Zynga Tries to Use the Back-door

What many companies fail to understand nowadays is that ANYTHING can affect their reputation, even how they handle redundancies. And this is even truer after the digital revolution, in a world where the word-of-mouth can reach a much wider public in a very short time, thanks to social networks such as Twitter. You know what I'm talking about, right? The Zynga case, of course.

(taken from here)

WHAT HAPPENED

Right on the day of the launch of the iPad Mini (during the launch itself!) Zynga communicated to more than a hundred of its employees that they had two hours to leave the premises, as they were being made redundant. Such a coincidence huh?

And of course someone started tweeting...

The result? Share prices dropped and no one really liked Zynga's behaviour. 

MY OPINION

So you see? Reputation is something so wide that can be influenced by so many factors... a company should really give a tiny little thought about it before doing any action that affects any of its stakeholders. This brings me back to some of the lectures I followed last year, where I was told that PR should influence a company's management, in order to guarantee the sake of its reputation. This has never been so true today. I'm not saying that PRPs should be called for every decision being made, every single detail being fixed; however, asking the opinion of a PRP (in-house) before making such a major move, would have benefitted the company. 

And if it was the PR department that made that decision, in order to try to hide the redundancy news, I think the whole department doesn't really know anything about what's going on nowadays. I mean... Making 100 people redundant during the Apple's launch and getting away with it is not even slightly realistic.

In conclusion, I believe organisations should behave at their best (i.e. as if they were in the spotlight) in all circumstances, most of all when any of their stakeholders are involved, AND that PR considerations should be taken into account before taking any major decisions. Also, something to keep in mind is that employees, future employees, and ex employees are powerful stakeholders of a company that have opinions, friends, and social media profiles - it's not all about the media and journalists.

I'd really love to hear your thoughts about this case and any reflections you have to offer about it.

Waterstones and The Pleasure of a Bookshop

I know this is not PR - it's advertising - BUT given that I love books very much and still cannot deny the pleasure of browsing a bookshop and secretly smelling the new books (I can be a weirdo, yes), I want to dedicate a little post to Waterstones' new campaign. I mean... it's everywhere and every time I read one of their ads I cannot help but smile and nod. Also, advertising has to focus on key messages as much as PR, so we can learn something valuable about campaign messages and single minded propositions, too.

THE CAMPAIGN

Taken from here

The campaign, by Legas Delaney has one clear message: you cannot renounce to the pleasure of browsing a bookshop and the tactile qualities of physical books.

The tag lines are spread across London and include "Books you can't put down are much easier to find when you can actually pick them up". I find most of them quite witty. Some focus on mocking online book shopping - like this one: "A browser. Much better to be one than to use one." It is obvious that the campaign aims to contrast online shopping, which caused a decrease of sells for bookstores.

MY OPINION

I think it was clear since the introduction but... I love this campaign! The key message adds brand value and makes a clear statement. The idea is simple, nothing new. However, the execution is great. I think the tag lines have a strong impact on readers and believe that this is exactly the right message Waterstones should be sending out. Why? Because according to Mintel, one third of readers still prefer browsing the physical store. Legas Delaney definitely did their research before doing their brainstorming. Well done. 

What do you think about this campaign? Do you still buy physical books from the bookshop?

A Really Disguised Campaign

Have you spotted anything unusual around London last month? I wish I wasn't on holiday, because I've missed it! But I'll get over it by writing about it. It seems like a good way to let it go...

THE CAMPAIGN

In September 2012, lifestyle TV channel Really created a camouflage campaign to launch Covert Affairs, a new drama TV series. What did they do? They've invaded London with secret spies! 

(Images taken from here)

Teaming up with artist Carolyn Roper, Really used urban camouflage to promote the new series. On 16th September, a number of spies hid around London, blending with background elements and shocking passers-by only when moving. The stunt evoked the TV series' CIA drama theme. The 'special agents' hid all over London in iconic locations such as a London red bus in West London, a black taxi outside the Royal Albert Hall, and a stall in Portobello Road. 

MY OPINION

I simply love this series of stunts! I believe this was a very creative and evocative idea to symbolise the TV series' theme. A stunt needs to shock, it needs to create that buzz. I believe this is definitely an example of clever PR. It captured the attention of the people passing by and generated good media coverage. Moreover, it makes a statement about Really - it marks the TV channel's image as innovative and intriguing, with an artistic flavour.

However, I might be biased because this campaign involves urban art, which I love.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the stunts!

Facebook's Bad PR

Let's talk about some bad PR, for a change.

In the last few days some rumors about Facebook private messages being published on users' timelines were spread online. 

Users raised concerns to Facebook's staff about this phenomenon; however Facebook denied repeatedly.

They declared:

“A small number of users raised concerns after what they mistakenly believed to be private messages appeared on their Timeline. Our engineers investigated these reports and found that the messages were older wall posts that had always been visible on the users' profile pages” (Taken from here).

As a Facebook user, I can say with no doubt that that some of my private messages were published as posts at the beginning of my timeline. These were private messages from a year and a few months ago - I deleted them promptly, of course.

Why is this bad PR?

I think that denying everything was a great mistake. Not only because I am sure that the rumors were true, but also because it is never good to minimise an issue that several users reported. All the users who complained have a network of friendships on Facebook (and offline), so the news spread quickly. I saw various statuses changing into warning messages for other users to read. I couldn't really give an estimate, but I believe quite a lot of Facebook users know about the leak.This is demonstrated by the fact that some users cancelled their accounts and Facebook's share price fell 9.1 per cent. As I previously highlighted here on the blog, denial is never a good PR technique in the age of social media.

What do you think? Is this is an example of bad PR? Why?