Coke has done it again – tampered with its brand by changing the color of it famous red cans to white for a holiday promotion with the World Wildlife Fund.

The promotion was to raise funds to bring awareness to the plight of polar bears, an endangered species. It caused a huge kerfuffle among consumers.

Many confused the holiday Coke can with the silver Diet Coke can — horrors. Coke was forced to recall more than a billion of the white cans and restock their shelves with the familiar red ones.

Not the First Mishap

You’d think that the #1 brand would know better. Back in 1985 the company changed the formula of its venerated soft drink, calling the new sweeter version New Coke. The uproar was instantaneous — and after only two weeks the company was forced to bring back the old formula with a new name — Classic Coke.

The company had taste tested the new formula with thousands of customers, the majority of whom liked it better than the old Coke. But never did customers believe the company would ditch the Coke they had come to love and drink over the years.

Lessons Learned

What lessons can other companies learn from this latest stumble by the world’s number brand?

• If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. When I was managing advertising at a global financial services company and then at a New York bank, corporate management would often ask, “When are you going to start a new campaign? Aren’t customers tired of it?” My answer was no, if the campaign was still working. My experience was that the company insiders would get itchy because they were bored and wanted to see something new. That happens even today more than you may think.
• Ask the right questions. If you’re doing market research, ask the right questions to be sure you understand the spoken — and unspoken — needs/desires of your customers. Steve Jobs famously never did consumer research because he said consumers didn’t know what they wanted and it was Apple’s job to tell them. But how many geniuses are there like Steve Jobs. Did people know they needed an iPad?
• Learn how you are positioned.  A brand is how you want to be positioned, or perceived, in the marketplace. Your positioning is how customers actually perceive you. Hopefully they are in alignment. If you have the budget, find out. In the case of a small business without the money for research, put together an advisory panel of your own employees, customers willing to participate, and vendors. Ask for their opinions. Learn their perceptions of your brand and use this information to improve your offerings and communications.

Building and burnishing your brand is a continuous process of refinement. It’s awfully easy to mess it up like Coke did.

Related articles

• ‘Radical’ Coca-Cola cans get wintry reception ()
• White Coca-Cola Cans Freak Consumers Out (thedailymeal.com)

Personally, I'm glad he invented bifocals

[tweetmeme]The creative director from an agency I worked for used to say, “There are no little ideas or big ideas, only powerful ideas.” I wrote in a post last week that the Journal Register Company was saved from extinction by powerful ideas – from its own employees.

Key was that each team member of the IdeaLab had a specific assignment. Telling someone to “make the business better” is too fuzzy. While some tasks may seem small (but powerful), they all added up to a plan that saved the company. Now that’s real power – in the hands of the new community of employees that includes the CEO.

Here is the link to The Ben Franklin Project – a Bold New Experiment that lists the discrete task of each employee. No doubt more have been added since that post.

Does your company have a similar kind of program? Would love if you shared how it works by commenting below.

Hosni Mubarak

[tweetmeme]The riots in Cairo have reinforced the movement exemplified by the Tea Party in the U.S. – leadership by community.  It is the new leadership paradigm — the spontaneous formation of new communities of leaders, made possible by the power of the Internet.  The old paradigm of one leader at the top of the leadership pyramid is crumbling everywhere. We’ll talk later about what this new paradigm means for business.  But, first, let’s learn from what’s happening in Cairo where it is chaos and bloodshed and events are unfolding by the minute.

The Power of Twitter and Facebook

The images from Cairo on TV are frightening and Twitter is again center stage with a continuous stream of updates, many with links to videos from the scene.  Here’s how it all started:

Before the Egyptian government shut down popular networking sites, many thousands of disaffected young Egyptians joined the Facebook community entitled We are all Khaled Said, which called for the downfall of the current regime and where members post updates of events on the ground in real time.

According to Newsweek, “The anonymous Facebook page administrator who goes by the handle El Shaheed, meaning martyr, has played a crucial role in organizing the demonstrations, the largest Egypt has seen since the 1970s, that now threaten the country’s authoritarian regime.”

No One is in Charge – Everyone is in Charge

Yet, through the coverage of this historic uprising, you learn there is no one leader in charge. Instead, a spontaneous community of protestors has literally linked arms in the “march of millions.” They have coalesced around a unified theme – changing the regime. They want better lives for themselves. It’s as simple as that.

As one my favorite leadership gurus, John Kotter says, “leadership is about coping with change.”  By his definition, Egypt’s long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak failed to recognize the terrain shifting under his feet. He lost his leadership role, not because he was overthrown by another leader or in a military coup, but because power had spontaneously transferred to rule by the community. Now he’s being forced out and it’s gotten ugly and brutal as he tries to hang on to power, at least for now.

In the U.S., the Tea Party movement is another community that emerged and coalesced around the common goal of bringing change to government they thought had become too big and intrusive.  Luminaries like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh at first appeared to assume the mantle for the Tea Party, but no one single leader has emerged.  Yet, loosely affiliated local Tea Party groups are toppling existing office holders and pushing through changes in how cities, states and the federal government operate.

What This Means for Business Leaders

So what has this got to do with our business leaders as they “cope with change,” as Kotter puts it.  Anybody who ever doubted that the old “command and control” model is dead just needs to examine the paradigm shift in Egypt and U.S. politics. My view is that the corporate CEO is now just another member of the broad community in his or her organization. Companies that openly invite employees to share their ideas for innovation to make the organization smarter, more competitive and more profitable will be the big-time winners.

The Journal Register Company is a great example of how a company unleashed employees to give it a new lease on life.  The company owns 170 publications, including 18 daily newspapers in major markets including Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland. In a blog post to employees in December, CEO John Patton wrote:

“Folks, in 2010 you proved that a tired, old, broken down and bankrupt newspaper company like the Journal Register Company could be turned around. You proved that a company’s strength resided in its employees and not its infrastructure of buildings, trucks and I.T. The wonderful Ben Franklin Project proved that determined employees could find the strength and energy to innovate — and you published daily newspapers and websites using only free web-based tools. You proved that while many in the newspaper industry might be devoid of ideas you were not and the ideaLab was born.”

Google is another company that carves out time for employees to go off and think about new ideas. Look where they are.

The revolt in Egypt is a vivid and brutal example that leadership by fiat is dead. Anyone disagree that we’re experiencing a new leadership paradigm?

Addendum: My colleague Bea Fields added her perspective on this post in her blog Self Directed Leadership Defines a New Era for Egypt and the World, noting that many protesters are under 30, or part of the Gen Y generation. Visit her blog for her take on how Gen Y is going to respond to this historic event.

Kyle-Beth Hilfer, Esq.

[tweetmeme]As 2010 drew to a close, TIME magazine named Mark Zuckerberg its “Person of the Year.” The  power of social media as a dynamic advancement in global communications had been officially recognized. Just as the Internet transformed our nation’s economic infrastructure, social media has evolved into a powerful marketing tool.

As companies embrace social media in 2011, they should consider the role of their employees as their online representatives. Instead of prohibiting social media activity altogether (a practice that may sustain legal challenge),  companies should allow their employees a social media presence while providing some rules to govern their conversations.  Well-written policies prevent public relations disasters and potential legal liability. In addition, when done properly, they also create environments that foster productivity and loyalty among employees.

Below are 10 steps to guide employers in creating policies for their employees:

1.    CULTURE:  Are you a small company with employees who are under 30 and attached to their smart phones? Are you a large corporate employer with multiple offices and hundreds or thousands of employees to supervise? Your corporate culture will determine the specificity of your policy, its tone, its contents, and its enforcement policies.

2.     CONSISTENCY: Provide clear guidance on how to use your trademarks and copyrights consistently on the Internet. Also, caution against use of third party intellectual property without clearance. If marketing to children, the policy should delineate rules for COPPA compliance.

3.     TRANSPARENCY: Require employees, third party bloggers, and marketers to disclose their material connections to your company when posting information about your company. Otherwise, you (and they) may find themselves under investigation by the FTC for violating its Guides on Testimonials and Endorsements.

4.     CONFIDENTIALITY: Take care to protect your confidential information with a clear list of do’s and don’ts for employees. This includes any posts about project ideas or meeting locations.

5.     MEDIA: Clearly state how employees should handle media contacts. The policy should include a clear statement of how to respond if the media approaches an unauthorized employee and should direct the employee to notify the authorized personnel within the company.

6.     RESPECT: Caution employees about speaking respectfully about your company and fellow employees. You do not want to open yourself to a discrimination or harassment suit.

7.     DETAILS: Provide examples throughout your social media policy wherever possible. Employees will understand the protocol of good behavior if you provide real life examples of prohibited behavior.

8.     SEPARATION: Encourage employees to separate their professional and personal social media presence. This means separate Facebook profiles or groups and not friending professional contacts on the personal page.

9.     TRAINING: Provide hands on training sessions to employees that incorporate active discussions, hypotheticals, and role-playing. These seminars should teach employees how to behave responsibly and clearly demonstrate what the employer will not tolerate.

10. MONITOR: Monitor your employees’ online behavior, but think carefully about when to discipline and when to use the social media conversation as a chance to communicate your side of the story.  Consult an attorney to understand your rights and obligations as an employer before taking disciplinary action.

Remember that your policy needs constant updating in the changing world of social media.  Most importantly, does your company have a social media policy?

©Kyle-Beth Hilfer, P.C. 2010. Kyle-Beth Hilfer, Esq. specializes in advertising, marketing, promotions, intellectual property and new media law. For more information about her and her law practice, please visit Kyle-Beth Hilfer Law. 

[tweetmeme]As the Gulf oil disaster continues to escalate and BP is faced with another failure to stop the gushing “black gold,” BP CEO Tony Hayward has been spending his time sticking his foot in his mouth.  For any company, the CEO is the chief communications officer.  Where are his PR advisors with the crisis communications plan?  Just two weeks ago in this video he was predicting a “very modest impact” of the spill.  Now an underwater oil plume some 22 miles wide is threatening the food chain and is predicted to reach the Florida Panhandle’s famous sugar-white beaches by Friday.  Even as Hayward spoke, wildlife was washing up on beaches coated in oil and fishermen sat by their empty boats as the disaster unfolded before their eyes.

Then, just this week, Hayward acknowledged that the spill is a “catastrophe” but also claimed that he “wanted his life back.”  Is he kidding?  His company’s alleged shortcuts may have caused the worst oil spill in this country’s history, disrupting millions of lives, wrecking the environment and causing billions in cleanup costs and lost productivity.  The people living on the coastline want their lives back, too, but they can’t fly to the U.K. to escape the disaster.  I can hardly think of another CEO being so tone deaf.  Instead, he should be saying, “I’ll be on top of this until we solve the problem so people can get their lives back.”  Theirs, not his.

Here is a video in which he makes his infamous claim:

It’s difficult to believe that a major oil company like BP doesn’t have a crisis communications plan in place, not only for managing the cleanup, but with the key messages the CEO should be communicating to the public.  I’m sure that Mr. Hayward is a decent man and is sincerely sorry for this mess.  But he needs to stay on message about what the company is doing to solve the crisis and be sensitive to the horrible disruption it is causing to people and the environment.  Words do count.  And people are listening.

Yet another celebrity’s image crashes and burns with the revelations about Tiger Woods’ affairs.  The rule in crisis communications is to get all the bad news out at once.  Drip, drip, drip is not going to work because the news media will grab on to a hot story like a dog with a bone.  In his situation, the bad news is so broad and torturous, that all the bad news may never get out.

But the point of this blog is not to discuss the merits of his communications and whether he miscalculated in trying to cover up the truth.  This is the question:  is he really sorry about his “transgressions,” as he calls them?

In truth, are celebrity mea cupas, like Tiger’s, really authentic?  When celebrities get caught in illicit affairs, taking drugs, or beating their wives, they rush to the spotlight, often with wife in tow, to profoundly apologize for their misdeeds.  They can’t believe the hurt they’ve caused their families and adoring fans.

This is my take on it:  what they are really apologizing for is getting caught.  Is it likely Tiger, or Eliot Spitzer, or LeBron James would have stopped their affairs if they hadn’t been outed?  Were they sorry about being unfaithful while enjoying themselves behind closed doors?

Schools are closing and the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its global flu pandemic level.  So far, the outbreak of swine flu has killed relatively few people and many experts feel the risk maybe overstated.   But just maybe, maybe one of those statistics could be the CEO of your company.

Does your company have a crisis communications plan in place specifically addressing a global pandemic?  Not likely.  The last scare was the Avian flu outbreak a couple of years ago.  According to a Deloitte & Touche survey of 100 companies in the U.S. last year, two-thirds of the companies had not planned adequately for the avian flu and there was no one in charge of such a plan.  By contrast, 80 per cent of corporate officials surveyed at a conference in Hong Kong had people and plans in place because of reported deaths in Asia.

So it may just take the death of a prominent CEO of a U.S. company to scare companies into finally putting a crisis communications plan in place that covers not only disasters in a manufacturing facility, or a rumor about a product recall, but also one for a possible global pandemic.