Apology accepted

I often bemoan the fact that no-one – and especially corporations or politicians – takes responsibility for anything anymore or admits that they made a mistake. So it warmed my heart to find “An Apology from JetBlue Airways” in my inbox yesterday apologizing for the huge mess last week that saw a third of its flights cancelled and passengers stuck on the tarmac for hours awaiting take-off.

Here are a few excerpts from JetBlue’s humble apology:

• ” We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.”
• ” Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused.”
• ” You deserved better—a lot better—from us last week.”

Admittedly, I was not directly affected by the situation, but the apology went a long way to restoring my opinion of the company – and is in keeping with what I have come to expect from the JetBlue brand. From a PR point of view, the company has done what exactly what it needed to do – issue an unequivocal mea culpa, apologize wholeheartedly and point to steps that are being taken to make sure it never happens again.

I’ve always liked JetBlue and will no doubt fly it again (although its TrueBlue frequent flyer program is a bit stingy). What about you? If you were involved in the fiasco, are you satisfied with JetBlue’s response?

Technorati Tags: JetBlue, apology, crisis communications

Microsoft gets new enthuasiast, and other stories – February 16, 2007

Micrososft replaces Scoble with ex Jupiter analyst. Microsoft has a new “enthusiast evangelist” (isn’t that tautological?) in the form of Michael Gartenberg. Robert Scoble vacated the position last year when he joined PodTech.net.

Google rumored to be acquiring AdScape Media for $23m. AdScape would bring the ability to advertise within video and online games.

Lost track of all those options scandals? Here’s a handy wrap-up of the last few days’ developments from Good Morning Silicon Valley (always worth a read for the headlines alone).

Give a little love to a Blackberry user – send them more email. A new Digital Life survey reported that Blackberry users are more likely to work longer hours and earn more money than the average American. Hardly a shock, given that Blackberry users are likely to be senior professionals. However it does give me a reason to expound my theory that avid Blackberry users just want to be loved. Huh? You know the people who constantly check their Blackberries in meetings and can’t be parted from it even at social engagements? I would wager that, nine times out of 10, it really wasn’t necessary to check email at 9pm, but it makes them feel good to think they are so in demand. It makes them feel important, wanted and, yes, loved.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Michael Gartenberg, Google, AdScape, options backdating, Digital Life, Blackberry

Apple deftly deflects responsibility

Bravo! Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Music,” published as an open letter on the company’s website yesterday, is an excellent PR job. Essentially, Steve Jobs calls for an end to digital rights management and puts the blame on the record labels for locking users in. According to Jobs, the reason that you can only play iTunes music on iPods is the major labels’ insistence that all downloaded music have DRM. He is of course right that the insistence on DRM is crazy, when you can buy DRM-free digital music on a CD. But his argument that Apple’s FairPlay technology couldn’t be opened up to other vendors is a little spurious.

It surely is no coincidence that his thoughts come at a time when Apple is getting a lot of heat in Europe for being anticompetitive. With this move, he has neatly deflected all the blame onto the big bad record labels – whom everyone already loves to hate. Great job! (Although it really would be nice if you removed the iTunes/iPod lock-in, Steve.)

Technorati Tags: Apple, DRM, FairPlay, iTunes