Monthly Archives: June 2018

Jun 27

The prototypical CEO of the Future

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Delta CEO Ed Bastian is a man I would follow into battle. Why? Because he has the courage of his convictions.

He stands up, speaks out and says what’s needed to be said in the aftermath of one of our all-too-frequent societal crises.

And, as he told Fortune CEO Daily, he does so WITHOUT his board’s prior approval. I’d like to believe that if Ernest Hemingway were alive today he’d define Bastian’s decisiveness as “grace under pressure.”

To jog the uninformed reader’s memory, I will remind you that Bastian’s comments came after he had discontinued passenger discounts to NRA members in the aftermath of the horrible Parkland, Florida, Middle School mass shooting.

When the fine folks who comprise the Georgia State Legislature heard about Bastian’s decision, they immediately threatened to yank a $40 million tax break for the Atlanta-headquartered airline. Bastian immediately responded with the now memorable words, “Delta’s values are not for sale.” That’s positively Nathan Hale-like.

And, I’d like to believe Bastion isn’t a lone wolf; rather, I believe he’s the prototypical CEO of the future.

That’s because he is one of an increasing number of CEOs who have discovered a spine and a voice in these divisive times of ours.

So, when the president responds to the shooting by saying, “We’ve got to do something” then chides GOP Congressional members for being afraid of the NRA, but immediately changes the subject and moves on to something new, we’re left with business and industry executives to fill the leadership vacuum (and remind us of the moral and ethical code upon which this country was built). And, that’s just what Bastian did.

Others have as well. But, many more need to lose the “This, too, shall pass” mentality. Because it won’t.

And, their silence will most assuredly come back to haunt them with Millennial customers and employees who are increasingly demanding employers not only state their higher purpose for existing, but are led by CEOs willing to put a stake in the ground.

These are perilous times for our democracy, and every American worker deserves the right to know exactly what type of organization they’ve joined. Delta’s employees sure do. Do yours?

Jun 20

The bigger they are, the harder they fall

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Did you ever think you’d live to see the day that General Electric, one of the icons of American business and industry, was dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

And to add insult to injury the corporation, founded by Thomas Edison, has been replaced by something called Walgreens Boots Alliance. Holy embarrassment, Batman!

I’m especially flabbergasted by this since my firm and I once had quite the relationship with GE.

It all began when Valerie Di Maria, the current owner of the 10 Company and, way back when, the CCO of GE Capital, called me to ask if an itsy, bitsy start-up PR firm called Peppercomm would be interested in pitching what was then known as GE Financial (it was later spun-off as Genworth).

Needless to say, I was thrilled by the opportunity. That’s when Peter Harris, then a Peppercomm partner and, today, the CEO of The Harris Agency and I went to work.

We spent countless hours coming up with a campaign theme to launch what GE Financial hoped would become an agnostic website that would provide oodles of financial and insurance information to the average consumer.

We nailed it by inventing the slogan, “Liberation through education.”

The tagline positioned the soon-to-be-site as a hub of knowledge that would enable educated consumers to make wiser financial investments.

Pete and I (and a few other Peppercommers) hosted the pitch at our offices, transforming the conference room into a classroom.

We won it.

That’s when Jackie Kolek, then a rising star and now president of our Financial Services group, took over the account and engineered the wildly successful, award-winning launch of the Center for Financial Learning.

Our success with GE Financial led us to Beth Comstock, then CMO of GE, who asked us to pitch the corporation’s new “Imagination at work” campaign.

I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I had one of our minions dress up as Thomas Edison, interrupt the new business presentation we were delivering and announce that he, Edison, would be running for president on the new Imagination Party ticket (we had an entire program to support the ersatz Edison’s run for the White House).

Beth hired us on the spot.

And, we spent many years publicizing GE CEO Jeff Immelt’s efforts to reinvent the multinational powerhouse from the old, but wildly successful, conglomerate to a lean, mean innovator.

Immelt failed.

And, as the BBC article states, his successor has been unable to rally the company. As a result, the stock price has plunged to new lows and GE has been dropped from the Dow Index. It’s truly epoch-making (as my old Sony client loved to say).

Looking back, I am proud to say I was right in the midst of the fray as Immelt did his best (and we did ours as well) to steer what would eventually become the RMS Titanic of Corporate America away from the iceberg that was dead ahead.

Jun 18

Grand Theft: Ideas

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I’m involved in a rather heated exchange right now on a LinkedIn discussion group.

The donnybrook began when the CMO of a company that already had agency representation, and was about to do a “brand refresh,” asked for any, and all, creative ideas.

The responses were VERY telling:

  • Two people immediately pitched the woman’s business.
  • Several asked for additional information in order to provide more informed ideas.
  • I was one of several people to push back and say, “Sorry, I’ve had more than enough negative experiences with ‘prospective clients’ who pick your brain, pay you zilch and then later either fall off the radar screen completely or send a vague note informing participants in the dog & pony show that the search has been put on hold.”

The CMO in question is indicative of the rapidly increasing number of prospects who see nothing wrong with asking for ideas to launch an entire creative campaign and then taking the ideas and implementing them themselves. It’s the type of story that responsible PR trade publications should be telling, but aren’t.

We do our very best to avoid fishing expeditions but, sometimes, the prospect’s assurances to the contrary seduce us into investing time and money in creating a speculative campaign.

The most egregious recent example occurred when a prospect who said she “absolutely wanted to work with Peppercomm,” insisted two of our employees give up their weekend to attend an industry conference. The prospect insisted it would enable us to write a far more strategic plan.

I was beyond skeptical and asked the prospect to cover one-half of the out-of-pocket expenses. Rejected. That should have told me right then and there that these people were playing us like a fiddle.

Instead, I allowed our executives to attend the event, ate the OOPs, submitted a proposal and, guess what? Everything was put on hold. We’ll receive a response to our inquiries for an update with something like this, “You are still top of mind. We hope to make a decision soon.”

Right. And, Donald Trump will begin treating our allies as friends and authoritarian regimes as enemies.

Since the trade publications conveniently overlook these ongoing assaults on agencies (hey, the serial prospect might buy ads, send in pricey awards submissions and buy tables at their events, so why rock the boat?), I think we should press the PR Council and other trade organizations to strongly advocate against what I would call “Grand Theft: Ideas.”

There ought to be a law.

Jun 04

When did being single become a crime?

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Today’s guest blog is written by a young lady who absolutely tore it up during her five-year stint at Peppercomm and is now doing the same at a top 10 global firm.

Her column, however, has nothing whatsoever to do with public relations and everything to do with the increasing insensitivity of people and in every walk of life….

At a Memorial Day barbeque last weekend, a family friend asked me, “So, have you met any special guys yet?” I responded with humor to deflect the hurt: “I meet lots of guys – none of them are special, though.”

I’m used to this question. As an almost 30-year-old woman who is – GASP – still single, I hear it a lot. I expect it from family and friends. I DON’T expect it from Adweek. (In case you missed it, Adweek’s Patrick Coffee wrote an article in April detailing Grey Group’s new 4-day work week policy.) Seemingly innocuous, right? WRONG.

After detailing the new policy (staffers who choose to opt in can work four day weeks in exchange for a 15 percent pay cut), Coffee goes on to say, “Before you all freak out, we’re told that this shift came about due to employee demand. Even those who don’t have kids know how tough it can be working in advertising as a parent … and then there’s whatever single people do when they’re not in the office. (Check Fishbowl incessantly?)”

I didn’t realize that single people are less deserving of work-life balance than their married counterparts. So let me shed some light on what single people do: we do what people in relationships do…with less fighting J. We work out, we spend time with family, we hang out with our friends. You know – NORMAL stuff. We’re not tethered to Fishbowl (because, that app is so ten years ago, Coffee). We may use Hinge, Happ’n, Tinder or other apps to meet people, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve basic human respect.

So the next time you happen upon a single person, please don’t belittle him or her. Please don’t think that just because we’re single, we have ample free time to work weekends, we check dating apps incessantly, or that we live a less fulfilling life.