Frankly my dear, we don't give a damn.

I've noticed the sign below a few times at Idlewild Park in Ligonier, Pa., and though no one in my family has a food allergy, it rankles me nonetheless.

What is the purpose of this sign? To avoid a lawsuit in case someone with an allergy becomes ill after eating the park's greasy food? To spare the 17-year-old working behind the counter the embarrassment of having to explain that the park couldn't care less that you or your kid can't indulge in the overpriced treats?

I'm not sure how else the park's management could get the message across more gracefully. Of course, the best solution would be to actually care enough about your customers to provide at least a minimum of alternatives, rather than find a more nuanced way to tell them to get lost.

Once more, with feeling

I stumbled on this debate about the merits of brand journalism, which I think is one of the great innovations in public relations and marketing in the digital age. It's clear to me that the writer of the anti-brand journalism essay doesn't actually understand what brand journalim -- which others call "currated content" -- actually is:

Imagine this scenario: A technology company releases a new smartphone and begins a massive marketing campaign, claiming the phone does amazing things, is faster than any other phone, and has the best network. But consumers are much better served by turning to journalists—real journalists—for reviews of the phone. A technology site such as CNET (CBS) would put the phone through extra paces, with all the marketing claims tested in a lab.

Well, duh. Except brand journalism isn't about a company boasting about its products, something they did just fine before the Internet. Such claims are not given more creditibility simply because they are made on a company blog or Facebook page, and most consumers understand that, even if there are fewer and fewer journalists to call B.S. on these brands.

Brand journalism is about providing your audience with information that will be useful or interesting to them even if they choose not to purchase your product, but that increases the likelihood that they wil become costumers because that information is valuable and thus enhance your brand's credibility.

Intel's Free Press is an example that I and others have cited. The defender of brand journalism in the debate I linked to offers Home Depot as an example: "Home Depot...may produce how-to content on fixing your home. Of course, such content carries brand value to Home Depot, but that doesn’t change the credibility of their article."

Just like brands have always promoted their products over their competitors, so have conscientious and customer-friendly businesses always put their customers' needs over their short-term interests. Think of the sales person who, rather than talking you into buying the most expensive product in the store, first talks to you about what you need, how you are going to use it, etc., and then steers you to a less expensive but equally reliable model. I once ate at a restaurant where my server talked me out of ordering the most expensive item on the menu because he said the portion size was far too small and it simply wasn't that good. Somehow it made what I did order seem that much more enjoyable.

It's good customer service, and it does exactly what brand journalism is supposed to accomplish: building your customer's long-term faith in your brand, which is far more valuable than one quick and easy sale.

Unsatisfied

Regular readers of this blog know I spend a lot of time discussing customer service. Public relations, after all, is about reputation management, and other than the quality of your product, nothing speaks more to your reputation than how you treat your customers.

I thought of this recently as I completed a customer satisfaction survery from Mazda after my wife and I had our Mazda 5 inspected at our local dealership. We'd already been prompted twice by the dealership to respond favorably to the survey -- once when my wife was called to tell her when the car would be ready, and once in a follow-up letter.

The ritual is similar when you buy a car. Either the sales person or the finance manager, or both, remind you how important it is that you check "completely satisfied" on the survey mailed to you by the manufacturer. I know someone who has been both a salesman and finance manager, and he says that auto companies deal harshly with dealerships when a customer reports being anything less than completely satisfied.

So auto dealers and manufacturers are very concerned with their customers' satisfaction, right? Wrong. If car companies really cared how dealers treated customers, they wouldn't demand that the answer to every question be "completely satisfied", and then use the results as a club against the dealership when they failed to measure up. It's bad management, and what it says to me is manufacturers aren't interested in real customer input, just the appearance of it -- like a suggestion box no one ever opens.

I also doubt that surveying customers so soon after purchasing a car is going to yield an accurate account of their experience with the dealer. Getting a car repaired is different; people are likely to have strong opinions about whether they were treated honestly, and they may know quickly if the repairs were not done correctly.

But a car is a major purchase, in which people are often emotionally invested, and they are likely to want to validate their decision. Thus, they are more likely to give favorable feedback before the glow of the purchase has worn off. (And that may be exactly what manufacturers have in mind.) Plus, buying a car isn't like buying groceries, and the difference goes beyond scale. When you go to a supermarket, you might not have any meaningful interaction with the staff until you go to pay -- assuming you don't use the self check-out aisle. You're not likely to abandon your groceries just because you are treatly poorly by the clerk.

On the other hand, practically the minute you walk into a car dealership you are greeted by a sales person, and if you're not comfortable with him or her, you just might walk out the door. So the mere fact that you decide to purchase a car from them conveys some satisfaction with the experience. If auto manufacturers and dealers really cared what you thought, they'd survey you six months, or a year, after you bought the car. Are you still happy with your vehicle? Did it do everything the dealer told you it would? What kind of service have you gotten from the dealer since you purchased the car?

That's how the system might work -- if it weren't a purposeful charade.

I'm sorry I missed your call

When my father retired, his friends and family threw him a surprise party, where co-workers roasted him and paid tribute. One remark that each of his colleagues made was that my dad never failed to return a phone call, and how much they appreciated that. It clearly left an impression on them -- and on me. I've lived much of my professional life on the phone, first as a journalist and now as a PIO. I made a rule for myself then that I would never fail to return a phone call.

I thought of this recently, after experiencing the frustration of having phone calls made to a couple of businesses go unreturned. One, a flooring contractor, will never get my business, and it's unlikely I'll want to patronize the other, either. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my own rule about returning phone calls is often honored more in the breach than in the observance. So I try to remind myself that I ignore a phone call at my employer's peril, and my own.

Perhaps that advertising salesman failed to mention that he's an alumnus of the university where I work, and maybe the check he was about to send us will now go to his kid's private school, or maybe to his church. Perhaps that reporter who always seems to get things wrong just lined up a plum PR job for herself, and someday I may need to turn to her for a job. Maybe she'll have forgotten those voice mail messages left in vain. Or maybe she won't.

It goes back to what I wrote about my experience this summer at Kennywood. Everything your organization does impacts your reputation. Companies invest millions building their brands. Creating great products. Running clever ad campaigns. Generating key media placements. And yet they forget that each of their employees has the power to wreck it all -- simply by doing nothing.

Get off my lawn!

Maybe it comes with getting older, but lately I've been taking note how society's standards seem to be slipping. A few weeks ago I was eating at Mallorca with family, and a man eating a couple of tables over was wearing a baseball cap. Now I wear baseball caps to a lot of places -- maybe more often than I should -- but a restaurant like Mallorca isn't one of them. As Tony Soprano would say, They don't serve hot dogs here.

I thought of this Friday when I was at Kennywood with my wife and kids, as a slouching ride worker walked over to open the gate to let my son and I on to the carousel. He was holding a cup of water in his teeth and he wore an otherwise blank expression. I noticed then that all the park employees wore Kennywood T-shirts -- many without name tags -- that made them indistinguishable from the guests. Maybe it's been a few years, but I remember when the staff at Kennywood all wore the same color polo shirts, and they were just a little quicker to smile and tell you to enjoy the ride.

Now I don't mean to be too hard on Kennywood. We had a great time -- the park is still clean and family friendly, and for the most part we got good service and enjoyed good food. But my experience there reminded me how important is attention to detail, and how everything an organization does speaks to its image. After all, public relations isn't just about how you promote yourself. It's about how you treat your customers. It's about the quality of your product. It's about making good decisions. A well-run organization is always the best public relations.