Whole Foods grows up

I was surprised when I recently saw a story by Brian Gaar of the Austin American-Statesman about

the public relations stumbles that Whole Foods Market Inc. has been encountering as it becomes an international brand.

I already considered Whole Foods a big corporation, not some small start-up out of Austin, Texas. After all, Whole Foods has more than 350 stores, including six in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Whole Foods has traded publicly since January 1992 (I would have had a 3,882.84% gain on the stock if I bought a share back then!). Heck, Whole Foods even ranks #232 on the Fortune 500.

Having public relations issues just comes with becoming a bigger company -- you also become a bigger target. Here are the incidents that were mentioned in the article:

• A few months ago, Whole Foods "faced fallout over allegations that it punished two Hispanic employees in New Mexico for objecting to a policy restricting the use of Spanish at work." The company subsequently revised its language guidelines.
• Whole Foods opened a new store in June in Detroit and was criticized for having too high of prices for lower-income residents. I could see how Whole Foods is considered catering to an affluent population. After all, two of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area stores are in the high-end suburbs Edina and Minnetonka.
• "In 2009, company co-founder and co-CEO John Mackey made national news -- and sparked scattered boycotts -- after he wrote an op-ed piece criticizing President Obama's health care plan." (Yeah, people associate the views of a CEO with his/her employer. See Chick-fil-A and Barilla Group).

Welcome to the major leagues, Whole Foods.

What to do if "The Lookout" shows up

One of my favorite shows on TV is ABC's "The Lookout." If you're not familiar with it, ABC describes "The Lookout " as "a survival guide to the modern consumer jungle, offering a mix of compelling undercover investigations and lively dispatches about how you spend your money."

When it comes to ambush journalism, some people just fail -- while others make it through relatively unscathed.

Take a look at the clip from "The Lookout" about cars impacted by Superstorm Sandy that were subsequently sold without flood titles:


Think anyone who has seen the above clip is going to buy a car from D&D Auto Sales in Old Bridge, N.J.? Probably not.

On the other hand, after seeing the interview with Kevin J. Bergner of USAA, one gets the impression that the organization wants to do right by its members. USAA's reputation is probably intact.

It reminds me of the clip from Michael Moore's "The Big One" that featured Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike:

What made USAA and Nike successful in those interviews? For starters, they met with the interviewers. TV can be really sensational when people are running away from the camera. Both Bergner and Knight took the time to share their positions.

Second, if something wasn't right, they offered to look into it. In USAA's case, Bergner said that it was "unsatisfactory" that vehicles were sold through USAA without the appropriate branded flood titles.

Third, they followed through. Nike did look into the minimum age issue of its Indonesian workers and eventually raised the minimum age to 18. It's too early to tell if USAA is following through, but I'm guessing that the organization will because it has a strong reputation to uphold.

Finally, the organizations made their highest-ranking person available. Bergner is the president of USAA Property and Casualty Insurance Group, and Knight is the co-founder and chairman of Nike.

Mumford & Who?

Mumford & Sons

OK, I'm only slightly joking about the headline. . .I do know who Mumford & Sons are. However, I was a bit surprised last week when my Facebook stream became flooded with photos from the Mumford & Sons concert at Xcel Energy Center.

How did it get to be this way, with a band that I've hardly heard of selling out the X?

I think it's a combination of age (mine) and technology. I turned 42 this year, and I find myself listening to my favorite music on my iPod. I only occasionally listen to music on the radio. When I do, I don't usually hear songs from Mumford & Sons, but I sure hear a lot of P!nk and fun. For a lot of people, music evokes memories, and they listen to bands that were popular when they were growing up. Some people, however, are constantly listening to new music (I definitely used to be one of those people, having seen Pearl Jam at First Avenue on their first tour.). Perhaps I'm now "out of touch." (See accompanying video by Hall & Oates below.)

Technology has changed what we listen to, though. Using iTunes or Google, I can choose to be alerted only when new releases come out from my favorite groups. And Netflix, in providing recommendations, only suggests more of the same genre. For instance, fans of "Doctor Who" are provided "Torchwood" as a recommendation. Thanks to technology, we can just go deeper and deeper into the artists and genres that we like.

So to the Mumford & Sons fans out there, beware: as you get older, you still may be listening to Mumford & Sons instead of some hot new group because of the memories Mumford & Sons brought you today.

Most popular simultaneous device combinations

I always find it interesting when television shows have hashtags on the screen, like #TheSimpsons or

#bones. How many people are using another device while watching television? Quite a few, according to these statistics from Google Think Insights. (Take a look at the custom infographic.)

• TV no longer commands our full attention. 77% of television viewers use another device at the same time.
• We use an average of three different screen combinations a day. 81% use smartphone and television; 66% use computer and smartphone; and 66% use computer and television.
• More than 75% of simultaneous usage is multitasking. Within this list of multitasking users, 92% use computer and smartphone; 92% use television and computer; 90% use television and smartphone; and 89% use television and tablet.
• On the other hand, 22% of simultaneous usage is complementary. Within the group of complementary device users, 40% use television and tablet; 36% use computer and smartphone; 35% use television and smartphone; and 32% use television and computer.

I'm often multitasking using my computer and smartphone, while I use the television and smartphone in a complementary fashion because I am interested in the tweets that are going on related to the show I'm watching. (Seeing the tweets related to the finale of "The Bachelorette" while watching the show was a guilty pleasure!)

Scopes Monkey Trial. . .or how to bring publicity to a small town

I didn't realize until recently, when I read "Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions" by Rachel Held Evans, that the Scopes Trial was just a publicity stunt for the small town of Dayton, Tenn.

Held Evans, who lives in Dayton, summarizes the situation best in her book on pages 51 to 53:

Some say it was Moses' fault for not asking for more details when God told him about creating the heavens and the earth. Others say it was Darwin's fault for writing The Origin of the Species. Some blame the media, others blame the legal system, but most folks in Dayton, Tennessee, have pretty well settled on the fault that it was George Rappleyea's fault that our city will forever be known as Monkey Town.

The whole thing started back in May of 1925, when Rappleyea rushed into Robinson's Drugstore with a plan to 'put Dayton on the map.' A New York native with a thick Yankee accent, horn-rimmed glasses, and a head full of modern ideas, Rappleyea was a bit of an alien in this tiny conservative town in East Tennessee, but most folks liked him.

That fateful morning, he managed to capture the attention of some of the town's most influential citizens, who, in the days of Prohibition, liked to gather around the soda fountain at Robinson's to discuss business. 'Mr. Robinson, you and John Godfrey are always looking for something that will get Dayton a little publicity,' Rappleyea reportedly said. 'I wonder if you have seen the morning paper?' Rappleyea, who managed the struggling coal-mining business in the area, had discovered an advertisement in the Chattanooga Times from the American Civil Liberties Union offering to support any Tennessee schoolteacher willing to challenge the state's new antievolution laws, which forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools.

The evolution-creationism debate had taken center stage in recent years, and it didn't take long for Rappleyea to convince Mr. Robinson and the rest of the drugstore regulars that hosting such a controversial test trial would reap economic benefits for the town of Dayton.

The group decided to call in local schoolteacher John T. Scopes, who they hoped would volunteer as the defendant in the case. Scopes, a quiet and unassuming man, admitted that he may have taught evolution in a biology class at the local high school and, more for idealistic reasons than capitalistic ones, agreed to serve as the defendant in the trial. Local attorney Sue Hicks, a man named after his late mother, agreed to coordinate the prosecution with the assistance of his brother, Herbert. (If this part of the story sounds familiar, it's because Sue Hicks served as the inspiration for Johnny Cash's 'A Boy Named Sue.') With prosecutors and a defendant in place, the Robinson's Drugstore gang had pieced together the publicity stunt they were looking for.

Luckily for them, the trial attracted some bigger names than the Boy Named Sue.

Clarence Darrow, a famous criminal defense lawyer and an outspoken agnostic, volunteered his services for the defense, and William Jennings Bryan, a fundamentalist politician and 'the Great Commoner,' volunteered his services for the prosecution. With these two ideological heavyweights in the ring, the Scopes trial was billed as a showdown between science and religion, 'the trial of the century.'

More than two hundred reporters, from as far away as London, descended on Dayton during that hot summer of 1925. For the first time in history, a radio station broadcast the court proceedings live. Pictures of grinning monkeys sipping soda and holding medicine jars adorned billboards and shop windows across town, and Robinson's Drugstore proudly displayed a banner proclaiming 'Where It All Started.'

Protestors, activists, and preachers made pilgrimages to Dayton, so residents erected a giant platform on the courthouse lawn to accommodate any impromptu lectures or debates. (It was rumored that George Rappleyea actually staged a fistfight there.) People could pay to get their picture made with a live chimpanzee, and the town constable even put a sign on his motorcycle that read 'Monkeyville Police.' A New York Times reporter wrote that 'whatever the deep significance of the trial, if it has any, there is no doubt that it has attracted some of the world's champion freaks.'

So many spectators and press attended the trial that it eventually had to be moved to the courthouse lawn. Dayton eventually faded into obscurity, though. Today the town has a population of approximately 7,200, and the largest manufacturing employer is La-Z-Boy.

Meet the media: Josh Rosenthal, content producer at KSTP-TV

Josh Rosenthal started his job as a content producer at KSTP News Channel 5 in May. Skogrand PR

Josh Rosenthal, KSTP-TV Content Producer

Solutions Blog connected with him to learn about his journalistic style, how public relations professionals can work with him, and more.

1. Tell us a bit about your background.

I’m originally from Maryland, about 20 minutes outside of D.C. I wanted to become a journalist and went to the University of Maryland to major in journalism. I have been on air at stations in Gainesville, Fla., and Little Rock, Ark., before coming to the Twin Cities this year.

2. How have you adjusted to Minnesota weather?

So far, so good. I’ve actually lived here since January, so I feel that I already have experienced Minnesota weather. It’s cold -- I’m not going to lie. I feel that all of the great things about the Twin Cities outweigh the cold weather. I really love the Twin Cities.

3. How would you describe your approach to TV storytelling?

Well, it’s important for people to remember that TV is a visual medium. I look for good, informative stories that our viewers want to learn about. It’s important to find visual stories. It’s important to find things within those stories for viewers to see.

4. Your stories almost have a bit of a theatrical element to them. How do you come up with ideas to demonstrate your stories?

It’s a case-by-case thing. The day of the hail storm recently, I and the photographer tossed some ideas around. It’s a storm damage story. Our morning reporter was working on covering a lot of trees down. We thought that covering hail damage would be good. Spotting downed trees is relatively easy, but finding hail damage is harder.

We decided to go to an auto body shop because we figured there would be people with hail damage there, and it was lines all day long.  

We had our story, and we wanted to do something in the live shot rather than me just standing there. We asked the guy if he had any spare parts that were too far damaged to be salvaged. He had some car hoods. We then went to a sporting goods store, and bought some golf balls. I threw them against a car hood to demonstrate the damage that different size hail can do.

5. How has TV news changed during your career?

When I started a few years ago, social media was not nearly as large of a part of what we do. I can remember one of the first stories that I did in Gainesville, Fla. It was about a guy whose car was stolen and the police couldn’t find it, and he posted on Facebook that his car was stolen. That wouldn’t be a story today, because people post things like that all the time. 

The story got better though, because one of his Facebook friends found the car. That wouldn’t be a story today.

6. What do you see as the future of producing content across various platforms?

I’m not really sure where we’re going. There’s much more of an emphasis on hitting all platforms available to us. Now we’re looking at how to tell the story on social media sites plus the KSTP-TV website.

7. What are some of your favorite stories that you have covered in Minnesota?

I did really like the hail story. 

Artist Phil Hansen of Chanhassen

I produced a story a few months ago about an artist in Chanhassen who made his phone number public to everyone on the Internet. He asked people to call him about limitations or challenges that they faced. Maybe they got in an accident or had a rough time with their parents. He wrote the stories on a paper and then put it up on canvas. The way that he put the words from the stories on canvas resulted in one big picture. It was really interesting.  

Any time you can tell a really visual story that makes people say, “Huh,” and think about something, those are my favorites.

8. What are some of your favorite stories that you have covered in your career?

I have few notable ones. Severe weather stories tend to stick out. When I first got to Arkansas, it was

a record year for flooding and tornadoes. That can be taxing too, though. It really wears on you as a person.  

On a more fun note, in Gainesville, I interviewed Busta Rhymes and The Wiggles later on in the same day. That was interesting.

9. How can public relations professionals help you in your job? What are you looking for from them?

The toughest part of my job is coming to the table with stories for the newscast. I like to hear from public relations professionals. It helps when they have an understanding of what we do. 

It also helps when there’s a relationship there – when people develop a relationship ahead of time so I know my source. I love pitches with good stories and the visual component. Getting to know people can be very helpful – I appreciate calls from PR professionals.

Follow Rosenthal on Twitter:  @JRosenthal13.

Behind the scenes at the Minnesota State Fair

The two questions that Brienna Schuette, marketing and communications manager at the Minnesota State Fair, always gets asked when people learn where she works are, "Is that your real job?" and "What do you do in the off season?"

For Schuette, one of 70 year-round full-time employees of the State Fair, her job is very real and has come with numerous public relations challenges. Take, for instance, the year 2007. That year a tornado hit the fairgrounds, tearing the roof off of the Grandstand and downing numerous trees. Also that year was the "runaway bull incident," when a bull got loose at 9 a.m., headbutted a fire hydrant and dropped dead. "I kind of thought it was a joke at first," said Schuette. Or the 35W bridge collapse.

In 2008, Schuette told a group of attendees at a recent Minnesota Public Relations Society of America event, the Republican National Convention (RNC) in St. Paul overlapped with the State Fair. That turned out to be a boon to the State Fair media coverage, though, because the RNC started on the last day of the State Fair -- and many national and international media were in the Twin Cities already. Many media did "slice of life" stories about the Twin Cities, and the State Fair was a part of that coverage.

The State Fair had the first outbreak of the H1N1 virus in 2009, and the Communications team reacted by proactively communicating the importance of hand washing. Last year's public relations challenge for Schuette was the Stratosphere, a "200-foot, one-of-a-kind PR nightmare," according to Schuette. The ride, totally run by computers, was almost too safe -- it regularly stopped midair if there was too much wind. As one could expect, the Stratosphere will not be back for this year's State Fair.

Schuette presented alongside Lara Hughes, State Fair communications supervisor, and Christine Noonan, State Fair marketing and communications specialist.

Hughes noted that "It takes an entire year to prepare for these 12 days." She mentioned some new media resources for 2013, including: a media relations hotline staffed from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., a protected Twitter account just for the media, and a public information officer for State Fair police.

As the State Fair is "The Great Minnesota Get-Together," social media has proven an excellent opportunity to "get together" with Minnesotans online. While the State Fair has a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, Noonan said that "Facebook is the workhorse."

The Communications team uses social media to: get a pulse quickly and inexpensively, check reactions, reflect the State Fair's personality and voice, and stay engaged with people year-round. The team has used Pinterest to take on misperceptions, hence the addition of the "Healthy at the Fair" board.

As you go to the State Fair this year feeling inspired by the bacon-wrapped grilled shrimp on-a-stick, remember that an event this big requires a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes to make an enjoyable experience for Minnesotans.