kristina

The Subway scrabble game that happens a couple times a year is a great example of public relations in action.  The company is being interactive with it’s publics.  It also makes the customers want to eat at Subway.  It draws their customers in, because there’s this chance that they could win something great, or something simple like a cookie.  So, you are able to eat one of your favorite foods while playing a game and having a little fun at the same time.

It is also a very creative way for Subway to get their name out in the public sphere.  The more your name is out in the public sphere, the more people will hear about you and possibly want to go to your company or restaurant.  It influences the public to go and be a part of this game that so many others are taking part in.  It’s a game that you can’t really lose in.  You get your sandwich and drink either way, but may possibly receive a little treat along with that.  Then, to incorporate this Scrabble game even more in today’s society, Subway recently put the Scrabble board online.  It used to be a fold out piece of paper, much like McDonald’s Monopoly board, but with technology booming and the use of interactive social media skyrocketing, they put it on their website.

This Scrabble game differentiates Subway from other sub restaurants.  Not every sub restaurant has a game to play or prizes to win.  And the game is not hard to win-at least not the small prizes.  A bag of chips, cookie, or drink is fairly easy to come by.  So, Subway makes all of their prized customers feel like winners.

(A press release about this subject)

Another crisis within a large company was the finger in Wendy’s chili.  Later on it was found out to be a hoax, but until it was proven, this was a major crisis for Wendy’s.  Who would want to eat at a fast food restaurant that was serving body parts in their food?  This could have some huge reprimands for the company and large lawsuits following.  There had to be quick action taken, because a finger in someone’s food was going to spread like wildfire in the dry mountains of California (no pun intended since this incident did happen in northern California).  And, at first there was a reaction that dropped their sales (only in that market of northern California, though), because Wendy’s had been known as a fairly clean and decent restaurant as far as fast food chains can be and all of a sudden a finger appeared in their great chili.  That’s enough to make anyone sick and go to another fast food chain for a few days or weeks.

The Wendy’s public relations representatives did react better than the United Airlines public relations representatives.  They released statements to the press and made all of their testing and analyzing, to see who the finger could belong to, public.  They were being proactive and preventative about this major crisis.

“During the investigation, Wendy’s (WEN)said no employees at the San Jose restaurant had missing fingers, and no suppliers of Wendy’s ingredients had reported any finger injuries. Authorities reported that there was no evidence the finger had been cooked (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2005-05-13-wendys-finger_x.htm).” This was just one statement given out during this time.  Tom Mueller, Wendy’s Chief Executive, gave out many statements during this time as well.  This is how it should be-the people with the most authority giving out statements to the press to make it as credible and sincere as it can be.  And something great that was enacted with their crisis communication plan was the giveaway of free Frosty’s.  You did not have to buy anything else.  This was simply to “show appreciation to [their] customers[who]  stood by [them] while we defended our good name and protected our employees’ livelihoods,” said Tom Mueller.

This is a great reaction to a crisis on hand (no pun intended again).  Tom Mueller and spokespeople for Wendy’s did everything they could to not admit it was their fault, but to talk to the public and keep the public updated on everything they were trying to do to figure this oddity out.  And, in the end, it was found out to be a hoax, and a woman was arrested and put in jail for 9 years and her husband for 12.  This is one of the best endings possible to such a crisis for a company.  It wasn’t their fault AT ALL, but they still took every step as needed to ensure their customers and other publics that they were assuming full responsibility.

Crisis communication plans are of utmost importance to any kind of company, because no matter how low the chance of something unexpected happening, just having the chance there is a heavy enough burden.  Without crisis communication plans, the stress level would be even higher for certain companies about how to act in certain situations. This summer, there was a crisis that United Airlines had to deal with.  They might not have handled this situation with the best crisis communication plan, but it gives us a glimpse at how people can use social media to their advantage and make a powerful company have a crisis.

United Airlines was “charged” with mishandling a passenger’s (David Carol’s) guitar. While they were loading the luggage, he saw them throw his $3500 guitar on the luggage belt.  He told the flight attendants, but they failed to do anything.  Then, when he arrived at the destination airport, he confirmed the damages.  Later, he called the airline’s phone number to file a complaint and damage charges, but they didn’t do anything about it.  Three months later, he made a youtube video and was noticed.  Within days this video was noticed by many publics-not just the general public, but major publications such as the LA Times.  There were a lot of blogs about it as well.  In a matter of a week, over three million viewers had seen this video.  It was time that United Airlines do something about this outbreak before it became worse.  They were getting A LOT of free press, but very bad press.  On July 7th, United Airlines “tweeted” about this video, saying they had contacted David.  And, David made another Youtube video in response to them.  Later on, he made one more song for United Airlines, which talks more about the airline hostess that he asked to help out.

I searched for more apology statements to the press and to David Carol, but I only ran across the Tweet.  While looking at someone else’s evaluation of how United performed this crisis communication plan, I learned that they did not enact one very well.  They called Mr. Carol personally, and the terms they came to were that they would donate a certain sum of money to a charity.  But after doing only that, they decided to just used the video as a learning experience and to use it internally to learn how to train the luggage handlers and airline stewards.

This is an example of a poor execution of a crisis communication plan, but a great example of how social media can be used for the power of the people against a large company, and how fast social media works.  It connects people from across the country on a certain topic that they would have never known about unless it was for the powerful tool of networking and communicating with social media.

The Digital Revolution has made many “unimaginable” ideas come to life.  Everything is at our fingertips at this day in age.  From cell phones, to iPods, to the Internet, what do we not have that is compacted into something we can slip in our pocket for easy convenience?  New technologies are coming out everyday, but many of them will not be seen in stores for years to come because they are so advanced and would cost too much right now.  Some technology, like a minivan being driven by an iPhone application, just scream dangerous!  This was done in Berlin earlier this month (but the technologies for this were developed in 2007).  The application controls everything from acceleration, to breaking, to steering.  This is amazing that this can actually be done, but just imagine what happens when the internet stops working and everyone is using this application to drive.  Or maybe they are trying to drive the car while someone decides to call them on their iPhone.  We’ve seen wrecks caused by GPS devices.  Surely this is not a good idea to put out on the market.

Like the chapter says, it seems as if everyone is connected to the web in some way.  This has helped businesses out, big and small, because now, even if you own a small company, everyone worldwide can know about your business.  You can be your own public relations practitioner, publisher, and journalist in today’s world.  Youtube is one of the many vessels to be your own journalist or reporter.  This video is essentially a video diary of this woman’s car ride to go see a guy she likes.  It provides comedy to everyone and has almost 650,000 views.  No one would have ever known about this unless it was aired, and now people are joined by this video without even knowing each other.  It provides a context to unite people.  But, this short video, along with all the other little clips online are emerging a the same time as reality TV as well.  In the Digital Revolution, it seems that the culture is interested with everyone else’s life. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and this is the way to be “famous” for those 15 minutes.  Youtube is one of these redefined communities emerging from the Digital Revolution.  And somehow, today’s public relations practitioners must reach out to these different communities by still trying to target a specific audience.  It’s a challenge, but they find ways.  You can find all of the commercials for any product on Youtube.  Also, if you watch television shows online, such as abcfamily.com, there are commercial breaks.  During some of their commercial breaks online, there is PR for sexual activity.  They are providing awareness to the Internet users.  It’s health communication.  And they are using the characters from the show to make the audience aware during these 15 second clips.  This is a very smart idea, because if you regularly watch a show, you “get to know” the characters and become emotionally attached to some degree, so the message might transmit to the audience better.

With all the emerging technology, though, it must be noted that just as students prefer to read from textbooks rather than online, people still love good old fashion face-to-face communication and relationship.  This is what a good public relations practitioner will incorporate into his/her practice.  Be sure to have good, solid relationship in person as well as in the cyber world.