FEMA’s Marketing and Public Relations Tactics

Whether you like it or not, when you are in an organization that becomes involved in public affairs, you are involved in marketing. Everytime you act on behalf of your organization, you are effecting (either positively or negatively) the way the public eye views it.

FEMA has come under fire frequently in relation of its response to Hurricane Katrina. That creates negative branding. Mistake #1.

But then in an effort to reverse the brand psychology US consumers have contributed to FEMA, it sought to engage in good old-fashioned propoganda. FEMA created a press conference, conducted by FEMA officials, with questions and answers planted by FEMA, and no other press allowed to report.

This is an extreme example of “what not to do,” but there are lesser examples in many, many organizations. As soon as you’re caught pretending to be objective while really intentionally complimenting your product or service, you received a negative PR hit, and everything you have said immediately seems illegitimate. Companies and groups like Slide, the Wizard of Oz, various books on Amazon and more have received accusations of planting positive reviews. When we were developing the reviews for furniture-online.com, we had some pages full of positive reviews, and were encouraged to plant negative reviews of our own products. It seems paradoxical, but once you really think about it, negative reviews demonstrate authenticity. When pretending to be objective, it’s obvious if you heavily favor one side of an argument.

Be legitimate, be real, people see it. Don’t plant positive reviews, create a product or service worth giving a positive review.