communications

communications • February 17, 2010

Smith vs. Southwest: Who Wins The PR Skirmish?

It’s tough to build a good reputation as an airline these days. As musician Dave Carroll reminded us, you don’t even need to be 100% right to gain the upper hand to take on the guys who fly. Mostly, you need to be creative and funny, because airlines carry a lot of baggage when it comes […]

communications • February 10, 2010

Will Journalists Make PR Better?

A few weeks into the great economic meltdown of 2008, I visited a friend and former client, an ex-journalist who had left the corporate world years earlier to establish a successful PR firm. My friend told me he was besieged with calls from laid-off journalists wanting tips on setting up a PR practice. “They want advice, yet they seem to […]

communications • February 3, 2010

Super Bowl Advertisers Score PR Points By Getting “Banned”

Someone blogged recently that the Super Bowl’s like “American Idol” for advertisers…with a little football thrown in. They called it right. And this year, with social media kicking in like never before, the Super Bowl is still a winning PR strategy for the brands that pay to play. Most are looking to extend their investment through the […]

communications • January 30, 2010

What Goldman Can Learn From Toyota: Apology Communications

Lately, the public apology has been cheapened to the point of commodity. Hardly a month passes without a tearful, televised mea culpa from a politician or athlete. On the corporate front, the typical PR offering is more along the lines of “mistakes were made” – a masterful mouthful of nothingspeak. The banking industry’s contrition is […]

communications • January 27, 2010

Does Apple Have A “Female Problem”?

No other company could have raised the anticipation bar as high and managed the PR tsunami as deftly as Apple did in the months leading up to the unveiling of the new iPad tablet. But contrary to the stratospheric expectations, the iPad didn’t self-levitate, dispense cash, or heal the sick. Apple-watchers had their criticisms. Many called it nothing more than […]