Is tipping at your favourite restaurant good PR?

What principle of persuasion did tipping follow?

Was it:

A) Identification principle - What was in it for the waitress if I ordered?
But the tip came after the good service, tipping was never disclosed before the service was done... So what was in it for you waitress? Nothing. At least not until I get my food.

B) Action principle - Did I make it easy for waitress to agree to allow me to put in a late order?
Again, the tip came after and you didn't use the tip to make the waitress put in the food order. The only action I could have done was told her I was outside the restaurant ready to pick up my order once it was ready. Another thing I could have told her was that I was ready to pay with cash, making the transaction quick and easy. But none of these have anything to do with tipping.

C) Clarity principle - Was my request clear to understand?
I think it was pretty clear to the waitress that I was being an annoying customer that wasn't respecting their business hours.

or was it

D) Familiarity and Trust - the use of a reputable symbol, object, brand, or person.
I didn't tell the waitress Mayor Katz was the person that was going to eat the pancit. So she knew that I wasn't some celebrity that she needed to extend special treatment to.

Now here was my argument:

My dad was down with the flu and was wanting Filipino food from one of our family's favourite restaurants. I got his voicemail to pick up some food at 6:56 p.m. so by the time I called the restaurant to order pick up, it was 7 p.m. - exactly when they closed. Sure enough the lady answered and said they had already closed. I asked nicely and told her my dad wasn't feeling well and wanted their famous noodles (pancit (PAN-sit) - Filipino noodle stir fry). She said they were closed and I asked if there was pancit left over as I knew they cooked them in big woks. She hesitated, apologized, and paused, as if reconsidering if she would still allow me to order food. Again, I asked nicely and inserted another please in her silent pause. She agreed and got one of the cooks to prepare an order of pancit for me. Sweet!

When I got home, I was [almost] attacked when I told the story of how I got the pancit and the amount of tip I left the nice lady at the counter. The pancit order came up to $9.97 after taxes and left a $5 tip. In the States, a 20 per cent tip was considered a "good tip" by TripAdvisor. I tipped her 50 per cent and my parents said that was too much.

Now here was my reasoning and I hope you agree:

A 20 per cent tip would have been $1.99, let's say $2. So I told my parents what's an extra $3 to show that I really appreciated them taking my order after they closed. I didn't mention that I had to wait a bit because they cooked my order fresh!

So my argument was: for an extra $3 dollars ($2 tip was a given), I showed the staff that their efforts were appreciated. Actually, they asked for your name for pick up orders. The first thing the owner said when I walked into the restaurant was "Oh, so you're Emmanuel." Because I left a pretty good tip, she'll remember me as a customer and I'm sure if this were to happen again, they wouldn't hesitate extending me the same customer service once again. Now wasn't that $3 well spent? I thought so!

Should we have a tighter reash on imported English?

OK, clearly this picture was meant to make fun of the subject. It was taken from Engrish.com. You'll quickly realize what the entire site was about once you visit the link.

The sad part about the products that were shown on that site was that these were not meant for export. Most of the products were reported to have been spotted around Japan. None of the products were being resold in the United States or Canada (at least none that I've seen). So I thought it was okay as long as these products stayed in countries where English was not the first language.

So how about products made for export? Should we be more critical of the English content printed on the product's label?

Take this item taken from the Agpalza pantry for example:

1) Yaki Sushi Nori - Roasted Seaweed. (Don't ask me why we have this in the pantry. My sister used to make sushi when she lived at home. To be honest, I don't think this is safe to eat as I don't even remember how long this product has been in our pantry.)

On the back of the package was the instructions on how to use the contents and the steps to roll the sushi.

Imported by Hi-Rise Enterprises Ltd. - Vancouver, B.C. I didn't have a problem with the "spoon a tablespoonful" because, to me, I still knew what was meant by it. It just sounded funny. Based on what I learned in journalism and writing, as long as the reader/audience was able to understand the message the writer was trying to convey then you didn't have to change the words. If you were looking at style specifically, then the writer should have considered rewriting that first sentence.

The part that bothered me was the lack of capitalization and spaces between the punctuation. C'mon, my eight-year old cousin could write better than that! Which brought me to the thought of editing. Should it be the importer's job to make sure that products they imported were up to North American standards? Who should edit the copy on the labels? Manufacturer or importer? As you could see on this label, the copy was printed on the packaging itself so that meant it was printed in China. The importer's name was printed on a lighter sticker label that was probably stuck on when it reached Vancouver. So, couldn't the import company have placed a sticker over the instructions as well to correct the bad English?

We learned in a PR lesson today that individuals working in enforcing the law, educating our children, providing medical advice, should be more careful about what they do in their private lives (making sure nothing 'bad' ever came out) if they wanted to be credible in what they do in the public eye. Not knowing the language in which your market communicated would definitely have negative repercussions on your business.

Crisis Management - White House style

0:07 secs
Secretary General: "What are our airborne scenarios?"

Air Force General: "There are no airborne scenarios."

Secretary General: "Well we better start generating them, haven't we General? And they better be damn good and they better work."

***

0:24 secs
Vice President of the United States: "Somebody better notify our allies. We'll need secure airspace, can we keep that under wraps?"


"If you could just try and relax Catherine, I'm in charge here."

***

I turned on the TV while writing a speech for oral presentation class when I saw Air Force One on the Movie Channel. I loved movies like this where the action was exaggerated and there was a clear good guy and bad bad guy - it didn't get better than this.

I wasn't paying much attention to the movie until this scene came on (0:07) and after hearing the Secretary of Defense mentioning "airborne scenarios" I was instantly interested.

I wondered if the White House really did have a contingency plan if and when Air Force One got into this kind of situation. I'm sure the answer would be yes.

It was interesting to see the staff plan and prepare as the event unfolded, but I was thinking if even that would happen in real life. I guessed it could since they would be able to assemble everyone if the President of the United States was in danger.

In the scene starting on 0:24, the Vice President of the United States asked one of the staff if he could get secured airspace for Air Force One. Note that she mentioned if he could keep the request under wraps as to not alert the media that there was an airborne situation unfolding 30,000 feet in the air that involved the President of the United States, his family and staff, and a group of very angry Russian terrorists. That staff member had the very important task of making sure the media didn't find out. But, imagine if the media did find out. What then? Back to the drawing board for the Secretary of Defense.

I liked how the Secretary of Defense put on his PR hat and said to the Vice President of the United States to stay calm as he was in control of the situation. In real life, I'm sure he wouldn't have said that. I mean, how could he? How could he reassure that things were going to be okay when the Vice President was in the same room and she, too, could see that negotiations weren't working. If I were the Secretary of Defense, I'd keep my mouth shut until I was certain things were going to work in my favour.

The phone call scene at 5:38 to 8:38 described what a real situation room was though...

Everyone was huddled around the phone and once the terrorist hung up, everyone broke out of the room, each of them having a task to perform. I liked the part where one staff member yelled "We'll need some language experts." He was ready to do some research on angry Russian dialects.

Attractive moms need not apply

I was looking for PR jobs specifically in the Asian market and found this particular posting on JobStreet.com. Check it out and see!

Now if I remembered correctly, our Editing Print and Online Media class taught us that we needed to know who the audience was when writing so we could effectively reach and target them through our writing's tone, style, and choice of words. With this piece of writing, I thought it was clear who they wanted to apply.

After reviewing the "requirements" for this job ad, it made me think that cultural differences existed even in job postings.

The company that posted this job ad was Center for Global Best Practices (Philippines). They conducted seminars that helped companies by providing educational programs and professional development to its employees.

Below was a snapshot of the posting from the website. I thought it was surprising to see what requirements you needed to have/be in order to qualify for the position. I didn't think you could just ask for someone who was childless without explaining why the candidate needed to be free of motherly commitments.

I thought this was such a weird job posting.

 

Should I look now or wait til I'm done?

Of course, I'm talking about job hunting.

As all CreComms know, there is a cornucopia of jobs available for graduates listed on the CreComm Blog Network that jumps to Kenton's blog. There are a few job postings in PR for September alone. You can check out week of Sept. 05 and week of Sept. 12.

As exciting as it is to be a graduate of the Creative Communications program, I'm afraid jobs will not be available for me and my colleagues when its time to step on stage to accept that paper.

This summer, I was interviewed by CBC News about Travel Manitoba turning to ad agency DBB Canada for their marketing campaign. Read the article and my response. Was I wrong or bad to say that I would follow where the outsourcing would be? I feel guilty thinking that I would leave Winnipeg if there were no jobs here. I am confident that by the time we graduate, there will be a surplus of PR and other creative jobs ready for the taking.

Has anyone ever reviewed the RRC Graduate Satisfaction and Employment Report? It's pretty neat - it's a pdf report of all the programs in Red River College and lists how many students actually found jobs in their field and also displays the range of salaries earned by employed graduates.

Here's the 2008/2009 report for Creative Communications:

I realize the numbers in the report are determined by who answers the survey, but based on the 2005/2006 report, there's not much difference in the salaries. Getting a job in the field of Creative Communications might be rewarding, finding it will be a challenge.

Zellers saves on banners so you can save on...

I was waiting at the parking lot of Grant Park Shopping Centre when I spotted this banner - and I was confused by it...

Banner posted on the right side of the store, facing the parking lot

It read "YOUR NEW" in caps and "Coming This Summer!" underneath it. The logo with the "NOW OPEN" was actually printed on a separate white banner placed over the red banner to hide something???

I understand these banners cost much. I worked for MTS Allstream Inc. in the summer and got banners this size ordered through Contempra Signs; a sign design and manufacturing company. It would have cost Zellers between $200-$300 to make this banner.

So what did Zellers do save a couple of hundred dollars? They got an existing "NOW OPEN" banner with their logo and stuck it on an outdated sign. Let's say that they covered the Zellers logo - I tried to think of other words or phrases that would make the red banner accurate but I'm afraid that even without the funny quick-fix, it still wouldn't make sense.

"YOUR NEW Zellers (via the Zellers logo) Coming This Summer!" was what it was trying to say.

I thought it would have been better if the person in charge of Zellers' signage/advertising/marketing department, instead, grabbed a long white strip and covered the words "Coming This Summer!"

I was sure the purpose of the signage was to let customers know this particular Zellers store was undergoing renovations, with a grand re-opening set this past summer. So if the store was already opened and they still want to keep the signage, wouldn't it make more sense to say "YOUR NEW (Zellers logo)"?

Hungry? There's an app for that.

I happen to find Food Network Canada's free app for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad as I perused through the iTunes Store.

This is a great app. Among its many features, the app has instructional videos you can view - I just learned how to make chocolate ganache, lol.

Other features include:
- Recipes from Food Network Canada's Chef Michael Smith, Anna Olson, Chuck Hughes, and many more.
- A grocery list where you can import ingredients straight from the recipe you're creating. You can also customize any grocery list to add other items not on the recipe.
- After creating the recipe, share your rating, comments, or tweak it and send it to friends on Facebook, Twitter, and email.

This is such a great marketing tool for Food Network Canada because it gives consumers the ability to test out recipes from the show in the comfort of their own kitchen. Any aspiring cook would want to have this app to keep up with new recipes and to learn new techniques - all for free!

The app makes it easy to go shopping for the ingredients as you import them to a handy grocery list and check them off on your device as you pick them up at the grocer. No need to get a separate app for your grocery list (which I know my sister uses).

The app makes preparation of the recipes clear because of the included videos (not all) and the photos users can upload to show everyone who has a Food Network Canada account how their recipe turned out.

If Chef Michael Smith says "put the chicken carcass, thighs and drumsticks into a large soup pot," I'd do what it takes to make his chicken noodle soup recipe. After all, he has worked in a Michelin three-star restaurant in London.

Download this free app from the iTunes Store. The only downside is it requires you to be connected to the Internet when you use it. The best part about it is it has a recipe for a hangover - The Resurrector by Chef Chuck Hughes.

Let's start!

Being that class just started, let me point out this small little detail that the IT department has failed to review:

The shorthand spelling of Creative Communications is CreComm, making the below picture of the server spelling mounted on my desktop incorrect.

The "CreComm" server is automatically mounted on to the desktop upon logging in.
Everyone in the program can access this drive.

To correct the issue, RRC's IT department should be notified so spelling can be updated.


If students are taught the exact way "CreComm" was spelled, shouldn't all college staff know this as well? My answer: the IT department personnel was not concerned about losing half of the marks for his/her work.

The EA Reference is

...a place where you can go and get insights on current events and various thoughts that run through the mind of Eman Agpalza.

Hello and welcome to my new blog! I've moved from my previous chick'n-lovin blog.

On this blog, I'll be primarily talking about Public Relations (PR) issues I see in the media and everywhere around me. If you don't know me yet, I'm a second year student at Red River College of Applied Arts, Science and Technology (RRC) in the Creative Communications program, majoring in PR.

I will also be talking about and identifying various editing issues in print and online media; I'm a firm believer of accuracy and attention to detail. In order to be a professional in the communications industry, one must try to avoid mistakes - or not be afraid to make them.

Welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay.