Ah, well, truth be told I am under employed myself and off to do some work now. Easy to get sucked into the black hole that is the blogosphere, eh? Have a good one, Emily, I’ll try to peek in on your blog from time to time. :)

as for “instructing employees to lie to customers,” have you ever worked for any corporation, or anyone? that seems to be part of the deal, whether a for-profit venture or even not-for-profit like a library. here are two instances of lying recently which are sad and have nothing to do with nail polish:

1) a friend of a friend works as a librarian for a small library in a state and county which will remain unnamed. she found out that the county commissioners were targeting her library to close due to budget cuts. nevermind that her library has a packed parking lot, is located in the poorest town in the county, and that many of the teens who are minorities hang out at her library for Internet access b/c they don’t have computers at home (so much for Obama’s dream to make Internet access available to all!). This info that it is to close leaked in a memo, and now she is instructed to not say anything or not give any details to patrons because it could jeopardize her job at other libraries in the system. How f*cked up is that?

2) Last week I went to a local Walgeeen’s store. All of registers except camera and make-up were just replaced by the self serve computer system. A cashier who is maybe 70 years old and who is usually a cashier there that I know was helping to orient us customers to the new computers. “But what will happen to your job?” I asked her. She replied, “This is more efficient, it will be better for you.” and again I said, “What will happen to your job? I see you here all the time?” And again she said something like, “This will be better and more efficient.” Then I asked her, “Do you like this new check-out system?” And she just sighed and looked at me as her eyes were watering and I know she couldn’t say anything actually truthful, so I apologized to her and walked out. These are two instances of having to lie for your company. I could walk out on the street today and find five more.

The Internet and blogging and the like is what makes PR people cry in their pillows because they can’t control the truth or curb the spread of truth, which in a way is a good thing.

First off — I understand the purpose of a press release. I was a journalist for years, and now spend quite a bit of time getting pitched myself. I understand that no company *should* rely on a press release, but my point is that American Apparel seems to have done just that.

There were a couple of blogs that highlighted the cool aspects of the product including the grandma angle and the color inspiration angle (http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/first-look-american-apparel-unveils-nail-laquer/14221, http://pipeline.refinery29.com/news/american_apparel_to_launch_nai.php), but I believe that the company should have had that information front and center in a display somewhere near the point of purchase so that every potential customer could have embraced the story.

I don’t agree that they were taking a “wait and see” policy, and don’t agree with the tactic. If a consumer-facing company sucj as American Apparel has a product worth making and selling, then they should back it as a product worth marketing. And effective marketing means telling a memorable story.

I can’t wrap my head around whatever “logic” justifies an initial response of instructing employees to lie to customers, and withholding details of a product recall from the public in a case where the product could potentially cause bodily harm.

No company relies on a press release to tell its brand story for them. The purpose of a press release is to get the word out on new happenings, usual to media folks or conscious customers, so that a reporter or blogger like you can cover a larger story and from a perspective much more unique than the one coming from the company’s marketer or PR person who writes the release.

Since it was only an initial run of 60,000 bottles, and with a price point of $6 for a bottle of nail polish, it’s probably not worth the dollars to market the story of a family-run factory, with a cool 91-year-old bottle filling granny just yet, plus with the initial glitches (for which they are exhibiting truth and transparency in the matter in which they’re removing the polish from shelves and disposing of it in an environmental conscious manner) maybe American Apparel was waiting to see how the polish would perform first before putting up information about the story behind the polish in their stores. Maybe that’s a good thing- more people could have potentially been inspired by the story and purchased it, and if that were the case there’d be more broken bottles out there.

While there’s a whole private label industry of companies designing and producing items that are then sold under a different name. (“Vera Wang” at Kohl’s is actually made by Random Company XYZ) But that is such an old-school way of doing business.

I feel like this issue reflects what’s happening to American Apparel, and what may be their largest downfall. They went from a small, homegrown, different type of company to another large corporation. Sometimes just because you CAN expand that quickly and vastly doesn’t mean you should.