FAIL: Intuit Customer Service Unit Closed as W-2 Filing Deadline Looms

If you ran a company that generated billions of dollars in annual revenue by providing customers will invaluable software products and services and you knew there was a major deadline coming up that would impact a large percentage of your customers, don’t you think you’d make sure you had more and more customer service reps available as that deadline approached? Makes sense, right? At least that’s what I do and my firm doesn’t generate billions of dollars in annual revenue.

This is how I feel about Intuit's decision to NOT have QuickBooks payroll customer service reps available the weekend before W-2 forms have to be filed.

But that’s apparently NOT how Intuit feels (NASDAQ: INTU) because their Payroll Support team is  ONLY available Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 6p.m. (PST).

Most of the time, that’s probably adequate. BUT employers have to file/distribute W-2 forms on/before February 1 (that’s this coming Monday).

So I’ve been messing around with Quicken/QuickBooks for the better part of four hours now, been on the phone with Intuit customer support reps in India three times today, only to finally be told they can’t help me. I’ll need to call back on Monday morning when the Payroll Customer support group is working. AAAAAARGGGHHHH!!!!!

To the credit of the supervisor I spoke to in India, he did suggest I call at 8 a.m. (PST) on Monday as that’s a time with very little call volume. And to be honest, I appreciate that suggestion.

But with an IRS-imposed deadline looming and QuickBooks failing me (at least when it comes to accessing, preparing and printing W-2 forms today), I have one thing to day to Intuit management:

What in the heck were you thinking? The one customer support group who can handle specific issues is closed at the very time when your customers HAVE TO use a specific portion of your products. What a bone-headed decision!!!!

In case you were not clear on the point, I am NOT HAPPY WITH INTUIT right now!

UGH, UGH, UGH!

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL!!!!!!

Intuit DEFINITELY wins a Sad Betty Award over this approach to customer service.

iPad Name Equals Apple PR Blunder

Early indications are that Apple made a mistake using the term iPad to name its newest product (an eBook-reader).

The Apple iPad (photo courtesy of iLounge)

Within minutes of the official disclosure of the iPad name, the first negative missives began to hit the Internet, equating the term “pad” within iPad to a feminine hygiene napkin.

Soon the term iTampon began appearing on Twitter, with many tweets chastising Apple’s public relations and marketing department for not contemplating that at least some women might be offended with the iPad name. Other tweets provided indecorous comparisons between a feminine pad, the iPad and a tampon — hence, the emergence of the mocking, farcical term: iTampon.

In fact, by 4:30 p.m. (PST), iTampon had supplanted iPad in microblog posts on Twitter and had become the No. 2 “Currently Trending” term on Twitter (according to Tweetstats).

Look, it’s bad enough that my wife makes me buy feminine hygiene products for her and our girls at the grocery store. But iPad?!?! Are you kidding me?

I’m surprised someone inside of Apple’s distortion reality field didn’t stand up and say,

“Steve, ya know, half of the potential customers for this product might think of a sanitary napkin when they hear the name iPad.”

But maybe that’s just me. Am I off base here or not?

I think not. I’m convinced Apple made a major PR faux pas with the iPad name, a real marketing blunder.

That’s why I’m giving Apple a “Sad Betty Award” for launching this new product as the iPad.

Last thought. Expect the late night hosts to start joking about the iPad as early as tonight, but no later than tomorrow for sure!

Betty Benton Mann, the “Betty” Behind the Betty Factor, Died Friday Morning

Betty Mann (of "The Betty Factor" fame)

Betty Benton Mann, my 83-year-old mother-in-law and the inspiration behind The Betty Factor, died in her sleep early Friday morning, December 4, 2009 of health matters incident to old age and having her gall bladder removed earlier in the week.

Here is a copy of her obituary.

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After 83 wonderful years on earth, Betty Benton Mann returned home to her Father-in-Heaven, the Savior, Jesus Christ, many loving family members and friends, and her beloved husband, Ray, on December 4, 2009, nearly two years to the day after Ray’s passing.

Born July 3, 1926 in Boise, Idaho to Mamie Thompson and Otto G. Benton, Betty was the fifth of nine children. She was raised in Boise, Twin Falls, Idaho and Redondo Beach, California.

From the day she first walked herself to services as a young child, Betty was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). As a teenager, she was president of her ward Golden Gleaner organization and helped plan and run the first ever LDS Youth Conference in southern California.

After graduating from Redondo Union High School, she moved to North Salt Lake to help her oldest sister, Wanda, care for her children, and it was there that she met her future husband, Ray Elwood Mann.

Betty and Ray were married in the Salt Lake Temple of the LDS church on May 4, 1948. They settled in Bountiful, Utah where they raised three daughters and two sons, while she also worked as a dental assistant for many years. Betty was active in the PTA in Bountiful where she ran the Halloween Carnival for three years and served as PTA president for two year.

After their youngest children graduated from high school in 1975, Betty and Ray spent an adventurous year in 1976 in West Germany for Ray’s employer, Chicago Bridge & Iron. The next year, Ray was transferred to world headquarters in Chicago where they lived until 1984. During their time in Naperville, Illinois, Betty filled an eight-year volunteer assignment with LDS Social Services working with out-of-wedlock mothers, including service as a counselor to birth mothers and transporting newborns to adoptive parents. She also served for a time as a member of the Relief Society presidency in the Glenbard Ward in Illinois.

Betty and Ray moved to Sandy, Utah in 1984 where they made their home for the rest of their lives. In Sandy, Betty served for 18 years in the LDS church’s Data Entry Program in the Canyon View Stake. She and Ray also served a one-year LDS Service Mission in 1994 near Bakersfield, California for the Home Management Department.

Betty was preceded in death by her parents, five siblings, her husband, and one son, Clyde. She is survived by four children, Linda, Pam (Harold) Egginton, Todd, and Allisha (David) Politis; 18 grandchildren (evenly divided between boys and girls); and 14 great-grandchildren.

A viewing will be held at Mountain View Mortuary at 3115 East 7800 South in Cottonwood Heights, Utah from 6 to 8 p.m. on Tues., Dec. 8, 2009. The funeral will be held at the same location at 11 a.m. on Wed., Dec. 9, preceded by an additional viewing from 9:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Interment, on site, will follow immediately after the funeral.

The family extends its heartfelt thanks and admiration for all of the fantastic doctors and medical providers who worked with Betty in addressing her health concerns during the past few years. In addition, Betty (and Ray) loved living at South Towne Ranch in Sandy, Utah where they made many wonderful friends.

Betty had a sharp mind and wit her entire life, and she loved studying the gospel of Jesus Christ and learning about LDS church history. She was a devoted and loving wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend, and although she will be missed, we are happy she has “graduated” from this life to be reunited with her husband and best friend, Ray.

Goodbye for now, Betty.

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Although we had some initial son-in-law / mother-in-law challenges early in the 28 years of our relationship, we both grew to love and respect each other over time, and I’m grateful Allisha and I were able to have both Betty and Ray live so close by as we raised our five children.

She was a good person and taught me much, not the least of which was to always remember to work and work and work to make sure what I wrote could be easily understood by anyone, even my mother-in law.

To that end, I will always use the phrase “The Betty Factor” as a shorthand reminder of that lesson. I will also keep this blog alive in her honor and as a way of continuing to teach about the importance of keeping all marketing messages simple and on-point.

Thank you, Betty, and for now, goodbye. 

PR Hoax Hurts Integrity of National Press Club

Whether you work in the field of Public Relations or just happen to be a news junkie, chances are you already know about the PR hoax perpetrated this Monday to call into question the stance taken by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on climate change.

In fact, a quick search of Google news for the terms “chamber commerce climate change” (not inside quotation marks) finds several hundred news stories on the subject.

The event was staged at the National Press Club (in Washington, D.C.) by an activist organization that calls itself the “Yes Men,” and it’s a group that has punked the news media before. As reported in the New York Times, the fake press conference also featured fake journalists and fake press materials designed to look as if they were produced on Chamber of Commerce materials. And a number of major news outlets were fooled by the hoax, notably CNBC and Reuters (both of which later corrected and retracted their stories).

However, lost in all the hubub, hoopla and news coverage about the hoax is one critical point: I’m convinced that the Yes Men organization have also attacked and hurt the integrity of the National Press Club. Call it another example of the Rule of Unintended Consequences.

Certainly there are widespread examples of biased news organizations or media outlets that lean one political direction or the other. I get that, and I hope that most people are savvy enough to understand this fact too.

Regardless of one’s viewpoint on any subject (including climate change), the United States of America was founded on several key principles, one of which is freedom of the press.

The National Press Clubbills itself as “The World’s Leading Professional Organization for Journalists,” and none other than noted CBS commentator, Eric Sevareid called the NPC the “sanctum sanctorum of American journalists.”

By choosing to hold its fake news conference at the National Press Club, the Yes Men organization have besmirched the good name and integrity of the National Press Club.

Please note that I am NOT suggesting that the Yes Men were wrong to stage a fake press conference. I’m only suggesting it should not have been held at the National Press Club.

And for that, I bestow a Sad Betty Award on the Yes Men for choosing to stage their PR hoax at the National Press Club. 

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P.S.  To get a sense of what happened during the press conference when it was interrupted by a real representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, you might check out this YouTube video. It’s about six minutes long.

Audi vs. BMW, a most unusual game of chess

This is what I consider creative, fun and competitive marketing at it’s finest.

In August 2008, Audi leased billboard space at the busy intersection of Santa Monica and Beverly Glen Boulevards in Los Angeles. The advertisement for the entirely new Audi A4 called out BMW to make the next move. So, how did Santa Monica BMW respond?

I’ve never doled out a Happy Betty Award before, but I think it’s about time. Well done, BMW. Well done.

Four Marketing Lessons from the TweetSum Video

TweetSum is a brand new tool for Twitter users that launched just a few weeks ago.

As Twitter tools go, TweetSum is interesting in that it allows those in the Twitter-universe (”Twitterverse”) to quickly review their Followers and people they are following, ranks each by a TweetSum ranking, and allows you to Ignore, Follow or Un-Follow people very easily. But that’s NOT why I’m writing about TweetSum here.

Actually, I recommend you check out TweetSum’s explanatory video on its home page. Here’s why.

1.   The video communicates the TweetSum brand perfectly.(At least I think it does.) According to the About section on the site, TweetSum was banged together over a weekend by a bunch of friends/colleagues in Seattle. And given

• the titles the TweetSum-ers have given themselves,
• the style of writing on the site,
• some of the terms/language they use (FYI - the rating system noted above is called the Douche Bag Index or DBI for short),

I’d say TweetSum is a tongue-in-cheek, we-don’t-really-care-if-you-like-us-or-not just-use-our-service kind of a company.

If I’m correct with my read on the TweetSum brand, the brand message comes across clearly in the video in the opening lines when a voice intones “TweetSum : So filled with awesome your head will explode.” Yeah, it made me smile too.

2.    The TweetSum video quickly explains the problem (and the answer) faced by most Twitter users — deciding who to Follow (or stop Following).

3.     The video simply shows how TweetSum works.

4.     And the TweetSum video is only two minutes & 19 seconds long.

So why am I writing about TweetSum and its online video? Two reasons.

A.   TweetSum shows how easy it is to both introduce and reinforce your brand from the very beginning by using an inexpensive, yet very informative, video on a company Website.

B.   Online video is becoming more and more important to the search engine algorithms as they spider across the Web. Those sites with video and other forms of multimedia content receive a stronger rating by the search companies. And the more relevant such content is to the site where the video is found, the better off the content is judged.

When you use video on your site(s), consider reinforcing such content with written content as well. This can either be a word-for-word copy of the video or supporting language.

As I understand it, the Web-spiders and the algorithms are not quite to the point yet where they can “read” the videos and what they contain — just that they’re on your site, what metatags and headlines they have, and what “closed captions” (if any) they contain.

Since most videos on the Web do NOT contain closed captioning, adding on the word-for-word and/or supporting copy is a good idea (at least for now).

Congrats to the TweetSum team for a good use of online video. You get a “Happy Betty Award” for your efforts.

P.S.  The “Twitter in Plain English” video is another great example of an online, how-to video. It’s found on the Twitter homepage as well as on YouTube.com. Here it is:

PR Gaffe Gives Nike Black Eye

When is the winner of a race not the winner of a race? Simple: When other racers don’t know what’s happening with all of the other racers or teams during a race.

Clear as mud? Let’s be more specific.

As I wrote yesterday on the SOAR Communications blog (see “Fastest Runner Finally ‘Wins’ Nike Women’s Marathon“), Arien O’Connell (photo above) posted the fastest time in this past Sunday’s race in San Francisco. However, because O’Connell didn’t start the race with the elite runners some 20 minutes before the 20,000 other runners, O’Connell’s time of 2:55:11 didn’t put her on the winner’s podium or give her the winner’s prizes.

Not fair. Maybe. But them’s the rules, both Nike’s and those of USA Track and Field. And for good reasons.

You always have at least two competitors in a race - other racers and yourself. Truth be told, the strategies and tactics that go into running a race don’t always mean running flat out from start to finish. In fact, sometimes the person who wins is she who has the best plan going into the race or he to adapts the best to the unfolding drama on the course.

Unfortunately, for Nike, few people outside of competitive/professional runners realize such strategies and/or rules exist.

Nevertheless, Nike could have had all of the runners start at the same time - apparently that’s their plan for next year’s Nike Women’s Marathon.

But this year, after word got out that O’Connell’s fastest time didn’t win the Nike Women’s Marathon all heck broke loose. Hundreds of comments, most negative toward Nike, were attached to online stories and blog posts.

Brian Solis of FutureWorks fame wrote an impressive blog post providing good background on the race (his wife and mom ran in the marathon), and then he appropriately lambasted Nike for dropping the PR ball in this instance.

Remember: Companies like Nike sponsor and/or produce events like marathons for very specific corporate goals. In the case of this marathon, I believe the three main purposes of the race were to A) raise money for cancer research, B) celebrate female athletes and “average” runners, and C) promote Nike.

Several days after the race, Nike backtracked (kind of) and named O’Connell “a” winner in the race. Not THE winner - A winner. She also got the same prize package as THE winner.

And as mentioned above, Nike also announced it will NOT have separate start times for elite runners and the rest of the pack in next year’s contest.

At the end of the day, these were the correct steps for Nike to take. But my heck, what a mistake by Nike and its marketing & PR teams to not honor O’Connell on race day.

If such an event had NEVER occurred before (a non-elite runner’s results surpassing those of a top elite finisher), that would be one thing.

But literally days before the running of the Nike Women’s Marathon a similar result had occurred with the Chicago Marathon when the fourth best time was posted by a non-elite runner. Except in this instance, Wesley Korir did NOT receive the $15,000 in prize money awarded to the 4th place finisher.

How did Nike not know this? And even if they didn’t know this had happened, how is it that a company dedicated to sport and celebrating the competitive nature of the human spirit didn’t immediately step forward and declare to the world,

“Wow! Look what happened. We’re so excited by Arien’s best time finish, we’re going to award her a prize package identical to the ‘official’ 1st Place finisher!”

Then everyone would have joined in celebrating with O’Connell and Nike, instead of decrying the company’s lack of fair play and its corporate callousness.

Nike gets a “Sad Betty” Award in my book, even if they did the right thing eventually.

They just didn’t “Do It” from the get-go, and that’s the problem.

The World’s Best Brand and It Doesn’t Advertise

Imagine that. Today’s news from research firm Millward Brown’s Brandz study showed that the company with the best brand on earth, the one with the most recognition worldwide, was Google.

Yes, Google. The company that does the least amount of advertising of any on the list. In fact, the article in Advertising Age even states that “Despite doing no visible consumer advertising, the search giant repeats as this year’s most powerful brand…” Truly, this is a company that understands the power of public relations and its role in brand management and development.

Now, before I ruffle the feathers of friends or others in the ad industry, I should note that Google is the only “brand” listed in the top 10 that does not advertise. However, each of the top 10 receives so much coverage that it’s hard to imagine a true need for advertising, except to support its ongoing PR efforts. (more…)

In PR, Transparency Should Always be a Policy

On our blog, we clearly state that we represent clients who pay us to help with their marketing communication campaigns. This means we speak highly of them. Luckily for us, it’s easy to do because the companies we work with are companies we can believe in and support.

However, and this surprises me, not everyone in the profession adheres to similar standards. Well, it doesn’t surprise me that their are unethical people out there who are trying to manipulate the system for their own or their clients benefit, but it surprises me that they feel it is an acceptable tactic.

So why is this news? Cisco recently ran into legal problems because they did not have a disclosure policy in effect. How could they and many other companies avoid a potential lawsuit or loss in the trial of public opinion, be transparent. (more…)

China & the IOC Utilize Spin in an Attempt to Minimize Athletes’ Health Concerns for 2008 Games

The International Olympic Committee and the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) are doing all they can to minimize the fact that world-class athletes are beginning to pull out of the 2008 Summer Games for health concerns.

The story began nearly two weeks ago when Haile Gebreselassie, the current marathon world-record holder, announced that he would not compete in Beijing this August due to his concerns that air pollution in Beijing would permanently harm his lungs. (Gebreselassie suffers from asthma.)

Previously, gold medal tennis winner and four-time French Open winner, Justine Henin, had proclaimed that she would not defend her gold medal in China since the pollution would aggravate her asthma as well.

The decisions of these athletes notwithstanding (and the threat of other world-class athletes withdrawing from the Games due to health concerns), the IOC distributed on Monday, March 17 with the headline “IOC ANALYSES BEIJING AIR QUALITY DATA.”

(more…)