In Defense of Public Relations

I may be a couple of days late with this post, but I have a good excuse. One I’m not on deadline and two there were way too many events going on in the world the past two days for me to even care about what Tiger Woods has to say about his shenanigans the last four months.

It also took me more than a day to digest Tiger Woods’ first two media interviews with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi and The Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman. Neither will be winning a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in the future. Both reporters (if you want to call them that) showed a lot of restraint and avoided asking the tough questions. In fact, it is obvious Kelly is the queen of Tiger Woods’ media groupie. Still, you can’t solely place the blame on them though. With only five minutes allotted per interview, there’s no way any journalist could have been able to ask the hard questions, and if they did, Tiger would have needed more than five minutes to respond. Let’s put it this way. Tiger’s caddy, Steve Williams, could have stood in for him and we wouldn’t have known the difference.

So what was this exclusive 5-minute press junket about? It was about one thing. PUBLICITY. Since Tiger’s PR has been consistently duffing lately, I’m guessing Ari Fleischer had something to do with this before he resigned his services from the Tiger camp.

It was a clever PR move really. Tiger needed to get in front of the corporations/brands that have dropped him like a two-foot putt to woo them back as well as be seen by other brands that are seeking an endorser. There were two key messages he delivered during the interviews and he pounded these repeatedly in five minutes:

1) Tiger’s personal life is back in order

2) Tiger’s ready to play golf.

Oh there was a third, Buddhism is the answer to a chaotic life…and with that Tiger Woods exits (still wearing his “TW” logo cap and Nike apparel).

P.S. Jim Furyk did win his first golf tournament in two and a half years. Unfortunately, it ended up as a post-script on media outlets.

[After a 2 1/2 month hiatus, I'm debuting a new post. Hey, I follow the TV calendar and series premieres are just around the corner.]

Anyone with half a brain understands that computer glitches happen. During the course of the day, I’m sure you’ve had to reboot at least once, I know I have to about once every two hours, but that’s another story.  What happened today at BestBuy.com was obviously a computer or human error.  I hope it’s the former so no one will get fired.

In case you were not around Wednesday morning, BestBuy.com posted the greatest deal in the history of online shopping. A 52-inch Samsung TV for $9.99.  Upon realizing the pricing error, Best Buy came out with a statement stating “while we are truly embarrassed that this occurred, Best Buy will not be able to honor the $9.99 price.” Ouch!

Without knowing how many TV sets were bought by customers online (I assume there weren’t many because they determined the error within a few hours) and how much the company would have lost in sales, it would’ve been great if Best Buy had honored the price.  Only if it were a perfect world where customers who purchased the same item for the full price WILL NOT complain about those that got this deal and with the understanding that only one TV will be given per customer who bought one, Best Buy would’ve made history.  Here’s how:

- Whatever losses Best Buy incurs, it’ll make up with the positive publicity that it could have milked for days, if not, weeks, instead of the negative commentary and bad jokes on social network sites that will live forever.  I’m betting that whatever amount in lost sales the electronics retailer experiences, the dollar equivalent from all the positive media coverage will be far more significant.

- Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson would have become a household name and probably even be considered as a guest on Oprah maybe even hold a Beer Summit at The White House. At the very least, he’ll be on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

- Best Buy doesn’t have any competition to worry about.  Seriously, I believe a move like this will even increase Best Buy’s market share and bring more customers to their stores instead of driving them away to shop at regional retailers like 6th Avenue Electronics or P.C. Richard & Son.

- Consumers will be commending Best Buy versus cursing it. One consumer even started a web site that calls out the Best Buy error. Welcome to the social media era.

- You can’t put a price tag on goodwill especially during tough economic times.  Best Buy will be a company to be emulated by other big box retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t one of the consumers who bought the TV online for $9.99. Opinions expressed here are simply my own and was not paid by Circuit City.

P.S. — This post is not a criticism of Best Buy’s topnotch PR team, which handled the crisis by the book.

So the PRWeek/PR Newswire Media survey came out yesterday to practically no fanfare. Maybe I was blind or plain crazed yesterday that I didn’t see any PR pro tweet about the findings save for Shel Holtz who challenged technology blogger/editor Robert Scoble to respond to his open query.  Apparently, Shel takes issue with some of Scoble’s attitude towards PR pitches and PR people in general.

Shel got his answer. Scoble ain’t backing down and posted this in response.

My take.  Both have valid points, but as a PR pro, I’ll have to side with Holtz on this one. Yes, there are crappy pitches out there, and it’s in your inbox, so simply click delete. It’s nothing personal. If reporters only knew the kind of pressure PR people are under and the amount of time we have in a day to service clients.  We try to be as smart and strategic as possible, I hope, but do we really have the time to research every reporter’s and/or blogger’s past articles to ensure pitches are targeted? In front of clients, we say YES, but in reality, who’s got the time?

If I had to research every reporter/blogger and figure out whether they’re an appropriate target, I’d be 7/11, that means working 24/7.  No one wants that even in this sad economy.  To put it mildly, be happy we’re pitching you, and the fact that you work in the media means you’re a target.  Just think of yourselves as celebrities, but not as pretty, and PR pros as the paparazzi, but not as sleazy.