Facttactic

Corporate and technical writers

Reputation management

eskimo lollies leave them cold

It’s been interesting to read the media furore today over New Zealanders getting antsy with Canadians getting antsy with New Zealanders eating sweets called Eskimos, which are shaped as, well, Eskimos – er, make that Inuits.

Last year Kiwis ate nearly 19 million of them, making the Eskimo one of our most-loved lollies. Some Canadians have called the sweets offensive, saying Eskimo is no longer used as a term and, regardless, eating sweets shaped as Inuits is just not on and carries hints of cannabilism.

NZers have voiced their opinions in the hundreds on web and news sites, largely telling the Canadians to bog off. Email discussions at the client where I have been working this week were busy with with similar sentiment.

Pascalls, the makers of the Eskimo, has been reported saying they don’t plan to change anything.

Makes you wonder, though, what would happen if Canadians started eating lollies shaped as a person in a grass skirt called a Hori.

the multi-million dollar give-away that wasn’t

Looking for a publicity campaign that will hit all the right targets? Probably best to stay away from a campaign like that of U.S online brokerage site Zecco who reportedly surprised its customers by giving them multi-million dollar trading balances on April Fools’ Day!

Zecco was surprised when some customers began making real trades with their newfound riches … and the company then, reportedly, further alienated customers by making them wear any losses they incurred in their trading!

will nude photos help Pauline H?!

Controversial Australian former politician Pauline Hanson, who has made and lost a career on race-based policies, is trying to make her umpteenth political comeback – this time on an anti Muslim and African platform. Er, is that a vote winner, Pauline?

While on the campaign trail, she has reportedly been shocked by nude photos of herself from the 1970s being published in newspapers and websites around the world after an old boyfriend sold them.

But one wonders if, given the nature of her policies, she should stop being embarrassed by the photos and realise that they may be the only (ever-so-slightly) positive and widespread publicity that she will get!

Update (16 March): Some commentators say it a deliberate political ploy. Pauline says it is not her in the photos. Whatever the story, she certainly knows how to play up the publicity!

Update (22 March): Pauline wasn’t elected. The Australian newspaper that broke the nude photo story has apologised to her saying the photos were of some one else and they had been fooled by a con-man.

ugly girls make poor PR

Good read in the paper over the weekend with Tui Breweries having to defend its service of offering ‘Tui girls’ from Wellington at a higher price to punters hiring out its Mangatainoka brewery if they didn’t want to have the local Tui girls.

Made our iconic brewery look kinda tacky although Tui’s spokeswoman pulled it back well in saying travelling costs from Wellington and a modelling agency fee were behind the higher charge.

She wasn’t helped in her work though by loose comments from the brewery’s manager, who excelled in the poor taste humour stakes by saying “We don’t put any ugly ones out there, if that is what you’re asking.”

I feel an advertising catch-phrase coming on: Palmerston North girls are more attractive than Wellington girls … (you can complete the rest!)

how to find, track and manage your online reputation

How do you find and track yourself or your business online? How do you manage your online reputation?

With the online world a key environment for spreading PR messages, it is essential to be able to track those messages as well as their responses and any other mentions and conversations about your business.

Here’s an article detailing eight good tools for tracking stuff online and here’s another social media tracking tool.

And this tool — uberVU — is so new it hasn’t  even had its public beta release yet! But it’s already getting good press. It tracks conversations wherever they go on the web and then let you reply to, and manage, them from one place.

Now that sounds very promising: convergence of social media , we need that.

Here’s an interview with uberVU’s founders: