We Did Not Vote For Bush

Six members of the US Bridge Federation (USBF) championship team stood on a victory platform in China with a handwritten sign that read “We Did Not Vote for Bush”. The ensuing media storm was publicity that the USBF hoped to avoid, and the chronology of the story makes a good case study in both crisis PR and advocacy PR.

On Saturday October 13, six U.S. bridge players were awarded medals at a ceremony in Shanghai. The players had growing unease leading up to the ceremony, as bridge competitors from around the world expressed criticism of US foreign policy, particularly related to the war. The women decided to scribble “We did not vote for Bush” on the back of a menu, and to both wave American flags (to demonstrate their patriotism) and hold the sign (to demonstrate opposition to Bush’s war policies). It was a last minute gesture of solidarity with their international bridge comrades. There is no indication that any of the women involved imagined in those spontaneous moments prior to taking the stage that they were creating an anti-war image that would be seen around the world.

In response to critics of the six women, USBF held emergency board meetings and set in motion disciplinary proceedings. The board established a hearing date on November 30 at a public bridge venue, which left plenty of time for the story to spin out of control. They also offered a settlement so punitive that these professional players would be effectively banned from their sport (and livelihood), and even insisted that the players identify which woman had originally conceived of the idea. It was this action that guaranteed public outcry; the “settlement” appeared overreaching at best, vindictive at worst. Once the issue hit the headlines, the USBF responded to a New York Times article by issuing a further public condemnation of the players. Only after subsequent worldwide media coverage did they stop all disciplinary proceedings.

It’s a classic story of organizational leaders not taking into account the wider environment in which they were making decisions. Even if their strategies had worked within the confines of the professional bridge world, the board members had entered political territory where the rules of engagement are different. More than lawyers and discliplinary committee members, they desperately needed experts to help them understand broader implications.

What sparked the kind of media attention that ultimately forced the USBF to back off from its disciplinary proceedings was not the act of protest itself, but the organization’s rigid response to the protest. In short - the USBF put the ingredients in place for a national public interest story. All this happened despite specific conversations at early board meetings that prioritized avoiding a public relations debacle.

The culture of rulemaking and procedure in the competitive bridge industry clashed with the realities of public relations. Bridge is an industry that embraces specific and detailed rules and procedures. The bylaws for the World Bridge Federation, for example, specify exactly what tone board members must use when speaking to staff, including “Board Members desiring to communicate with staff on all business matters other than committee matters are encouraged to use e-mail whenever practicable; however, telephone calls are permitted.” Engaging the media requires just the opposite instincts - it can be unruly, unregulated, and require nimble reaction.

Even without understanding the heated political environment of war protest, the board ought to have been very concerned about media strategies when team captain Gail Greenberg retained former ACLU lawyer Norman Siegal. Greenberg’s message was about international politics, and anyone reading public opinion polls would easily agree that many people around the world take a dim view of U.S. foreign policy today. The USBF continued to proclaim that “this is not a free speech issue”, but they never had a message that truly resonated in the public arena.

The New York Times was the major catalyst for the media firestorm. Stephanie Strom published her first article on the subject on November 13. The story spread quickly, including appearances by team members on the ABC Early Show and MSNBC. The French players issued a statement of support for the U.S. team members. Opponents sounded vicious - the players were called “traitors”, “seditious”, “juvenile”, “immature” and “stupid”. Bloggers wrote extensively and editorial boards mulled the issue - the Dallas Morning News editorial board members split and could not issue a decision, with some editors finding the punishment too harsh and others finding that part of protest includes ramifications such as these.

The USBF caved on November 20, just over a month after it had begun disciplinary discussions. The hearings scheduled for November 29 were cancelled, and the New York Times wrote a wrap up story. Given just how mired the USBF had become in a media firestorm, the agreement was the best public relations move it could make. Chances are, however, that the issue will remain alive as a footnote to the year’s coverage of war protest. The image of the bridge women holding the scribbled anti-Bush sign is too intriguing to fade completely.

Player Jill Levine summed up her motivations on MSNBC: “This was my way of saying that while I am very proud of my country, I am not proud of the things my country are presently doing.”

Privacy Problems

Someone swiped my personal information last month, along with thousands of others who subscribe to non-profit online newsletters. The American Museum of Natural History informed me that the database company they use to manage my account (Convio) had been infiltrated. It may not be the most exciting aspect of public relations, but understanding how to communicate mistakes and risk to customers is an incredibly important part of our work.

Data security is a tough business. Last month personal information about 25 million Britons was lost by a government agency. The museum may have lost my username and password, but all those Britons lost things like bank account numbers and the British equivalent of social security numbers. It’s a major story in Britain, with the Prime Minister losing a great deal of public confidence in its aftermath. One official has resigned, and one junior official has been publicly blamed for not following protocol. That blame may backfire, however, as recent reports indicate that more senior officers may be scapegoating the junior staff member. The Prime Minister has ordered all departments to review their systems by December 10, but reports are already circulating about deep systemic problems that point to serious privacy concerns.

Governments seem to have a tough time keeping track of personal data. Recently the Bush Administration backed off a rule that would require employers to validate social security numbers within 90 days by comparing employee records with the national social security database. The Administration was forced to backpedal when it was confirmed that the social security database was riddled with errors.

All this makes my newsletter security breach look minor. Opinion polls persistently show that the public cares deeply about privacy, so the rapid impact on the Prime Minister’s public confidence level is predictable. Anyone who is collecting personal information, whether that be donor files, online newsletter subscriptions, client files, or other private information needs to have a professional communications plans in place related to privacy and security.

I tracked the correspondence I received about the newsletter and checked it against my own reaction as a consumer. From the start I had three questions on my mind - what information of mine got stolen? What can I do? Can I still trust the museum and others involved to keep my information private in the future? On the whole, those three questions were answered simply and repeatedly.

Convio became aware of the problem on Nov 1 - though the system had been hacked as early as October 23. Convio began notifying its 92 impacted non-profit clients a few days later, and sent its first correspondence to impacted customers on November 4. Some security critics have said this response was slow - others praise Convio. Starting November 4 some (not many) of the impacted clients decided to notify their subscribers.

Media coverage was relatively limited - since the clients were non-profit organizations, the philanthropy and technology press took the greatest interest. Convio CEO Gene Austin’s message in the Chronicle of Philanthropy was: “… immediate security upgrades have eliminated the threat of a repeat attack, Mr. Austin says. “We wish it hadn’t happened, but we’re dealing with the information we have and improving ourselves because of it.”

I received emails from two organizations and Convio. The museum was the last to send me an email, which I found slightly annoying given the importance of taking swift action to prevent the misuse of the stolen data. The messages were consistent across all three organizations, likely because Convio had given advice and guidelines to impacted organizations about the communications. Since Convio didn’t list all the organizations involved in the breach, I was left wondering who might not have bothered to send me an alert. In fact some bloggers claim that most of the impacted organizations did not alert their subscribers.

In the end, I didn’t cancel any subscriptions and I did take the recommended advice. Convio seems to have avoided a major media disaster - for example, the Convio story hasn’t been linked to other major stories such as the UK situation.

In this case, Convio and the organizations that notified their subscribers followed the classic formula for crisis communication:

- Be proactive in bringing information and recommendations to consumers.
- Be authentic (for example, don’t scapegoat a junior employee).
- Take bold action to prevent further occurrences.

Postscript:
One day after I wrote this entry, the New York Times published a story about the security breach. The article criticized the organizations who did not notify their subscribers.

The Politics of Food

Millions of Americans are at the grocery store buying Thanksgiving dinner supplies, and I bet only a teensy fraction of them have farmworkers on their mind. While news outlets are broadcasting plenty of stories about what we consume tomorrow, what’s missing are stories about how we are able to consume it.

Here is an excerpt from an editorial in today’s Florida Sun Sentinal:

“The hands of a farm worker in Florida must pick two tons of tomatoes in a day to earn $50. At a rate of about 1.3 cents per pound, farm workers fill 32-pound buckets, run to the truck, hoist the buckets above their shoulders into the truck, and receive a token worth about 45 cents. To make the minimum wage, they must do that 15 times per hour, or one bucket every four minutes…”

Translated into simpler math, that means to earn $50 a day, you would have to lift a total of 3,840 pounds. If you had to work this hard even for Thanksgiving dinner, let alone to support your family, would you do it? Could you do it?

The United Farmworkers joined Writers Guild picketers last week in Los Angeles. Marching side by side with Hollywood writers were laborers paid pitiful wages who advocate for not only labor conditions but also food safety, such as banning harmful pesticides and dangerous food additives. I have had the honor of standing with Dolores Huerta and other labor leaders on a host of progressive issues, from women’s equality to gay rights to access to reproductive health care.

The same week when the UFW and the writers were holding picket signs, Presidential candidates and the Governor of New York decided that standing up for immigrant access to drivers licenses was too politically cumbersome. It was also the same week that the Agriculture Department quietly changed the rules for recruiting farmworkers, further easing requirements for farmers to find domestic labor. And to top off the week: rumors began circulating about the Presidential ambitions of anti-immigrant crusader Lou Dobbs.

The AP reports that about 2.5 million people are employed as farm workers in the United States; about 70% of those are undocumented. The 750,000 who are citizens or legal residents often migrate to accommodate their jobs.

Farmworkers - whether they be legal migrant workers or undocumented laborers - seem to be both the backbone of our agricultural economy and the vilified target of our politicians. But no consumer in the United States is too poor or too outcast to be targeted by marketers. Earlier this year I attended a seminar featuring a major beverage manufacturer, who shared their success story of convincing immigrant laborers to buy power drinks instead of water. While water is a better and cheaper health option, the corporation made a hefty profit off of creating a new niche market.

When I give thanks tomorrow for my annual Thanksgiving meal, I will think about not only what food is on my table, but how it got there. And for those of us who can be even more proactive than that, the UFW has a Thanksgiving fundraising drive on their website.

Kids and Charity

It was terrific to see Karen Pearl this morning. She was in Central Park presiding over more than 6,000 runners who got up early (and in the cold!) to run for her great current cause: those with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses. Most of you will remember Karen from her days as national President of Planned Parenthood. These days she oversees God’s Love We Deliver, a charity that provides food to some of the most needy residents in New York.

My kids ran in the junior races - which started with 2-year-old’s running 50 meters. The pre-teen categories (a half-mile race) included both impressive track stars and amateurs engaging in their first organized race (that’s where my kids fit in). The event was classic Karen Pearl: organized, upbeat, feel-good, touching.

I was surprised by the reaction of both my kids and their friends. They all were 100% engaged, even when they were swiftly outrun. They immediately began planning to form a team next year - and asked if we could make this an annual tradition. Given that they had competed in yoga gear and street clothes, they asked if next year we could even prepare by practicing on the weekends and saving up for sweatpants and running shoes. And, of course, by fundraising.

I share this because I take my kids to lots of fundraisers and political events - but this was the first time they walked away so motivated. So any of you with kids, of any age, are invited to join our team next year. With Karen at the helm you can feel great about how your donations are spent, and its an ideal lead-in to Thanksgiving week. As much as I respect the adult runners, my speed is to fundraise for the kiddo team, hold all the coats and hot chocolate, and cheer them on.

Congratulations Karen on an inspiring and successful event!

Diversity & Advertising

Interested in including black and latino broadcast stations in your media buy? Some advertisers are thinking twice before relying on ratings from Arbitron to evaluate audience reach.

Abitron - the company that dominates ratings evaluations - has come under fire from black and latino-targeted stations for what they claim is bias in the ratings system. The National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters has charged that the new computerized Arbitron data gathering system unfairly depressed viewership numbers for their stations. Arbitron has not yet backed off their new system, but this week promised to submit its new technology to an independent review. Stay tuned.

Protesting Racism

Last month a noose was found hanging on the office door of Professor Madonna Constantine at Columbia University. This week two major protest activities are underway, stemming from that incident and other racist flare-ups nationwide.

The Rev Al Sharpton is leading a protest at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington DC on Friday, while students at Columbia University are camped in tents on a hunger strike. The two protests have sharply different message strategies: Sharpton calls for the Justice Department to be more proactive, and the students call on Columbia to change the curriculum. Sharpton focuses on the perpetrators of the racist actions, while the students focus on the social climate that might allow for racist actions.

Sharpton’s message at last week’s press club briefing was that the Justice Department has a lackluster response to “growing levels of hate demonstrated in this country”, citing “hate crimes and hate signs” such as hanging nooses and swastikas. His call to action is non-specific but strong: “The only way we can get some relief…is to force the federal government to do what its done since the days of Dwight Eisenhower, and that is to intervene.”

The students have struggled to both define their message and inspire broader momentum - but finally generated a New York Times article this week after completing one week of the strike. Their list of campus supporters continues to grow. Student striker Samantha Barron told the New York Times that “the university’s policies and practices foster a culture of marginalization. If students question those policies and practices they are not respected or sufficiently taken into account”. Campus facilities has brought electricity to the tents, enabling students to take their protest online through blogs, photos, videos, testimonials, and social networking pages.

Sharpton says this about the strategy of protest: “It’s not just the activity. It has to have a strategy of knowing where to hit. The people who can solve these problems of hangman’s nooses and of hate attacks is the Justice Department…You’ve got to force the Justice Department to prosecute and incarcerate some people because that will stop this overnight”.

Protests always have their detractors. One columbia student called the strike “an asinine spectacle” and some students hosted a barbeque outside of the hunger strike tents. The students join the ranks of many other strikers who are accused of muddled messaging; Variety magazine recently printed this about the current writers strike: “Many in showbiz don’t have a clear understanding of the writers’ demands or the reasoning behind those demands.” Sharpton’s tactics attract critics as well. President Kennedy opposed the tactic of organized protest in the months preceding the 1964 Civil Rights March, arguing that to gain passage of the Civil Rights Act “We want success in Congress, not just a big show at the Capitol”. Later Kennedy publicly embraced the march.

While this year’s protest activities can’t be compared to historic gatherings like the 1964 Civil Rights March, they may represent an increasing number of progressives motivated to engage in direct action. Columbia President Bollinger has been largely silent about the hunger strike, and many progressive leaders will not align themselves either with Sharpton or with the Friday march. Nevertheless, chances are that with protestors circling the Justice Department on Friday and hunger strikers camped out on the Columbia grounds on Thanksgiving, this story will only grow.

New Office

Camino is moving to new offices in Chelsea, so I won’t be blogging much this week. Once everything is installed I’ll be back online. (Special thanks to Ann, Larry, Mickey and Winnie for their help with the move).
Thanks,
Elizabeth

Cockroach Instinct

Scientists reported this week that cockroaches respond to peer pressure. The real roaches were perfectly willing to follow the lead of robotic roaches even when the robots led them against their own instinct.

The cockroach scientists claim they have no interest in studying humans. But the idea of peer influence is at the heart of marketing efforts, both for good and for bad.

Cockroaches lack the human ability to reason - however the basic concept of peer pressure can work similarly in the human experience. Our instinct, even our rational mind, may lead us one direction, but the appearance of a swell of public support for a differing direction can be a powerful force.

Most professionals in communications understand full well how the concept of peer pressure can be used in “buzz marketing” campaigns. Converse shoes, for example, are wildly popular not because they have the best orthotics or stamina or athletic features, but simply because everyone is wearing them. Philip Sawyer, the Sr Vice President at Starch (a corporation that has been analyzing the effectives of advertising for 80 years) argues that getting consumers to talk about a product (or brand) is “the definable proof of engagement with an ad”

But what about peer pressure that we - the communications staff - experience? If our gut instinct motivates us in one direction, is our judgement overwhelmed by the industry tide? Do we strike the right balance between the information we use for analysis and the instinct we have based on experience?

I had the recent experience of previewing a proposed TV commercial that I found troubling. I was in the target audience and suspected that others in my shoes would feel at best uncomfortable, at worst offended. But the focus groups said the opposite, so I retracted my objection. It turns out my gut instinct was right - those viewers with a similar profile to myself absolutely rejected the ads. In this case if I had listened to my gut instinct, many months and precious dollars would have been saved. On the other hand, we all know the danger of viewing messaging too personally and missing the broader public perspective. Should I have gone with my gut instinct and taken a risk, or followed the research?

Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink) is writing a new book on gut instinct. I heard him speak about his new subject matter at a marketing conference in Las Vegas last June - at the time he was still writing, so his theory may have evolved since then. In a nutshell, he asserted that peer pressure can easily move people to lose trust in their own instincts. Further, he claims that our gut instinct may be more accurate than hard data.

A few years ago the Harvard Business School hosted a symposium with the question: “when should you listen to your customers and when should you go with your gut?” Among the many examples of “gut” successes was the hit movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, which many movie industry insiders initially rejected, deeming the film not marketable to a mainstream audience. The Harvard symposium advice was that surveying customer needs isn’t useful for radical innovation (because it overpowers gut instinct), but can be very effective for incremental innovation.

Gladwell advised last June that gut instinct isn’t random - it’s something like the combined effect of our experience, insight, wisdom, knowledge base, etc. Having a gut instinct about whether or not you’ve chosen the right lottery numbers is not what he’s alluding to.

In the end many crucial public relations decisions have to be made with a combination of gut instinct and solid research. The best strategic media plans are informed by both. That’s why its so critical to have advisors who are willing to dig deep into your issue area. For example, it may be that investing in social networking is the right innovation for your company, or it may be that strategically it doesn’t make sense but so many industry insiders are touting it that you feel obligated to invest in that strategy.

It feels risky to blog about the cockroach study, I hope no one imagines I am calling them an insect. The best of public relations is not being the cockroach, who is pressured to make decisions against their better instinct. It’s certainly not being the robotic cockroach, luring insects into bad choices. I think its more like the scientist, seeking to understand behavior and engaging new ways to communicate ideas.