advertising

advertising • April 24, 2013

Are Celebrities Worth The PR Risk?

Tiger Woods’ fall from grace, and his long climb back, was the gift that kept on giving for PR and reputation experts. But it also teed up a round of fresh concern about getting in bed with celebrities. Since then, there have been other reputation crises (Lance Armstrong) as well as more minor gaffes from […]

advertising • February 4, 2013

Marketers Tackle Super Bowl Blackout In PR Score

The first half of Super Bowl 2013 was a yawn, at least for football fans. For brand-watchers, the commercials were respectable, and a few even stood out. (My favorite was Amy Poehler at Best Buy.) But the game changer on Sunday was the unprecedented 34-minute power failure that left the players frustrated, the announcers in […]

advertising • January 31, 2013

SodaStream Enjoys PR Pop Before Super Bowl

I swore I wouldn’t pay attention to so-called “banned” Super Bowl ads ever again. The rejected-ad ploy has grown tired, as well as transparent, and it’s often pulled by brands who could never muster the price of a Super Bowl spot. After extramarital dating site Ashley Madison tried a PR intercept by claiming Fox banned […]

advertising • January 28, 2013

Why Subway’s Apology PR Fell Short

Maybe because I’m reading John Kenney’s excellent novel, Truth in Advertising, I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity in brand marketing and public relations. It’s one of those things that we take for granted when present, but that can be a time bomb when absent. Yet, when I first heard about the lawsuits served up […]

advertising • April 16, 2012

Can "The Pitch" Be Fixed?

Can the pitch be fixed? I don’t mean the new reality TV show, although the debut episode was a losing proposition — contrived, tedious, and unrealistic. But there was one aspect of the show that hit home, and that was the pitch itself. A team from McKinney, the first of two ad agencies competing to […]