KMHagler

Today was the last day of my internship at the American Red Cross, Lee County Chapter.  I have been interning there since May and have really enjoyed my time there.  I did this internship as a course requirement through the communication department.  I learned many tasks which will be beneficial when I go into the workplace that I never would have been able to learn in a class room. 

We hosted the “Art of Giving” Art Auction in June.  This was a big success, but a lot of work went into pulling it off.  I always thought event planning would be fun, but never realized how much goes into it.  You must be very detail oriented and organized.  You must also be a flexible person and realize things are just going to go wrong.  It is important to have dependable workers under you who you know you can trust to carry out the tasks.  This is what I learned about event planning.

I also learned about the importance of community relations.  As a service organization, it is the roll of the Red Cross to serve their community, but I previously didn’t realize to what extent.  The Red Cross has many programs, such as project share, which helps low-income people on disability with their utilities.  We answer countless phone calls a day asking for help and set up appointments where they can come appeal for funding.  This is a great program, but the funds run out quickly.  We often have to send people for help at the Salvation Army or the United Way.  We work closely with them to try to help as many people as possible. 

The Lee County Red Cross also does a great deal of advertising and fundraising, which was fun to be a part of.  We we able to raise a lot of money this summer through donations and special events. 

I was also able to help in a program called Ready Lee County, which encourages all residents to be prepared in case a natural disaster comes this way, considering it is hurricane season again.  We send out press releases, newsletters, do PSAs on the radio, attend meetings and get the message out any way we can. 

These are some of the tasks I participated in during my internship at the Red Cross.  I feel as if I am far more prepared for a job now than I was prior to this work experience and think each department should require internships as part of the curriculum.

Mercy Hospital in Detroit was facing a difficult situation in the mid-1990s as they were an inner-city hospital that served many low-income patients and 80 percent of its total admissions relied heavily on Medicaid and Medicare.  After the Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act passed, the reimbursements of Medicaid and Medicare were greatly reduced.  This made it hard for the hospital to stay afloat.

The hospital was incurring losses of over $1.5 million a month and knew they were going to have to close.  This put the hospital’s parent company, Mercy Health Services, in a bind because they were opening a similar sized hospital outside of the inner-city in a suburban, predominately white community.  The community the hospital was moving out of could have taken this a an act of racism and could feel as if they were being abandoned by the hospital.  This hospital not only provided medical care to the community, but employment.

MHS did a great deal of research before making a move.  They established that the public opinion of the hospital was a positive one so they didn’t have to repair, but maintain, a positive image.

They decided instead of selling the building they were vacating, they would donate the building to the community to “enhance neighborhood revitalization.”  They also gave $2 million specified for a primary care clinic to be use for patients who are uninsured.

Because of their care for the community, the hospital was able to open its doors in the new suburban community without upsetting the inner-city residents.  This is a good example of community relations and should be used as a case study as to how to treat your community.

Fleishman-Hillard is representing Castleberry Foods, a part of Bumble Bee Foods, from San Diego and New York to manage a crisis occuring in the Augusta, GA-based company.  At least four people have fallen seriously ill from botulism proven to be found in the canned foods. 

Castleberry Foods has done a complete recall from stores and urges consumers to throw away the canned food they have now.  It is a matter of public safety and cannot be ignored.  The company has recalled over 80 types of canned meat, as well as four types of dog food. 

This is a similar situation as the poisoned dog food found last Spring.  If the problem is ignored, sicknesses can continue to spread.  Even if there is little chance of someone becoming sick because of the product, we have learned from case studies that this will not stop many people from reporting illnesses in hopes of receiving attention, and ulimately a pay-out, although it’s illegal to report false information.

F-H was timely with their recall, which will likely put the company in a good light eventhough their products were contaminated, simply because it shows they care about their customers.  They are willing to incur the costs of the recall without further thought in order to protect their public.  This is good for the image of F-H and their crisis management, as well as for Castleberry Foods.

At least for me, the easier the website is to read, the more likely I am to stay and search around the site.  I always assumed this was true, but as I read various websites searching for PR news to blog about, I have found the websites I tend to use have simpler graphics, layouts, and links. 

For example, I realize many of my sources are from PRWeek.com.  As I search around other sites and try to expand my source list, I always seem to be back at PRWeek.  It is a very simple website with easy-to-use links and easy to read articles. 

Odwyerpr.com is the first PR website I read on a regular basis, but find it sometimes hard to read.  With its numerous ads running up and down the side of the site, it is hard to concentrate on the text.  The ads are also have moving graphics making the page too busy for my eyes.  I am less likely to stay and read articles on this site because of that reason. 

PRnewswire.com is better to me because it has clear links and is separated by industry, subject, country, among other divisions, but still has little room for text without having to scroll.  The ads should be smaller to leave room for the purpose of the site, its news. 

My favorite news site is the drudgereport.com, not necessarily because I agree with how they report their news, but it is very easy to skim and read what you want.  It also has links to most other large news sources, including online, network and radio news.  It has much fewer ads and really just displays the news in an easy-to-read format. 

I think this is important when trying to get a message across.  If you have a site that is busy and has too much to look at, chances are the eye will skip past that and the message will lose the attention of the reader. 

The next 18 months is an important time for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society as they try to reach their goal of raising $1 billion. The organization has already rasised over $800,000 for blood cancer research.

Dan Klores Communication, DKC, will spend the next year and a half developing and implementing a national campaign to raise public awareness through celebrating the 20th anniversary of Team in Training. TNT is a program where professional trainers coach people at all levels to compete in marathons, half-marathons, triathlons and 100-mile bike races.

I competed in the Mercedes Marathon in Birmingham in February of 2005. I completed the half-marathon and raised over $1,500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  It was a great program.  You choose someone to race for and on our team there was a 74-year-old Leukemia survivor that was training for the race with us!  It was so much easier to go through the training and fundraising knowing he was doing the same thing, but with 55 years and cancer under his belt.  It was an inspiration to all of us and our team as a whole decided to race in honor of him. 

The program has done a great deal to further the research for a cure for this deadly disease.  The Team in Training program has helped to make the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society the third largest voluntary health agency in the country, according to PRWeek.com.  I am certain they will reach their goal of $1 billion and hope for success in their campaign as well as their finding a cure. 

“Good is the new black,” said Carol Cone, founder of Cone. It is now “in” to give back to the community. According to a Cause Evolution Survey done by Cone, there is a growing interest in cause-related corporate efforts. Corporations had given as an example of good will and charitability, but now it is becoming a vital part of marketing. “It’s a staple in your wardrobe,” Cone said. “It’s not going to go away.”

Consumers don’t just look at the product or prices any more when deciding what to buy, they are now looking at the good-will efforts of the companies they are supporting. More than 80 percent said they think it is the responsibility of organizations to give back to their communities. More than 90 percent of people surveyed said that they have a “more positive image of a company that supports a cause.”

An image is easy to change, but a reputation is much harder to alter. Organization can establish a good reputation by maintaining a positive image. Day-to-day ethics and honest practices are a way to maintain a good image. The survey showed 85 percent of people said they would leave a company they supported if they found there were problems with business practices.

The percentages of support toward this philanthropic trend is overwhelming. Ninety percent of employees who were familiar with their organization’s benevolent practices said they were loyal and pleased with their company and it actually made them work harder in hopes to be a part of the cause programs.

The key is not to just give money back or just take part in it, but to become what is known as a fabric of the community. It isn’t just about financial support, but about rolling up your sleeves and actively trying to make a difference. This will carry a company often times further than will extensive marketing and publicity. So give back!

The iPhone craze was in full swing the day the phones were released. People had ordered them months in advance and Apple fans everywhere had been waiting for that day. In the first three days 700,000 phones were sold. AT&T, the only carrier of the iPhone, had implemented a full crisis plan before the release of the phone. This was very helpful when trouble arose.

New iPhone owners were having trouble activating their new and were complaining about the problem with the phone. AT&T put their plan into action and addressed the problem immediately. Tim Klein, VP of public relations for AT&T, said that although the problem only affected a small number of iPhone owners, the problem was still taken seriously and resolved quickly. He said they worked long hours and were able to fix the problem in the first 24 hours.

Having a crisis plan ahead of time is very beneficial during situations such as this. It makes the process of getting back to normalcy a lot simpler. A well developed crisis plan is a necessity. One thing we learn over and over in class is that if something can go wrong, chances are it will. Case studies prove that organizations who have a crisis plan resolve problems quicker and tend to lose less money and functioning time during a crisis.

AT&T handled the situation well and now have more happy iPhone owners, bringing them more business. All organizations should have a well-developed plan to prepare for a crisis.

According to PRWeek.com, an Arab-based cable channel came to the U.S. last year in hopes of success. Many thought it was going to be a break through in television. They thought it would attract people who were tired at looking at the same kind of news from the same kind of reporters. These people thought it would be a milestone in TV history. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. As it turned out, no cable network would play their news stories. This obviously was a problem and the only way the stories were released was through YouTube!

I think this blunder shows a lack of pre-testing before they launched the cable channel. There is a negative connotation with the channel because lack of discrepancy with killings and events of that sort. Even if people aren’t familiar with the news stories it has covered or what the network is about, it has a negative suggestive meaning.

If the station would have pre-tested, they possibly could have avoided this calamity. Their publics included U.S. cable networks, viewers and advertisers. They should have surveyed these audiences with questionnaires to determine existing beliefs and attitudes towards the channel, as well as the Arab population in general. AJE researchers could have polled the viewers as to which type of news channels they tend to watch and why. This would give them an idea of what they need to do to attract viewers. Advertisers will not pay for time if the network is unpopular. The lack of pretesting showed to be a big mistake made by AJE. Unfortunately, this news coverage can still only be seen on YouTube.

Pre-testing is a vital part of a successful campaign and should be administered in order to learn one’s publics and know how to appeal to them.

“You can’t go wrong with telling the truth, ” said Jeffery Graubard, founder of the Graubard Group. This is an important thing to remember when practicing good PR.

The Tour de France, post-Lance Armstrong, has struggled with low ratings and has drawn much less attention. It isn’t only because of Armstrong retiring, but much because of the bad reputation they have accrued in the past year.

Cycling, as well as baseball and football, has gotten a bad reputation because of the use of illegal substances, known as performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs, athletes are often accused of using. Often times organizations tend to ignore allegations instead of admitting to them and assuring their audiences there is something being done about it.

We have learned from various case studies that it is always better to be straight forward with your audiences.

Tylenol is the case I’m guessing most of us think of in regards to keeping your audience informed during a time of crisis. Although they initially took a financial blow recalling the tampered medicine bottles, they took complete responsibility and told their audiences the actions they were taking to protect them. Obviously this proved the company cared more about their audiences than their finances. This is an important case to live by when practicing PR.

Versus, the TV company airing the race, has not ignored the allegations and has started a campaign, taking out ads in USA Today that referred to an “anti-doping” pledge the athletes are required to sign. This shows concerned fans that the issue is not being ignored and the organization will continue to work at controlling the problem of the use of PEDs and the reputation of the sport as a whole.

According to PRWeek.com, Mitchell Markel, former VP of Penn, Schoen & Berland, a polling firm, has filed a lawsuit against the firm for infringing on his privacy through reading e-mails.  Markel claims these were not just e-mails through his account with PSB, but that they were also monitoring his personal Yahoo account and his account at his new firm, Global Insights & Strategies.  PSB was allegedly sending blind copies of all his e-mails to a fake e-mail account registered in Markel’s name.

 Associates at PSB deny these claims, and say they can monitor his PSB account and feel his is only filing a countersuit to get back at them as they had filed a lawsuit against him and other former associates for soliciting clients from PSB.  Since, a restraining order has been put on former PSB employees from soliciting futher clients from the firm. 

 Regardless of who is innocent or guilty, it reinforces the negative connotation of agencies and practitioners.  Many find it hard to trust people in this line of work. In fact, there was a study done that reaffirms the old stigma that used-car salesmen and politicians are the least trusted professionals and next to them on the list were PR and Marketing practitioners.  Our field has a bad reputation and one would think working in that field and taking pride in what you do and your name would encourage people to be truthful and trustworthy, but over and over cases arise where not only are practitioners being unethical in practice with clients, but with co-workers who should all be working together to bring positive recognition to their firms or at least their field of work, not just their name. 

 I have written before of the importance in ethics in an organization and how ethics can define the success of a company.  If people within an organization cannot trust each other, it is apparent to the client who will not be likely to trust practitioners whose primary goals are self recognition and monetary gain.  Practitioners should take pride in their expertise and talents and implement ethics into their practicing in hopes to better the reputation of the field.