Oy Vey, they did it again.
We hope corporations are paying attention to the mistakes made when Social Media outreach folks either are oblivious as to how communication should be managed or don't take the time to learn about the consumers they are trying to woo. These two recent gaffes left us shaking our collective head.
Aviva received this email from Phil from Weber Shandwick,
Hi Aviva,
I thought you might be interested in these recipes to add a little variety to your Easter morning brunch from Eggland’s Best. After the egg hunts and visits from the Easter Bunny are over, gather the family around the table and enjoy these tasty meals. Also remember, EB feeds their hens all-natural, vegetarian ingredients, so they are healthier than ordinary eggs.
There are also other great brunch ideas available at http://www.egglandsbest.com/recipes/recipelist.asp?catno=1&pg=recipe.
Hope you enjoy these recipes. Feel free to share them with your readers if you like.
Happy Easter!
Phil
Well Phil - Thanks for the links and the two recipes you included in your email. Believe me, having Easter morning brunch at all would definitely "add a little variety" to our family's weekend plans. You see Phil, if you had bothered to read anything on my blog or website you would have noticed references to the fact that I am Jewish. Phil, if you didn't get the memo, Jews don't observe Easter. We observe Passover.
Phil, dawg, don't be too hard on yourself. Maybe you just need a better office calender. But you are in fine company. We recently learned of an event scheduled by Disney in April. Devra has penned a brief open letter:
Dear Disney PR Team,
While it is lovely for you to plan an event for mommy bloggers, your event is taking place April 18-20th during Passover.
Human Resources called, they want their diversity training back.
Wishing you well,
Devra
Weber Shandwick and Disney why don't you read this, this and this. Oh and bookmark this. We're all about embracing imperfection at Parentopia. Fully understand oversights occur, we know mistakes get made, despite the best of intentions. Just learn from them, okay?
Labels: Disney, Mommy Bloggers, Public Relations, Social Media Mistakes, Weber Shandwick
posted by Devra and Aviva @ 10:49 PM
34 Comments:
You know?
Lots of this stuff could be avoided if people used common sense and took time to build a genuine relationship with the "targets" and thought for a second about what they are doing.
There are many people doing it right and I hope they're not lost in this. But, I'm glad to see people trying to learn from it.
Another solution would be to invite me to Disney. I can be packed in just a minute.
I am enjoying this post and your use of the word "dawg." Dawg is the new dude.
Oh boy, that doesn't exactly reflect well on us PR people, does it? ;-)
(Thanks for linking to me, by the way!) It's very true that PRs need to do a lot of research on the people they're trying to woo, but I think that it goes even farther than that.
It can't just be about reading the last couple posts or skimming the About page. It's up to us, as BusyMom said, to establish relationships, and more importantly to know and trust the people we're working with (on both ends).
You should send Weber-Shandwick some hamantaschen to wish them a Happy Purim with a note that says: "Sorry we thought you said Esther, not Easter!"
PS - Happy Purim!
Melanie - Brilliant idea! If I hadn't already made over 200 hamantaschen for our religious school last week, I'd do it. But frankly, I'm hamantaschened out!
Yeah, it's amazing how a lot of these messes could be avoided simply by getting to know the people you're pitching to.
For example, if they knew me, they'd know I'd be happy to be invited to Disney over Passover to avoid having to go to my husband's family gathering! :)
Seriously, we just need to start our own consulting firm.
Aren't these folks marketing professionals??
Busymom, Yes, you are absolutely correct, it just takes some time and attention to detail. Oh and courtesy. Sadly these days many companies are just bereft of all of those traits. We need to bring em back to reality and maybe we could help instil them once again by modeling what we want and by reminding them of what we need and when they fall short of expectations, we help them to learn from their mistakes.
Oh hey, that kind of sounds like parenting, doesn't it? ;)
Super Jive, What up, dawg? Yes it's the new "dude" and maybe I'm also channeling Randy Jackson just a bit too much these days.
Melanie S, I totally agree with you. It is a relationship built on trust. They do their part, we do ours and everyone is happy. But when one part doesn't pony up, then problems ensue as we've seen here. I am happy to report Weber-Shandwick has apologized to us and we have accepted their apology. We will be updating our blog shortly.
Melanie N,
OMG I love your response! Damn woman, I wish I had thought of it, as it is total perfection. And if you are at all familiar with Aviva and me, we don't expect or demand perfection, but in this case, we gotta make an exception! You rocked the comment section with that one!
Christina,
You are welcome to join us at our seder for Passover. It may be just what you are avoiding at your husband's family, but it would be different set of people so maybe it wouldn't be as annoying? ; )
Mamma,
With all of the unsolicited pitching we receive, I feel like the PR/Marketing folks are asking me to work for them free of charge and it's truly insulting to us considering we are, um, professionals too. If Aviva and I emailed these PR firms and said "Hey, we have a book, would you mind telling everyone you know about it?", you bet your sweet ass they would want to be paid for their services and wouldn't be doing it out of a labor of love for us.
So yeah, if you want to create a firm that doesn't pull that crap, we got your back!
love this post Devra!
just another example of how far we still have to go by way of diversity training in these parts...
Justice Fergie,
Yes, it is a huge frustration that there is incredible corporate lip service paid to "diversity awareness" yet when the lips are moving, the awareness isn't always coming out of em!
Thanks for linking to my Camp Baby post. If you don't mind I am going to use your two examples in the Improve this Pitch panel at BlogHer. As others have said, we develop relationships over time, not overnight, and that includes reading the blogs. Doesn't mean every post every day, but it DOES mean a quick check of what's going on with a blogger before you hit send on an email.
A couple thoughts - first, I wrote about the J&J issue, and the problem with firms recently here: http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/2008/03/train-or-perish.html
And, it's not like Devra and Aviva are hard to recognize as Hebrew names!
Actually, I have a bunch of posts on what's wrong in the PR industry, and what needs to be changed. But the simple thing is just to read the blog, and start building relationships. And, even if the bloggers do well with one pitch, it does not give us PR people carte blanche to go willy nilly.
The pitch would have worked if he recommended using the eggs for the Seder plate, though. (Speaking as the poor guy that has to run the Seder, and then is the youngest and has to read the Four Questions ... still at 36).
Amen! (No pun intended.)
My favorite pitch ever was for the book by an evangelical preacher about how to talk to your kids about Jesus...only days after I'd done a big old Jewy post about some holiday or another.
Oy.
I feel very discouraged reading your blog postings. As someone who has dedicated their professional career trying to get companies to appreciate the influence moms have over purchasing power in the US and educate them on the importance of paying attention to the moms as consumers and influencers, this public spanking is the exact thing that makes companies apprehensive to deal with us. So many of the comments speak to what I try to teach them, relationships need to be meaningful, sincere and honest. Content needs to be relevant and valuable. But when companies try to reach out to us in the most meaningful way they currently know how, I think there is a more productive way to meet in the middle than publicly criticizing their efforts. If our children made a mistake, we wouldn't humilate them to teach them a lesson. I was invited to the mom blogger event and although I'm not Jewish my family has a religous holiday as well. I had to make a choice but I didn't choose to critize them for scheduling an event on during my children's Confirmation.
Maria- Hi, Erin here-we met at the meet up you coordinated with Disney and Mombloggers for Halloween. I appreciate what you've been trying to do, hooking up the mom influence with the corporations, but I think you're missing the point.
They are not children and they don't seem to care about their customers.
As someone who was confirmed in the catholic church that date is NOT a holiday. Passover is very important in the Jewish faith and their lack of even acknowledging that, assuming Devra and Aviva were christian or otherwise, is offensive. Period.
I hope you continue to attempt to connect mothers and women with the companies who use their services or products, but we very aware we have voices and feel it is our DUTY to use them when a multi billion dollar company drops the ball.
I KNOW you know I wrote favorably about the last Disney meetup, so you can't claim we aren't fair.
Speaking of which-why wasn't I invited?
;)
I'm with Queen of Spain. A personal religious commitment is different )and much trickier to schedule around) than a major religious holiday appears on the majority of calendars in the US.
I have to say I felt bad for the J&J people with some of the very public berating around Camp Baby (an event I'm attending, BTW), but I'm impressed by the public apologies that Lori made. I look forward to meeting her and I believe she will really want to work with us "campers" to prevent that kind of fallout in the future.
I'm not going to burn the Disney University "Ducktorate" degree that hangs in my office, but I am disappointed in the timing of the event. (I wasn't invited, BTW.)
As the Disney folk say, "That's bad show."
Sorry to get off topic here while I'm enjoying reading about the issue at head, but I couldn't resist snorting at this:
"Also remember, EB feeds their hens all-natural, vegetarian ingredients, so they are healthier than ordinary eggs."
I'd hope mommy consumers are also smart enough to realize that eating a vegetarian egg doesn't amount to a hill of beans and it doesn't make your egg miraculously vegetarian.
And why would an egg be healthier because the hen ate a vegetarian egg? Is a big ol' salad a natural diet for hen? I don't 'stink' so...
Haha... I should learn to proof read better before hitting submit. That should have said:
because the hen ate a vegetarian diet.
Cannibalistic chickens are an entirely different topic. LOL
color me naive - like the easter eggs i'm dyeing today - but in my neck of the woods - passover falls on the school calendar's spring break - a good time to take the kids to disney. maybe that's why the scheduling gaff?
It seems like the PR powers that be are so excited about reaching the mommy blogger target audience that they are forgetting to use good, old fashioned common sense.
I get a lot of pitches lately under the guise of "Hey I loved that (insert title of most recent post) and I can really relate. Yeah right.
I am sure the Disney thing was just an error on their part, but they need to start consulting their calendars more closely.
Maria.
I am a big fan of what you are doing, connecting Mommy Bloggers to big corporations. But you completely missed the point. I guess the only way I can put it... obviously, you are not Jewish...
It would be like having the event on Christmas or Easter - your major holiday. Wouldn't you find it odd?
For anyone that is Jewish, having a major event (which many mommy bloggers were invited to but had to turn down) is really INSENSITIVE.
Disney, you should do better than this! Get your PR Firm to START APPOLOGIZING in a big way.
Okay, a fun mea culpa story about me and scheduling an event for a client.
Yom Kippur came so early (and I was scheduling so far in advance), that I scheduled an event on Yom Kippur.
About a month prior to the event, I looked my calendar and realized what I had done, and we canceled and moved the event (and I took the blame - which people laughed at, because I told them of my years at Hebrew school and my minor in Judaic Studies, and how I was thinking of becoming a rabbi).
It happens, but it's no excuse.
As for the only one religion in a pitch, that's just ethnocentric. Passover and Easter always align (cough, Last Supper, cough). And, it would have been easy enough to talk about Kosher for Passover egg recipes (like who doesn't end up eating Fried Matzo for half the holiday).
And, as for Maria's complaint that this is mean - well, are firms and/or corporations learning yet? Treating them with kid gloves hasn't helped, and fear of bad publicity is a great motivator. I know, I'm in PR, and clients want to avoid the bad press - so will learn after they get bit in the tuchus.
I think that one of the Disney hotels is Kosher for Passover. Or it used to be, in the past.
I do know that there are Kosher for Passover holiday trips, because the Jewish schools do schedule spring break to coincide with the holiday.
Maria,
Aviva and I don't believe in humiliation either and have no intention to humiliate Disney. This is business, it's not personal. We are bringing a problem to light which,in this instance involves Disney, but this problem is systemic-not unique to Disney-and that is our point.
Organizations, companies, PR/Marketing folks must be aware of how they market their events and checking calendars is a HUGE part of the process. Knowing your audience/consumer is another part of that process. I have planned many events myself, so I know of what I speak.
If this were the only instance of this kind of mistake being made, then of course contacting the company directly and dealing with it is appropriate, but this is a current issue across the blogosphere. We are using Disney as an example, not personally going after them with the wish to humiliate anyone.
In this particular situation, yes, it deals with members of the Jewish community, but there are plenty of other situations, just like this one, where similar mistakes are being repeated all the time. On any given day they involve different companies, different individuals and different groups.
We are merely bringing this issue to the forefront and asking companies to be aware that when a mistake is made, best to apologize, reschedule the event if possible, and everyone moves forward with a new and improved understanding of how to use blog-based marketing while being sensitive and empathetic to the bloggers to which one is marketing/targeting.
We've all been there,made an unintentional mistake, despite the best of intentions. In the end it is our actions people can read, not our intentions. When action and intention have crossed wires, and damage occurs, repairs should be made.
And like Susan Getgood stated on her blog, it's about what happens next when a mistake is made that really matters and leaves a lasting impression.
I'm not going to stop taking my kids to Disney because of this snafu. In fact, we should all visit Disney, hop on the ride "It's a small world" and be reminded of the wonderfully diverse world in which we live- on the blogosphere and beyond. Or as Buzz Lightyear says, "To infinity and beyond!" : )
From the Holy Book, Cluetrain 1:86
"When we're not busy being your "target market," many of us are your people. We'd rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing's job."
You can't speak "to" the Market anymore. You have to speak with the Market.
Ahhh, *these* were the comments of which you spoke. Riveting, indeed. So nice to meet you Friday night, Devra! Hope to meet you one day soon, Aviva. Now to crack open your book... ;) Jess
We are both Catholics and received a pitch for Passover recipes... I think some people are completely oblivious!
On a side note, I loved meeting the two of you!
I know, I know, I am a late commenter. I just had to say that I 'heart' cultural sensitivity.
To put a period at the end of this sentence. Maria Bailey called me later that month.
Ultimately I came away from our conversation with the opinion that what she told the New York Times in 2001 must be true. Even now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/business/the-right-thing-when-the-truth-takes-a-stretching-class.html?scp=2&sq=maria+bailey&st=nyt
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