PR, Fame and Success: The Career of Stan Musial

Awareness Isn't Always the Goal of PR

Stan Musial, the Hall of Fame outfielder and first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1941-1963, died January 19, 2013 at the age of 92.  In his 3,026-game career, "Stan the Man" won seven National League batting titles.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969, his first year of eligibility.

In his stirring eulogy of Musial, (click below link) broadcaster Bob Costas remarks that, although his statistics rank Musial among the pantheon of the greatest players in our national pastime, his persona never reached the same heights as his peers Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.  Costas comments that other factors besides statistics determined the level of fame or anonymity of Musial and his contemporaries.

First, Musial was non-confrontational.  Considered a 'nice guy' by teammates and opponents alike, Musial never developed any animosity or veered away from his squeaky clean nature.  The media writes about polarizing issues and Musial was universally liked so he never made 'good copy'.  By contrast, Mays breaking down color barriers in baseball, Mantle constantly battling invisible demons and alcohol dependency and DiMaggio with his celebrity marriage to Marilyn Monroe and Hollywood lifestyle, grabbed the majority of headlines.

Further dampening the star-power of Musial, he played his entire career in St. Louis, a town he loved mainly because it was not a big city market like New York.   News from small market towns like St. Louis tended to stay regional and therefore Musial's exploits on the ball field were recognized most within the small geographic market of St. Louis.  Mays, DiMaggio and Mantle played in New York, the center of the baseball universe with several daily newspapers reporting daily on every baseball detail of the city's two famous teams.

Also, Musial just missed out on gaining awareness from a television audience.  He played his last World Series game in 1946, one year before television began regional broadcasting during the 1947 World Series.  So Musial's accomplishments never were widely publicized on a national scale, compared with baseball news from New York which was considered sports news around the country.

The stars were not aligned for Stan Musial because his small market team, good-natured personality and  playing days that pre-dated national television prevented him from realizing the full measure of fame experienced by Mays, DiMaggio and Mantle.  But there is another perspective.

Perhaps Musial understood best that to perform at his peak, he required a calm environment with limited media exposure in a city he loved and called home.  In a culture that celebrates fame for fame's sake, Stan Musial willingly forfeited fame to achieve something more valuable to him:  success.  Hard to believe these days, but they don't always mean the same thing.

Goodbye Stan Musial, Hall of Famer, PR expert.

Bob Costas Eulogizes Stan Musial

THE KEY TO CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS

THE KEY TO CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS

Customer feedback and the process to analyze and create proactive policies based on it is an important component of business success.  The customer has always been king.  In today's connected and virtual world, the customer has taken on even more significance in making and breaking brand identities.

The shift of corporate resources toward customer relations has come at the expense of internal corporate dialog and communication.  Two recent business decisions outlined below demonstrate how the PR advisory function has eroded to dangerous levels within some prominent corporate decision-making hierarchies.

Maker's Mark whisky COO Rob Samuels emailed a group of brand ambassadors for the spirit on February 9 this year that the recipe of the popular whiskey was changing effective immediately to 84 proof from 90 proof.  The dilution was necessary in order to keep up with unexpected international demand.  The change was fine, he stated, because taste test results showed no difference between the two samples.

On October 6, 2010, GAP, Inc., at the time the world's second largest apparel manufacturer, introduced a new logo which was announced on their corporate web site.  The project was overseen by Marka Hansen, president of GAP brand, North America.  The previous logo had been in use since the 1980's.  The new design was promoted as a "contemporary and current design."

The results in both cases were startlingly similar.  Reaction in social media exploded immediately to the Maker's Mark strategy and GAP graphic design.  The onslaught was so relentless that both decisions were reversed within one week of being announced, despite the time, effort and money invested in planning and implementing them. "We've heard loud and clear that you don't like the new logo," GAP stated on their Facebook page on October 12, 2010.  The original logo was brought back and Hansen was out of the company four months later.  On February 16 this year, Maker's Mark COO Rob Samuels tweeted "You spoke. We listened. And we're sincerely sorry we let you down."  The plan to literally dilute the brand was scrapped.

These cautionary tales illustrate the declining impact of public relations counsel to top-level decision makers in some corporate cultures.  In companies as sophisticated as Maker's Mark and GAP, it is beyond reason to believe their own PR teams did not raise red flags forcefully and immediately to the proposed courses of action.  The degree of projected consumer backlash may understandably have been misjudged at the time, however the anticipated arc of the story could not have been overlooked.  Both these situations could and should have been completely avoided with prudent PR strategy and outreach.

Top management made these decisions over the objections of their own PR advisors because the decision-makers earned their degrees in a business environment that no longer existed.  It's not that they're old.  It's a factor of business fundamentals that are changing at such a rapid pace.  Armed with these outdated philosophies, the GAP and Maker's Mark leaderships believed that consumers were important as components of the larger market as a whole.  They could not understand, even at the insistence of their PR teams, that the reverse is equally true today - that the market is made up of individual customers, each of whom through social media and the internet has the same reach and potential to influence others as any multi-national corporation.

So the one key to successful connection with customers is for key leadership to treat employees as the most knowledgeable of all customers.  Inbound marketing is as much an internal corporate goal as it is an external marketing strategy.  Accept and embrace that in the ever-changing virtual landscape that is today's communications environment, input from the inside cubicles should flow to the corner office with more speed and more relevance than it ever has before.

 For GAP and Maker's Mark, learning that lesson became a sobering reality.

DENTISTS PROTEST SHORTENED NHL SEASON

Hockey is the most beautiful sport because it pits speed and skill against violence better than any other athletic activity. At least, it used to.

And that's the problem with the NHL.  Long considered the 'fourth' sport behind football, basketball and baseball -- or the 'fifth' sport, behind Nascar, hockey languishes in television ratings for many reasons.  This situation was compounded during the recent NHL lockout which started in September 2012 and blew past the scheduled October season start date, finally ending when a shortened season began January 19 running through April.

Game attendance in 1995 fell 20% after the 1994 baseball strike as fans showed their anger by keeping their butts out of seats.  The NHL Players Association, led by Donald Fehr who headed the MLB Players Association in 1994 during the strike -- and the NHL itself, should be doing everything in their power to be conciliatory to fans and also to put on the best possible product on the ice.

I don't believe the players are on the same page as fans and owners.

I attended the Panthers/Capitals game last Tuesday at the BB&T Center where the Caps won the game 6-5 in overtime.  Click here for the game recap.  The poor play from both clubs reminded me of the recent NFL Pro Bowl games where players had a tacit agreement to avoid playing defense in order to avoid potential injury.  The scores of the last two Pro Bowls were 59-41 and 62-35.  It is within the realm of possibility that NHL players have internally agreed to 'go soft' during this shortened season to protect themselves because their conditioning was compromised due to the circumstances of the lockout and they don't want to risk injury and therefore more financial question marks prior to the start of the full 2013-14 season.

With increasing top salaries (none guaranteed in the NFL), limited playing careers and recent sensitization to the risk from accumulated head trauma, commerce and marketing have served to shift the emphasis from 'team' and 'selflessness' to 'me' and 'selfishness'.   In the NBA, the game's most prominent big man Dwight Howard of the LA Lakers was criticized by teammates because, rather than even attempt to play through the pain of his recent shoulder injury, he sat out from January 30 through February 10 during a crucial run to try and make the playoffs.  Factoring into his decision is also the fact that Howard may be playing somewhere else next season and that playing now may prolong the healing process and may affect his desirability from other teams.

So, like the Centers for Disease Control that can track viral epidemics back to the first infected person who contracted the disease, now the NHL is the latest patient in the emergency room, for a different kind of labor problem.

If you're looking for definitive proof that the NHL is slacking off, just ask your dentist.  Look closely at the evidence in the two photos below.  Which player got hit more often, Bobby Clarke in 1976 or Alexander Ovechkin in 2012?  

Case closed.

THE POPE AND THE QUEEN WALK INTO A BAR...

THE POPE AND THE QUEEN WALK INTO A BAR...
The Pope and Queen Elizabeth have similar histories.  Let's review each one separately to see how they have so much in common with each other besides ermin robes.

Today Pope Benedict XVI announced that he was resigning his post at the end of this month due to failing physical and mental health.  The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII in 1415.  Although many employers mandate a retirement age, the Catholic Church expects, due to historic precedence as much as any other factor, that their Pope will continue ministering his flock until death.

The response to Benedict's announcement is sure to be immediate and voluminous.  I imagine reaction will fall into one of two camps.  The first argument holds that the Pope, at the moment he undertook his responsibility also took on the obligation to keep his job till the end.  Effectiveness in carrying out his responsibilities is not of paramount concern to this camp.  The Church is top-heavy with advisors and various minions who have for centuries acted on behalf of the Pope in times of incapacitation to protect the Office.  Tradition trumps personal desire.  What Pope Benedict is doing, according to detractors, is standing tradition on its head, virtually burning the Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice at the alter of pragmatism.  He has no right or authority to resign.

The other stream of thought contends that the man has served honorably for seven years.  Traditional values must give way to the heavy personal toll brought about by the realities of the modern papacy.  Benedict is dealing with heavy demands brought about by increased media scrutiny, schisms within the faith, seismic shifts in the geography of Catholicism, internal office intrigue and legal problems.  Remember too that the Pope is managing the global response about the horrible reality of decades of child abuse by the priesthood and cover-up accusations centered on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which the Pope directed as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.    Resigning now provides the Church with the opportunity to inject fresh air and new perspective into the Church.  Ratzinger is practicing self-sacrifice, his supporters say, by making this historic decision which in his mind is designed to save and protect the Catholic faith.

A related dilemma was faced by Queen Elizabeth II in the immediate aftermath of the death of Princess Diana in 1997.  The popularity of the Princess was magnified after her tragic and sudden death to a level that affected the centuries-old traditions of the British monarchy.  Diana, divorced in 1996, was no longer a member of the Royal Family and therefore funeral arrangements were originally planned to be private and at the direction of the Spencer family.  No public announcement was made by Buckingham Palace in the days immediately following the accident.  Public outrage grew along with disillusionment of the monarchy and Queen.  Finally, with counsel of the Prime Minister, the Palace jettisoned centuries of royal protocol and tradition.  Until 1997, the only flag to fly from Buckingham Palace was the Royal Standard, the official flag of the reigning British sovereign.  On the day of Diana's funeral, the Union Flag was flown at half mast over the Palace.  In another departure from centuries of behavior, Diana was given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey with pomp normally bestowed on a member of the royal household.  The Queen made a live television announcement the day prior to the funeral expressing her feelings about protecting and sheltering her grandchildren (Diana's and Charles's sons William and Harry) from the tragedy against the realization that Her subjects demanded that the Queen acknowledge and support their communal grief.

So when the Queen and the Pope head into the bar, they'll raise their glasses to their mutual understanding -- that tradition and preservation are intertwined but separate concepts.  Then they'll return to their palaces and sleep soundly confident that they made the difficult and necessary decisions to preserve their life's work.

COMMUNICATION, TRANSPORTATION AND THE JETSONS

Remember the Jetsons?  That fabulous futuristic family in the television show of the same name that aired from 1962-3?  Well, the future depicted in the program was the year 2062, only 50 years away.
An interesting conclusion about our actual future can be made from the imagined images of the animated show.
The Jetson family -- husband George, wife Jane and children Judy and Elroy -- travel around Orbit City in an aerocar which looks like a cross between a flying saucer and a fishbowl.  Transportation is very advanced in 2062 with roads and highways eliminated as the aerocar travels above ground and enters and leaves buildings from elevated platforms.
Similarly, communication has reached a high level of sophistication with video calls on large screens (see visual) and on computer consoles.
Taking a step back to observe how these two technologies -- transportation and communication -- have evolved over the past 100 years to the present day, it's easy to conclude that these two areas have not developed at the same pace or kept up with each other over the period.
Karl Benz patented his single-cylinder Motorwagen in 1886, creating the first  internal combustion engine. In 1908 the Ford Model T revolutionized automobile production and pricing.  In 1903 the Wright Brothers made the first controlled sustained airflight under power.  In the interim between the turn of the 20th Century and the dawn of the 21st, the foundation of air and ground transportation have remained relatively constant.  From a design perspective, wheels, chassis, wings and fuselage take the same design cues regardless of era.
The same period in communication looks quite different.  In 1900 there were 676,733 Bell telephones in use.  In 1901 Marconi transmitted the first transatlantic wireless signal.  In 1921 the first electronically transmitted photograph was sent by Western Union.  The BBC began broadcasting a television signal in 1936.  In the mid-1950's computers and modems became available to the US military.  Russia launched Sputnik in 1961, the world's first artificial satellite.  Well, you get the picture.
Reviewing the developments in communication and in transportation over the past 100 years as points on a graph, communication has moved up at a faster rate compared with transportation.
Accepting this premise, then the Orbit City of 2062 would look quite different from how it appears in the Jetsons.  The video calls and computer terminals would stay, but the aerocars would go, replaced with more conventional wheeled vehicles traveling on familiar roads and highways.
Taking this observation to its conclusion, the advancement in methods of communication bring people closer to each other and therefore reduces the need for advancements in personal transportation.
So, when the iPhone 10 comes out, we may still be riding around in that old 2012 model year sedan.  And we probably wouldn't look out of place.  Even in Orbit City.

TOY STORE REVELATION

TOY STORE REVELATION

In the CBS television program "Undercover Boss", the CEO of a nationally known brand disguises him/herself and interacts with employees.  The executive learns first-hand how corporate policies are carried out throughout the organization.  The lesson each week is that good policies are thwarted by bad employees and that bad policies frustrate good employees.  The take-away is that when customers are neglected, business suffers.

A surprising experience yesterday at our local toy store had me wishing I could click my heels together and conjure up a visit from Mads Nipper, CMO at Lego (see image below).  My daughter and I were on our way to her friend's birthday party and we walked into the store to purchase a gift.  An employee named Phil -- his name was written on his ID tag pinned to his corporate polo shirt -- was setting up a display of LEGO kits on a table near the door.  He greeted us as we walked by and engaged me in general conversation.  "I'm in a hurry and don't want to talk," I thought.  But Phil was gently insistent about explaining what he was doing.   He said the store was sponsoring a free LEGO workshop in a few weeks to encourage children and parents to play together.  I could see immediately that I was being 'hooked' by Phil with a proposition that I had to learn more about.  

"Most parents think LEGO is too complicated and that children will give up before completing a project, but that's not true," said Phil.  Well, that is exactly what I thought so Phil made me feel validated.  I waited for Phil's follow-up.  He continued to explain that even though some kits have thousands of separate pieces, the assembly was straight-forward and intuitive.  To prove his point, he pointed to a model that he had already assembled on the table and pointed out the simplicity of the design. "It's easier than I thought," I told myself, "but these kits are expensive!"  As if reading my mind, Phil continued to say that there were several price levels for different kits.  The cost of the item must be weighed against the value of extended play with your child to set goals and work together over a period of time to build and complete a project.

What's more remarkable about this customer interaction is that Phil is not a LEGO employee.  He's a store employee with with sales skills so good that he made a $149 LEGO Millenium Falcom kit seem economical.  I came in to the store for a birthday present.  I left with two reservations for the LEGO workshop. 

Thank you Phil.  And Mads, I'll save you the Undercover Boss effort.  Take a meeting with Phil to expand his program to all your points of sale.  Your products will fly off the shelves faster than the Millenium Falcon in hyper-drive.