http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg445.htm

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10/18/99- Updated 09:53 AM ET

Big bucks for bug bashing

Companies spend millions to reassure customers about Y2K

By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY

It's New Year's Eve. You're in Times Square. And you need some dough. You rush to the nearest ATM.

Then, it happens. The millennium doomsday scenario hits you smack in the gut as the ATM flashes this chilling message: CLOSED.

Time to panic?

If the automated teller machine happens to be Chase Manhattan's, it closes every New Year's Eve for security reasons. Of course, that's not something well-sloshed, Y2K-weary tourists might comprehend when the year 2000 is just hours away. Chase Manhattan executives are still debating how they'll deal with this public relations problem. But they vow not to let it slip by.

"Silence will not be viewed as a sign that everything's OK," says Brian Robbins, director of Year 2000 for Chase. On New Year's Day, things that typically happen every day at the bank -- like about 2% of its ATMs being shut down -- might be misinterpreted as a millennium meltdown.

For many of America's largest companies -- from Charles Schwab to Bell Atlantic to Citigroup -- Y2K no longer is a technology issue. Most of that stuff has been solved. Now, it's raising its head as an issue that is part communications, part PR and part marketing. The going can get tricky, especially if some Y2K promises aren't kept or if companies somehow misread the public's concern -- or lack thereof.

"Y2K readiness has become Y2K spin," says Joel Steckel, chairman of the marketing department at New York University. "But I've yet to speak to a single person who cares about any of this."

As far as Steckel is concerned, every dollar spent on Y2K-related PR or marketing is wasted at best and unsettling at least. "It's like Coke coming out and saying: We have sugar!"

That's not stopping the largest banks, drug chains, insurance companies, utilities and airlines from spreading the same mantra: We're OK for Y2K. Some are spending many millions of dollars on the message.

That wasn't the case when companies first realized that their computers and any system that uses microchips could malfunction as 1999 ends, because most computer programs use two digits to denote a year. Without repairs, "00" could be read as 1900, rather than 2000, skewing any date-sensitive functions.

Many firms were strongly advised by their lawyers that the best way to avoid legal problems was to say nothing. "But the marketers have overridden the lawyers," says John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. And that's a good thing, he says. "Better too much information than not enough."

Getting the message out

Every company has its own PR strategy. Here's how some of the biggest are spinning their Y2K propaganda:

Hiring sociologists. Since Y2K has become a cultural buzzword, Bell Atlantic, one of the nation's largest telephone companies, hired a sociologist to help it communicate its Y2K preparedness -- and Y2K concerns -- to consumers.

Among the messages Bell Atlantic wants to communicate: Don't pick up the phone and call your 25 closest friends at midnight on New Year's Eve. Too many calls could overload the system. At the sociologist's suggestion, the phone company will print messages on the envelopes of all November statements, asking customers to space out their phone calls on Dec. 31. It will repeat that message three times on each envelope back.

"We have had endless debates on whether to do this," says Skip Patterson, executive director of Bell Atlantic's Enterprise Year 2000 Program Office. "That's why we hired a sociologist."

Marketing on, in or around bills. Perhaps the cheapest but most popular way to get out Y2K messages to consumers is to stuff them inside statements or print them on the bills themselves. Citigroup stuffed customer credit card bills with soothing Y2K compliance statements earlier this year, but the messages weren't really getting through. So Citigroup recently began slapping the messages on the statements themselves. "That way, you can't miss it," says Jim Devlin, director of Citigroup's Y2K Enterprise Project Office.

Sponsoring New Year's Eve. The brain trust at Consolidated Edison, Manhattan's electric company, figured the best way to convince customers that electric service will be normal on Jan. 1 is to say it in the most visible way possible: at New York's Times Square. ConEd is a sponsor of this year's New Year's Eve celebration. A billboard at Times Square attests to that. The event is expected to be seen by more than 1 million in person and more than 1 billion worldwide on TV. "We're so confident that New Year's Day will be uneventful that we're putting it up in lights," says Tom Uhl, ConEd account executive.

Broadcasting slick videos. The ultimate feel-good video about Y2K soon will be airing daily in the friendly skies. During November, United Airlines will air a 2 1/2 minute video on domestic flights about Y2K. It also broadcast the video in July.

This is no schlock job. It was filmed in five locations, including inside the cockpit of a United jet. Jim Goodwin, United's CEO, assures travelers that United would never compromise the safety of its passengers. Then he adds, "If you're among those who worry about the new millennium, (by flying United) you have one less thing to worry about."

Questions? Call

Creating phone banks. At the beginning of 1999, Prudential Life Insurance created a Y2K Call Center staffed by five full-time employees.

But the phones have not been ringing off the hook. In fact, of its millions of customers, Prudential has received just 5,000 Y2K-related calls. "That's about 0.001% of our customers," says Irene Dec, the company's Y2K program manager.

She expects calls to pick up as Jan. 1 looms closer.

Bringing in shock troops. Charles Schwab has surveyed hundreds of customers about Y2K and discovered something a bit unsettling: Nearly 40% say they "will" or "might" phone in around Jan. 1 or Jan. 2 to check that everything's OK with their portfolios. Executives expect hundreds of thousands of calls daily over the big weekend.

Such call volume is unheard of at Schwab, even after a big market drop. Schwab already is reminding customers -- on the phone, in bill stuffers and on its Web site -- that there are other ways to reach the company besides the telephone.

Schwab also is informing customers in its newsletter that over New Year's weekend, it will have a special Millennium Force in place. Most of its 2,000 employees -- from trained mailroom workers to senior management -- will be on hand to answer phones and check account balances. "Our main concern over the big weekend is to let everyone know that all is well," says Susanne Lyons, Schwab's enterprise president of retail client services.

Mailing extra statements. Almost half of Schwab's customers are infrequent traders who receive quarterly, rather than monthly, statements. But to help dispel lingering Y2K worries, Schwab customers have been informed by mail that all of them will receive monthly statements in November 1999 and January 2000, in addition to their usual year-end December statements. The headline to the promotion: "Added statements give you peace of mind before -- and after -- Y2K."

Posting ATM messages. Citigroup soon will begin posting short Y2K messages on ATM screens. One will advise customers who want to withdraw some extra year-end cash to do so before the Dec. 31 rush.

Spreading good cheer. Those who receive statements from American Express will notice something different next month. Check out the message on the return envelope attachment that usually has promotions for digital watches or Walkman radios. This time, it's a soothing reassurance to AmEx customers that reads: "1/1/00 A Great Time to be a Cardmember."

A laughing matter?

Amid all this image building, there has to be room for a little Y2K humor.

Giant Food, a large supermarket chain with 178 stores primarily on the East Coast, has handed out 50,000 brochures that assure consumers in bold print that "Y2K is nothing to panic over." Giant also has run newspaper ads in Washington and Baltimore, assuring the public it's Y2K-ready.

Nothing funny about that.

But on Jan. 3, company spokesman Barry Scher says, he's considering sending this memo to all employees who worked on the Y2K project: "Let's meet today -- to talk about Y3K."

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), October 19, 1999.

Thanks Linkmeister!

Just remember to read the fine print.

Diane

Published Monday, October 18, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
LEIGH WEIMERS

Post is milking Y2K serial longer than its shelf life

http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/svlife/docs/ leigh18.htm

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

HERE'S SOME actual evidence that the Y2K problem -- computers going nuts when they come up against all those zeroes in the year 2000 -- really exists. John Jacobson of Fremont says he bought a box of Post shredded wheat cereal at the market last week. On its label: ``Best if used by July 1900.'' Jacobson chuckles and says he'll eat the stuff anyway. May all our other Y2K glitches be dispatched so tastily.

[snip]

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 19, 1999.