Missing Type

So yeah-- the PR professional who is working with Ryan Lochte kind of has her/his hands full these days. I think they tried their best to coach him for the interview with Matt Lauer, but when he didn't understand what was being asked, he hit the default button and went back to saying how sorry he was.

My two cents is that Lochte will get what he wants out of this. He needs a career outside of swimming and this will help generate enough buzz to convince an executive somewhere to put him back on a TV series of some sort. It doesn't matter that Lochte lied and ran, put his teammates in a bad spot, and was unconvincing in his apology. He'll get his.

Moving along...

I've seen the #missingtype hashtag in the news recently. NHS Blood and Transplant and London-based PR firm Engine Group have come together on this campaign during National Blood Week (August 16-21) to raise awareness of and increase blood donations worldwide. The campaign spanned 21 countries and involved 25 blood services.

Anyhow, many businesses such as Pizza Hut, Google, Microsoft and Xbox, as well as many English Premier League football teams, and various public establishments like museums have either darkened out or eliminated the letters A, B, and O from their names, as those three letters (and their variants) are the most common blood types.

It was a big success in 2015, with nearly 700 pieces of coverage. Social media also picked up on it, as the hashtags #NationalBloodWeek and #MissingType were trending. Close to a half million people engaged with the campaign on Facebook.

I can't stop thinking about what a wonderful idea this is, and how pleased I am that this is taking off. It reminds me of the Ice Bucket Challenge from a few years ago and how much of a difference that made toward ALS research.

But the biggest success is that over 30,000 people registered to donate blood. Here's to hoping the trend continues this year and that folks continue to donate in the long term.

Delta Airlines

We've seen and heard a lot about Delta recently and not in a good way.

Delta of course dealt with a massive power outage that wreaked havoc on operations when backup systems didn't kick in as they should have, resulting in cancellations and disruptions all over the place. 1,700 flights were cancelled and 100,000 people had their lives disrupted-- and that number is conservative, since those are only Monday and Tuesday numbers, and Delta didn't resume a normal schedule until Friday. Business people missed meetings, families were late getting home from vacation, and lives were put on hold.

Not a good look for a company that has been running ads claiming that they've canceled cancellations.

Then when systems got back up and running, planes and crews were out of position, meaning the logjam was slow to clear itself up.

I'm not a frequent flier, so my experience with airline delays is limited. I've spent a morning and part of an afternoon at DFW because of summer weather delays, and I've waited a few hours at Hartsfield-Jackson for my wife's flight to come in after my own flight touched down. But nothing like camping out in an airport for a couple of days with nothing to do and nowhere to go, perhaps with restless kids or frustrated clients to deal with. Airports aren't designed to be a comfortable place, so the situation can be challenging all around.

Delta tried to get out in front of the situation, as CEO Ed Bastian personally apologized for the delay, then appeared in an additional video. The airline issued $200 vouchers early in the process and also waived rebooking fees. So their PR machine knew what to do.

But...

$200 doesn't sound like much when people may have been stuck for a couple of days. Airport food isn't cheap, and it may not be simple to make reservations for a nearby hotel, again to say nothing of the cost. This voucher was later extended to include Tuesday and Wednesday.

Delta initially said there was a power outage at their Atlanta headquarters, but Georgia Power denied it. The airline later owned the misstep.

Also when you're a company like Delta (and you're hanging your hat on 'no cancellations'), you'd better be sure your backup systems pick up if primary power is lost. Old technology, poor training, IT failure, it doesn't matter. Your computer systems need to run in order for planes/people/crews to get places and there had better be functioning secondary systems.

My thought is that the PR response is a bit mixed-- Delta took some positive, proactive steps, but also had some missteps and let a lot of people down. They've said they're sorry. If they mean it, they'll undergo a tech upgrade. They're a worldwide airline so they can't just shut things down while they switch things over. But that's why people get paid money-- to figure these things out and earn back some of the confidence that has been lost.

Gordie Howe

I've been a hockey fan since I was in junior high school, which should tell you something because I think they call them 'middle schools' nowadays. I've also been involved in public relations. Not necessarily as a PR worker but as a radio professional, because what is radio if not trying to put a good foot forward and have others think favorably of your station? Now I'm separated from the radio thing but the PR work and thought continues.

Nearly two months ago these two worlds collided. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Penguins at Sharks, was played on Sunday, June 12. Gordie Howe, one of the greatest to ever play the game, died on June the 10th. The first opportunity for the NHL to publicly recognize this would have been prior to game 6. Plans already existed to make this happen prior to the opening faceoff.

However on the morning of the 12th, a guy killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub. I spent time during the day wondering how San Jose would handle this situation from a PR perspective, since this is a unique and certainly unwanted set of circumstances. Maintaining a favorable public image (a working definition of PR) is clearly secondary here, but proper and timely homage must be shown to the victims and their families, and to Mr. Hockey. What would Sharks PR decide?

The choice was made, correctly, I believe, to change the plan and honor the victims during pregame right before the national anthem. This moved the honoring of Howe to the tail end of the first intermission of the game where it could stand by itself.

As well respected of a player and human being Gordie Howe was/is, my thought is that this is an example of good public relations. Well done by the NHL and by the San Jose Sharks.