There is a theory in public relations that any news, even the not-so-good kind, is ultimately good publicity for a brand.
We’re not so sure that’s what REI CEO Jerry Stritzke had in mind when he took to the popular online forum Reddit, but for the second week in a row, the nation’s largest specialty outdoor retailer and it CEO were making national headlines in the New York Times, Huffington Post and Fortune Magazine.
Two weeks ago, REI scored a marketing coup by announcing it would close all stores for this year’s Black Friday – traditionally, one of the busiest shopping days of the year – instead, paying its employees to go spend the day outdoors. The move gained wide national attention and praise, complete with its own hashtag campaign #optouside.
Building off that success, Stritzke went on Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” on Nov. 10 to promote the campaign and answer questions from anyone who joined the forum.
The questions started innocently enough, including a prospective REI employee garnering a personal invite from Stritzke to email him about getting a job at REI’s Denver store. Stritzke also answered a question about higher wages for employees, saying the co-op was concluding a “living-wage study” where within the next year, it will begin paying up to $15-an-hour in some markets, but not everywhere depending on cost of living.
But then, tougher questions hit the forum.
A user under the name “Annonemp,” claiming to be a former REI employee asked why the store put “such an obsessive emphasis” on its employees to make membership sales.
“I really liked the co-op business model and wanted to be a part of something bigger than a one store operation. I soon realized that while things like reliability and product knowledge mattered on paper, the actual priority of management was new member conversion,” Annonemp wrote. The user claimed that his/her hours were cut because of lower membership sales.
Other users, claiming to be former or current REI employees, backed up Annonemp’s statements and the topic quickly dominated the stream. Other users “up-voted” Annonemp’s question, which moved it to the top of the question queue.
Stritzke did not immediately answer the question, saying later that it got lost in the stream of the conversation, but as the story started to gain steam on social media, he returned to the forum late that night to acknowledge the question and answered in detail the next morning.
“I'm certainly concerned about your experience and to hear others express the same,” Stritzke wrote. “Our members and customers are our first priority and providing them with knowledgeable insights is the most important thing we do I have to admit the emphasis on membership sales was a surprise to me when I joined the co-op two years ago. There is no doubt that the co-op structure is focused on the concept of membership and there is long institutional memory reinforcing the idea that we should encourage as many people to join the co-op as possible we believe in the mission and purpose of the co-op.”
He continued: “Having said that, we may have lost sight of the bigger picture. The truth is that we should have been doing a better job sharing what makes the co-op special. We should have a “pull” model (people want to join because they believe in our mission and they love the experience), not a “push” model when it comes to the co-op. And the most important thing is that our employees in our stores know that their skill, deep outdoor knowledge and customer service are the things that matter above everything. To be clear, that is how our people should be measured.”
While some Reddit users took the response with a grain of salt, others credited Stritzke for coming back to answer the question.
The experience is a good example of outdoor brands learning how to navigate a new era of transparency in the social media age, said Chris Goddard, president of CGPR, which represents numerous global outdoor brands.
“If CEOs are going to offer the promise of a transparent dialogue, then they need to do just that, be willing to be open and deal with any questions,” Goddard told The B.O.S.S. Report. “Reddit’s strong community voice is no secret to anyone that tracks online platforms. In this kind of forum, executives cannot choose which questions they wish to answer.”
Goddard praised Stritzke for returning to answer the question, although she noted he could have acted a little sooner. She said whenever brands take to a live social media event, their PR teams should always prepare for worst-case scenarios and be ready to respond in a transparent and timely manner.
Aware that the story was gathering steam the next day, Stritzke didn’t shy away from press coverage.
“We do a huge number of things at REI to engage with employees and drive transparency and so discussing things like what it means to be a membership organization are normal practice,” he told MarketWatch. “About the Reddit thread specifically this is a completely legitimate conversation (how we invite people to join the co-op and how we measure employee performance). It’s an issue we’re currently focused on and so I plan to dig into the question more deeply. Bottom line, though, an open and transparent conversation is something CEOs should not be afraid of,” he said. “I, for one, welcome it.”
–David Clucas
