan on him.” The tapes show the controllers had assumed the pilot wasn’t going to London, so they deleted the flight plan from the computer. To reconstruct it, the departure controller called the tower.

“Is he going?” the tower controller who had seen the engine flames asked.

“He’s going,” was the answer.

“If you would have saw what we saw out the window, you’d be amazed at that,” said the tower controller.”

This decision (An emergency landing would have required dumping $30,000 of fuel, and the airline might have owed $275,000 in compensation to passengers under European Union rules if the flight was more than five hours late) wasn’t customer focused and creates serious questions about the difference between US and UK law on the issues involved.

I mean could you imagine being a passenger on that flight, seeing flames in an engine and then continue onward for a transatlantic flight of several hours? I have trouble grasping it.  

British Airways should be transparant here, admit this was not wise and communicate exactly how they will act differently in the future instead of quietly communicating with the FAA.

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Jeremiah Owyang on Social Media at Ragan PR Conference

I arrived to the session late….

Corporate bloggers must have thick skin.

Community Manager – gather sources and send them away…they will come back.

How do I get all employees involved?

Community marketing allows engagement.

Responding to complaints:
– Engage the blogger – “we hear you”

Blogger relationships – treat them with respect and analyst.

Bloggers are egotistical.

I’m not in PR.

Prospects trust other customers than anything else. Embrace and use your current customers.

Let go, to gain more.

Do not over structure corporate blogs for product announcements.

Blogoshpere conversation benchmark tools are important. 
 
Rift between corporate communications and web – often exists.

You should educate people to overcome that rift. Social Media consultant.

Just do it . The tools will evolve.

Give to the community and they will give back. 

You need to trust and love your employers. IBM built it’s blogging policy with a Wiki.

Vivid examples given about how to use Myspace.

Wells Fargo has a blog, teaching credit. Useful content build trust.

 Links, activity, forum and stickyness.
 
C-level blogs can save time as the future meetings are framed.

Sun, says C-level leader is to communicate. 

“Social media is gray.”

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Ragan PR Pre-Conference Media Training

Scoble and company will be at Gino’s 930 North Rush sometime this evening.

The session was led by Gerard Braun, former Journalist, training media courses for 2 decades. Has seen the business from both sides. Good marketing and social media speaker with vivid examples. 

How do you make executives care? 

“If you could attach a dollar to every word that comes out of your mouth, would you make money, or would you lose money?”

If you attach the training to impact on the bottom line, they will listen.

An interview is an opportunity. It is as important as a business deal. 

Make your quotes logical. That is going to going to make them “bullet proof”.

What do reporters want?
– They want a hot story.
– They want to make a name for themselves.
– They want to be recognized among their peers for having the lead story.
– They want a story that will help them advance their careers.
– Their producers and news directors want them to have stories that will draw viewers to their newscast or readers to their publications.

Gerard interviewed a member of the audience.

Tell me about yourself, really means “tell me about your organization and why should I care?”

Pause to allow editing. 

Focus on the question, not the next question. 

You need to lead the interview in the direction that you select. 

Avoid jargon!!!

Elements of a bad PR message:
– Too mush PR-BS
– Contains jargon
– Fails to be quotable
– Long lists
– Cluttered with facts and figures
– Contains too many qualifying explanations
– Legalized sterilization
– “Please everyone” syndrome

Practice! Practice! Practice!
He had a lot of other interesting  tips in his handout, but he ran long and didn’t get through some of the material.