Message

The University of Missouri has come out with a study showing that when companies’ bad news is framed from a sad point of view, consumers are more forgiving of said company.

Someone should have told BP this news before National Public Radio declared its Gulf oil spill “a textbook example of how not to handle PR.”

Glen Cameron, the Maxine Wilson Gregory Chair in Journalism Research and professor of strategic communication at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and Hyo Kim of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore conducted the research. The University of Missouri’s news release said that in the study, one group read an “anger-frame” story blaming a company for the crisis. A second group read a “sadness-frame” story, that focused on the victims and how they were hurt by the crisis.

Certainly, this isn’t earth-shattering news, especially to those whose profession is public relations.

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When Jeff Bezos announced Amazon’s new Kindle products today he presented them with this message, “What we are doing is offering premium products at non-premium prices… We don’t think of the Kindle Fire as a tablet. We think of it as a service.”

Of course, many of the news stories today have compared the Kindle Fire to the iPad, noting the big differences between the two. One is obviously a couple hundred bucks and the other costs much more. Nevertheless, Reuters focuses on Barnes & Noble, which may take a big hit on the e-reader front.

Bezos made sly references to the iPad, but largely focused on what the Kindle Fire can do — it has apps, games, email capabilities, and more.

What do you think of positioning the Kindle Fire as a service rather than a tablet? The comments section is open.

[image via Bloomberg]

An interesting messaging strategy here. DUMBO, the unfortunately named Brooklyn neighborhood, is the first NYC ‘hood to offer free Wi-Fi everywhere, including streets and parks. According to the DUMBO Business Improvement District (BID) and Two Trees Management, the company that owns most of the neighborhood, the Wi-Fi offer is one more example of innovation there, which also includes “green” building and an area filled with start-up businesses.

“We are encouraging people to step out of their offices and homes and engage with one another and the neighborhood in new and different ways. Wi-Fi is one more way to inspire the workforce we have and help attract new talent to the Brooklyn Waterfront. In DUMBO, you can put together a proposal while gazing at the Brooklyn Bridge and all of Manhattan,” says Alexandria Sica, executive director of the DUMBO BID in a statement.

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