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MIXed blessings
This too shall pass, is the refrain that comes to mind when Unspun first heard that his workplace, Maverick, has won Mix Magazine’s PR Agency of the Year 2011 Award. The award ceremony will take place at Nikko Hotel this Thursday (June 23).
In addition three of Maverick’s clients, in which we played a supporting role in their PR efforts, also won awards. They are: AXIS (Silver award) for its Menang Bareng Campaign under the Marketing PR category; the US Embassy in Jakarta (Silver Award) for berbagi Indonesia, a campaign to welcome President Obama; and, perhaps ironically, the embattled Mandala Airlines (Gold Award) for its Issues Management as it sought to restructure the airline.
The latest edition of MIX magazine
Being recognized is a pleasant, event flattering experience, but Unspun’s attitude to awards has always had a flaw: Unspun tends to look gift horses in the mouth, such as here.
Did we and our clients deserve to win all those awards? Most probably yes. But did we win it through a stringent and robust process of selection with stringent criteria that cuts to the heart of what PR consultancies offer? Not really.
While Mix is to be commended for taking the effort to write about and recognizing good work done in the PR industry, it has still some way to go to show that it fully understands the PR industry and what constitutes excellence in this profession.
Yet for all its foibles Mix’s PR Awards is a good start though and whether we like it or not, its the only show in town. So it deserves all the support the PR industry can give it.
It is perhaps for this reason that the informal grouping of PR professions who have organized ourselves as the Indonesian PR Practitioners Group are thinking of working with the magazine to come up with an even more rigorous selection process next year that would help boost the status of the profession.
Some of the ideas Unspun’s heard expressed include shifting the emphasis for the PR Agency of the Year Award from media relations to a balance between strategic capability and arms-and-legs work; tightening the format of submissions so that all entrants have to comply or be penalized; clearer definitions and articulation of categories.
Others have suggested that the magazine perhaps start a directory of PR consultancies (another issue: should we call ourselves agencies or consultancies?) and only those who have registered and been vetted as PR firms, instead of Event Organizers or marketing/activation agencies, are allowed to vie for the awards; and greater transparency of how spokespersons and PR officers are judged for the awards.
One suggestion also involves getting the magazine to use Indonesian or, if it must use English, to use it properly; and to help the magazine’s journalists understand in-depth PR concepts, practice areas and issues.
These are some of the suggestions. Perhaps there are more constructive suggestions out there that the IPPG can bring to MIX when we meet them after the awards?
Holming in on the Southeast Asia Consultancy of the Year award
Back in March Unspun did the maverick thing and Looked the Gift Horse in the Mouth by questioning how the august Holmes Report comes up with its shortlist of finalists for Southeast Asian Consultancies of the year. What triggered Unspun’s curiousity was the lineup of finalists that pitted Unspun’s workplace, Maverick with the likes of Apco Worldwide, Fortune PR, Impact Asia and Indo-Pacific Edelman.
Unspun was so curious about the selection criteria that he even wrote to the Holmes Report, asking to be informed on the selection criteria. The folks at Holmes Report never did answer but went ahead with making their decision anyway and they have chosen…APCO Worldwide!
The basis of this decision, from their write up here:
South-East Asia Consultancy of the Year: APCO Worldwide
APCO established its first Asian operation, in China, a little over a decade ago, and expanded into in South-East Asia almost immediately. An acquisition in China cam with the added bonus of an office in Vietnam, the firm followed with the addition of an office in Indonesia, adding a base in Singapore in 2006 and Thailand in 2007.
But the addition of APCO Malaysia, which opened in 2009 and is now home to a team of 30 leading a massive communications operation supporting the government, that really caught the eye, and last year the firm signaled that it was taking the region extremely seriously with the appointment of Garry Walsh (former MD of the firm’s Brussels office and global lead on the Microsoft account) as managing director, South-East Asia, based in Singapore.
The regional operation has capabilities in public affairs (working for Diageo on a campaign to eliminate the luxury sales tax on alcoholic beverages in Indonesia), corporate positioning, economic development, crisis communication, financial communication, and top tier media relations.
But wait, apart from all the hype hasn’t APCO’s appointment by the Government of Malaysia been terminated? If so, what are they being recognized for? Venturing into a campaign that they could not win? What did they achieve, PR-wise when they were still in retainer?
The problem with the Malaysian Government job is a classic problem for all consultants. When the executive or management of an organization is so deep in the muck of a crisis they have this tendency to call in all sorts of consultants to solve the problem, when the real problem lies with their own management and handling of the situation. In such a situation perhaps APCO should either never have taken up the job or resigned from it when it became evident that they could not make a difference and this could impact their reputation.
Bravo to the unsung lion in Lion Air
It is not for no reason that Roy Suryo, the man with incredibly bad taste in neckwear, vies with Tifatul Sembiring for the title of Most Derided Public Figure Who Take Themselves Too Seriously.
Roy has been consistent though, in the sense that no matter what the obstacles and how untenable the situation he’s in, he remains undaunted in his faith that he can talk through anything.
Here again Roy the Boy shows his mettle. It’s all very suspicious. Roy apparently did not know what time his flight was; Lion Air letting him into an earlier flight without checking his ticket…how can anyone really explain such strangeness.
There is a silver lining in all this though. Someone should give the Lion Air pilot a medal for having the gumption and the guts to show his disgust at government officials and refusing to take off so long as Roy was hogging other people’s seats. Bravo to him.
Roy Suryo Maintains Innocence in Plane Seat Incident
March 28, 2011Democratic Party legislator Roy Suryo tried to explain his side on Saturday after being escorted off a Lion Air flight bound for Yogyakarta that morning that he had caused to be delayed through a seat mix-up.
“I felt that I was being framed and played,” Roy told a news conference in Jakarta. “No matter. I will accept the blame, although I didn’t make any mistakes.”
Roy said he wanted to give his side of the story after the incident quickly became a hot topic on Twitter.
A Twitter user identified as Ernest said he and a friend had boarded a 6:15 a.m. Lion Air flight to Yogyakarta only to find their seats occupied by the lawmaker and his wife. “When it was checked, it turned out that Roy Suryo’s tickets were for the 7:45 flight, not 6:15, but he refused to leave the plane, dropping the name of Lion Air’s director,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
Ernest said he and his friend decided to just leave the plane, but other passengers came to their support. After a 15-minute delay, the pilot, identified only as Capt. Vino, reportedly came out to ask what the problem was.
After receiving an explanation from a flight attendant, Ernest continued, the pilot walked back into the cockpit, grabbed his bag and left the plane, cursing government officials as he went and refusing to take off if Ernest and his friend were not on the plane.
Shortly after, a group of airport officials boarded the plane and asked Roy to disembark.
Goobledygook marketing?
Received this in the mail some time ago. Did not and still do not know what to make of it.
If they can’t get their English right, should they use Indonesian instead? And what sort of marketing messages about themselves is this email invite supposed to send anyway?
Unspun’s shameless KKN promotion
Aksara is throwing a book party tonight for Felicia Nugroho, who recently published her biography of her father, the late colorful and enterprising Sukyatno Nugroho. The title of the book is Prinsip Di Sini Senang Di Sana Senang and recounts the life of Sukyatno from his childhood in Pekalongan to various daunting challenges and failures before he founded Es Teler 77, one of Indonesia’s earliest local fast food franchises that is also one of the largest today.
Tonight Felicia will lead a discussion on her book and the lessons on entrepreneurship her father bequeathed. There will also be entertainment from Adhitia Sofyan. Hope you have time to pop down there.
Disclosure: Why is this a shameless KKN promotion? Well, Unspun hapens to be married to this talented and wonderful woman. That doesn’t make her Mrs Unspun though, rather it makes Unspun Mr Felicia 
)
How to keep it real as marketers zoom in on Twitterville?
How can clients, consultants and social media users themselves keep the social media experience real for themselves and others? Hanny discusses the issues in Talking Points below.
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Mammon and the New Media in Indonesia
In Talking Points Unspun’s alter ego makes the observation that Indonesian has entered into an interesting phase where marketers have suddenly woken up to the potential of New Media. They are enlisting the help of Digital Influencers but are they all going about it in a way that would benefit the brands, their customers and, most of all, the Digital Influencers themselves?
Are digital influencers selling out to Mammon?
March 25th, 2010 | No Comments »
Posted in Brands & Marketing, English, Ideas, PR & Communications, Social Media, Trends |
I checked my Facebook account today and found that I had some invites from several prominent online presences (read: Twitterers and bloggers who are quite well known and therefore potentially influential).
Many of them are good friends or at least acquaintances with established Net identities/personas. So it was a bit surprising to see what they were inviting me to join. The invites were actually for products or brands that were irrelevant to what they themselves usually blogged or Twitted about.
It was as if I woke up to read in the papers that a sports editor in an influential newspaper had written a review on the Cobra Starship concert for the newspaper’s music column.
Something wasn’t right.
The reasonable inference from this spate of invites is that the Indonesian marketing communications community has come to the conclusion that new media–Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social network platforms–matters. And that they need to get in there to secure their share of voice.
Mammon and the New Media in Indonesia
In Talking Points Unspun’s alter ego makes the observation that Indonesian has entered into an interesting phase where marketers have suddenly woken up to the potential of New Media. They are enlisting the help of Digital Influencers but are they all going about it in a way that would benefit the brands, their customers and, most of all, the Digital Influencers themselves?
Are digital influencers selling out to Mammon?
March 25th, 2010 | No Comments »
Posted in Brands & Marketing, English, Ideas, PR & Communications, Social Media, Trends |
I checked my Facebook account today and found that I had some invites from several prominent online presences (read: Twitterers and bloggers who are quite well known and therefore potentially influential).
Many of them are good friends or at least acquaintances with established Net identities/personas. So it was a bit surprising to see what they were inviting me to join. The invites were actually for products or brands that were irrelevant to what they themselves usually blogged or Twitted about.
It was as if I woke up to read in the papers that a sports editor in an influential newspaper had written a review on the Cobra Starship concert for the newspaper’s music column.
Something wasn’t right.
The reasonable inference from this spate of invites is that the Indonesian marketing communications community has come to the conclusion that new media–Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social network platforms–matters. And that they need to get in there to secure their share of voice.
Toyota recalls Priuses, heading for more trouble?
Unspun‘s alter ego told Reuters last Wednesday about Toyota’s handling of the recall that:
“People want to see a company take full responsibility, be empathic to the victims and their families and be in control by outlining the problem and how they intend to solve it. They also expect the CEO doing all this,” said Ong Hock Chuan, a technical adviser of Jakarta-based PR consultancy Maverick who specialises in crisis management.
“Toyota seems to have failed on all counts.”
Now, a week after, Toyota’s had to recall its best-selling Prius but watch the way Toyota chief honcho Akio Toyoda makes the statement. Still not taking full responsibility, still not empathic and not quite outlining a clear plan to solve the problems besetting the company.
If Unspun was a gambling man, he’d say that Toyota is in for more trouble because its President cannot bring himself to satisfy the basic expectations of people in a crisis-like situation. He’d also bet that Toyota is in denial and not listening to their PR advisers or that their PR advisers suck big time.
Let’s see how Toyota will fare over the next week or two.
Toyota recalls 437,000 Priuses, hybrids globally
Associated Press , Tokyo | Tue, 02/09/2010 9:46 PM | Business
Toyota says it is recalling about 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to fix brake problems – the latest in a string of embarrassing safety lapses at the world’s largest automaker.
“I don’t see Toyota as an infallible company that never makes mistakes,” President Akio Toyoda said at a news conference Tuesday. “We will face up to the facts and correct the problem, putting customers’ safety and convenience first.”
With the Prius announcement, the number of vehicles recalled globally by Toyota Motor Corp. has ballooned to 8.5 million, including for floor mats which can trap gas pedals and faulty gas pedals that are slow to return to the idle position. The 2010 Prius wasn’t part of the earlier recalls.
There have been about 200 complaints in Japan and the US about a delay when the brakes in the Prius were pressed in cold conditions and on some bumpy roads. The delay doesn’t indicate a brake failure. The company says the problem can be fixed in 40 minutes with new software that oversees the controls of the antilock brakes.
“Let me assure everyone that we will redouble our commitment to quality as the lifeline of our company,” Toyoda said.
US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement Tuesday that Toyota’s leaders have assured him they are taking safety concerns “very seriously.” The statement said LaHood’s agency will stay in constant communication with Toyota to hold the company to its promise.
Also, State Farm, the largest auto insurer in the US, said it alerted federal regulators late in 2007 about a rise in reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Congressional investigators are looking into whether the government missed warning signs.
Toyota officials went to Japan’s Transport Ministry earlier Tuesday to formally notify officials the company is recalling the 2010 Prius gas-electric hybrid – the world’s top-selling hybrid car. The automaker is also recalling two other hybrid models in Japan, the Lexus HS250h sedan, sold in the US and Japan, and the Sai, which is sold only in Japan.
The 223,000 cars being recalled in Japan include nearly 200,000 Priuses sold from April last year through Monday, according to papers the automaker filed with the ministry. The Prius is Japan’s top-selling car.
In the US, Toyota will recall 133,000 Prius cars and 14,500 Lexus HS250h vehicles. Nearly 53,000 Priuses are also being recalled in Europe. Toyota is suspending production of the Sai and Lexus HS250h in Japan until the updated software for those models is ready.
via Toyota recalls 437,000 Priuses, hybrids globally | The Jakarta Post.
Prita and Omni: an alternative view?
“I definitely won’t be supporting Prita,” said the Corporate Communications officer of a major bank vehemently.
Unspun had bumped into her when meeting with clients and, by way of small chat, asked if she was supporting Prita Mulyasari, the housewife who was jailed for three weeks because she had been charged under the Electronic Information and Transaction Law. She was indicted after she complained about the service at Omni International Hospital.
Unspun was taken aback. Since the story broke, Prita had been elevated into a cause celebre against an asinine law and an equally asinine legal system where the punishment certainly did not fit the crime. I asked her why she felt so strongly against supporting Prita.
“Well,” she said. “People like her have to learn that you still have to be responsible for what you write, even if its on the Internet.”
“We receive dozens of complaints like that everyday, and most of the complaints are baseless. Yet they find their way into mailing lists and before you know it the mainstream media picks up on what they said,” she added.
“So I think Omni was right to take action against her. I hope they sue her for a lot of money to deter people like her,” she spat. Later, when the venom had somewhat subsided, he admitted that jailing Prita for complaining was an excessively harsh measure, but the principle of holding her legally accountable for what she wrote still applied.
She has a point. Libel is still libel, even if it is on the internet and people should take responsibility for what they write.Indonesia’s libel laws are a mess as it does not treat libel as a tort but as a crime. The existence of the Electronic Information and Transaction Law, meant to stop unscrupulous people from peddling smut with impunity, only serves to make the issue even a bigger mess.
But even if there was clarity in the law it is a legitimate question to ask whether the new media makes it futile for companies to try to protect their reputation by taking onliners to court. Here’s the reasoning why it may not be a god idea.
In the old days there was an admonishment to any would-be plaintiff against trying to sue newspapers. They were told that “you do not pick a fight anyone who buys ink by the barrel.” The lesson there is that even if you win the case in the court of law the publisher or journalists would, because they control the channels of mass communications, win the image war.
Fast forward to today, the age of Web 2.0 and Social Media where everyone is virtually a publisher. Everyone, through the seemingly limitless capacity of the Net to publish and to scale issues, all of a sudden are sitting on their own barrels of (virtual) ink.
This begs the question of whether any business, especially if they are large and therefore perceived as a social Goliath, should pick a fight with any of the Net’s publishers – the email writer, the mailist commentator, the blogger, the Twitterer.
From what has happened in the Prita case the answer is an unequivocal no. Even if Omni International Hospital wins the legal battle, it has already lost its reputation and is not likely to regain it within a short time.
What then are companies to do. Unspun‘s friend’s complaint is valid. As a large company they get dozens of complaints per day, many of them, in closer investigation, proving baseless. Do they ignore these complaints that pop up like mushrooms after rain on the Net? Will ignoring them encourage or discourage further complaints? And if they do try to answer to these complaints, wouldn’t that very action embolden the complainers and other who have yet to complain?
Well, yes and no. We live in an age where everyone is virtually a publisher. And since you don’t pick fights with publishers the only alternative left is to engage them.Talk to them, be someone infulential in their “neighboorhod”, be good listeners and act on their cimplaints, either to get to the bottom of their grouses or to take action to remedy a wrong. If companies can do these then it has a very good chance of becoming a leader in the Web 2.0 world.
Companies who balk at the time and effort that has to be wasted to listen and to talk to customers this wayjust don’t get it that their cheese is being moved. Change is in the air. Embrace it or go the way of the dinosaur.
