Swine Flu in Paradise

Your Verbal Body Language

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Early on, Mexico became the epicenter of the swine flu virus. Clearly it’s the hardest hit point on the globe in terms of illnesses and deaths. Tourism is big business for this year-round vacation nation, where many escape to during winter, and college partiers congregate during their spring breaks. It’s only natural that the media would seek stories on the economic impact swine flu is having south of the border.

Those with much to lose have three choices vis-à-vis the news media: (1) be proactive, pursue media attention in order to reach target audiences; (2) be reactive and let the media call you and if they do, make sure you’re ready to talk; and (3) avoid media attention all together.

Frankly, I favor the first choice. In times of crisis, you have critical audiences that need information and you should want to reach them before your competition does. But make sure you’re ready for these opportunities.

Your first, and sometimes only, contact with some media will be over the phone. Have you considered what your “body language” says over the phone? Oh yes, body language is “heard” on the phone!

A sense, or lack, of enthusiasm is crucial to your believability and credibility. Inflection, enunciation, how prepared you sound, whether you make clear, concise points…all of this is important to persuasive messaging.

So consider the attached video below. It’s a phone interview with a spokeswoman with the Omni Cancun, definitely a fun-in-the-sun vacation spot with a lot at stake, interested in attracting families and college spring-breakers. Listen closely; see if you can hear a strong, credible overriding message. Consider how you’re responding emotionally. Do you feel convinced? Persuaded? Assured that the spokeswoman is confident herself in what she has to say?

After you hear (and watch) the interview, I’d be very interested to hear what you think. Take a moment and let me know: eseidel@themediatrainers.com.

Fast Food Fight

vs.

How to Avoid Slamming Your Competition in the Media

by Eric Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers, LLC

Reporters look for conflict. Some might even try to create it during an interview. (Hard to believe, I know, but some actually do try to manufacture this.) Conflict, and/or controversy, makes for a better story. Now, with a deep recession factored in, there’s more potential meat (you should excuse the pun) to go after, especially between competing brands.

And the food and restaurant industry offers a full menu of possibilities. We’ve seen stories about how high-end eateries are suffering while the so-called low-end, or fast food, stores are benefitting.

So that leads to the competition between those low-end restaurants, like Quiznos and Subway, both known for their submarine sandwiches. And it’s this head-to-head fight that seemed most interesting to Fox Business Network’s David Asman when he spoke with Quiznos CEO Rick Schaden. (Click on video below for the Q&A; it’s brief.)

Asman compared Quiznos vs. Subway to Avis vs. Hertz, Quiznos being his Avis of this particular fast food fight. Instead of reacting defensively, Schaden used the comparison to his benefit. Without saying it, he positioned his company as a David fighting Goliath; a guerilla marketer that enjoys the “fight” and uses edgy advertising.

Schaden never mentioned Subway by name. He was responsive to the question, but on his terms. In other words, he didn’t get sucked into Asman’s specific agenda, but instead made it an opportunity, and he took full advantage.

Learn to do these two things: (1) answer questions on your terms, and (2) be positive while the intention might be to incite a negative reaction, and you are well on your way to mastering the interview game.

United’s PR Goes Down in Flames

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®




Just how sensitized are the members of your business that their actions can have dramatic, far-reaching ramifications? The world is too connected electronically, and just about anyone carries the technology that can put content on the global network.

Unbelievably, some frontlines people still don’t seem to learn from the well-publicized mistakes of others. Remember the now-ex Dallas cop who detained a pro football player and his wife outside a hospital where her mother was literally on death’s bed?

Now the story of a couple in San Francisco rushing to catch a United Airlines flight to Portland, OR, where the woman’s mother was near death. They had just received an urgent phone call asking them to get to the dying woman’s bedside. Unfortunately for them, the ticket agent they tried to deal with was unimpressed; it was more important for her to take her break. She would not give them tickets, despite the fact she apparently was the only available agent who could help and it was 30 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave the gate.

Finally, another desk agent did get them tickets. They rushed to the gate and found the doors closed, although the plane had not yet pushed back. Another United agent was just as unimpressed as the ticket agent, telling the couple that they are forced to work long hours and need occasional breaks.

They missed the flight and had to wait three hours for the next one. They did reach the hospital before Melissa Evans’ mother died, but only by a short period of time. (Click on the video below to hear their full story in a Fox News interview.)

For its part, United issued the following statement:

"We are investigating the matter and apologize if he did not receive the service and compassion he deserved while booking a last minute flight. We are also giving him a goodwill gesture of compensation and hope to provide a better travel experience in the future."

The airline’s response is weak and ill-conceived. The compensation cannot make up for the time the couple lost being with Ms. Evans’ mother. United missed an important opportunity to provide a senior manager to talk to any media making a request. Obviously, the ticket agent made a serious mistake that was repeated and magnified by the gate agent. Mistakes can be forgiven when human beings are making a sincere apology in-person.

An impersonal statement like this costs United Airlines in image and, perhaps to some degree, business, too.

Lessons from the Dominos Experience

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®

Two teenagers with a twisted sense of humor, incriminating themselves with a phone camera as one of them appears to be disgustingly tainting a customer’s sandwich as he prepares it in a Dominos kitchen in North Carolina. They post their mischief on youtube.com and it gets hundreds of thousands of hits.

According to Advertising Age, Dominos management first wanted to remain “below the radar.” It was a poor decision, and one management had to reverse in order to fight fire with fire. But, Dominos hesitation may have cost it more on image than necessary, even though some loss was inevitable had the pizza chain reacted positively immediately.

The AdAge online story reports: “Unfortunately for Domino's, the video has already taken at least a temporary toll on quality and buzz ratings, as measured by BrandIndex. So far the changes are driven by negative perceptions among women. Buzz fell from 22.5 points last Friday to 13.6 yesterday. More significantly, Domino's quality rating fell from 5 on Monday to minus 2.8 yesterday. Quality ratings are generally more stable, less susceptible to the news cycle and unlikely to move quickly in one direction or the other.”

But Dominos headquarters still seems to be getting in its own way, with apparent fear of making a bad situation worse. They’ve made it difficult to find the company’s response on its own Web site. It first requires an educated guess, clicking on the tiny font link “Corporate Info” at the bottom of the homepage, then finding a brief blurb “To Our Customers”, clicking on that and finally seeing the full statement. That statement includes the video Dominos USA President Patrick Doyle posted on youtube.com. This message should be loud and clear on the company homepage.

Remaining “under the radar” in this type of situation virtually is impossible today. The Internet has removed that option, just as it has dispensed with deadlines. Everything is immediate and, while not always “fair” game, everything today is in play.

Learn from this experience. You cannot afford to wait. In fact, you need to plan today for tomorrow’s possible crisis. Consider all the situations you can anticipate and craft a plan for quick action. Dominos’ president’s video was effective. He could not prevent some damage to the company’s image, thanks to the immature and, possibly criminal, actions of two teenaged employees. However, immediate, positive response usually will restore a good reputation in the long term.

Remember the finger-in-the chili incident perpetrated on Wendy’s several years ago?

The Media Manipulate, Too

By Eric Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®



In a recent post, I made the case for not trying to manipulate the news media. A natural response to that: the coin has two sides. What about media manipulation?

Many contend, often correctly, that reporters have agendas. Certainly, all of them have opinions, but the good ones don’t let those things get in the way of doing their jobs well. But, there are exceptions, of course.

We were treated to a very illustrative example of media agenda and manipulation during the April 15th Tea Parties. Covering the Chicago Tea Party, CNN’s Susan Roesgen made her opinion of the demonstrations quite clear at the beginning of her report. “A party for Obama bashers. I have to say this is not representative of everybody in America…”

After arguing with a dad who was carrying his two year old son, and cutting him short as he tried to answer her questions, seemingly when he was about to say something she did not agree with, Roesgen closed her live stand-up saying, “It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right wing conservative network, Fox…”

Her intentions were further demonstrated when she picked out an extreme case when she interviewed some guy claiming President Obama is a fascist. Of course, he could offer nothing to support his claim, but for Roesgen it probably made good TV.

She went out of her way to avoid posters and demonstrators taking both Republicans and Democrats to task. Evidence of Roesgen’s premeditated agenda can be seen on youtube.com in a video provided by foundingbloggers.com. In an off-camera confrontation she had with a woman at the Chicago rally, it was pointed out to Roesgen that she was singling out only the posters and protestors who validated her intentions.

Susan Roesgen’s bias reporting has no place in legitimate media, no more than it does anywhere else where we expect accurate, objective coverage. Hopefully, her management agrees and has reacted to her sad performance.

One interesting sidebar to this: foundingbloggers.com reports that Susan Roesgen twice applied for employment at Fox News, unsuccessfully. If true, could that have been behind her handing of this story?

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Sponsoring Pay for Performance Act of 2009

By Eric M. Seidel, CEO
The Media Trainers®


The media ask questions. That’s their job. Your job is to answer questions. On your terms, to be sure, from your perspective. But you better have answers that make sense and have substance, especially to the audiences you’re targeting. Good reporter-interviewers will really dig in if you don’t (and, sometimes, even if you do). Adequate preparation is mandatory. You owe it to yourself, at the very least.

Now, I’m a big fan of his, but i'm not going to make any excuses for Fox Business Network anchor Neil’s Cavuto’s verbal behavior in the video below; he could’ve and should’ve done better. But I do understand his frustration.

The interview is with Florida Cong. Alan Grayson regarding the bill he’s sponsoring to give the government (translation: the treasury secretary) power and authority to decide on pay restrictions for all employees at every level of a company receiving federal bailout money. Apparently, the bill does not set a floor or a ceiling; it gives no real guidance, leaving that to the discretion of the secretary. It sounds like a poorly conceived knee-jerk reaction to the AIG (and other) bonuses.

Grayson went on Cavuto's program, no doubt, to promote his bill. Instead, he found himself on the defensive the whole time. What you will see is a solid example for why any business executive who interacts with media of any kind should resist ever following the example of a politician, especially one so ill-prepared.