Every PR practitioner knows that a tailored outreach plan and commitment to deliver results are the first steps to success when it comes to event promotion, and Krystin recently solidified her position as a media relations aficionado, while handling outreach for two major San Diego events in one weekend – RC44 San Diego Sailing Regatta and the Make-A-Wish Walk for Wishes.

Krystin's shot of the action down at the docks with RC44 and Fox 5's crew.

Through expertly customized outreach plans, Krystin was able to secure unprecedented coverage and attendance for the RC44 San Diego Sailing Regatta and Walk for Wishes – despite uncharacteristic San Diego weather.

Whether it was setting up live interviews on the piers of San Diego Bay or braving the elements at the Walk for Wishes, Krystin’s commitment delivered visibility and results beyond expectation.

Great work, Krystin. We’re so happy to have you as part of the NST family!

The NST Tiki Token is given to a staff member who has done an extraordinary job the week prior or who may need a little extra support in the coming week. The Tiki Token winner from the week prior designates the new recipient during our Monday morning staff meeting

So Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship rose from rags to riches kicking the mining community in the family jewels.  In every case study and textbook on crisis management and crisis communication, values are the compass that guide individuals, governments and corporations through the most trying circumstances.

Massey Energy and Blankship’s values?  Money and power, and if there’s a ring of truth to the cascading revelations on safety violations and the wielding of political influence, we’re witnesses to what could be the most shocking view of corporate greed.  This could make Enron look like a hiccup.

Twenty-nine coal miners died in the April 5 mine explosion in West Virginia, and Blankenship’s communication strategy is ignorance – void of action and commitment for the victims, their families and the community. “It’s natural that the enemies of coal would view Massey as the primary enemy . . . I think that I’ve proven that we run safer coal mines — you know, most of the time — and accidents sometimes happen. We’ve got to figure out what happened here,” he said, according to Associated Press.

Human instinct puts us all in a defensive position when faced with potential blame, but smart and careful thinking of our impact on others makes us realize compassion is critical in the worst of times.  Rather than displace blame on “enemies,” or ridiculously state Massey sometimes runs safe mining operations, Blankenship’s better approach would have been to focus on the tragedy, its impact on employees, their families and the mining community, and an investment (whether intellectual, financial or both) in working with federal regulators in determining the cause of the accident and ensuring the mitigation of something like this happening again.

If Blankenship were smart enough to rise to the top of the mining industry, he’d be wiser to do a little homework on best practices in crisis management and communication.  Here’s Johnson & Johnson’s, which has been in the textbooks for decades and will be for decades more.

This is when true colors come out, and right now Massey and Blankenship’s is green – everyone else, no more than the victims’ families and the mining community, is seeing red.

The Tiger Woods brand consistently delivered on its expectations — integrity, dignity, determination, competitive fire and loyalty — on and off the golf course.  The brand experience was highly attractive to be repeated by fans, endorsers, news media and even his competitive foes, all telling of great stories and experiences with anything Tiger.

For Toyota, quality was the axis of its brand. The automaker entered the U.S. market decades ago amid a storm of skepticism on reliability, and Toyota quickly and has since silenced the naysayers, albeit until recently.

In produce, character is often reflected in the quality of products delivered to customers and consumers alike — freshness, taste and appearance — and in environmental stewardship, labor relations and food safety standards.

Read more thoughts in The Packer on what leaders in produce, and any other industry, can learn from Tiger and Toyota.

All communications/PR professionals know that speed is a job requirement in this industry, but speed and accuracy don’t necessarily always go hand in hand.

In my first year here at NST, I was given the nickname “Maverick” (a nod to the fighter pilot in Top Gun) by our resident quality control guru for focusing on speed, and at times overlooking details in my writing. But through our internal writing workshop, three-step quality control process and subtle reminders from Mike Rose (see photo), I’ve kicked my nasty little habit. But it appears, I’m not alone.

My not-so-subtle reminder to take the time needed to write effectively and accurately.

In order to remain competitive in the increasingly crowded media landscape, the race to be the first outlet to cover breaking news is cutthroat – and the proliferation of social media has only heightened the importance of speed when it comes to reporting.

But does speed come at a cost? That’s what the folks at the Columbia Journal Review wanted to find out. The magazine took a look at 665 consumer magazines and surveyed the outlets regarding their editing/fact checking practices and profitability of their Web sites.

The findings left many a mouth agape during our weekly staff meeting, where this information was initially shared with the NST team.

Here are some of the survey results we found interesting:

• Only one-third of the Web sites were profitable.
• 48 percent of outlets had less stringent standards when copy editing online articles versus print.
• 11 percent of outlets didn’t copy-edit their online articles at all.
• The majority of the magazines surveyed applied the same fact-checking standards to both print and online articles, but 27 percent were less stringent with online articles and 8 percent didn’t fact check online content at all.
• Another 8 percent of responding magazines didn’t fact check either their print or online articles.
• Regarding corrections, 45 percent of the Web sites changed factual errors without notifying site visitors about the correction.

Naturally, these findings make us question the standards used for online reporting, but researchers seem happy to simply shed light on the issue for now. As communications professionals, it means we all need to continue our diligence to ensure accuracy and monitor coverage closely to protect our clients’ best interests. Even if it means slowing down and turning in “your wings.”

(And for a little dose of nostalgia – Top Gun: The Need for Speed)

Toyota is curiously sitting at no. 7 in Millward Brown’s top-10 list of most trusted brands as Congress spent the better half of the week giving Toyota a tongue-lashing for its handling and mishandling of the automaker’s quality control crisis.

The study’s authors readily point out that the data was collected over the course of 2009 and doesn’t reflect Toyota’s current dilemma as it unfurled at the beginning of this year.  The authors also note the automaker could learn from Tylenol, which in 1982 recalled 31 million bottles of pills after seven people were killed in the tampering scare.  That brand, which was forced to recall children’s liquid medicine last year, sits at no. 6 in the study.

Tylenol maker Johnson & Johnson has a history of effectively managing crisis situations, though the FDA earlier this year ridiculed the company for being slow to respond in its most recent crisis.  What this goes to show you, however, is a history of doing the right thing and acting aggressively in a crisis situation can maintain and build trust among stakeholders, consumers in particular.  Trust is fragile, and how you respond in a crisis situation can build and maintain trust, the authors state.

Toyota started off this week with public apologies before Congress.  How it fixes its problems, communicates with stakeholders and develops systems to prevent further lapses will determine if the automaker regains or builds trust, and where it will stand in next year’s report.

Tiger Woods spent about 14 minutes doing what he should have done nearly three months ago: he took his head out of the sand trap and decided to address his crisis head-on, albeit in a tightly controlled environment.

Better late than never, and we can spend hours rehashing the premise of acting quickly to manage a crisis (hundreds did it when news broke last fall, myself included, and more will berate him for waiting too long).  What Tiger did accomplish today was take that critical first step down the longest fairway of his life.  Rather than jump on the bandwagon and dissect everything he did wrong in his “no-questions-asked press conference,” here’s a look at what did well:

• Pulling his head out of the sand.  Crisis management is pure hell loaded with fear and uncertainty for any organization, let alone one individual, unaccustomed to dealing with panic.
• Acknowledging it was his own behavior and actions that led to his tarnished image and brand.  He didn’t make excuses and took accountability.
• Pointing out he veered from his personal set of values.  Very few in a crisis situation get this, that reputations and brands are built and will fall based on values.
• Admitting the impact of his actions on others, particularly his wife and kids; additionally, his fans – children in particular, topping it off with acknowledging he failed as a role model (Charles Barkley be damned).
• Asking to believe in him, not right away, but over time.  Tiger knows he needs to regain trust, from his family, from the corporate sponsorship world, from his peers and from his fans – and he also knows that’s a feat that won’t happen simply in the days and weeks ahead.  It will be his actions over a longer period of time – off the course.

Check out this interview on KUSI News on Tiger Woods’ first public appearance http://bit.ly/dff9ei

Yours truly sans suit, The Donald and my client, John Sawyer

So, more than a year ago, we sat in the lobby of the W hotel in Manhattan, surrounded by lawyers and producers for the 2009 season of Celebrity Apprentice.  Less than 72 hours prior, they had recruited Chicken of the Sea to be on the show – for that matter, a two-hour episode directly leading up to the finale.

A number of ideas swirled about with regard to what the marketing challenge would be and how to tie the brand and its products in the show.  For the record, the lawyers and producers were some of the coolest folks.  They had their minds set on some ideas, but fortunately open and respectful that we (all two of us – yours truly and my client – out-numbered 3 to 1) were passionate about the brand and the story it had to tell.

For two years leading up to that fateful call from Celebrity Apprentice, Chicken of the Sea had been engaging consumers in conversations about health, nutrition and convenience through online and offline mediums.  We learned there is a powerful story to tell not just about the brand and its products, but also in how consumers view and use Chicken of the Sea – what it means to them.  We saw an opportunity to replicate that with the likes of Clint Black, Joan “Cluck Cluck Splash” Rivers et al on Celebrity Apprentice.

With agreement from the lawyers and producers, we laid out a challenge for the celebrities to tell the Chicken of the Sea story in the form of a jingle and a 30-second radio spot.  Moreover, it wasn’t as simple as that.  The celebs and their respective teams needed to invest the time in learning about Chicken of the Sea and its loyal consumers.  They weren’t going to be judged solely on how catchy their tunes would be, but more on telling the story about the consumers behind the brand.

What that led to, in addition to the drama and debate of creating a jingle and radio spot, is two hours worth of unscripted conversations about Chicken of the Sea – precisely what we were shooting for and attempting to replicate, and there was hardly any discussion about getting video footage of the products in the celebs’ hands or on a table near where they sat.  Sacrilege to some, but again it was about the conversations.

So when The New York Times published the iTVX data on the most effective product placement in television for 2009, most would think the initial reaction of Chicken of the Sea being at the top was met with excitement.  But it told us much more.  Real conversations are powerful, more powerful than arranging to have your product sit statically in front of a celebrity, and product integration must reflect the character of the brand.  Alongside that is being a champion for your client, its brand and what it represents.

I just wish I were smart enough to wear a better suit on the show, and, for what it’s worth, my mother hasn’t forgiven me for contributing to Clint’s firing.

Driving any highway or back road, you can barely miss a Toyota.  The brand is an automaker’s version of the six degrees of separation.  Wherever you turn, you see one, or you know someone who has one or know someone who knows someone who drives a Toyota.  Quality was the axis of its brand.  I had a Camry a few years ago; loved it and wish I got another after wrapping my front end around the rear of an F-150 (even the best-made car won’t hold up to a monster truck).

Expectations were high when word got out that Toyota had a problem. Surely, a company that built a brand and a massive following of consumers into the world-leading automaker would do the right thing: Aggressively address the issue head-on, right its wrong, profess mea culpa and produce a solution.

And that’s precisely what Toyota did this week.  Problem is, Toyota’s crisis began to unfold last fall, and when the automaker unfurled its media-mix campaign this week, including plopping U.S. honcho Jim Lentz in network studios, critics attacked – and rightly so.

Toyota succumbed to the growing media and governmental pressure too late.  The automaker, and this isn’t backseat driving, knew well enough and long ago it had a problem that would only get worse.  Instead of being proactive, Toyota chose to stick its head in the sand.  That right there can tarnish any brand.

The very premise of issue and crisis management is prevention – not just stopping the headlines or social media storm, but anticipating internal and external threats or vulnerabilities and shoring up those gaps at the operational level.  It’s spending painstaking hours in the C-level suite agonizing over what gives the CEO insomnia and working with the senior management team on systems and protocols, and collaborating with industry, academia, vendors, suppliers and any other party in the supply chain.  It’s putting procedures in place to minimize the likelihood of disruption in business.

The automaker had to have had a crisis plan in someone’s filing cabinet.  Instead, millions of Toyotas are sitting idle in sales lots; even more consumers are now questioning the company’s mettle.

The annual Edelman Trust Barometer shows modest gains among three-quarters of the industries monitored, and findings point to these institutions doing the right thing and a level of increased transparency amidst a perilous global economy.  What’s more interesting, however, is an expectation that governments and companies will revert back to old habits.  That only tells us these gains are fragile and there’s a likelihood for future Barometer reports to highlight declining trust and expectations.

What better time is there to further build relationships and credibility than when trust is climbing?  Smart institutions will invest emotionally and intellectually by working with their stakeholders in identifying what stakes in the ground their trust is rooted in, tap into those beliefs and build upon them.  Doing so, these institutions could emerge from this recession not only stronger, but also with a competitive advantage – stakeholders in their camps.

The report also lays out a suggested path in building trust – a mosaic.  In short, it’s actively involving and engaging a network of stakeholders, including NGOs, to affect change within your organization and industry.  The concept isn’t so new.  Conceptually, it’s much like the coalition building model many of us toy with, yet primarily in issue and crisis management situations.  What the report is suggesting, and it makes perfect sense, is deploying this model as an everyday, long-term business principal, not for short-term objectives and means.

The report also seems to paint a picture of traditional media being left out of the loop in this mosaic.  Traditional media, unsurprisingly, continues to witness declines in trust, giving organizations more reason to question traditional media’s necessity.  Smart traditional media companies, however, would be wise to heed to the report’s call to get closer to stakeholders.  Even smarter ones will make drastic changes in their business model – and that’s not figuring whether a paywall for online content makes sense.  It’s about delivering upon expectations.  Right now, according to the report, that isn’t much.

Next up in the Tiger Woods pandemonium is the privacy debate.  Did a man in the public eye get stripped of his privacy by being forced to reveal his “transgressions?”

Let others take chip shots at that.  Instead, Tiger Woods the brand lost any privacy when he carved an image that personified high family and moral values.  Since his junior golf days, he, his family and his handlers meticulously crafted a brand of integrity, dignity, determination, competitive fire and loyalty.  His charitable endeavors and commercial endorsements further exemplified the Tiger Woods brand.

Successful brands reflect character – who you are and what you stand for, and clarifying that character is paramount.  It’s the centerpiece of an authentic and transparent brand proposition.  The Tiger Woods brand consistently delivered on its expectations on and off the golf course.  The brand experience was highly attractive to be repeated by fans, endorsers, news media and even his competitive foes, all telling of great stories and experiences with anything Tiger Woods.  Like any great brand, it’s more about what people say after you’ve left the room than what you say about yourself, and the Tiger Woods brand was molded perfectly to suit that.

But then the mold began to crack around Thanksgiving. It happens.  No brand will last without error, especially one that is human.  The smart brands, or at least those with smart handlers, realize that and are equipped to address any fissure in the brand – quickly. That’s where the crack in the Tiger Woods brand began to widen.  Rather than address any issues head on – the late, great golf teacher Harvey Penick always extolled “take dead aim” – the Tiger Woods brand went into bunker mode.  Control of the brand was lost – others filled the void while the brand was mum – and it was exacerbated by a refusal to talk with cops on three different occasions and apparent denials about extra-marital affairs.

And then the skeletons started coming out of the closet.  Instead of a New York City nightclub promoter, and we may hear more on that down the road, we’re hearing about hook-ups with a reality TV star and a Las Vegas nightclub marketing manager.

A brand is also your every action and deed, including inaction in a crisis situation.  The Tiger Woods brand ceded control; it can be regained, but it will be the longest tee shot in the man’s career.