LAST BLOG (I think) Valley City Research Part Two

As I said in my last post, I am doing my research paper on Valley City. Mary Lee Nielson is still the spokesperson. Sandbagging started on Monday, March 23. The originally projected crest of the river was 18.5 feet from the National Weather Service. It got up to around 22 feet at its peak sometime around April 14th. There were about 450 national guardsmen helping fight the flood.

One medium that I found out was being used during the flood that I don't know much about is Twitter. Twitter is a social networking site that uses tweets which are text based posts that use up to 140 characters. They are similar to status updates on Facebook. I found this very high tech considering I don't even use Twitter yet.

It was announced on April 16th that classes for Valley City State University would be held online for the rest of the semester. An..... interesting experience it has been. April 17th Mayor Nielsen urged people to evacuate if they had not done so already while the sewer system that broke down could be repaired. They also ordered non essential businesses to close. On April 22nd they lifted the mandatory closure of nonessential businesses.

Crisis Communication Research Blog 1

The community I have chosen for my research paper is Valley City. I have chosen this because I saw most of what happened first hand. It has affected me, as well as many of you, so I think it would be important to research.

So far some things I have found or noticed is that our mayor, Mary Lee Nielsen, has been the main spokesperson. She has been doing an exceptional job explaining the situation in Valley City and what is being done to solve the problems.

I think one of the most effective channels of communication was the sandbag siren. This was the siren to let people know that they need more people to fill sandbags at the Wintershow building also known as "Sandbag Central." Some other channels of communication were the TV channels 10 and 68. The radio station in town, KQDJ, made announcements whenever something important came up like the water ban. Also, valleycityusa.com had important announcements posted on it. Right now it has in large print "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" which is in reference to the water conserving efforts going on in Valley City at this time as the sewage system is getting fixed.

Along with these channels of communication there were some events on Facebook encouraging students to go and sandbag to save the town. As I was a resident during the flood, I know that word of mouth played a large part in gaining information as a lot of people don't listen or watch the local stations. The VCSU campus sent out emails updating students on information about the flood and how they can help. They also used notifind as you all know to announce that school was being cancelled.

There have been many successful channels of communication in Valley City that may have helped save the city.

My Chili Is Pointing At Me.....

I don't know if you guys remember this but when I had heard about it, it completely grossed me out. Let me take you back....

March 22, 2005, a woman from Las Vegas finds a HUMAN FINGER in her chili while eating at a San Jose, Calif. Wendy's restaurant. Anna Ayala, a woman from Las Vegas Nev., "found" this surprise ingredient. She reportedly bit into her chili, gnawed on something chewy, and immediately spit it out.

Wendy's immediately got on it. They checked all their employees and made sure that all fingers were intact. They tracked all of their ingredients back to the suppliers to check for finger-losing accidents and none were found. They even gave their employees polygraph tests and they all came up negative.

News spread of this incident pretty quick. As you can imagine, people were pretty disgusted by this news. Sales dropped in Northern Californian Wendy's, employees were laid off, and work hours were cut. Even where I was in North Dakota, I had heard about it and decided I wouldn't eat at Wendy's for a while.

While all of this was happening, the accused Wendy's was reopened after they were sure their chili was made with fresh ingredients. The spokespeople for Wendy's kept reassuring the public that they were searching for the source of this finger and that their food was clean. They even offered a $50, 000 reward to anyone providing veritable information leading to identification of the person who lost their finger. They even bumped it up to $100,000 when no leads were being found.

Wendy's offered a free frosty day at the restaraunt where the incident happened and they had people lined up all the way out of the door. They then proceeded to do a national free frosty day. I think this was a good idea for them to get some people back into their restaurant. Everyone loves free stuff.

It turns out, it was all a scam (thank gosh, right). Ayala has been charged of attempted grand larceny and has been sentenced to nine years in prison. The finger turned out to be owned by an associate of Ayala's husband. The whole scam cost Wendy's more than $2.5 million in lost revenue.

It is good for Wendy's taht this hoax was figured out. They took a hard hit in business, who knows where they would be today. I thought they did an okay job in crisis public relations, but, they probably could have done better. All I know is, if that didn't turn out to be a hoax, I don't think there is any amount of PR that could make me go back to Wendy's.

Asociación de Baloncesto Nacional Abraza Latino Después

Well, if you are like me and don't speak Spanish, you wouldn't know that my title translates into "National Basketball Association Embraces Latino Following," that is, if my online translator is reliable.

As I was flipping through the channels a week or so ago something very strange caught my eye. I stopped at an NBA game. While watching the game I was baffled. The jerseys for the Dallas Mavericks said "Los Mavs." This was not normal so I asked a friend to be positive that I wasn't hallucinating.

It turns out my eyes weren't deceiving me. On February 24th, the NBA announced the launch of the third annual Noche Latina (Latin Night) event. This program recognizes players and fans from across Latin America and in Hispanic communities. This year, teams from eight out of the top 10 most populated communities will participate in Noche Latina. This is up from four from last year. The teams participating this year (in their Hispanic names) are Los Lakers, Los Mavs, Nueva York, El Heat, Los Suns, Los Spurs, Los Bulls, and Los Rockets. Instead of using the literal translation of the team names, market research decided to use the names previously stated because that is how a Spanish speaking NBA fan would say them.

So what's so special about Latinos you may ask? "The NBA has one of the largest and fastest-growing Hispanic fan bases in U.S. professional sports, and we want to continue building their interest in the game through participation, programming and events," said Saskia Sorrosa, "This initiative celebrates the NBA's unique and dynamic fan base with a focus on our Spanish-speaking communities."

Games played in the Hispanic jerseys are going on right now. They have been spread out from March 3- March 28th. There have been other activities for Noche Latina including Latin music at games and other special features and events.

I think that this is good PR for the NBA. It shows that it accepting of the support of other cultures, however, now I fully expect this for other communities that follow the NBA. There is a large following of the NBA in China. I would like to see a 我國晚 (China night) along with maybe a nuit française (French night) and some other cultures that have been in large support of the NBA or from a country that the NBA acquires players from like European countries.

I think promotions like these are very fun and interesting. I see that whoever came up with this idea must have used some of the same techniques we are using in class like targeting your audience. Also, the press release I read on this subject was well-writtten, using many of the skills we learned in class.

Alex Roidriguez

I am sure you sports fans are sick of hearing about this one now, BUT, it is a pretty good PR topic. If you don’t know, Alex Rodriguez, known to most as A-Rod, is the third baseman for the New York Yankees. He is considered by some to be the best all-around player in baseball. On February 7, 2009 Sports Illustrated put out a story claiming that sources indicate that he took anabolic steroids in the 2003 season. To Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees, this is a problem. This casts a cloud over any accomplishment A-Rod has ever achieved. Bouncing back from this report would require some great PR.

Some paths he could have taken with this accusation of steroid use was denial, or, he could admit to doing it. The latter was exactly what he did.

In a press conference on February 17, 2009, A-Rod told the press that he did "experiment with a banned substance." in the 2001-2003 seasons. In the interview, he stated things about his steroid use like "it was a stupid mistake and a lesson learned" and that he "didn't know what he was doing." Now, he swears that he is clean and has followed every drug rule that the MLB has set since 2003. A-Rod talked about how people will never look at him and his records the same. However, he told us to try to look past this "mistake" and hopes he can move forward. He even became a little emotional at the end and said things like "baseball is a lot bigger than Alex Rodriguez."

I think whoever is Alex Rodriguez's public relations person did a pretty good job. It seems like theres always someone who is caught in a steroid scandal in the MLB. Instead of denying all accusations of steroid, use he came clean and talked about what he did and when. He showed remorse for his actions and pledged never to fall into his old ways again.

If his statements are true and he is clean, I believe I can look at A-Rod in the future and say he was one of the baseball greats. However, if he was lying at that press conference, I'm sure the future will expose him sooner or later. I believe that with all the good public relations people out there, there must be some deceitful ones that allow their clients to lie about the problem in hand.

Therefore, if you are telling the truth A-Rod, my hat is off to you. It is quite a noble thing to sit in front of a press conference and admit your mistakes. Good PR too.

Wow, these gloves keep your hands REALLY warm........OOH! OOH! HOT!!

It is that time of year in North Dakota. I consider it a payment for the beautiful summers. Yes, I am talking about the freezing winters that turn North Dakota into an arctic wasteland. With temperatures dropping to dangerous levels, it is a good idea to be bundled up if you are planning to be outside for any extent of time. At this point, battery powered warming gloves would sound like a good idea (if you have $260 to dish out on gloves). Well, maybe not quite so soon.

Outdoor Research has recalled "Primovolta" and "Primavolta" warming gloves. These gloves hit shelves at major outdoor specialty retailers in September. So what's the point? These gloves store energy in lithium-polymer batteries and deliver warmth for six hours at a time. This would seem like a great piece of equiptment for anyone who needs to be out in the extreme cold for extended periods of time.

Well, they definately warmed up. The firm has received five reports of gloves overheating. In one case, a female consumer suffered burns to her hands. It appears that the electric heating pads in the gloves were short circuiting, causing a burn hazard.

The gloves included in the recall are style number 77000 and style number 77010.

After this problem with the gloves is fixed and they are ready to be put back on the shelves, I imagine that Outdoor Research will need to do some public relations work so that people will gain trust in their products again.

As we talked about in Public Relations class, the public relations department that deals with this problem will have to do four things:

They will have to form an idea of their product in the minds of possible consumers. They will have to do tests to prove that their product is high quality and not defective and communicate that information to possible consumers.

They will also have to reform the ideas of the people who now think that their product is bad. I'm sure the woman who got her hands burnt by the gloves isn't thrilled to try on another pair in the future. It is the PR department's job to change her mind.

Reinforcing consumer's ideas of the product is important. This can be done by advertising. Drill your product into their minds.

These four things will motivate the consumer to action. In this case, the action would be purchasing a pair of these self warming gloves.

I don't know about you, but I cannot see myself buying a pair of $260 gloves. My hands will never have to be THAT warm.