Cancer is affecting hundreds of thousands of lives. I lost a very good friend, Theresa, to cancer on Saturday. My mom is a breast cancer survivor, yet is struggling with a second bout of lung cancer now. And my friend Tom is fighting cancer now, too.
Because of all this, I’ve joined Team Tommy, and I will be walking in the ACS Riverfront Fun Run next week. My husband Kevin and I will fly up to Green Bay so that we can support our friends and family members with cancer.
If you’re interested in sponsoring me for the ACS Riverfront Fun Run on May 2, please visit my Team Tommy page. So far, our team has received 95 gifts, raising nearly $4,000. Let’s try to get those numbers up . . . and help our friends fight cancer.
Regardless what company you are working with or which newspaper outlets you are sending a news release to, there are a baker’s dozen items that should appear in most news releases.
As we discussed in PRCA 2330, I will begin evaluating your blogs as of midnight on Thursday, April 30. Here’s a copy of the rubric (grading form) I’ll use when I review your blogs: Blog Rubric (Grading Form).
Please complete this final blog checklist to be sure you’re on track and have all the required elements in your blog. (It’s fine to complete the form more than one time.)
In today’s Introduction to Public Relations class, we watched a classic episode of the classic 1970s TV show “WKRP in Cincinnati” :: “Turkeys Away.” Though I paid to download the episode from iTunes, I just discovered it’s also available for free through Hulu.
In this episode, which was based on a botched promotion from a radio station in Atlanta, live turkeys dropped from a helicopter. Chaos ensues.
What can we learn about how NOT to do a promotion from Mr. Carlson’s fiasco? I’ll get the list started:
Communicate with your entire team before launching a promotional campaign (or a turkey).
Do your research! It’s best to learn ahead of time that turkeys don’t fly.
Get permission before doing a stunt.
Know what is considered news in your local market. Giving away turkeys for Thanskgiving wasn’t news. (But watching live turkeys plummet from a helicopter probably would be news.)
Brainstorm for what could possibly go wrong before you proceed with a promotion.
If you haven’t heard anything about Domino’s Pizza in the last week, you must have been taking a media and social media vacation.
Three reviews of how Domino’s reacted to this crisis are worth listening to (or watching, in Gary V’s case).
Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz discuss Domino’s for nearly half of their latest For Immediate Release podcast (The Hobson & Holtz Report – Podcast #441). Their commentary on Domino’s begins near the 13:00 mark.
Gary Vaynerchuk, in his inimitable style, shares his reaction to Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s U.S.A.
In Monday’s Introduction to Public Relations course, we will discuss getting into the news via news releases, media kits and more. Here are the slides I’ll use:
Using the same social media tools that harmed them earlier this week (regarding the “Disgusting Domino’s People” YouTube video), Domino’s is fighting to earn back the public’s trust via YouTube and Twitter.
Here’s a video from Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s U.S.A., responding to “video of (now former) Domino’s team members.” The original “disgusting video” is no longer available on YouTube due to a copyright claim from Kristy Hammonds Thompson. The offending and offensive former employees have been arrested and are facing charges.
UPDATE (April 16, 10:20 a.m.) Though Doyle’s apology sounds sincere and I believe it is sincere, I do have to wonder what he was looking at during the filming of the video. A TelePrompTer, perhaps? Eye contact with his audience, like David Neelman’s in his Jet Blue apology video from two years ago, goes a long way to help us relate better. (Thanks to Scott Monty for suggesting a comparison of the two video apologies.)
And earlier in the day yesterday, I discovered this tweet from @dpzinfo, the official Domino’s corporate Twitter account:
Now, if only Domino’s can regain the Twitter accounts of @dominos and @dominospizza; both of those accounts have apparently been twittersquatted.
DISCLOSURE: I worked at a Domino’s franchise in Auburn, AL, while I was in college.
For your final (as in culminating, not exam) blog post in PRCA 2330, create a top ten list of things you learned in Introduction to Public Relations. Be very specific.
For example:
Good: I’ll need to learn Associated Press Style to write news releases that will get published.
Not so good: How to write a news release
Awful: News release
Options:
Create the list in audio, and embed the audio to your blog. (Utterli is an easy way to do this.)
Create the list in PowerPoint, then embed the slidedeck into your blog. (I use SlideShare for this.) If you make your slides with mostly images and few words, be sure to put your details in the Notes portion of your slides.
Create a 10-minute or shorter video, upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, then embed the video into your blog.
Base your list on your favorite movie (for example: “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Intro to PR, I Learned in ______________”)
Simply write the list in WordPress (zzzzz…. boring)
This Top Ten List will be worth 50 points (from your Engagement points) and is due May 3 by midnight. Use the category of Assignment so that I can find it on your blog easily.
NOTE: You also need to post a link to your Top Ten List as a reply to this blog post.
UPDATE: Since I originally posted this, I’ve learned that Domino’s is taking steps to fire the two employees in the video.
AUDIO UPDATE: Neville Hobson posted this concise audio about the fiasco:
It was a relatively calm morning, both in my home and in the Twittersphere. And then I saw this message from Adam Cohen:
As a former Domino’s employee, a current Domino’s customer AND a professor of public relations, I felt compelled to see what Adam found. Here it is, all its “glory”:
At about 10:20 this morning, I went to Domino’s website. After a bit of poking around, I found their online contact form. This is what I sent to them:
I teach public relations at Georgia Southern University. Are you aware of this video titled “Disgusting Dominos People” on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFxqC8hZ_xs ? Having worked at a Domino’s in Auburn (AL) in college, I was appalled at what is shown in the video. Is anything being done to address this? There’s a huge discussion going on about the topic on Twitter now, too: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=domino . If possible, I’d like to know what your company is doing to combat this, so I can share it with my PR students.
Thank you,
Barbara Nixon, Ph.D. (ABD) :: Georgia Southern University
I am curious to see what reaction Domino’s has to this video. This might be a good case study in crisis public relations.
UPDATE: April 14, 2009, 11:00 AM
Apparently another blogger has heard back from Tim McIntyre (in Corporate Communications at Domino’s). See “Video: Let the Domino’s Appall” for his response, which says in part:
We just got off the phone with the franchise owner, who was absolutely dumbfounded by this. He has told us that he will be terminating their employment effective immediately.
Will I stop ordering from Domino’s? No, I won’t stop. I would like to know that these two people no longer work for the company. Domino’s is a company I trust. I just hope that they’re paying attention what people are saying about the company now.
Stay tuned.
(PS: Thanks, Adam, for calling this to my attention. I’ve used part of original tweet as the title to this blog post.)
