integratePR blog

For Domino’s pizza, one video prank in 2009 left people questioning their entire brand. In less than a week, not only did Domino’s issue their formal apology; they created an entirely separate Twitter feed to address the comments. Unfortunately history repeated itself yet again, this time with the third biggest pizza chain taking a hit – one day after they hit 2 million Facebook fans. On Saturday night, @mintymin sent a tweet saying:

Within hours the tweet – which included a picture of the receipt in question- had made its way to thousands of users –even finding its way to Texas! Papa John’s had a quick response time and first reached out to Min before attempting to answer the multiple users who had heard about the incident.

As of Monday, January 9, 2012 Papa John’s sent 40 tweets to individuals who expressed concern about the event.

An article posted earlier today on eMarketer.com asked the question “Do Social Media Postings Always Require a Response?” According to the article, 49.5% of people would be “far less likely to buy anything from a company” that did not answer, but also cited that many times brands “don’t need to respond to every ounce of negative buzz in the social sphere.”

This may be true with the way Papa John’s handled their Facebook posts.

After the initial post, Papa John’s did not respond to any of the resulting 816 comments.

The question is this: Did Papa John’s handle the situation in an appropriate manner? In terms of response time, Papa John’s did fine, addressing the client both publically and privately. The apologies appear genuine and the employee’s termination was of course in order. However, it remains to be seen if the corporation will be forced to withstand any longstanding negativity. Within one week after the incident with Domino’s, public perception of the brand went from positive to negative, according to research company YouGov. With the SuperBowl – one of the five biggest pizza buying days of the year- less than a month away, and last year’s pizza sales projection being over 1 million; it will be interesting to see if this new story will affect how much “dough” the pizza chain will bring in. As with all corporations, it is important to remember that while resolving problems in the short term is necessary, the overall goal is to maintain a positive relationship with the public.

PhoneDog Twitter Lawsuit

The year may be 2012 but there are un-discussed issues from the previous year that we need to set right.  Towards the end of 2011, Noah Kravitz, former employee of PhoneDog, was slammed with a $340,000 lawsuit for stealing their customer list.

While working for the mobile phone site, Kravitz operated under the twitter handle @Phonedog_Noah, gaining 17,000 followers for the brand. Upon his departure from the company in October 2010, PhoneDog allowed Noah to keep the account in exchange for occasional post

After changing the account to @NoahKravitz and tweeting for eight months, PhoneDog sued claiming “the Twitter list was a

customer list,” and they are “seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months” which accounts for the massive total.

As new forms of media emerge, new rules and laws must come about to define terms of intellectual property. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out; it will be one of the first cases that set the standard and guidelines of ownership and “cost of followers” on the Internet. Stay tuned!

Find a Kidney on Facebook

Technological evolution occurs across all industries and in one particular healthcare case in the end of 2011, the medical and social media industries collided.

The first kidney transplant was performed over 60 years ago in 1950, and the procedure has since been perfected. However, the problem of needing a donor makes the process less than ideal. Recipients can wait up to three years for a kidney from the live or dead donor list.

Social media has helped to change the game, most recently for Damon Brown, a father of two in Seattle, Washington. Although Brown admits that as a typically stoic person he was reluctant to put his illness out on his social networks, he was shocked and gratified to find positive response. After creating a Facebook page that gathered the support of 1,400 friends, four passed the initial screening with one of them eventually providing the correct match.

It is always exciting to see an application of social media that helps to change lives. As Facebook grows in size and reach it will be able to continue connecting people in need to those who are willing to donate!

New Social Network

One of the most commonly used phrases in the PR industry is “What will be the ‘new social network’?” and there has been much speculation as to whether it will be G+… or another new player in the race.

Rumors have been circulating that Apple may have something new in the works for this year. In the same vein of the iPod revolutionizing the music industry and the iPhone revolutionizing the telephone, any platform Apple would come out with could absolutely have the potential to turn the social media platform giants on end. With the proliferation of iPods, iPads, and iPhones to the mainstream media, it will be interesting to see if the new platform will seize the attention of the Apple loving public, a problem that G+ has encountered, despite its growing 293 million users.

Last week was an especially comfortable one in the office with the celebration of the official Easter Seals Greater Houston City-Wide Pajama Day. The whole event came to be when client, John Eagle Honda, found out that Easter Seals Greater Houston clients and families were in need of PJ’s this winter and agreed to sponsor the day. Easter Seals Greater Houston provides services to children and adults in the community living with autism, developmental disabilities, physical disabilities and other special needs.

The day was an officially-proclaimed celebration in both Houston and Katy – businesses and schools came together and raised over $2,500 and 200 pairs of pajamas!

Easter Seals Greater Houston CEO, Elise Hough, was thrilled with the results saying “Thanks to all of the generous contributions we received on Pajama Day, we will be able to provide warm, cozy pajamas to children who would otherwise not have anything to sleep in. We would like to thank John Eagle Honda Houston, Blinds.com, SnapStream, and the amazing schools and businesses who have pitched in to make this day such a success. We can’t wait to do it again next year!”

Below are a couple of photos from around the city:

What stories have you found particularly interesting? Do share.

Journalists often focus on situations where companies or organizations unleash a nightmare of bad publicity or consumer dissatisfaction over poorly-considered actions or statements, more commonly known as “PR disasters ”. However, these disasters are truly a minority, and so often, publicists and media relations experts, like Integrate Public Relations, have provided astounding public relations successes to their clients.

A perfect example is the thriving Web TV website: blip.tv.

Blip.tv, founded in 2005, has always focused on the best original series of the web, taking the unprecedented step of equal profit-sharing from ad revenue with the content producers. However, while working out the kinks of their streaming movie player, these glitches caught the attention of Web celebrity Shamus Young, who criticized some of the problems on his blog “Twenty-Sided.” Given the transient nature of public opinion, blip.tv was in a dangerous spot.

Rather than ignore the words of this single blogger, Mike Hudack, CEO of blip.tv, personally wrote a lengthy email to Mr. Young describing the errors and honestly admitting the faults while promising improvement. So genuinely moved by this gesture, Mr. Young posted the correspondence in full and heartily recommended blip.tv to his fans, praising their straightforward public relations, promises to improve and their full-blown honesty. Blip.tv, by a smart and rarely-duplicated public relations move, cemented their consumer loyalty with thousands of Mr. Young’s readers, and came out the “good guys” in a difficult situation—a true online PR success story.

While illustrating the good sense of Mr. Hudack, this also shows the power of good publicity. With smart public relations, any business can take the cards they have been dealt and turn them into a royal flush.