
How Amazon and Jay Carney Lost the Game of PR – And How They Could Have Won - acrylickinger
https://medium.com/@jhreha/how-amazon-jay-carney-violated-the-laws-of-persuasion-50b69d029e54#.ngkzg4s0v
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suprgeek
Take the low-road, publicly engage in character attacks on ex-employees, do
not refute the "brutal workplace" charge and remind people of "Amazon makes
employees cry at their desks" two months after the article has been published.

AKA what NOT to do!

~~~
Overtonwindow
Mr. Carney Learned a very important lesson in Washington: when you can't
refute your opponents arguments, attack them personally.

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shostack
I'd just like to point out how interesting it is to watch very important and
high-profile company statements being posted to Medium vs. the respective
sites.

Unless I missed it, I didn't see the NYT response on their website--I think it
was JUST on Medium. That they are giving up the resulting ad revenue says a
lot about how they view Medium and the discussion at hand.

This implies Medium is serving as sort of a neutral ground for both parties to
plant their soapboxes. Very interesting to watch how people and companies use
of Medium as various types of "platforms" evolves.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
The Times produced their piece on both articles on today's paper[1], although
I think the more interesting story is that the Washington Post - a paper Bezos
owns - was just as if not more critical than the Times[2]. Even though the
Times may have lost potential ad revenue by publishing their rebuttal on
Medium, it actually resulted in a huge uptick in page views for the original
article, and having a piece to recap the next day gave them both the last word
and a more compelling story for their readers.

I think the Times made the right choice, or even a series of right choices.
Amazon could learn from them.

1\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/business/amazon-spars-
with...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/business/amazon-spars-with-the-
times-over-investigative-
article.html?src=me&referer=http://www.nytimes.com/pages/business/index.html&nytmobile=0)

2\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2015/10/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2015/10/19/amazons-weak-attack-on-the-new-york-times/)

~~~
shostack
Interesting--thanks for all the additional details. Very interesting indeed
about the WaPo.

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cruise02
I can't tell if this is satire or not.

> In this instance Amazon went back into the mud to correct a perceived wrong
> with logic and clarity.

I find it interesting that we now view "logic and clarity" as a bad thing,
while changing the subject and appeals to emotion are good things.

~~~
Alupis
Read the article - it's all about how emotions drive our thoughts and
decisions, followed by logic to backup those emotional thoughts.

So, in this case, people's emotions turned them against Amazon (bad workplace
environment!), followed up by "availability bias" which re-enforces their
initial emotional response by only thinking of (the recent) facts that support
their negative thoughts.

Amazon trying to use logic to combat emotion is always a recipe for failure.

~~~
cruise02
Yes, I read the article, and I understood it. But thanks for explaining it to
me anyway.

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emiliobumachar
"Carney thought that coming up with a well-documented, rational rebuttal was
the right move. Unfortunately, this isn’t based on how people actually form
their perceptions."

So is the lesson here to never deviate from standard corporate PR bs?

~~~
munificent
It's standard because it works. :-/

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cbsmith
Posted this on Medium, but reposting here:

I think the judgement that this is a “PR failure” is taking a fairly tactical
analysis. It’s evaluating Amazon’s response in the context of this story & new
cycle, rather than considering all the ones to come.

This move was clearly not intended to neutralize and kill the story. This move
was not intended to improve Amazon’s brand perception in the market. Attacking
the story and highlighting the most negative aspect of it really invariably
serves to double down on the impact of the story on Amazon. That’s why this
kind of response is done so rarely. This move was intended to harm the brand
of the writer and the New York Times.

If you consider a policy of _never_ responding in this fashion, it creates an
environment where anyone can and will produce even outright libelous stories
without fear of consequences. Every now and then you need to throw an elbow,
just to demonstrate that you won’t be taken advantage of. In this case, they
went after the New York Times… in public… represented their work as not even
meeting basic professional standards… The NYT actually made the same “mistake”
you are highlighting here by responding… and Amazon responded _again_ to that
response, no doubt doing more PR harm to both brands.

The overall message is clear: if you are write an irresponsible story about
them, expect that Amazon is willing to sacrifice their brand image in order to
exact as much of a toll on your brand as they can.

I don’t think it will stop an intrepid reporter from writing a hit piece on
Amazon. It will likely make both the reporter and their editor far more
cautious about whether they’ve dotted their i’s, crossed their t’s, and given
Amazon every chance to respond to the story before they publish.

Assuming they achieve that outcome, that’s a PR success. Heck, that’s PR
_gold_.

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jdmichal
I don't think it was as big of a loss as the article makes it appear. I think
they should have opened with this paragraph, which is almost at the end
instead:

> When the story came out, we knew it misrepresented Amazon. Once we could
> look into the most sensational anecdotes, we realized why. We presented the
> Times with our findings several weeks ago, hoping they might take action to
> correct the record. They haven’t, which is why we decided to write about it
> ourselves.

That would have served very well to address the delay in publishing a
response, along with immediately tilting the emotional state of the reader
towards Amazon. "We tried to fix this the right way, but _they_ didn't play
nice so now we're forced to do this the hard way." All the right words are
there; it seems like the order was just a bit miffed.

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forgottenpass
_How Amazon and Jay Carney Lost the Game of PR – And How They Could Have Won_

How they could have won? They couldn't. All this advocates is being even more
manipulative. And I would have called that bullshit too.

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klenwell
In other words, back up your exploitative labor practices with underhanded
propaganda tactics. This is pretty thin gruel.

What this piece doesn't seem to consider is, who exactly are the hearts and
minds Amazon is fighting for here? The informed reading public? Like NY Times
readers? I'd like to believe they'd be more resistant than average to these
tactics.

Or, as others have suggested in the previous thread on this subject, potential
tech hires? The HN crowd? Based on the previous thread, there seems to be some
sympathy for Amazon here. But again, I'd be inclined to give more credit to
those among "the haters" than the author does here and would fully expect them
not to be won over by these kind of mass consumer marketing tactics. (I'd
still like to see that HN poll I'd suggested in previous thread.)

If they're simply trying to control the topic with a broader mass media
audience, then I suspect Amazon would be best served by simply respecting the
Streisand Effect.

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jsprogrammer
Can we please stop propagating this myth of what PR should be doing?

>This is the opposite of what a PR professional would want to do in a
situation like this: make the story go away.

There is far more value contributed by companies speaking what they really
think instead of obfuscating it in feel-good branding.

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sparkzilla
Amazon missed a good opportunity to say nothing at all.

~~~
organsnyder
Exactly. They managed to bring this story back to the forefront, rather than
letting it fade away.

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snockerton
Why is this on the front page? This is Hacker News not The View.

~~~
organsnyder
Not only is Amazon a very large tech company that likely employs quite a few
HN readers, it also offers services (AWS) that are used extremely heavily by
many in the startup community.

