IN THIS ISSUE: January 7, 2004 To Archive Index Mattel PR Score Is Zero in Lawsuit Against Artist Commentary: Which Food Safety Issues Cause Permanent PR Damage? Want to Blog? Naked People Tip Pizza Guys More and Other Slow News Day Surveys The Best Resources Online

MATTEL PR SCORE IS ZERO IN LAWSUIT AGAINST ARTIST

By B.L. Ochman

Proving once again that the Internet makes bad publicity much worse, Mattel's latest legal issue over Barbie dolls has far-reaching PR impact. A US Circuit Court says Utah artist Thomas Forsythe's use of Barbie dolls in photographs depicting the Mattel toy naked and being assaulted by kitchen appliances is protected as "free speech."

The PR lesson: the stories will fade from newspapers and TV in a few days, but bad publicity will be in search engines forever. Score for Mattel's image? Zero.

Mattel's legal issue this time (there are 1240 references to Mattel Barbie lawsuits in Google) was a 78-image series by Utah artist Thomas Forsythe, shot in 1999 and titled "Food Chain Barbie."

Upholding a decision by a lower court, the court of appeals said the works are obvious parodies and do not infringe on the company's copyright and trademark protection.

Mattel's Litigious Bent
Mattel has a long history of mounting lawsuits over Barbie parodies, including a hilarious early Website of Barbie dolls in sexually compromising positions. In other Mattel legal issues they sued Canadian stripper and nude model Barbie Doll Benson in 1999 over her domain name, insisting that it infringes on the Mattel trademark. The stripper, who'd been dancing under that name for 16 years, won.

Mattel's lawyers must be a really busy bunch because a Google search for "nude Barbie" turns up 229,000 results which will be online forever.

The results in the first page of my search included:

Bizarre Nude Barbie Photo

Barbie & the Doll

Even About.com's doll collecting blog has a recipe for a Barbie cake with a nude Barbie in the middle. Will Mattel start raiding the homes of people who serve them?

Distorted Barbie, Messed up Barbie

Suicide Bomber Barbie

and the Barbie liberation organization (BLO)

"Well yes sir, those are my initials. No sir...."

 

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Commentary

FOOD SAFETY ISSUES IN THE NEWS: WHICH CAUSE PERMANENT PR DAMAGE?

Last week, life imitated a Jerry Seinfeld episode when New York newspapers reported that Cream Lita's supposedly low-calorie gourmet yogurt tastes so good because it has all the fat of premium ice-cream. Then the Wall Street Journal reported that Robert Ligon, a 68-year-old health-food executive, is going to start serving 15 months in a federal prison Tuesday. His crime: willfully mislabeling doughnuts as low-fat. Then there is the Mad Cow beef supply debacle. Which story won't cause permanent PR damage? The beef story.

On a famous Seinfeld episode, Elaine and Jerry became suspicious enough of the low-fat claims of a great tasting diet yogurt to have it tested at a lab. The result? The company's claims were a lie.

In the doughnut case, as the Journal reports, "the low-fat doughnut is the Holy Grail of the food industry," but perhaps no other food is as dependent on oil for its taste and texture. Low-fat versions have tasted like, well, low-fat versions.

There are palatable substitutes for low-fat frozen yogurt and for doughnuts. The diet conscious can eat low-fat pudding or cookies. Or, they could, as nutritionists advise, simply eat less of the real thing. But for carnivores, nothing compares to a rare filet mignon.

In a largely carnivorous society, people want to believe cows are safe to eat. Why else would they continue to eat rare meat when the government repeatedly warns that meat should be well-cooked to prevent the spread of harmful and even fatal bacteria? Public and media pressure will hopefully lead to reforms in the tracking of food origin and sooner or later, people are likely to return to their burgers.

Cream Lita could have a short hop to name recognition as a premium ice-cream and can mini-doughnuts be far behind? The PR campaign: the real thing. You know you want it.

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NAKED PEOPLE TIP PIZZA GUYS MORE AND OTHER SLOW
NEWS DAY SURVEYS

Domino's Pizza knows that the period between Christmas and New Years is filled with slow news days. This is the perfect time for PR surveys like the two Domino's churned out over the holidays

One survey said that two thirds of Americans were staying home on New Year's eve and 42 percent said they would dine on pizza. Domino's doubled its staff for the night because it expected to deliver one million pizzas.

The company also released a PR survey of 630 Domino's Pizza drivers in Washington. DC where "Paris Hilton" is the Number One fake name used by people calling for pizza deliveries. Thirty eight percent of the Paris Hiltons order pepperoni topping. US Attorney General John Ashcroft was the second most popular fake name.

Domino drivers report that people who answer the door naked tip better than those clothed. Nine percent answer the door nude and they tip more than 20%, compared with 2% of people in pajamas.

Journalists Love Surveys
Journalists eat surveys for breakfast, because they are easy and fast to report on and represent a fair size sampling of people.

Other surveys hitting the news today include:

Raleigh Triangle Business Journal, NC
A new survey from the Society for Human Resources Management shows executives and top managers think 2004 will be a good one for employees.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a Badger poll released by the University of Wisconsin survey center. Gloominess splits along party lines in America, with Republicans more optimistic about finances and national affairs.

However, the chasm between Republicans and Democrats has never been greater in the 1 1/2 years the Badger Poll has measured the "gross national spirit."

THE BEST RESOURCES ONLINE

Google~Guide by Nancy Blackman is an exhaustive interactive tutorial on how to use Google myriad features. It will take anywhere from _ hour to 8 hours to complete, depending on how many sections you do. Explore and you'll quickly see that you are probably using only a small fraction of Google's amazing capabilities.

SnipThis Oooh, this is way cool. Snip This is a very feature-rich alternative to tiny url http://www.tinyurl.com Both are free and allow users to shorten unwieldy URLs so that they can be emailed or featured in content.

Consider a web URL like the following (It is a real website, go ahead and click it if you wish) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00003CXZ3/ref%3Dsr%5Faps%5Fd%5F1%5F7/ 103\538622451046/oihjgjhgfjkfhgfhg/867785/%3Dsr%5Faps%5Fd%5F1%5F7/1oihjgjhgfjkfhgf hg/867785/obidos/ref%3Dsr%5Faps%5Fd%5F1%5F7/103-3538622451046252bTQRc5bB8Zoqtl OeDdZwlJtHLgfMIVHUWlmPWw8uDAvn6M%252bkyj2OhU7lZS%252fzgR6gc6Gc6UR0nFUKiK Z%252fUA1FA7i4GoxVbNUmI3sVoXmLsVCjdi1tcAxjLEEXFdAvuJU%252bwjYfFeWO15n%25 2fiFsgXNxKDxWULBFtyxoa65AuWb0a5SU%252ftWdT4P7e8CtC9acf37axZa%252fI2MWC7g54T PL6YB%252bwcKdZuh60N%252fb83BrfUSLSD/5F7/103\538622451046

After "snipping" with Snip This, the same above URL looks like this --
http://snipurl.com/d (20 characters)

Snip This gives you the ability to create short or meaningful URLs. In the 513 character example above, a meaningful url would become http://snurl.com/memento (24 characters) because the link is to content about a book called Memento.

The site keeps a log of all the URLs you have snipped, and lets you edit the dead links. You can manage the list in Excel and there are many more features too.

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