I Heard it Through the Gracevine

As a public relations major, I have spent a significant amount of time learning about the importance of being able to analyze and find reliable and accurate research. Typically when I begin my research process, my first step is to go to Google to gain a basic understanding of the topic. I have trusted Google because I believed it to be a transparent and honest brand.

However, this past week, Google researcher, Timnit Gebru, was fired over a paper that addressed bias in artificial intelligence. As a black woman in the tech industry, she knew her research was important to prevent the system from generating hateful speech. She and her fellow researchers submitted it to an academic conference, but a Google manager demanded that she either retract the entire piece, or remove the names of all google employees. Gebru refused, and demanded an explanation as to why, or she would resign. Instead of having a discussion with Gebru, Google refused and said that her resignation would be immediately accepted. 

As the PR person, I would be most concerned with internal stakeholders and minority consumers. As a company that prides itself on providing and organizing “the world’s information,” it is contradictory to censor their own employees’ research. Not only does this speak on their reliability as a brand, but it also discredits their “dedication to ‘ethical’ A.I.” Google has previously encountered criticism for their lack of diversity in the workplace, and by firing a woman of color with no justification, it is plausible to assume that this will cause controversy within the workplace.

If it is determined that Google was in the wrong, I would encourage the CEO to extend a public apology to Gebru. As the PR person I would want to respond to this as quickly as possible to prevent more negative articles from being released. In the NYTimes article, the Google Spokesperson declined to comment, in my opinion, this just makes the situation worse.

My next step as the PR person would be to release a statement addressing the recent events. It is important to provide an explanation to all stakeholders as to why she was fired, and what they are planning to do to resolve issues like this in the future. I would also emphasize the need to hire a diverse staff as well as place women in executive positions. By doing this, it would show consumers that the company is prioritizing diversifying their brand. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/technology/google-researcher-timnit-gebru.html

 

After I graduate, I hope to go to law school and eventually combine my knowledge in public relations and law to help businesses make decisions that will be beneficial to all stakeholders. In order to this, I need to have a strong understanding of audience consumption habits and how social media platforms are monitoring and reaching these consumers. 

This week, Twitter and Facebook CEO’s, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions regarding their content moderation techniques. This hearing is a result of numerous incidents including their recent regulation of the reach of an article posted by the New York Post about Hunter Biden. They defended their company’s actions by saying that the information in the article was misleading but this just brought up more questions from the Democratic and Republican parties. At the hearing, senators from both sides were allowed to ask questions. The Republican senators dominated the question portion and asked 72 questions in total, mostly in regards to content moderation. The Democratic senators primarily focused on asking questions about content moderation and its effectiveness in preventing the spread of hate speech and violence. 

If I worked for Twitter and Facebook, I would be most concerned with maintaining a trusting relationship with all publics. After the recent release of the documentary “The Social Dilemma”, which looked at the negative aspects of social media platforms, many consumers are feeling misled by these brands. People are even deleting their social media’s or switching to new ones to show their disapproval of the recent revelations discussed in the film.

 So what does this mean for their brands? A loss of consumers ultimately means less money for them, without an abundance of users, advertising companies will be less willing to buy spots on their website. However, knowing how reliant people are on social media these days, this is extremely unlikely, but it does not mean it won’t happen. This is important for the company to consider as they move forward.

My first move as the PR person after this news was released would be to ensure consumers that their moderation efforts are not meant to hurt them, but to protect them and that in the future they will be more transparent. I would also want to comfort the public by saying that they are complying with officials to answer any questions. My next step would be to work on rebuilding relationships lost by establishing a team that’s sole job is to correctly monitor social media platforms, as well as a team of people whose primary job is to answer questions regarding content regulation. 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/17/technology/twitter-facebook-hearings

  This week the NFL announced that the Weeknd would be performing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show! For many, this is the most exciting part of the show. The NFL is believed to have picked The Weeknd in an attempt to switch to artists with larger social media following who are popular with younger generations and people of color. This is extremely different from their past performances that typically feature classic rock white musicians. 

While FOX Sports will not be broadcasting the Super Bowl this year, it is still important for them to keep tabs on what the NFL chooses to do each year from a strategic standpoint. This strategy implemented by the NFL is relevant to my client because their actions are in response to the ongoing Colin Kaepernick movement. In 2019, they struggled to get artists to perform for them to show solidarity with him and the movement. So, the NFL hired Jay-Z to help orchestrate the performance and attract artists that originally did not want to.

As the PR person, I would be most concerned with the response to the Weeknd performing from minorities. For example: Is this method effective, and does it change a person’s perspective who is loyal to the Kaepernick movement? My initial thoughts would be no, but after looking at other efforts that the NFL has made, it is clear that they are working in the right direction to support the athletes, teams and viewers. Instead of just marketing towards diverse audiences, they first hired a diverse staff, which makes this an overall positive story for the brand.

This story in particular does not say anything about the FOX Sports brand right now. But, this information could be used in our project to help us understand the essentiality of reaching diverse audiences and how to effectively do so. Particularly in our case we are focusing on female viewers, so it would be interesting to look at our tactics and ideas to ensure that our campaign is reaching ALL female viewers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/sports/football/weeknd-halftime-show-super-bowl.html

In my opinion, collaborations between brands can be one of the most powerful ways to reach new consumers. It presents the opportunity to introduce two different types of people to a brand they typically may never use or be aware of, while simultaneously advertising a product and providing exposure. 

Just last month, Glossier, a makeup and skincare company focused on enhancing natural beauty, announced a collaboration with the WNBA to help promote their two new products. The campaign was aired all over social media, including Tiktok, and featured prominent WNBA athletes such as Seimone Augustus, Lexie Brown, Gabby Williams, and more. Each athlete discusses what it means to be a woman in sports as well as their perception of beauty in an effort to empower others.

I think this was an incredible move by the public relations and marketing team at Glossier. Who better to promote a brand all about having fun, than female athletes who are living their dreams on the court! This story relates to FOX Sports because one thing we would love to see introduced to the app is female sports, and if this campaign was successful, it would be a great example to show to our client. Glossier understood their audience and what was important to their consumers, female empowerment, and this is something every business must consider before a collaboration.

For the WNBA, this is a positive story as well because it provides exposure. Unfortunately, women’s sports do not typically receive as much coverage, so by having these phenomenal athletes share something as simple as their skincare routine in fun and flirty videos, Glossier consumers are enthralled into the world of sports. 

Another aspect Glossier used to help launch their campaign was their blog. Their blog is a place for people to come together and talk about their favorite beauty products. It’s unique because it does discuss other beauty brands, and isn’t necessarily just a way to advertise their own products. I would love to include something like this into our project as well because I think it’s important to create a community among all consumers across all brands that are in the same category and learn from each other. In this way, I think it could be effective to utilize the FOX Sports social tabs to have talent interact with users.

https://www.si.com/enfuego/news/wnba-stars-deliver-powerful-message-with-glossier-campaign

 

After reading the 8 rules, I realized the importance of implementing and following through with a diversity plan. Each rule kept coming back to the idea that you need to know more than just the numbers, you must understand your multicultural consumers in order to appropriately reach them and create relationships with them. This was my biggest “ahhhh” moment, because it seems like such a simple fix to just educate your employees, but like the author stated, most companies fail to actually make a change. Another statement the author made was how essential segmenting multicultural groups into smaller groups was. I think that this is something most people overlook because they are socially unaware of groups outside of theirs; this reminded me of my first interaction with race, because I feel like my mom based her opinion off of what little she knew about other races and cultures.

I remember getting home from school one day and talking to my mom about a guy in my class who had chased me at recess, I must have been in 2nd or 3rd grade. The guy was african american, but I had never thought anything of it until my mom asked me if I liked him. I responded that I was too young to like boys, and she said something along the lines that if I choose to date a black boy when I was older, that I should be careful because sometimes it can be “too culturally difficult”. When I asked what that meant, she just said that they live differently than us and it can be hard to raise children. I was like 8 years old, and so confused why my mom was even talking about marriage or children when I was just sharing what happened on the playground. After growing up with my parents and looking back on this, I really do not believe they are not racist. My parents raised me to never hate and always love, and because of this, I never understood how anyone could be ugly to a person just for being different. However, I do believe that some of the comments my mom made towards me during my life were prejudiced but I contribute it to how she was raised by my grandparents. 

Out of the 8 rules, I think the first was the most important. The first rule stated the importance of multicultural intelligence, the author hounded on the idea that it “separates the winners from the losers” because without it, you will not succeed in reaching your target audience. However, before a company can even create a diversity strategy for their business, they must hire a diverse staff of their own and hire based on “diversity of experience”, which includes physical and emotional attributes. Rule number two emphasizes the need to divide and conquer, or segment. By doing this, you only help yourself because a smaller target audience creates a smaller market. In this chapter, I liked the example she used of trying to target a group of immigrants. First, you must research and understand the group and their needs, but then you have to understand how the relationship to the product changes their acculturation process so that you can effectively market. The third rule, states that you should never just trust your business with an agency that promises to reach a targeted audience, because this makes it easier for them to manipulate the findings and present the results they want. The author also marks the importance of doing your own research whenever possible, this way you can know the consumer and can try to understand how they will read or view an ad. When doing this, it is also vital to be aware of cultural competence because something may work linguistically but not culturally.  This leads into the next rule, number 4, which highlights the need to be aware of humor in other cultures. Many companies have made the mistake of attempting to target a multicultural audience through a joke about a stereotype, and while this can be successful, you must do your research and conduct focus groups with a sample of the group. It is also important to remember that just because you have a diverse team of employees, does not give you immunity from a public relations nightmare that offends instead of humors. Rule #5 builds off of  this by focusing on being aware of prominent mannerisms and phrases in other cultures. Losing a message in translation is popular and often results in embarrassing and humiliating the company, many consumers also see this as culturally insensitive and can lead to a bad reputation for the entire brand. My favorite quote from this chapter was, ““To translate a language is to translate the culture of the people who speak it” (24). I think this quote speaks volumes of the author’s knowledge on reaching diverse audiences and is stated beautifully. Rule #6 emphasizes the essentiality of making an emotional connection with the target multicultural consumer audience. Minorities see significantly less commercials and ads that feature their culture, so when it is done in a realistic and sensitive way, it can make the consumer feel extremely comfortable and excited about the brand. But, once you attract the consumer, the process does not end there. Now that you have their attention, a business must make them feel comfortable in their store by being aware of the difficulties the minority group encounters, this helps to seal the purchase and create a relationship with the group. Rule #7 focuses on the power of a wink in an advertisement, this rule almost seemed comical to me at first, but as I read on it made sense. A wink can be used to create a connection with a multicultural audience by saying that, “I’m talking to you, and only you”.  A wink can comfort a typically stereotyped group of people. The final rule ends on a very important note. If a company releases a commercial that they thought would get a positive response, but actually ends up offending people, it is vital to your companies reputation and relationship with that multicultural audience to apologize and address any concerns. To do this, you should always have a rapid and sophisticated response strategy and always be aware of watchdogs. Watchdogs have an interest in improving the way their minority group is represented in the media, so this typically leads to backlash to the brand (which is typically justified and correct), but there are the occasional watchdogs that are just looking to stir up trouble. The author also recommends that businesses do not do damage control by themselves, it can be very helpful to hire an outside party that has experience with public relations. 

After taking the Harvard Implicit Bias test, my results showed that I had “no automatic preference towards black people and white people. I was kind of surprised by these results, not because I expected to show a preference, but because I feel like everyone has some degree of unconscious bias towards their own group. I feel like I don’t see color, but I also see prejudice and racism everywhere. This hurts my heart more than anything, but as a white blond woman, I never do anything to change the treatment of minorities and justify it by telling myself that I could never understand the difficulties they face, and therefore they probably don’t want my help- but I know this is wrong and ignorant of me, and this test and reading opened my eyes to it.

In this reading, the author presented many key triggers and issues that lead to failed communications, but the one that she kept coming back to was the lack of proper research and a diverse staff. Almost all of the failed campaigns focused on in the chapters was due to creating an ad without understanding all aspects of the multicultural group. Additionally, without a diverse staff to provide input, you are almost setting yourself up for failure. Another key trigger is using a stereotype to create humor, and while this can be done successfully, it typically misses the mark and offends thousands of individuals and leads to a public relations nightmare. This can also be done accidently by assuming that humor translates from culture to culture, because something that may be funny to us, could be extremely offensive to another group of people. When hiring a translator, you should ensure that they understand the language linguistically and culturally.

One of the most successful approaches I read about was CEO of General Electric Jack Welch’s implementation of a diversity strategy. One of the primary steps he took was hiring a chief diversity officer, this is essential to guaranteeing a follow through because then there is a leader to keep track of numbers and hold the company accountable for maintaining a diverse staff. After Welch did this, he saw a drastic increase in the number of senior management positions occupied by women and minorities. An approach that I enjoyed reading more about was the crisis during the George W. Bush administration when an American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided off the coast of China and killed the Chinese pilot. If this was not handled properly, it would have ended in an international incident. However, the U.S. Ambassador at the time understood the significance of an apology in Chinese culture, and although the president initially refused, it was all they were asking and a simple apology fixed the whole crisis. This is a perfect example of where having a multicultural intelligence can “separate the winners from the losers”.

A minority group that typically feels misrepresented by the media is the LGBTQ community. While in todays time this may feel like a relatively easy group to target, advertisements that are often targeted towards them are playing off of a stereotype that they are all one way. For example, in 2007, a study by New American Dimensions about gay and lesbian consumers identified 5 distinct segments of the lesbian/gay community, these are five very different groups that have different characteristics. So when trying to reach this audience, you should first either identify the segment of the LGBTQ community you are trying to reach, or create an ad that is not offensive to any of the groups, and then hold a focus group with members of the community to ensure you have rightfully represented and reached the audience.

I feel like I could be prepared to do a campaign to a racial/ethnic diverse audience with the proper time and research. I have all of the knowledge, it would just be about effectively following each rule and taking each step. This reading taught me the importance of working with a diverse staff, and I know that I would only be comfortable working in an environment that is accepting towards all minorities. 

I would say that 80% of people enjoy some aspect of watching sports; whether it’s the food, drinks, socialization, or the actual game, there is something for everyone. So why in a time of social distancing, where there is so little to do, are TV ratings for sports plummeting?
Although the research presented in this article is incomplete, it introduces some interesting points. Ratings for sporting events that typically draw in millions of viewers, like the NBA finals and the NHL’s Stanley Cup, had almost half the amount as last year, even the NFL was down 13% from the previous week!  Additionally, sports like tennis, golf, horse racing and college football have seen at least a 25% decline from 2019.

Because of the coronavirus, people of all ages have had to completely adjust the way they live. This has affected many aspects of our world, including the way businesses are choosing to market and how content is consumed. This article contributes the decline in views and ratings to numerous factors, many of which are stated as unknown, but a primary thought is that it is due the abundance of sporting events occurring at the same time. For the first time, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, and WNBA, all had games last Sunday. Another thing to consider is the current political climate which is drawing more TV consumers to the news.

For FOX Sports, this research is extremely important because the number of views and ratings determine the cost of running ads during games played on the FOX Sports Network. If views are down, companies will want to pay less money to run their ads on the networks, resulting in them losing money. FOX Sports consumers are their most important public and this research is in response to their habits. To respond to this, PR professionals should be doing there own independent research as well as brainstorming how to bring more viewers in during game time.

This information could be directly implemented to help with the design and tactics of our campaign. If this research is more developed and thorough, it could provide some helpful insights to how the typical user consumes game content. Using cable providers is now the inferior way to watch TV, a majority of my friends strictly use streaming services. In my opinion, I think it is a matter of time before they are completely abolished, and this is something that needs to be considered by my team. 

To be completely honest, I found this article very surprising because I work at a sports bar and I see how many people these games bring in. At the same time, it makes sense, because there are always so many events simultaneously occurring. 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/sports/tv-ratings-sports.html