Dizzy Gillespie famously said of his work in jazz music, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what notes not to play.” Such is the art of jazz improv, and such is the art in writing copy for marketing materials.
By now you’ve likely read about the negative press Best Buy has been receiving, and you may have even read the CEO’s blog response to the coverage. This response has been receiving the predictable praise and pans from various circles of the blogosphere…and with good reason. There are some things the response managed to achieve very successful, and in my opinion there are some things Best Buy could have done better.
As a PR practitioner, I’ve long recoiled at hearing the term “spin” being applied to my profession. I don’t think of myself as a “spin artist,” nor do I advocate that companies and executives master the art of “spin” when dealing with the media and constituents. Rather, I prefer they speak in plain English. Audiences are people, too, after all.
It is a classic and relevant example of someone getting out in front of the story. Suh could’ve very well left well enough alone, allowing the reputation to fester and living with the consequences. But a negative public perception was affecting his ability to be successful on the field (and likely in the endorsement arena—the rest of the “business” associated with professional sports), so he took action to correct it.
Among this talent is the creative team—a team that captured the brand’s essence and Jobs’s vision with perfect pitch and to maximum effect. Aside from the genre-defining and category-killing technology, which changed the way we listen to music, think about phones, and reconsider personal “computing,” we fell in love with the Apple brand.
