Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Dominick's is (or was) a chain of food stores in the Chicago area that dates back to 1918.  The outfit has gone through several changes of ownership and in 1998 it was bought by Safeway.  Apparently things haven't been going that well because Safeway announced a couple months ago that they would be closing 72 Dominick's stores and laying off more than 6000 people on December 28th.

One of the employees about to get canned -- a young fellow named Steve Yamato --  made a humorous SciFi video which showed dragons, monsters, asteroids etc squashing Dominick's employees and he titled the mini flick: "Thanks Safeway."  Then he posted it on YouTube.

When Yamamoto arrived for his last day of work -- he was told that he was suspended.  Huh?  He (and 6600 other people) were going to be cashiered anyway - but Safeway decided to mop the floor with him as an example for remaining employees perhaps...

All your favorite athletes are chillin' at the ESPYs Nokia PreParty. I hear it's awesome. Almost as awesome as this social media PR fail. First, an accidental DeSean Jackson tweet, and then a flurry of other athletes tweeting that precise line.

 

Most of them, at least, remembered to take out the publicist's note.... [Oh the horror!  But a preventable PR fail.- JD]

A quote in this story from the councilman’s PR guy is priceless—a must read.

 

Did you hear about the Philadelphia councilman, the politically connected PR guy, and the social media firm?

 

It’s no joke—although the story is hilarious.

 

Jim Kenney, a councilman in Philadelphia, is reportedly paying $28,000 in taxpayer money to a firm called ChatterBlast to handle his social media strategy....

PR Stunts: Runaway Teen Tweets Fake Kidnapping (#helpfindkara)...

 

Another day, another example of social media’s power to magnify the effects of bad behavior: Last night, New Jersey teenager Kara Alongi tweeted that there was someone in her house and urged followers to call 911.

 

Twitter quickly exploded with messages of support as Kara’s call for help went viral and #helpfindkara began trending worldwide; at last count the message has been re-tweeted more than 32,000 times, and the local police department has supposedly received more than 6,000 calls about the case. Because Alongi left her cell phone in the house, she can’t yet appreciate the fact that she now has nearly 100,000 followers....

 

Police now say that they have no reason to believe that the teen “is in any physical danger”, and based on her Twitter history, we’re more concerned about her mental and emotional health.

 

While we hope that Alongi returns home safely, and we hesitate to make light of a serious issue, we believe this story to be a very telling illustration of the power of social media and the fact that Twitter is not something to be taken lightly....

 

[File this in the stupid social media tricks file ~ Jeff]

If your product sucks, PR can't help you. Neither can marketing, advertising or any other form of communications you can think of. If your product sucks, breaks, never worked in the first place, then you're screwed.

 

...f your product sucks, you can write all the key messages you want. You can work harder than you ever have before to control the message. But at the end of the day, the message your customers will say loud and clear will be that your product sucks. And let me be clear that they’d be saying it sucks whether or not social media existed. Online or offline....