Is JC Penny Promoting Bullying? No. Just No.

This isn't a serious question, is it? God, I really hope that people aren't actually that upset about this.

On CNN this morning, they ran a segment on JC Penny's newest back to school television advertisement. The story was about how many were upset with the recent spot as it seemed to promote bullying in schools, which has become a seriously hot button topic lately, particularly in the wake of the recent video capturing three 15 year old students beating a 13 year old student on the bus.

Take a look at the new commercial:

People's outcry stems from the :14 second mark in the video. The advertisement's suggestion is simple: wearing the wrong clothing could "make or break" your first day at school. By the looks of the lonely boy at the table, his first day broke in a big way.

I am a little confused though. Why is this all of a sudden considered bullying? TV advertisements have been telling us for decades that if we aren't wearing the right shirt, lipstick, deodorant, shoes, jewelry, etc., that we aren't superior, the fastest, the smartest, the sexiest, the absolute best in the world. That is how these companies sell their product. They pinpoint a certain "critical" characteristic that society deems so necessary and brand their product as the gateway to whatever pinnacle we are trying so desperately to achieve.

If I don't drink Gatorade, I'll fail to succeed in sports. If I don't wash my body with Axe, girls won't want to be sexual with me. If I don't buy a huge diamond and propose in a completely outlandish way, then my girlfriend won't marry me.

This is not a new trend, everyone. Commercials have long tried to convey to us how we can better ourselves with whatever product they push. The reason that you buy Gillette at the store instead of the generic shaving cream is because deep down you truly think that Kate Upton will want to sleep with you if you are grooming the correct way.

So JC Penny says that the outfit that a kid wears on the first day could make or break the year. Exaggeration? Of course it is. But so are all of the other examples above as well. Nobody ever remembers what anyone wore for the first day of school. And even in grade school and middle school, when first-impressions are so critical with judgmental peers, it doesn't alter your entire year.

At no point in this video is there even a scene of anything remotely close to bullying. That two second clip of the kid at the lunch table alone got everyone so bent out of shape--nobody says "Oh, man, what a loser. Look at what he is wearing!" or anything remotely close. The scene passes so quickly that if anyone were paying half attention, they wouldn't have even noticed.

Yet, somehow this ended up as a serious segment on CNN this morning. "Is JC Penny promoting bullying with their new advertisements," they asked. No, CNN and reactionaries, they are not. Put down your pitchforks and open your eyes. Because if this is the type of advertisement exposure that gets you worried about how your kids will turn out, you clearly aren't paying close enough attention to the world around you.

Tim Armstrong Creates Headaches for His PR Team

Everyone has had moments where their tempers get the best of them. When I was in high school, I screamed a few expletives at a referee in my basketball game after he repeatedly missed calls. As quick as the swears were out of my mouth was as fast as I had received two technical fouls, an ejection from the game, and one extraordinarily disappointed mother on the ride home from the game.

But one good thing about my incident is that it took place in a half-full gym and the ramifications certainly didn't extend beyond my driving privileges for the next week (although, when you are 16, this is the world to you). Tim Armstrong is the CEO of AOL and is known for his brash persona. In charge of the once leader in the internet experience, AOL has had a hard time reinventing itself as it fell further and further behind competitors.

Naturally, this whole situation has caused stress throughout the company for the better part of a few years. Earlier this week, Tim Armstrong held a company call to announce the reduction of AOL's hyperlocal news websites, Patch, from 900 to 600 total. This, obviously, meant that there would be staff reductions.

While Armstrong was delivering his presentation, a member of the creative team was taking pictures of the presentation. Armstrong was not entirely pleased with this action and lost his cool. He didn't just have a few choice words for the man like I did the referee; no, he fired him on the spot. Told him that he could get up, leave the meeting, and not return the next day to AOL.

Naturally, this leaked to the press because when you are a high profile executive at a name-brand company and you act like a child in front of 1,000 employees, news will get out of it. Armstrong isn't exactly beloved at AOL and this didn't do anything to help his reputation. The press picked up on the story immediately and stories were being posted around all the major news and tech outlets.

Armstrong, the head of the company and main public-facing employee, couldn't control his temper and acted like a child. It is as simple as that.

Naturally, this story combined with the Patch reductions dominated the news cycle for the full 24 hours as the AOL PR team did the best they could at picking up the pieces. In many crisis situations, there is an opportunity to turn the issue around and capitalize off of it, if the company handles it correctly. However, in this instance, there wasn't exactly a lot that AOL's team could do.

Armstrong ultimately apologized to the employee, but that is an expectation at that point. There was no way that the director would come back to AOL at that point, even after the apology. There is no way for Armstrong or AOL to undergo proactive actions that demonstrate company reform or a commitment to righting the wrong. All they could do was field calls from reporters and provide "no comments."

The danger of a CEO like Armstrong is that they're a ticking time bomb. PR teams shouldn't have to have a crisis response plan to "Your CEO lost his cool in front of 1,000 employees during a recorded meeting and unjustifiably fired the creative director, so now what?" No amount of media training and coaching of an executive can change the outcome of a situation like that.

No matter how heartfelt the apology, no matter strongly committed Armstrong is to the regretful rhetoric, and certainly no matter how many phone calls from reporters the PR team takes will allow Armstrong and AOL to recover from this particular black eye. For the next couple of weeks, maybe even months, AOL will be connected with this event.

There are times where good PR and crisis management skills come in handy. This is not one of those times. Sometimes the instance is small, but the consequences are severe and essentially irrevocable.

Yes, Google Killed PR...If Agencies Only Focused on Press Releases

For those of you who keep tabs on the world of public relations, there was a particular article that was floating around from agency to agency. It provided quite a bit of talk around the water cooler. Although it spread spread like a wild fire, it certainly didn't elicit the feelings of angst and worry as one would expect. In fact, the general consensus was bewilderment and general amusement.

Tom Foremski is a contributor to the technology website, ZDnet, and a notorious PR-loather. On Thursday of last week, he posted an article titled, "Did Google just kill PR agencies?" following Google's changes to their page ranking in their search function. In an effort to deter people from trying to chat Google's search algorithm's by pumping their press releases full of SEO language, Google announced that it would actually be purposely lowering these search results to punish those offenders. This should come as no surprise as Google's search engine algorithm is the foundation of the company and they certainly don't want people trying to cheat the system.

Foremski, however, suggests that with these rule changes, Google is turning PR agencies obsolete. Essentially, he bundles all of PR into the development of press releases and warns PR professionals that we are all doomed because Google will now start to punish companies that try to maximize their coverage through as many links and press release repostings that they can muster.

Sigh. I don't even know where to begin with this.

Let's just start with the obvious fact that when we develop press releases, most agencies are not just looking for repostings. On the contrary, while marketing folks and product managers may consider a reposting a press success, many PR professionals only aim for original coverage. This frequently means sending out the release (or more commonly a pitch on the story), arranging a briefing for the vendor and the journalist, and providing the rest of the information over email for a story that the journalist crafts himself (by the way, PR people, if you want a good laugh, please check out Foremski's article from 2006 on what he would like PR professionals to send to him to help write his story. You'll get a kick out of it).

So, no, Tom, if the release I write doesn't end up on 30 press release aggregator websites anymore, I won't really lose any sleep over it. Nor will my clients. Because the one article that I land in an InformationWeek or your own ZDNet will draw more impressions that those release websites would in ten years. For PR pros who hold themselves to a high standard, a straight cut and paste of a release isn't a victory and these rule changes will only continue to whittle out the lazy individuals.

The next biggest issue with this article is the suggestion that PR agencies are just machines that churn out release after release: mindless zombies that insert marketing-speak into carefully designed templates, day in and day out. Foremski makes it seem like our job is to sit at our computer, just trying to load the system with so much of our client's information that Google will help boost our efforts with their algorithms.

I would invite Tom to come join me for a week at work to see what we actually do. Executive messaging, thought leadership campaigns, media pitches (not press releases), social media, digital content development, crisis management, etc. In fact, of all things associated with public relations, the press release is the one that I spend the least time developing. In the 14 months I have been in the industry, I have written one press release and one newsbyte. That's it. I've also managed to secure coverage for my client in a variety of respectable technology publications through the tactics I mentioned above.

We are not robots. We don't push out press releases with the same frequency that we drink cups of coffee. We do not settle for press release repostings. And we certainly don't rely on Google to produce positive news coverage for our clients.

If a PR agency's business actually suffers from these rule changes, then they are doing a disservice to their clients as it is. The press release is merely one sword in our arsenal as public perception shapers and one that should only be drawn in completely necessary situations.

Google certainly didn't kill PR. The search behemoth is just trying to make us develop all of our skills, not just the press release.