What a mess.

If you haven't heard Nokia is getting toasted in the press over selling telecom monitoring services to the Iranian government. The functionality allows Iran Telecom to listen in on mobile and landline phone calls. The outrage is the role the technology has played in enabling the government to identify and monitor protesters or dissident journalists.

Apparently Iranians have stopped buying Nokia phones in outrage over the vendor supplying the Iranian government with the capability to do this.

The whole thing is a mess.

On the one hand, the videos and pictures that came out of Iran were probably taken on a Nokia mobile device. On the other hand, enabling the Iranian government to monitor its population sure doesn't endear your company to anyone.

Nokia's position is that this technology is actually a mandatory part of the network with all governments and that they are fully in line with EU and UN export laws. Yet, at the same time, it says that it does not supply the solution to China or Burma (compare that to some US companies, like Google, who do sell in to China. Google for instance agreed to let the Chinese government censor what information users have access to in their searches).

So let's put the whole 'should they, shouldn't they' issue aside, because every tech company right now is facing these issues and there isn't going to be an answer that is satisfactory at this point.

Let's look at Nokia's response from a PR perspective. In my opinion, Nokia really dropped the ball on this one. While a spokesperson did attempt to explain that the solution was in line with what they sell to EU states and the US and argued that on the whole Nokia feels that its technology will benefit the people of Iran.

Guess what... not good enough. What Nokia should have done was either issue a statement via a news release (something that should only be done in extreme situations) or had their CEO hold a press conference. The charge is you are a corrupt company - you have to respond to it forcefully. You can't just hope this 'impression' goes away on its own.

Why didn't they respond? My guess is that they were unprepared.

They should have had responses ready for this the moment they sold the solution to Iran, or  at the very least when protests in Iran started to unfold. It's mind boggling that now, five days after the accusations, no official statement has come out of Nokia other than from a spokesperson who gave a few sentences that did not really address the accusations.

To date, Nokia has been seen as a highly respected vendor that believes in doing the right thing. That is their reputation in the market and they articulate that vision in their Code of Conduct.

So to not respond to these allegations that their solutions enabled the Iranian government to 'manage' the recent protests by monitoring and controlling voice traffic is the wrong strategy.

At the very least the CEO should have written a statement and posted it to the company's Web site.

I don't believe in responding to every little criticism a company gets in the market. But this threatens the good will currently associated with Nokia's brand around the world.

Full disclosure - I own Nokia stock. I'm long on Nokia (I'm not playing it as a trade). While I think they are in transition (and the cynics would say dying a slow death), and they definitely have their flaws (from marketing to the user experience / apps on their phones)... I liked that they were a responsible company with a good balance sheet and common sense approach to growth management.

Yet,  when I see them stick their head in the sand in response to a PR crisis like this, I have to say, I think I will definitely have to reassess my investment thesis on Nokia.  While I still like Nokia in the long run - having poor communications capacity makes you a high-risk stock to own. If you can't defend your brand and business decisions... then it becomes extremely hard for me to defend my investment thesis. I don't invest in companies who don't explain themselves to (at bare minimum) shareholders.

And while this PR mess is bad, had this news broke a few days earlier when Nokia reported earnings, their CEO, who did a ton of interviews with regards to their quarterly earnings report, would have been caught flat-footed dealing with this crisis (with clearly no response to the issue). What kind of damage would that have done to Nokia's brand? While the Iran issue hasn't hurt Nokia's stock (they've dropped as a result of earnings decline)... this damages their brand. And when your brand starts to get damaged the results take a while to show up on the balance sheet, but they do show up in time. 

I'm sure Nokia will have a position on the Iran issue within a week or two (they will have too as they will get asked about it in future interviews) - but the question now is whether it will be too little too late. 

On a side note, I recently came across this flash for the Nokia 5800 and was impressed that Nokia was starting to do more North American style marketing. 

It's too bad that just as I was getting excited about Nokia again this Iranian issue crops up and now I have to reassess my entire thesis for holding Nokia long.

Now Harper is a good example of someone who is excellent at public speaking. Notice there isn't even the slightest hint of anxiety. His posture is relaxed, his tone of voice is conversational, his voice stays within a moderate range of inflection unless he is emphasizing a point, his tone of voice is non-argumentative - in short he conveys confidence and comes across as a 'nice guy' who endears himself to the listening audience. 

Regardless of whether people like or dislike Harper personally or politically (both of which are totally different topics), he is excellent when it comes to media interviews.

You'll also notice during the clips of Obama, he as well has a relaxed, conversational tone.

Also important to note with regards to my Palin comments below, is that even the best public speakers have 'pause' moments, which usually come out as 'uh' breaks in the conversation. "What you have to remember, uh..., is that, uh... the focus should be on collaboration."

Those 'uh' breaks, which all humans do, are moments where the brain is formulating a response. If you are relaxed and comfortable, that break tends to last all of a second or two, and then you complete your thought. But when you are in a state of anxiety, that break can last for 10 seconds or more, causing the brain to completely short circuit.

With the media you can't pause for 10 seconds, so instead, you just blurt out whatever comes to mind and you end up with an incoherent messages like Palin often does.
 

I just don't get it.

What is there to say really, other than Palin is the epitome of what not to do from a communications perspective.

Now, let's be fair, speaking to the media can be nerve racking and anyone who has been in a high anxiety situation can tell you the brain can sometimes short circuit and even extremely smart people can ramble incoherently. So for folks unfamiliar with speaking to the media, it's understandable if they get rattled and end up sounding a bit incoherent.

But Palin has been dealing with the media for over a year. How is it possible that she still manages to get up and ramble on in a totally incoherent manner?

I think I have the answer. If you notice during her press conference, she takes short, staccato-like breaths. I think Palin finds speaking with the media to be extremely scary and is filled with panic and anxiety before doing so. While she masks as much of that as possible  - the short breaths, rambling sentences, almost argumentative tone of voice at times and high pitch inflections when talking all point to the fact that this person is in a state of high anxiety.

I'd be willing to bet that no one has addressed this with her because who wants to tell their boss they have an anxiety issue. Instead they probably give her structured talking points, which she then mixes up once she gets in front of the media headlights.

If I'm right on this, then much of the views that people hold of Palin as being a bit of a 'scatterbrain' might actually simply be the result of anxiety. Like when she spoke with Katie Couric and couldn't name a single newspaper in America. Is it really the case that she couldn't name them, or rather, in a state of high anxiety, when surprised by a seemingly simple question, her brain simply short circuited.

Just because she's got the pageant smile and dresses well does not mean that inside she isn't experiencing fear when speaking publicly. If anxiety is behind her scattered interactions with the press, then it's unfortunate that she has been judged so harshly.

Perhaps what's more unfortunate is that if anxiety is the issue there are easy fixes to over coming that issue. But left unidentified, no matter what strategy they implement with Palin, she's always going to fumble the ball when in front of the media.
 

I'm a huge fan of the media. Whether it's the stock market, governments, social movements - almost everything we associate with the 'modern' world has been shaped to a large degree by the capacity to get information to the common person. Without the media so much of the evolution we have experienced in the past 100 years would not have emerged at the pace it has.

But there are negatives to the media, in my opinion. Like this story that recently swept through the national media of a car dealership that is giving away AK-47's with the purchase of a car. Is this really news? This is a PR stunt. And it's too bad when the media eats it up.

I mean, check out the CNN coverage below where the dealership owner is totally open that the promotion is just 'grand standing' and they did it to get attention. And then the anchor asks 'Isn't that a bit irresponsible?"  - are you serious? The guy tells you he only did this to get the media's attention - the question you should be asking is: isn't it irresponsible to give air time to a PR stunt when the only reason he is doing what he's doing is to get your attention? 

More over, isn't it irresponsible to start engaging the owner of a car dealership on the right to bear arms, the need to protect oneself with an AK-47 because of the local drug problem, etc. - I mean, this is almost as bad as the whole 'Joe the Plumber' coverage that went on during the elections. 

Anyway, the bigger point I wanted to make in this is that when the media covers these non-news items they are complicit in creating negative stereotypes. People around the world see a story like this and think 'American are crazy - what kind of country gives away AK-47s?'. Can you imagine if an Iraqi dealership was selling cars with AK-47s - how American's would view that?

And so the stereotype of American's being gun crazy continues on, all because of the media promoting a PR stunt. The stats show that only 25% of American adults own guns and yet, when you see stories like this, you'd think that the average American was arming themselves to the teeth. 

Just like the media have the power to shape perceptions for the better, they also have the power to reinforce negative stereotypes - and it's unfortunate when the latter occurs.

Have you seen these commercials? They are hilarious! What I love even more about them is that you know Ally Bank probably isn't any different than any other bank. So then what exactly is their commercial about? I mean, it doesn't tell you how they are different. It doesn't tell you what they are doing to ensure you don't experience what you would with a normal bank.

The irony is they are using marketing to bash the marketing of the other banks... they are trying to pull the customer in the exact same way the other banks do, but with a different spin. What is so clever is that they are connecting with people's 'pain and frustration' while at the same time making them laugh. They are saying 'the other guy makes you mad' and 'i make you laugh' - wouldn't your rather do business with me?

There's absolutely no reason to go to Ally Bank after seeing this commercial, and yet, I bet many viewers do. Why? Because by the end of the commercial they think 'Yes, THEY understand my pain!"

I don't know what kind of marketing this is called, but I'm sure there is a name for it. I'd call it bait-and-switch empathy marketing.