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Archives for 2009

Recruiting in the Headlights

AIG Headlines

Few companies have received more negative notoriety in recent months than AIG. Yet on their Careers site, it looks as if nothing in the world has ever happened to disturb the company, or the happy futures of its prospective employees.

Since it’s been reported out loud in many places that AIG has four PR firms at work, in addition to their in-house resources, it seems obvious they are concerned with making the right impression.  And the corporate home page strikes just the right note, with a simple but effective acknowledgement that problems exist and efforts are at work:

AIG home pageThe look is clean and friendly, and the large “Moving Forward” link takes the visitor to a well-spun news page that focuses attention on restructuring.

But click on over to Careers, and it’s like landing in an Oz of flashy graphics and enthusiastic copy:

AIG Careers
The lead line is: “Wherever you are looking for opportunity, AIG is there.” And in view of the recent publicity about AIG (and financial institutions in general), it is difficult not to regard this statement with a certain irony.

Of course it is absolutely right to continue recruiting, even if a company is experiencing difficulties. And it might even be reasonable to try and keep the Careers section in a bubble, if that were possible. But such could only be accomplished with careful attention—which doesn’t appear to have been paid at AIG. If a natural curiosity were to lead the job-seeker to click on the “Our Organization” tab, and then choose “News,” here’s what they would find:

AIG Careers News
The lead line is: “We celebrate the accomplishments of our employees around the globe. Check back frequently to read updated reports of achievements in the office and in the community.”

But the corporate news feed inserted beneath this caption creates a bit of a disconnect, since it’s generally a stream of financial and legal items that are certainly not celebratory, and bear no relationship to employee accomplishments. On the date I checked (3-12-09), the first item was “AIG Issues Series C Preferred to Trust for the Sole Benefit of the U.S. Treasury.”

It’s hard to say what a company should do in AIG’s circumstances.  But I thought it might be worthwhile to look at another approach, so I traveled over to Citigroup, which has been similarly in the headlights.  They may have been in a better position fundamentally, since their Careers site is much more serious (one would even say sober) in design and execution.

Citigroup Careers

Very little copy on the landing page–and nothing that moves! The presentation remains restrained throughout the site, which has considerable depth, and includes a lengthy, realistic-yet-encouraging message from Citi CEO Vikram Pandit. If visitors access “News” from the Careers site, they are taken to the Press Room, where stories are presented completely, and in context—which plays much better than the bad-news headline scroll at AIG.

It’s understandable that revamping the Careers site may not be a top priority at AIG. But some small changes could have made the presentation seem more appropriate. Here again, perception means a lot . . .

And attention is important. A footer on the Careers landing page announces: “Last Updated Date 10/30/2008 9:58:53 AM.” And that just seems too long under the circumstances.

Tattoo Barbie Drives an Online Brand Buzz

Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie is the newest introduction to the Barbie brand product line up – I kid you not.  Mattel claims the tattooed Barbie has been selling well, but the opposite seems to be true if you look at the online buzz.  This month, online conversations have been all over the Internet with parents and consumers questioning the appropriateness of tattoos on a doll targeted to young girls.  They do not believe Totally Stylin’ Tattoos Barbie is right for the Barbie brand.  Mattel has responded by saying the company has no plans to change or discontinue the product.

What do you think?  Does Mattel have a responsibility to develop products with the Barbie brand name that are all appropriate for the primary audience for the brand?  Is it ethical to sell a Barbie-branded doll with totally stylin’ tattoos on it? [Read more…] about Tattoo Barbie Drives an Online Brand Buzz

Does Your IR Yahoo? (Or DMOZ)

Investor Relations can be a detailed, complex service provided within a large multinational organization across language and cultural barriers.  As such, sometimes the basics can slip through the cracks.

For experienced IR professionals, it would be intuitively obvious that anyone looking for “investor relations” at a specific company would either search for the same while using the company’s name, or that one would go to the company’s website and find a link to investor relations from there.

But, what about other potential users?  Perhaps users who don’t realize that what they are looking for would fall under the purview of IR, or those who are not especially familiar with such a concept?  Certainly, such users are not likely become major shareholders anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean that the data or information they seek won’t help to shape the opinions of others who might actually be desirable shareholders.  How would they find your information?

Open Directory - Business Major Companies

Are you in there?

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Our pseudo-hypothetical question comes not from hours spent thinking about the possibilities of IR, but rather courtesy of a gathering of adult men around the backdrop of a basketball game that no one was really watching.  For those of you who happen to have not attended an American university with a respectable football (American, not Soccer) team, but a basketball team with a tradition of epic futility, let me assure you that the purpose of the gathering from the first moment was actually to just get a bunch of friends back together in the same room where they could talk.

During this gathering a friend of mine who is both a successful professional and a very intelligent human being, remarked about how he had stopped using a particular company’s products, and that he was working to have the company also banned from the vendors list at his firm based upon the fact that the company in question did significant business with the government in Darfur. What struck me as odd, was that the company in question has a reputation as a rather clean and upstanding corporate citizen.

It turns out that his daughter had done a report for a school project, and that she had used many different sources of information for the project.  Long story, made short, she had misinterpreted an article which listed the company in question as having declined to support a public boycott and thus was listed by the boycott organizers as a “friend” of the government in Darfur.

Three seconds on the company’s website led me to the company’s statement regarding the boycott effort in which it referred to its corporate business and ethics guidelines prohibiting the company from endorsing, engaging in, or contributing to any effort regarding elected officials.  Such a policy is common among multinational companies that don’t want to get dragged into local politics, nor give off any appearance of influencing elections particularly in smaller democracies where such influence might be seen as “buying” government officials.

Though such a policy is not necessarily intended to cover a situation like the one in Darfur, it is nonetheless true that boycotting against government officials would violate the company’s policy.  However, the company did support and endorse various condemnations and calls for action against the events transpiring in Darfur.  In addition, while the company could potentially join a boycott against Sudan, or against other companies that did business therein, it could not take part in a boycott which specifically mentions the government and government officials.  Such a distinction is, not surprisingly, lost on the passionate.

It Is An Island That Cannot Be Found, Except By Those Who Have Already Been There

Captain Jack Sparrow says those words in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean.  At first, it sounds like nonsense, and indeed if one follows the logic all the way back to the beginning it makes it impossible for the first person to have ever been there, but it does suggest a certain truth.  If you know where you are going, it is much easier to get there.

The ethics policy of the company was linked prominently from the Investor Relations page, and a press release stating much of the same was similarly easily available from the page.  So, why didn’t a carefully researched paper turn up such items?

The company in question is one that has a significant brand name in the retail space and thus has a customer focused website using the company name, and another more corporate and operations focused website under a variation of the name.  Having gone to what she assumed was THE company website and found nothing, and also having gotten no response from the inquiry she sent – to the customer service department – the intrepid researcher assumed the company was whitewashing its position by not saying anything, thus their inclusion in the list of bad actors.

Interestingly enough, she found the company site by using the dmoz directory.  The dmoz directory is an open directory project in which human beings catalog and list websites much in the same way that Yahoo used to do (and still does) prior to the ascension of search engines and Google.  As an “open” resource, dmoz is held in high regard in many areas of academics which explains why she started there.

The catch?  The company’s corporate site is not in the directory, likely because it has never been submitted.

All of this adds up to a company that did everything right being dropped from people’s mental list of acceptably behaving enterprises and in doing so, could have cost it millions of dollars in sales either by propagation of the misinformation, or in this case by being dropped from a large organization’s approved vendors list.

IR Best Practices Internet Directories

While this single example will not apply to all companies, of course, the fact remains that there are millions of people who are not familiar with the nuances of corporate websites, ethics policies, investor relations departments and the like.  For them, finding you depends entirely upon luck, unless you put up signs along the road.

No Investor Relations group can control the actions of Google or other search engines, but there is no reason to not have any and all company websites or portals listed in the major web directories, as well as in those that carry some authority for your specific industry.  Often, getting listed is as simple as filling out a form requesting to be listed and then waiting for them to get around to you. (These directories tend to be overwhelmed by submissions.)

In the end, a simple amount of effort could pay off handsomely when the next person or group looking for information finds not only the public face of the company online at thecompany.com proudly declaring its annual sales event, but also the next listing at thecompanycorporation.com and gets their facts straight.

Corporate websites and the case for accessibility

I recently asked Helen Baker to give us some advice about accessibility and the corporate website.

Helen provides a range of freelance web content services, with a focus on accessible, usable copy in plain English. She started out in technology PR for a global firm before moving on to the corporate communications team of FTSE 250 engineering company Balfour Beatty, and was responsible for http://www.balfourbeatty.com, when she was first introduced to the issues surrounding corporate websites. Find out more about her on www.concisecontent.co.uk.

Over to you, Helen:

Corporate websites and the case for accessibility

accessibility

As more and more companies provide and actively encourage their stakeholders to access corporate information online, accessibility is becoming an even greater issue.

Accessible websites benefit everyone, both visitors and business. But research shows that many corporate websites are still failing to reach even minimum accessibility standards.

Accessibility is a legal requirement for many businesses

Service providers in the UK have been legally required to provide accessible websites and applications since 1999. According to the Disability Discrimination Act, businesses have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable a disabled person to make use of its services, including those provided online.

A website’s design should make sure all users can have full and equal access to both services and information. If not, they run the risk of being accused of discrimination against people with disabilities, followed by being sued and receiving a lot of negative publicity.

All visitors benefit from more accessible websites

However, an accessible website isn’t just for people with disabilities. All visitors benefit from more accessible websites, from faster loading times through to easier-to-read text.

Accessible websites also benefit visitors with changing abilities, such as age-related issues, or people accessing information using both older (dial-up internet) and newer (mobile handsets) technologies.

Corporate websites serve audiences with diverse needs

Corporate websites provide information ranging from shareholder resources through to job vacancies. Consider two typical, very different audiences that would benefit from a more accessible website:

  • Retired employees: many older visitors suffer from age-related issues, such as poor vision and mobility difficulties (where using a mouse may be a problem). They also often use older equipment or browsers to access information.
  • Institutional shareholders: analysts often need to access financial information quickly via, for example, mobile handsets and platforms. They might also be using a slower internet connection reliant on a good mobile signal.

Accessibility provides tangible business benefits

Organisations with corporate websites that meet minimum accessibility requirements experience a number of business benefits. For example, the website will have an greater audience reach, it will be ‘future proofed’ as technologies change and its content will be optimised for search engines.

A popular case study is Legal & General, which launched a new website in 2006. It saw a massive increase in conversion rates (people asking for quotes), its search engine rankings significantly improved and it experienced a 100 per cent return on investment (ROI) within just 6 months, among many other benefits.

Corporate websites need to do better

In March 2006, Nomensa conducted research that showed ‘almost 75 per cent of businesses in the FTSE 100 list of companies fail to meet the minimum requirements for website accessibility’, as set by the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Why are so many corporate websites failing on this front? There are a number of reasons, many of which may be practical but certainly aren’t an excuse. These range from under-resourcing through to a lack of in-house knowledge.

Some simple fixes for the short term

Convinced but not sure where to start in the short term? Try some of the following simple (but not necessarily quick) fixes. This is by no means a definitive list.

  • Make sure your text is presented in short paragraphs, using plain English, lists and descriptive headings
  • When you add the headings, make sure you use header tags and put them in the correct hierarchy
  • Add and use appropriate alt text for all images, where applicable
  • Check for good colour contrast between the text and the background
  • Check that links are descriptive and easily distinguishable from other text (e.g. underlined and in a different colour)
  • Ensure that body text is a reasonable default font size and can be increased by the reader
  • Provide text transcripts for any video or podcasts.

The following websites also provide some good starting points and quick reference documents:

Where to go for more information

Thanks, Helen!

Online Behavioral Ads Guidelines Released, Google Waits Days to Launch New Behavioral Ads Program

google-gingerbread-man-cookieIt had to come, and it’s here.  All that work Google has been doing to track people’s online behaviors has come to fruition. 

First, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) released its online behavioral advertising guidelines earlier this month, and Google was one of the companies to agree to abide by them.  There are three primary rules that companies who agree to abide by the IAB guidelines must follow:

  1. Notice must be given to consumers that they are being tracked.
  2. Consent is assumed unless a consumer takes action and opts-out of receiving behavioral ads.  That means companies only need to provide an opt-out mechanism and seek consumer consent “where applicable” (whatever that means).
  3. Educating consumers about how their personal and private information is collected and how it can be used as well as how they can opt-out of behavioral advertising is required. [Read more…] about Online Behavioral Ads Guidelines Released, Google Waits Days to Launch New Behavioral Ads Program

When it Absolutely, Positively Has to be…Twittered

The Twitter phenomenon is contagious and has caught on to the corporation at Federal Express. I recently found their link on Twitter and began following them so that I could keep abreast with their updates and developments. What I wanted to see was the type of information that FedEx would provide on Twitter and how they would interact with their followers.

Many companies similar to FedEx establish a Twitter account, but very often don’t know what to do with it. Should they follow everyone who follows them? Should they simply provide links to their online material only? What about any negative news that many develop…should they Twit it?

Twitter is really turning out to be an impactful social networking site for businesses and entrepreneurs. But what can often be misleading and elusive for many companies is the “why” when they do decide to create a Twitter presence.

Do they want to share information with their followers or just be there when something (possibly) develops?

Are they at all interested in following others to see what they have to say or are they just being polite?

Is the service or product they provide amenable to the benefits of the Twitter program? In other words, does the business’ personality fit Twitter?

Twitter is for sharing and dispensing information, period. But, it is also designed for readers to receive information, learning and educating themselves on their peers and competitors in business. When you start following someone on Twitter, you get a feed that dispenses their updates, links and 140-character “what are you doing” bites. It is a very cool tool to help you network extensively and share your business. But, I am finding that there is a slight tip on the scale with businesses that are followed and those that are following in terms of the information that is dispensed on Twitter and the value in it.

For instance, this press release provided by FedEx talks about their generous contribution of $1 million to the Teach for America organization and fundraiser talks extensively about their goal of contributing to this cause and making education a top priority. The release article is very detailed and thorough and the cause will affect many people and shed a positive light on FedEx’s image, no doubt. But what could have perhaps brought even more attention to their cause and goal from an online perspective was to perhaps interview the people that this action would have or could affect. There is lots of potential there for them to showcase the benefactors.

Teach For America is the national corps of top college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity for all children.

Where are those prior top college graduates and how has this program benefitted them? Would it be valuable at all to hear anything from them? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But large corporations like FedEx can do extremely well by focusing on the nuances of their good deeds and maximizing them towards their advantage. Sure, Twitter can help them with this action, but it has to be utilized in order to be effective.

I would suggest that FedEx beef up their Twitter links a little more to give it more of a social feel. Perhaps hire a social manager who would work to brand the FedEx label in online circles and connect with the people who help shape their business. Because when it absolutely, positively has to be done, Twitter is the way to do it.