Mistakes happen all of the time. And in the world of public relations, the ever-evolving digital media landscape magnifies errors made by companies across industry sectors. From misguided campaigns and jokes made in poor taste to downright incompetence, PR fails can significantly damage any company’s reputation, and the ensuing public outrage can impact your organization’s…
We’ve all heard the saying, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” But when is bad publicity really bad and when is it good?
Really, not all drama surrounding a company, brand or celebrity is bad…
There’s a category of products called “sin” products — things like beverage alcohol, casinos and now, in many states, recreational cannabis. (OK, admit it — you had no idea where that headline was going, did you?) While these products are legal, developing a communications plan — either proactive or reactive — requires a heightened focus on many critical issues…
This week the mother of all viral videos sucker-punched United Airlines. But that’s the nature of viral videos, right? They are unexpected in timing and subject matter. But how the brand handles it in the hours after is crucial to coming out on the other side…
Whether organizations want to believe it or not, government has a profound impact on the way business is conducted. As a result, almost every organization requires a government relations arm, but one of the most common questions I receive is “what exactly is government relations?” To me, government relations (GR) is about education…
Television stations are adding more local news than ever before, yet at the same time, news management expects each newscast to have a fresh take on the same news. In other words, a producer can’t take a reporter’s story from the 5:00 p.m. newscast and just plug it into…
Americans just witnessed the downfall of a gold medal-winning swimmer’s reputation in less than a week’s time. It appears Ryan Lochte brought much of it on himself. Public relations professionals are talented at helping public figures manage their image and mitigate problems as they arise, but the shit gets real when…
PR mistakes happen daily. The rapidly changing, digital media landscape makes it very easy for those mistakes to go viral. Whether it is a tweet sent with questionable judgement, a larger-than-life spokesperson or a company-wide epidemic, PR disasters exist on different scales and across all industries. While there have been numerous PR mistakes…
It has been more than 110 years since PR forefather Ivy Lee invented the press release and, it’s safe to say, a lot has changed: we’ve survived two World Wars, the invention and commercialization of cars and planes, the creation of the Internet, the rise of the smartphone… the list goes on and on. Given the fact that the way humans communicate…
Marketing as we know it is changing drastically. Instead of going after generalized demographics and target markets, we are seeing the rise of personalized ads. The growing popularity of social networks like Facebook and Instagram allows marketers to see what potential customers like and how they choose to consume advertising. Mobile marketing is also taking…