Archive for: Practices

In communications, there’s a fine line between making your voice heard and shooting yourself in the foot.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve been thinking a lot about Levi Johnston – the twice almost son-in-law of Sarah Palin – and how he could benefit from some communications guidance.  The father of Palin’s grandson has made a career out of extending his fifteen minutes of fame – posing for Playboy, appearing in music videos, and now announcing he will run for the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

While his quest for fame is not unusual, his communications style makes his chances of success unlikely, at best.

In an interview with CBS’s The Early Show, Johnston apologizes for apologizing. In case you’ve been busy with life outside of the Palin-Johnston saga, he recently apologized for lies he spread about the Palin family. But in this forthcoming interview, he recants that apology, adding, “I don’t really regret anything. But the only thing I wish I wouldn’t have done is put out that apology ‘cause it kind of make me sound like a liar. And I’ve never lied about anything.”

Confused? Well, that’s communications problem number one. Johnston can’t seem to stay on message. Which brings us to communications problem number two: what is Johnston’s message?

Johnston would be wise to consider candor. As Al Ries and Jack Trout write in their famous book The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, “Every negative statement you make about yourself is instantly accepted as truth. Positive statements, on the other hand, are looked at as dubious at best.”

That certainly seems to be the case with Johnston. Does anyone really believe that he’s “never lied about anything”?  (Don’t forget, this is a guy who was forced to end his second engagement to Bristol Palin after news broke that he fathered another baby with a different young woman in Alaska during their time apart.)

Ries and Trout make the point that sometimes, it’s OK to poke a little fun at yourself. They like to use the example of Smucker’s Jam. Instead of ignoring the less-than-perfect family name, the company uses humor: “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.”

If Johnston can be a bit more self-deprecating, he might actually get elected Mayor of Wasilla.

Josh Gilder said it best when he wrote “the primary flaw in most thinking about corporate responsibility is that it assumes that all profit-making corporations are rapacious predators.”

That’s certainly the perspective American Public Media’s Marketplace holds toward American business. A recent report looked at the effect the BP oil spill has had on socially responsible investing.

At the heart of the conversation was the notion that oil and gas companies are inherently bad and therefore any direct – or indirect – investment in them is inherently irresponsible. Read

Next week marks the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage.  Seventy-two years after Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention and introduced the concept of women’s suffrage into the national conversation, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment.

Today the discussion over women’s equality continues, with national groups on the left pushing for more government protections through legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Act. And conservative women claim greater freedom – not more government intervention – is the key to advancing women’s rights.

Often lost in the crossfire is an honest consideration of women’s accomplishments today.  Nearly a century after securing the vote, women flaunt some fabulous figures:

•    Women earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 59 percent of master’s degrees.

•    Nearly a third of PhD’s are awarded to women.

•    Women are the majority of graduates in every professional school, except business school, where they still account for a third of graduates.

•    75 percent of veterinary classes are women.

•    Businesses with more senior female managers make more money.

•    Women make up 16 percent of the corporate officers of Fortune 500 companies – up 50 percent since the mid-1990s.

•    In the 2010 midterm elections, 239 women are candidates for the House; 31 for the Senate.

•    Women control 83 percent of consumer spending; 9 out of 10 women are the primary shopper in the household.

•    Women now buy the majority of cars.

While the facts continue to be a little blurry, it’s clear that First Lady Michelle Obama’s decision to take a lavish trip to Spain has become a PR nightmare for the White House.

Certainly some bad calculations were made.  Taking a trip overseas, rather than visiting some much-needed tourist destinations in the states (like the Gulf coast), seems at best careless and more likely thoughtless. And her public exposure, often being caught by cameras flaunting haute couture, suggests a serious rift exists between the Obama’s and mainstream America.

At the very least, the picture of an extravagant vacation during a serious economic recession was not politically savvy.  And it’s a perfect example of how quickly public opinion can turn.  Just last month, Gallup released a favorability poll, in which Michelle Obama “outshines all others,” including her husband, Hillary Clinton, and several Republican presidential hopefuls. I’m waiting for the next round of poll numbers to be released, but I suspect this is a trip that has tarnished the First Lady’s shine.

In the end, however, Republican pollster Steve Lombardo (h/t NRO) is probably right, “The backlash over the First Lady’s trip is a trap for GOP. Ignore it. Focus on jobs.”

The country is quickly dividing into two camps: Those who watch Mad Men and those who don’t.

If you haven’t seen the AMC original drama, I encourage you to get caught up.

For those of you who are already two seasons deep into the drama of Don Draper’s 1960s life at the fictional Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad agency, you likely watched the season premiere “Public Relations.”

At a time when the notion of social networking was not yet embryonic, a profile in a leading newspaper was a golden media opportunity for a young advertising firm.  But for Don Draper – man of mystery – knowing how to take advantage of the interview eludes him. Read

Dolly Parton may have had it right when she recorded that song in 1980, but the days of juggling it all in a 9am-5pm world are numbered.

Newsweek has a great article about how the down economy is actually helping change the culture of corporate America, by encouraging more flexible workdays:

Now, one in five Americans works mostly nonstandard hours—nights, weekends, or rotating shifts. Experts believe that statistic will balloon in coming years as the Great Recession accelerates a cultural shift in the corporate world, allowing more employees to tailor their work schedules to preference, position, and personal life.

One explanation for this shift has to do with changes in industry, as the economy becomes “less reliant on manufacturing and more dependent on so-called knowledge-based industries,” that don’t require rigid shift schedules.

But another explanation – not mentioned directly in the article – but discussed by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in their book Womenomics is that more “employers are introducing alternative work schedules, furloughs, unpaid vacation time, and reduced schedules specifically in response to the economic situation.  These firms see flexibility as a way to keep up morale and avoid mass layoffs.”

The fact is employees value time and flexibility, often as much as money.

Certainly, professionals often have more choices – and more flexibility – than other workers.  That’s why men and women benefit when we allow employers and employees to enter freely into contracts that suit both parties’ needs.

Too often we’re eager to regulate the workplace to make it more “fair.” But in reality anti-discrimination legislation and other burdensome regulations actually end up making the cost of employment higher and reducing flexibility.  And that’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it…

The summer hasn’t started out so well for President Obama.  He has suffered a constant barrage from critics on both the right and the left who claim he has failed to show leadership when it comes to the Gulf oil spill. Not surprisingly, with all this hostility, the president’s poll numbers have started to slip.

Now, mid-June, Gallup finds that the President’s job approval rating is 46 percent. Just two days after the President’s Oval Office address, Rasmussen Reports found 61 percent of voters “view the president’s handling of the oil leak crisis as poor.”

Near double-digit unemployment, robust opposition to the health care overhaul, an unrelenting war in Afghanistan, and now the BP oil spill has generated consistent bad press for the president. More and more, his critics claim he is ineffectual.

The president is in trouble, and many wonder whether he can escape from what seems to be political quicksand. No matter the speech he gives, pundits and political elites just keep repeating that he is sinking — and quickly.

In the bible of public-opinion research, The Nature and Origin of Mass Opinion, John Zaller demonstrates that periodically the “flow of political communication really is…heavily one-sided.” By examining shifts in public opinion after the flow of political communication becomes two-sided, he demonstrates that public opinion is the product of information flowing from elites to the masses.

Over the course of the past few months, elite discourse has almost unanimously declared that President Obama is faltering. And critics on both sides have hit the president. Free-marketers have lambasted Obama for the stimulus package, the new health care law, and his decision to stop off-shore drilling in the wake of the oil spill.  But criticism is not limited to the right. The MSNBC chastisement following the president’s address on Tuesday night certainly did not go unnoticed.  In effect, there has been a one-sided, decidedly negative, flow of information to the American public.

One problem Obama is learning is that campaign rhetoric can’t carry a presidency.   As Greg Sargent explains in the Washington Post yesterday, the public doesn’t care that Obama hasn’t shown more emotion or anger over the Gulf oil spill. Rather, they’re “concerned about the substance of the response.”

If the president wants to interrupt the conversation, in which an elite consensus has emerged around the “belief” that Obama is faltering because of his inability to act effectively, he needs to demonstrate his leadership – strongly and consistently. This is the only way he’ll generate a two-sided flow of information and change the conversation.  If he does that, the White House can expect a clear, decisive upswing in the public’s approval of the president.

Gender roles may be more fluid today, but in Japan women still want men who are penny-wise.   At least that’s what a new ad run by the Japanese Ministry of Finance is telling young bachelors.

Japan is in a bit of financial trouble these days.  The country holds one of the largest government debt loads in the world, yet Japanese households are buying fewer government bonds than in the past.

That’s why the government is trying to appeal to young, single men and encourage them to buy bonds because, as they promise in one of their ads, “men who hold JGBs are popular with women!”

Another ad flaunts a young woman asserting, “I want my future husband to be diligent about money…Playboys are no good.”

It’s hard to know if their ad campaign will get them out of the red, but it sure is good communications!