Parsons and GoDaddy Market Issues - Research Paper Example

?Jour 330: Assignment #3: Research Paper In the CEO of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, committed what has been called one of the biggest social media blunders of all time. This occurred when Parsons posted a video on his personal blog of himself killing an elephant in Africa. Animal rights activists were predictably outraged, yet this story also “went viral” on the internet, striking a nerve with people everywhere who objected to the needless slaughter of one of the earth’s most precious and endangered species. The L.A. Times reported: “GoDaddy.com Chief Executive Bob Parsons has been drawing angry comments and threats of boycotts and cancellations after he posted a video of him killing a problem bull elephant during a hunting expedition in Zimbabwe. The video (viewer discretion advised due to graphic content) shows the CEO and his hunting party looking over a farmer's damaged crops, shooting at elephants at night, and Parsons posing with the dead bull. It also shows crowds of villagers field dressing the carcass the next morning.” (Burgess, 2011) Perhaps because the image recalled African safaris of the robber barons of late 19th century capitalism and the archaic, out of touch, and even barbaric behavior of the “super-rich,” bloggers around the world wrote articles protesting this, and thousands of customers cancelled accounts with GoDaddy. The company’s competitors took advantage of this, issuing free transfer and discount coupons for people who wanted to switch their business away from GoDaddy. This situation can be regarded as a case example in public relations because Bob Parsons illustrates exactly what not to do when media problems occur for a company. His actions, statements, and behavior in response to the first controversy arguably made the situation even worse for him and his company in the public relations context. While the company claims it has not lost much business from this, the story will undoubtedly remain linked to the brand and competitors will continue to take advantage of this. To some degree, Parsons may have been overdue for a PR breakdown, because his company is known for a particular marketing campaign that is based on a certain amount of “sleaze”. Yet, for a company that once hoped to go public through an IPO, having the CEO of the company labeled this way in the mainstream press is very problematic. Consider that major media publications such as CNN, Salon, the New York Times, The Guardian, etc. all ran major articles on the story, and kept it active with update reports. In PR, the goal is for the problem to be out of the news cycle and out of discussion as soon as possible. When mainstream media repeat a story such as this over and over, it does continual damage to the brand and its credibility. For most people, the killing of an elephant is really a blatant act of stupidity, cruelty, and arrogance. That Bob Parsons defended his behavior immediately inflamed the situation. For example, instead of apologizing publicly, Parson conducted media interviews where he said: "These people have literally nothing and when an elephant is killed it's a big event for them, they are going to be able to eat some protein. This is no different than you or I eating beef. All these people that are complaining that this shouldn't happen, that these people who are starving to death otherwise shouldn't eat these elephants, you probably see them driving through at McDonald's or cutting a steak." (McCarthy, 2011) What Parsons did not critically understand is the fact that indeed millions of people do think and care deeply about issues such as environmental protection, endangered species, as well as the social justices issues related to hunger and global poverty. To compare eating an elephant to a problem for African starvation is simply a ridiculous justification. Salon critically notes that the original video Parsons posted included “captions to the nighttime scene that read ‘Bob Parsons fires first’ and ‘Bob Parsons fires again,’ (and) images of Bob Parsons posing with the dead elephant. Also cut: AC/DC's ‘Hell's Bells’ playing over the scene of people cutting up the elephant.” (McCarthy, 2011) GoDaddy left the video on the blog but edited out the music and captions, and then the CEO justified his actions with an absurd analogy. Customers by the thousands protested, withdrew their business, threatened boycotts, and news media ran with the story. The blogosphere exploded and PR consultants soon branded this the biggest debacle in social media for any CEO in the Facebook and Twitter era. In looking at how the company failed to implement a proper PR response plan, the four stages of proper response can be reviewed in relation to the company’s actual behavior. The first aspect of this is research, and this targets not only a understanding of the issues in play in the media, but also a broader understanding of the audience itself. In this way, both Parsons and GoDaddy needed to recognize the dimensions of public opinion on game hunting of endangered species. In most places it is illegal, but Parsons claimed this was a wild animal and a threat to the local villagers, which he was somehow protecting and feeding. Parsons spun a wide story that included details of his regular trips to Africa to protect remote villagers from wild elephants and how the locals benefitted in that he fed many villages with the meat. Parson’s story merged elements of the Great White Hunter with the Great White Savior, but in a distorted way that was only made more grim with millions of newspapers, magazines, and websites displaying a picture of Parsons posing over the dead elephant and gloating. Thus, GoDaddy and Parson’s PR management team failed in the first aspect of response to media problems by failing to research public opinion on the moral sentiment of the broader civil society and community, and further in not realizing what proper ethics are for a CEO of a public company. In the second stage of PR response, media managers and agents need to build an action plan and build clear objectives of what this plan is to achieve. Generally this is to bury the issue or to reform the candidate, but in this instance GoDaddy and Parsons made the classic mistake of denial and further made inflammatory statements that spiraled the issue into further controversy. The action plan in this instance should have been de-escalation, but instead the company added another typical mistake of flawed responses which is deception. The editing of the video to remove captions and rock music did not make the image any more tactful or effectively cover up the problem. Instead, it made the lies issued by Parson’s and staff even more easy to spot by bloggers and media watchers, who quickly deconstructed all of Parson’s arguments in the press. The third step of the PR response is to actually implement the action plan prepared through research and structured into a coherent, multi-track plan with distinct and articulated goals. While the PR plan that GoDaddy’s team developed is not known publicly, the result is, and it is a major PR disaster for the company. Thus, the third stage may have to adapt and broaden its scope to deal with possible failures and unintended escalation that rises from the first stages of implementation of the action plan. There should always be contingencies, alternative courses of action, and back-up plan within any realistic action plan prepared for a company as large as GoDaddy or a similar company with a mega-failure in PR. This relates to the fourth stage of the process, evaluation, which can be used as feedback to adjust the course of the plan and make it more effective as new details are learned or new situations arise in the media discourse. Brad Philips has done an extensive analysis of the Bob Parson’s elephant shooting incident on his website, and he describes the PR plan as implemented by GoDaddy of consisting of the following elements: “Among other things, he (Parsons) handled his crisis by: Angrily blaming this crisis on PETA (I’ve never been a member of PETA, but was still offended) Stating he would continue hunting elephants Threatening websites with copyright infringement if they didn’t pull down a still photo of him posing with the elephant, despite the fact that he proudly released the photo in the first place. That threat is legally questionable, since ‘fair use’ usually allows use of such a photo when paired with news or analysis.” (Philips, 2011) Typically, Philips’ analysis is accompanied by the picture of Parsons standing over the dead elephant and its bloody carcass with his gun. In this instance Parsons made the mistake of blaming PETA, who are activists that genuinely care for animals and have represented this in a lifetime of service, rather than accepting blame for his own actions, making apologies, and reparations. Furthermore, Parsons completely denied he had done anything wrong and also said he would continue big game hunting in order to feed the poor African villages elephant “beef”. The public was quick to recognize that this is another millionaire CEO totally out of touch with public understanding of mainstream reality. While Arizona, where GoDaddy is based, may be politically conservative the State generally respects elephants by keeping them in zoos. Parsons committed a morally questionable act, displayed little awareness about his mistake, refused to care or appear to care, vowed to continue the behavior, then also told lies, concealed evidence, and denied the problem with statements displaying little awareness of the moral complexity of the issues he referenced. As such, the elephant shooting incident is a classic case example of what not to do in PR. On the contrary, some public relations “experts” will suggest that any publicity is free advertising and that GoDaddy will gain in the long-run from increased brand recognition. Yet, the degree that the company’s competitors have already seized on this issue in marketing campaigns and commercials both in mainstream media and the web illustrates it could be a big negative for the company. In classical PR terms, any time a negative media story threatening boycotts and highlighting publicly perceived immoral behavior by the CEO of a company is spread over the major news channels, newspapers, magazines, and we at the same time, inflaming the blogosphere, there is a major problem evident. In researching the situation, building an action plan, implementing and evaluating it critically through feedback and changes, GoDaddy’s PR team made the classic mistakes of denial, lies, and cover-up rather than seeking the instant dissipation and passing from memory and discussion as quickly as possible, accompanied by a concise apology, which would have been appropriate for the PR team to recommend to Parsons in this case as a preferred response. Typical of the media reaction in opposition to Parson was this statement from PETA: “Bob Parsons, CEO of Go Daddy, is so heinous that we created an award just for him: the Scummiest CEO of the Year Award... We don't see how it could be ‘beneficial’ or ‘rewarding’ to mow down animals who are among the most intelligent and social on Earth. Elephants reason, use tools, and have exceptional memories. They are the only species besides humans, great apes, and dolphins who have been shown to be ‘self aware’ (meaning that they can recognize themselves in a mirror)... PETA is canceling our account with Go Daddy and taking our domain-name business elsewhere—and we're asking everyone to do the same. Please email Bob Parsons and tell him you will not use Go Daddy's services until he agrees to stop shooting animals.” (PETA, 2011) The PETA statement makes the Parson’s elephant shooting incident a very serious incident for GoDaddy public relations. With it comes a boycott, and with that a loss of the activist and environmentally conscious business owners who would prefer not to support businesses with CEOs who club seals to feed Eskimos or shoot dolphins and harpoon whales for sport. In this regard, Parsons is portrayed in the mass media as yet another out-of-touch CEO with no understanding of common morality. Yet, GoDaddy PR staff should have also been more aware in not letting these images be self-promoted and then not trying to lie, distort, and cover-up the act with ridiculous stories and justifications. The event makes it appear as if Parsons is courting controversy, so it may be that the best PR staff could not control or contain him fully and this type of incident was bound to occur. Activists and bloggers represent a much larger group of monitors for democratic standards in modern institutions, and they are also effective in engaging corporate practices when a CEO like Parsons commits an act like this which is morally objectionable. Most Hollywood movies come with a label noting that “No animals were hurt during the making of this film.” Though this may not refer to catering, the point is that the society expects needless suffering and death not to be inflicted on animals cruelly or needlessly. Parsons and GoDaddy failed in researching their market when the video was released, and this attempt to build publicity backfired and became a boycott of growing proportions on the web. While some, like Parsons may cling to the belief that this type of game hunting is legitimate, the shift in public perception on issues like these may have changed over time, leaving Parsons and his PR staff unaware of mainstream public opinion and making a critical public relations mistake that has become a case study. Sources Cited: Burgess, Kelly (2011). GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons under fire for Zimbabwe elephant-hunting video. L.A. Times, March 30, 2011. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2011/03/godaddycom-ceo-bob-parsons-elephant-hunting-video-zimbabwe.html McCarthy, Susan (2011). Spinning an elephant thrill kill. Salon, APR 7, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/life/noble_beasts/?story=/mwt/2011/04/07/godaddy Phillips, Brad (2011). CRISIS COMMS LESSON: WHY I QUIT GO DADDY. Mr. MediaTraining, April 11, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.mrmediatraining.com/index.php/tag/bob-parsons/ Sherrow, Michelle (2011). Go Daddy CEO Named ‘Scummiest’. PETA, 03-29-2011. Retrieved from http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2011/03/29/go-daddy-ceo-named-scummiest-of-the-year.aspx Williams, Geoff (2011). Rivals go after Go Daddyo. CNN Money, March 30, 2011. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/14/smallbusiness/godaddy_parsons_elephant Read More