Bloomberg News
Waste Management's president is learning that reality-television shows may be one man's trash TV and another's public-relations treasure.
Hits to the Houston-based company's new-customer and career Web links surged after Lawrence O'Donnell, who is also chief operating officer, appeared on the CBS Corp. program "Undercover Boss" following the Feb. 7 Super Bowl.
O'Donnell posed as a new hire to learn how the unintended results of his productivity policies at North America's largest trash hauler compromised the dignity of some workers, including one truck driver who had to urinate in a can to complete her daily route on time. O'Donnell, moved to tears on the program, ended the show with steps to address worker complaints.
"We got new business from customers who've said, 'Wow, that's the kind of company we want to do business with,' " O'Donnell said. "And you know, at first I said there's no way I would do it."
Waste Management saw a more-than-threefold jump in hits on its online "Become a Customer" Web link in the four days after the broadcast, compared with recent daily averages, Lynn Brown, vice president of corporate communications, said in an e-mail.
Waste Management, which received most of its $11.8 billion in 2009 revenue from residential and construction-site trash routes, has been expanding with waste-to-energy projects. To burnish the company image, CEO David Steiner has had trucks adorned with slogans about how many trees the company saves through recycling and how much energy it generates with garbage.
Yet the reality TV show, shot in 12 days starting in March 2009, may have given the company its biggest publicity boost.
"They're showing that the COO understands the challenges," Howard J. Rubenstein, president of his namesake New York public-relations company, said. "The reality is that they'll make money from it."
O'Donnell's travails as a Waste Management foot soldier gave CBS the "largest audience ever for a new series following the Super Bowl," the New York-based broadcaster said in a Feb. 8 statement. An estimated 38.6 million people watched the series premiere, CBS said.
