Doing the Super Bowl Wrong

When you spend four million dollars per 30 second spot and your advertisement angers a large section of your customer base, you're doing it wrong. That's what happened with Coca Cola's multilingual America The Beautiful Super Bowl commercial. 

Many of Coke's customers were offended and angered by the spot. They have expressed their outrage on the company's Facebook page. (Coke hasn't really monitored that page well, so the complaints have devolved into a typical internet flame war between those offended and those who liked the ad.) Singing God Bless America in spanish to a domestic audience is like singing God Save the Queen to Londoners in french. Some people are likely to interpret that message in a way it may not have been intended.

Whether you personally liked or disliked that ad isn't the thrust of this article. I'm not trying to persuade you on the merits of the message one way or the other. But I do think this is an opportunity to talk about how the message a company sends is not always the message customers receive.

The soft drink market in the United States is already saturated and has been for a long time. It's not like Americans are going to start drinking a lot more soda than we already do. There are only so many hours in a day! So, the point of television advertising for Coke isn't so much to gather new customers as it is to protect the market share it already possesses. If this ad - the same ad that has angered so many of Coke's current customers - was designed to defend Coke's turf, it's doing it about as well as the Broncos did during the big game.

How did Coke not see this coming? They had to have tested this with focus groups before it aired. Failure to test a commercial that costs four million dollars per 30 seconds would be gross negligence for an advertiser. So that means that either no member of their focus groups was offended, or those who were offended didn't feel free enough to express their opinions, or their opinions were expressed and Coke chose to ignore the points raised. The end result is a version of group think. Either differing viewpoints weren't properly sought and encouraged or those viewpoints were discarded because the advertisers knew better.

Now that Coca Cola is aware many of its customers are angry, they are making another mistake. Instead of acknowledging the feelings of the offended, Coke is dismissive. Katie Bayne, president of Coca Cola North America is quoted in USA TODAY as saying, "We hope the ad gets people talking and thinking about what it means to be proud to be American." That's not Coke's job! Their job is to sell soft drinks. Angering your American customers and then telling them they aren't thinking correctly about what it means to be American is a great way to get people to sample Dr. Pepper.

As a marketer and a story teller, the saddest part of this episode is that it's an unforced error. It's like hiking the ball on the first play of the Super Bowl for a safety. It didn't have to be this way. Change the music from the multilingual version to Ray Charles' version of the same song and you have a masterpiece. It would have the exact same message Coke intended - that America is great because of its diversity - without the offending lingual subtext. It might not end up as beloved as the 1970s I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing commercial, but it certainly wouldn't have caused a negative reaction.

Can Coca Cola survive this episode? Of course. This company managed to make it through New Coke, after all. But, how many other companies could say the same thing? Maybe Exxon could. Apple would take a pretty big hit but would probably weather through. But, what about your company? Could you afford to alienate a large section of your customer base in an effort to educate them on how to be better Americans?

When you are trying to communicate to your customers, either through television, print, or social media, make sure you know what you are trying to say, why you're trying to say it and how that message will be received. Any missteps in those three points will turn your message into a mess.

Edgewater Christmas Album

This is brilliant marketing. My friends at Edgewater Studios have put out a free Christmas Album. Not only is it a nice gesture at this time of year, but it's a great opportunity to show off the quality of work they do on a regular basis. Give it a listen and download any of the tracks that speak to you. Merry Christmas.

Edgewater Studios | Christmas 2013

www.edgewater-studios.com

We’re so pleased to be able to share this album with you…JUST in time for Christmas. We hope it will provide happiness and cheer. We...

In PR, Never Give Up the Moral High Ground

I wanted to take a moment to offer up some free PR advice in light of the controversy at Grambling State University last week. For some background, you can read the Sports Illustrated article here... 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20131018/grambling-football/

The basic plot is the school's facilities needed repair, long road trips were taken on busses rather than airplanes, the Head Coach was fired in the middle of a winless season and the players decided they had had enough. They refused to show up for practice and then refused to show up for a game against Jackson State. The school was forced to forfeit what would have been Jackson's Homecoming game. After that, there were whispers of losing scholarships, negotiations between the administration and players, a press conference held by the players followed by a return to practice and the rest of the season.

Throughout all of this, public opinion has ebbed and flowed from supporting the players to questioning their actions. At this point support leans towards the players more than the school, but that support could be much higher. The flaw was the players gave up the moral high ground. (The school had a chance to claim it later, but missed that opportunity. I'll get to that in a moment.)

In the beginning, the players had legitimate gripes. A damaged floor in the weight room is an accident waiting to happen. The athletes deserved better. They had the high ground and should have used it. Public support would have been overwhelmingly on their side. Instead, the first most people saw of this issue was video played on the news of a single coach waiting in an empty gymnasium when the players refused to practice. Instantly, the issues were murky. The message was muddled.

The second visual people at home saw was a parking lot of empty busses as the team missed the deadline for the road trip to Jackson. The story then became the financial impact on Jackson State, it's alumni, and the city in Mississippi during what should have been a happy Homecoming. The moral indignation the public would have felt towards the conditions in which the school subjected a group of student athletes was lost due to a lack of clarity. The story line was no longer the facilities and administration, it was the empty gym and lonely busses.

I certainly don't blame college students for missing the nuances of public relations. But, I hope this can become a lesson on how your organization can do things better in the future. If I had been advising the players during this event, here's how I would have suggested things play out.

The first step is to take a list of grievances to the administration. It's not only the right thing to do ethically, politically it also allows you to keep the moral high ground.

If that step doesn't solve the problem, then you go public. Hold a press conference and show the reporters the damaged floors in the weight room. Describe the difficulties of playing football after sleeping all night on a bus. Explain why firing the coach was the wrong decision. Tell the media you want changes and if you don't get them spell out the actions you are prepared to take. Be specific, and then do exactly what you said you would do.

Instead of missing that practice in the empty gym, the players should have held their own practice off school grounds in full view of the media. Show that you are willing to work hard, but not under the current situation at the school.

Instead of missing the busses, the team should have gone to the game. But, at the press conference earlier in the week, they needed to explain that while the team will play as hard as they can on the field, they will refuse to score any points. Take a knee at the one yard line. Show your fans you can play hard for them while refusing to bring glory to the current administration.

The school also had a brief opportunity to grab the high ground. That parking lot full of busses wasn't exactly empty. 20 players did show up. You only need 11 to play a game. Instead of forfeiting the game and putting the school in legal and financial risk, the coaches should have taken the 20 players they had and gone to Jackson. Tell the players it's Iron Man Football and they'll all play a lot and in positions they've never played before. The message you send to the public then is you're willing to play with any student who's willing to show up and work hard. The high ground is yours.

The sad truth is there will be a financial and legal fallout from this conflict. The City of Jackson is considering legal action. The league has already fined Grambling, an institution that doesn't have extra money just laying around. And players who thought they were going to a school with a proud history and strong traditions have been left in moldy facilities. Had the story played out as I outlined above, there wouldn't have been grounds for fines or lawsuits and public pressure would have been applied on the university. When PR is done well, not only can it get results, it can also help you avoid the unintended consequences of PR done poorly.

-Stephen Parr