Amazon's PR coup

The media is still hyperventilating about Amazon's supposed plan to deliver packages by drone, as "revealed" on "60 Minutes" a week ago.

It was the highlight of a warehouse-to-secret-lab tour CEO Jeff Bezos gave Charlie Rose. The drones became the focus of Rose's enthusiastic attention and spawned follow-up stories in other media throughout the following week.

That drew praise in some circles as a brilliant "PR move" for putting a spotlight on Amazon at the height of the holiday shopping season and the day before Cyber Monday. That was almost certainly Amazon's intention. And they may have snagged the placement of the year.

But by the company's own admission, the delivery drones are several years off, assuming they can overcome technical challenges and navigate a thicket of regulatory issues.

Of much closer import -- in fact, running around Amazon's warehouses now -- are robots the company has deployed to fulfill customer orders. In its third quarter financial report, Amazon disclosed it has already deployed 1,400  robots in just three of its warehouses.

But there wasn't a robot in sight in the "60 Minutes" story, despite their potential to cut Amazon's fulfillment costs by 20% to 40%. Nor was there any mention of the implications for Amazon's warehouse workers.  

Furthermore, there's some indication Amazon was less motivated by raising its already high profile in time for the holiday buying season than in countering a book by Businessweek reporter Brad Stone. The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon portrays Bezos as a ruthless tyrant and a "penny-pinching ballbuster," as Gawker put it. 

To its credit, Amazon sells the book in all formats and even offers the standard discounts, though it did print negative reviews by some employees, its head of PR, and the CEO's wife. It's entirely possible that offering Rose an "exclusive" to get him to do one his fawning interviews for "60 Minutes" was part of a plan to retore some of the company's luster. 

More significantly, it shows just how far "60 Minutes" has strayed from  news to entertainment. I can remember when "'60 Minutes' is on the phone," were words that would throw terror into a media relations person's heart. But the toughest question Rose asked was why a book on Buddhism and Zen is resting next to Mrs. Potato Head on the warehouse shelves. 

Having suffered five-alarm burns from "60 Minutes" during my AT&T career, I can't believe I'm saying this, but in the long run none of this is good news for PR people. 

Companies that are dedicated to transparency and authenticity are ill served when competitors for customer attention can pull one over on journalists, as Amazon appears to have done in this case.