How Amazon and Jay Carney Lost the Game of PR – And How They Could Have Won

AKA what NOT to do!

Unless I missed it, I didn't see the NYT response on their website--I think it was JUST on Medium. That they are giving up the resulting ad revenue says a lot about how they view Medium and the discussion at hand.

This implies Medium is serving as sort of a neutral ground for both parties to plant their soapboxes. Very interesting to watch how people and companies use of Medium as various types of "platforms" evolves.

> In this instance Amazon went back into the mud to correct a perceived wrong with logic and clarity.

I find it interesting that we now view "logic and clarity" as a bad thing, while changing the subject and appeals to emotion are good things.

So is the lesson here to never deviate from standard corporate PR bs?

I think the judgement that this is a “PR failure” is taking a fairly tactical analysis. It’s evaluating Amazon’s response in the context of this story & new cycle, rather than considering all the ones to come.

This move was clearly not intended to neutralize and kill the story. This move was not intended to improve Amazon’s brand perception in the market. Attacking the story and highlighting the most negative aspect of it really invariably serves to double down on the impact of the story on Amazon. That’s why this kind of response is done so rarely. This move was intended to harm the brand of the writer and the New York Times.

If you consider a policy of never responding in this fashion, it creates an environment where anyone can and will produce even outright libelous stories without fear of consequences. Every now and then you need to throw an elbow, just to demonstrate that you won’t be taken advantage of. In this case, they went after the New York Times… in public… represented their work as not even meeting basic professional standards… The NYT actually made the same “mistake” you are highlighting here by responding… and Amazon responded again to that response, no doubt doing more PR harm to both brands.

The overall message is clear: if you are write an irresponsible story about them, expect that Amazon is willing to sacrifice their brand image in order to exact as much of a toll on your brand as they can.

I don’t think it will stop an intrepid reporter from writing a hit piece on Amazon. It will likely make both the reporter and their editor far more cautious about whether they’ve dotted their i’s, crossed their t’s, and given Amazon every chance to respond to the story before they publish.

Assuming they achieve that outcome, that’s a PR success. Heck, that’s PR gold.

> When the story came out, we knew it misrepresented Amazon. Once we could look into the most sensational anecdotes, we realized why. We presented the Times with our findings several weeks ago, hoping they might take action to correct the record. They haven’t, which is why we decided to write about it ourselves.

That would have served very well to address the delay in publishing a response, along with immediately tilting the emotional state of the reader towards Amazon. "We tried to fix this the right way, but they didn't play nice so now we're forced to do this the hard way." All the right words are there; it seems like the order was just a bit miffed.

How they could have won? They couldn't. All this advocates is being even more manipulative. And I would have called that bullshit too.

What this piece doesn't seem to consider is, who exactly are the hearts and minds Amazon is fighting for here? The informed reading public? Like NY Times readers? I'd like to believe they'd be more resistant than average to these tactics.

Or, as others have suggested in the previous thread on this subject, potential tech hires? The HN crowd? Based on the previous thread, there seems to be some sympathy for Amazon here. But again, I'd be inclined to give more credit to those among "the haters" than the author does here and would fully expect them not to be won over by these kind of mass consumer marketing tactics. (I'd still like to see that HN poll I'd suggested in previous thread.)

If they're simply trying to control the topic with a broader mass media audience, then I suspect Amazon would be best served by simply respecting the Streisand Effect.

>This is the opposite of what a PR professional would want to do in a situation like this: make the story go away.

There is far more value contributed by companies speaking what they really think instead of obfuscating it in feel-good branding.