US companies address Texas abortion law, TikTok overtakes YouTube in average watch time, and Proton Mail walks back privacy claims
Also: Business travel is grounded in Sept., Americans say they still want to shop in-person, HRC parts with president over his ties to former Gov. Cuomo, and more.
Good morning, communicators:
The rise of the Delta variant in the U.S. has brought business travel to a halt.
September marks the beginning of the busy corporate travel season, but many companies are having second thoughts about sending their workers on planes, especially as they delay their return to work dates.
Some 60 percent of business travelers said they are likely to postpone their travel plans and 67 percent said they are likely to take fewer trips, according to a report by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, which conducted a survey in August involving 400 business travelers.
Business travel might struggle to come back—even after the pandemic has abated. According to a Bloomberg survey of 45 large businesses in Europe, the U.S. and Asia, 84% plan to spend less on travel for their employees. It’s a reminder for communicators and PR pros to continue investing in digital tools and experiences. For better or for worse, the Zoom call is very much here to stay.
Here are today’s other top stories:
U.S. businesses speak out on Texas abortion law
As companies continue to find their voice on divisive cultural and political issues, the latest struggle over abortion rights in the U.S. has sparked some to enter the fray. After a new Texas law banned all abortion procedures after six weeks of pregnancy, and created a bounty system that effectively closed abortion clinics in the state, some companies are pushing back.
Webhosting service GoDaddy refused to continue servicing the website where people could report fellow citizens who were seeking out abortion services:
https://twitter.com/GoDaddy/status/1433819084068622345
Texas-based dating app companies Match and Bumble both spoke out against the law—and created funds for employees who might need to travel to other states for health care services.
“I’m not speaking about this as the CEO of a company,” [Match CEO Shar Dubey] wrote. “I’m speaking about this personally, as a mother and a woman who has fervently cared about women’s rights, including the very fundamental right of choice over her body.”
Uber and Lyft promised to pay legal fees for drivers who, under the new law, could be sued for giving rides to women on their way to an abortion clinic.
Business Insider continued:
Lyft said it created a Driver Legal Defense Fund to completely front the costs that drivers could incur under the new law.
“Drivers are never responsible for monitoring where their riders go or why,” Lyft said Friday. “Imagine being a driver and not knowing if you are breaking the law by giving someone a ride. Similarly, riders never have to justify, or even share, where they are going and why.
What you should know: Even though a majority of Americans say they want companies to speak out on social and cultural issues, many organizations still struggle with knowing when to speak out or when to remain silent—especially when addressing such a polarizing issue. So far, organizations that have spoken against the Texas abortion law and Supreme Court decision have focused on their personal values and offered resources to affected employees.
Regardless, this situation is a reminder that cultural and political debates can have profound consequences on essential stakeholders such as employees, customers and clients—and that messaging should take into account the lived experience of everyone who interacts with your brand.
MEASURED THOUGHTS
American consumers still want to shop in-person once the pandemic is over, according to new data from the Harris Poll and Morning Brew. Almost three-fourths (71%) of Americans shop in-person at least once a week, confirming that while e-commerce habits are on the rise, there are many products shoppers still want to hold in their hand before the buy.
A year from now, 63% of consumers say they will do most of their shopping in-person, and 37% said they would do most of their buying online.
You can read the full report here.
SOCIAL BUZZ
TikTok has overtaken YouTube in average U.S. watch time on Android devices, according to new data from analytics outfit App Annie.
In the US, ByteDance’s app first overtook YouTube in August last year, and as of June 2021 its users watched over 24 hours of content per month, compared with 22 hours and 40 minutes on Google’s video platform. In the UK the difference is even more stark: TikTok overtook YouTube in May last year and users there now reportedly watch almost 26 hours of content a month, compared to less than 16 on YouTube.
The numbers reveal the meteoric popularity of TikTok and offer a compelling case for short-form video content. (TikTok videos are capped at three minutes for most videos, compared to YouTube’s average of 10 minutes.)
YouTube is still ahead in overall content time spent on the app, but that’s hardly surprising as the video behemoth boasts 2 billion users compared to TikTok’s 700 million.
Proton Mail walks back some of its brashest claims on privacy
After the company complied with a request from European authorities to hand over a user’s IP address and other information, critics claimed that the company’s tough stance on user privacy was just corporate bluster. The company has gone on to change the language on its website about how it will maintain the privacy of users.
Back in January this year, the company’s homepage stated: “No personal information is required to create your secure email account. By default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account. Your privacy comes first.”
Today that boast has been replaced with a mealy-mouthed version: “ProtonMail is email that respects privacy and puts people (not advertisers) first. Your data belongs to you, and our encryption ensures that. We also provide an anonymous email gateway.”
What you should know: Good PR pros know better than to make promises your organization can’t keep. However, without a complex understanding of digital privacy and international law, you might not completely understand what promises you actually can keep—so be mindful of how you cast these sorts of claims.
While a ham-fisted effort to protect user privacy has the potential to harm your reputation, making claims about user privacy that can’t be kept will also result in a backlash when the proverbial rubber meets the road.
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Human Rights Campaign parts with exec who counseled former Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, has been fired for cause after a report revealed he had counseled the former governor of New York on how to handle his sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo was forced to resign the governorship earlier this year over the scandal.
Mr. David said he would fight his firing. “As a Black, gay man who has spent his whole life fighting for civil and human rights, they cannot shut me up,” he said in a Twitter post late Monday. “Expect a legal challenge.”
Earlier, the co-chairs of the board, Morgan Cox and Jodie Patterson, said in a statement that they had decided to end Mr. David’s role “effective immediately, for violations of his contract with the Human Rights Campaign.”
“This is a painful moment in our movement,” they wrote. “While the board’s decision is not the outcome we had ever envisioned or hoped for in terms of Mr. David’s tenure with H.R.C., his actions have put us in an untenable position by violating H.R.C.’s core values, policies and mission.”
What you should know: The firing is another example of how the world has changed since the #MeToo movement begun shining a spotlight on the pernicious and intransigent problem of sexual harassment in workplaces from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. Organizations and leaders are facing very real consequences for how they respond to allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment, and while everyone is entitled to legal counsel, the public isn’t ready to extend the same the considerations to other forms of counsel.
The incident should give PR firms some pause, who have long made a practice of working with disreputable organizations to repair reputations and clean up scandalous media narratives. When it comes to offering counsel, the hassle might not be worth the retainer—particularly when someone is facing multiple credible allegations of sexual harassment.
SOUNDING BOARD
Do you plan to travel for work in 2021? Not until 2023? What has to change for your travel plans to change?
Share your thoughts with us in the comments or on Twitter with our hashtag #DailyScoop.
POLL: Will you be traveling for work this year? Next year? Tell us what you are thinking with our hashtag #DailyScoop
— PR Daily (@PRDaily) September 7, 2021
Wait a minute! Wait MORE than a minute. This report from a gifted PR journalist claims: “Alphonso David has been fired for cause after a report revealed he had counseled the former governor of New York on how to handle his sexual harassment allegations.”
That’s CAUSE for firing? How to handle “allegations” even of murder and bank robbery—that’s cause for firing? All the PR firms and executives that are “revealed” to have guided clients on how to handle allegations, some of them wildly untrue, should all those PR experts be fired for cause?
Cuomo was reportedly “forced to resign the governorship” over the scandal but is that true? Was he “forced” to resign or is that the option he voluntarily chose perhaps to spare New York and his family months of damaging uncertainty over who’s in charge. And if it’s really a “scandal” every time some company or person faces allegations, is that damn near all our companies great and small? Have 10% of us, maybe over 50%, been accused of something for which we’re not guilty? Our kids and other family members—are all who’ve been accused of something tainted by scandal?
Every major pharmaceutical company and every PR firm experienced in health PR knows that drug companies are repeatedly “revealed” to have “known damn well that the new drug had side effects but they sold it anyhow!” It’s true and there is written proof. Every drug license application to FDA—EVERY SINGLE ONE—has a section commonly called “AEs” for “Adverse Effects.”
Whether you’re taking a prescription drug for blood pressure, cholesterol or God forbid cancer, you can see online that YOUR drug has reportedly had side effects but the drug company sells it anyhow. Doctors prescribe it when the benefit seems likely to be well worth the risk.
Not only people and companies take reputational hits but so do whole countries including ours! Often our country is accused of improper behavior by our own people. Sometimes the accusations are TRUE because there may be no country on earth where something wrong is never done by accident or unfortunately sometimes even on purpose.
Listen to the seven-figure PR geniuses of Omnicom whose company gets over $3 billion a year for counseling clients expertly on reputations: the core of successful PR, say the Omnicom savants, is the TRUTH. The TRUTH is that many allegations are false. The TRUTH is that when some allegations are true,
the client gladly and eagerly tries to correct the situation because playing by the rules is often not only safer but more profitable.
So read with well-deserved skepticism that a company knew its new drug had side effects “but sold it anyhow.” In TRUTH that drug may have saved thousands of lives. Sometimes we should accuse the accusers. Don’t think anyone who has ever been accused, which includes nearly all our companies, has been in “a scandal.” And don’t believe 100% even top journalist Ted Kitterman that “while everyone is entitled to legal counsel, the public isn’t ready to extend the same considerations to other forms of counsel.”
The public IS ready for truthful guidance on health, accounting, , religion, PR and more. At the core of PR power is the truth. Truth can save companies and even whole countries. The truth that Omnicom guides clients to present for their benefit, and the truth that political leaders may advise governors to present, can be GOOD for clients to tell and GOOD for the public to know.
Truth may not only save companies tens of billions a year in reputational injury and lost profits but may save the public from losing benefits of truthful PR that can save reputations, save companies and sometimes even save lives as Cuomo has done.
It’s a good PR lesson to notice WHAT were Governor Cuomo’s “harassment allegations” because it’s like a company being accused of what also sounds bad like “pollution” or “discrimination.”
Was he accused of rape? No! Nagging an employee to go out with him? No! No nagging, no claim that he even INVITED someone to go on a trip with him or spend a weekend with him or even go to dinner! (Maybe excepting de Rosa and her husband.)
Okay but no one is above the law so did he do or say anything—or even get ALLEGED to have done or said anything—that led to a police complaint? No, not even to a lawsuit by one of the many lawyers who advertise no charge at all if you don’t win.
Has a woman shown the press any letter from a doctor or psychologist—or even a mystic!—to whom a complaint of lost sleep was made because of Cuomo? No again.
Then what? One woman said years later that he touched her breast, one or two women said years later he touched their rumps, and three women said he made them “feel uncomfortable.” Those are the allegations! If I skipped anything, see if someone comes on this site to tell what I skipped.
Look, I’ll come right out with it and tell you right here what may be alleged about ME and it’s true. It’s that years ago when a senior Washington PR guy, I think after having more than one drink for lunch which he rarely did, called me and broke my chops, and he wouldn’t get off the phone, I proposed something sexual that would be against the law. I told him to screw himself! As far as I’ve seen in Cuomo’s case, a suggestion that strong has not even been alleged!
Not just alleged but true is that Cuomo made many people “feel uncomfortable.” He overworked them and used foul language. Very foul and often. He fired some of them and seemed to threaten firing many. He opposed the candidacy of a woman who had wanted his political support, I think the woman who later said he touched her breasts.
But ALL companies and all of our homes that throw out garbage contribute to pollution. ALL employers including political leaders and PR firms who have a below-average number of minority employees can be allegedly guilty of discrimination. Governors and others should perhaps be judged by their RESULTS not by allegations. If the Omnicom people bill over $3 billion a year, and if a state has the jobs and health and business statistics New York under Cuomo had, the PR and political people alike—and ALL face allegations as all organizations do—can echo Jimmy Durante who said: “I deny the allegation and I defy the allegator!