Here's an interesting story about a California mall called Pacific View (owned by the Macerich Corporation) banning an anti-war demonstration on their premises at the peak of this past holiday shopping season. Turns out, it seems the court is siding with the protestors in the name of free speech, etc. But that's not what got my attention focused on this item. Instead it was this segment of the report, which in a wide variety of forms, you've read a million times:

Pacific View Mall Spokeswoman Alice Love was on vacation and unavailable for comment for this story. Other mall representatives, including Kathy Taggart and Macerich corporate public relations representatives did not respond or could not be reached for comment on this story.

If that were a rare or unusual reaction on the part of PR people to difficult news or awkward subjects, that would be one thing. But it happens routinely. I've done it. The idea is to hold your breath, hide out, get scarce, and wait for the thing to blow over. The conventional, traditional PR thinking is that by addressing such things, things only get worse.

I used to believe that. I could stonewall with the best of them. And maybe back then in my day that was the right approach? I don't believe it is any longer, especially not in today's world of evolving transparency and conversation and pro-sumerism. Today, I think companies like Macerich have a chance to talk about things, explain their position, diffuse bad news, and possibly come to a reasonable compromise through a dialogue with various parties with a multitude of real and imagined gripes. In this case, the story hasn't been killed by silence. It seems the marchers will be back.

By the way, if you go to the Macerich one-way, highly-polished, non-interactive website linked above, please notice their drop down under the general heading "Social Responsibility" and read about their community-based philosophy and Acts of Kindness. I think it illuminates why ordinary people often feel such a disconnect at a website and quickly head for the metasphere for new or better sources.

Before I go, I also just have to note the irony of a mall called Pacific View denying a peaceful anti-war protest.

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What do very funny professional out-of-work writers do while on strike? They go online and devastate their adversaries through wicked humor. That's according to Los Angeles Times writer Matea Gold. As her report notes, the striking writers are winning the PR battle over the traditional old-style approach of the bosses on the other side of this issue. Withering wit apparently has had something to do with the talks getting re-started. The producers are afraid.

A snippet from the story that summarizes the situation:

When the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers announced plans to resume talks, one factor that apparently contributed to the detente was the fear among some studios that the blogs and videos effectively were casting them as villains.

"They're our version of electronic samizdat," said Michael Winship , president of WGA East , alluding to underground publications distributed in the former Soviet Union. "The humor is devastating."

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The Molson Coors Brewing Company got a sobering message about the appropriate versus inappropriate use of social media last week. On Friday, the company cut short it's online Facebook promotion that encouraged college students to post pictures of themselves partying on campus. Here's the news item about it courtesy of reporter Marina Strauss. The fact that I don't have to tell you why this social media offering caused a problem among college and university staff and faculty should give everyone pause. How can a big-time, long-experienced organization with veteran marketers not intuitively know this might burp in their face?

But of perhaps greater interest is Ms. Strauss' preview of research results to be released in full tomorrow.  Allow me to highlight for you just one of the more amazing statistics as well as a quote by an executive at the company responsible for the survey. See if this makes sense to you?

The survey, done by Pollara Strategic Insights, found that 26 per cent of business and marketing leaders say they are less familiar with social media marketing than their own customers…

"There's really a high level of interest in social media but at the same time companies are really struggling to understand social media," said Robert Hutton, executive vice-president at Pollara.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Today is being called by some 'Cyber Monday.' It's supposed to be a huge online shopping day. Not so very long ago when e-commerce started to happen, I recall tons of people who took forever to get it and come around, al while endorsing the concept enthusiastically. For the most part consumers got it right away. So here we are again, back at the beginning?

Like last time, it will be the early adopters who gain the strategic advantage, unless they mess it up.

Cheers!

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