Our Insights

advertising, Crenshaw Communications, ImPRessions, public relations • October 7, 2014

What PR People Should Know About Advertising Week

Despite the ad-tech buzzwords and marathon-like scheduling, Advertising Week is an upbeat and insightful event for PR professionals. Yes, the jargon is a killer – and in the manner of German compound words, it’s all starting to combine, as in “programmatic premium direct” and “mobile native.” But what can PR professionals learn from the weeklong […]

Crenshaw Communications, PR Fish Bowl • October 3, 2014

How To Get Away With (PR) Murder

Shonda Rhimes’ latest hit show has us thinking not about real murder, but about “petty crimes” and misdemeanors that PR pros may commit to advance a campaign. It should be noted that these are victimless crimes, more like clever, cheeky actions that a savvy practitioner might pull out in critical situations. Smart PR is about […]

Crenshaw Communications, ImPRessions • October 2, 2014

Top Five PR Mistakes To Avoid

This is not about PR or reputation catastrophes, like the NFL’s fumbled response to its domestic violence problem, or even Mike Tyson’s recent profanity-laced on-air meltdown. Maybe they don’t grab headlines, but the everyday PR misses are far more likely to result in underperforming campaigns or even the occasional publicity backfire. I’m talking about a […]

PR Fish Bowl, public relations • September 30, 2014

Before You Hit "Send": Effective Communications For Communicators

Ever exchange 12 emails with someone in an office next door when a 10-second conversation would do? It happens all the time, at our PR agency and plenty of other companies. And here we thought we were the communications experts! In award-winning novelist Joe O’Neill’s compelling new book, “The Dog,” the narrator has a tricky […]

Crenshaw Communications, PR Fish Bowl, public relations • September 26, 2014

Personal PR: The Rules Of Reinvention

Nancy Gottesman, a terrific freelance writer and longtime friend, recently had an experience that any upwardly mobile PR professional can benefit from. She traded her computer for a pen and notepad to pursue “next-chapter” employment as a bartender/cocktail waitress. That’s right; waiting tables was a gig she had loved thirty years before in her twenties. […]

Crenshaw Communications, ImPRessions, public relations, technology • September 25, 2014

Keeping The Technology In Tech (Or Any Other) PR

“Taking the Tech Out of Tech PR” has some useful advice for PR agency professionals, mostly about keeping communications personal and not abusing email outreach. It can’t be said often enough. We monitor an inbox for a major technology news site, and the quantity of PR pitches that come in through it is truly staggering. […]

Crenshaw Communications, PR Fish Bowl, public relations • September 23, 2014

Positive PR For Posture?

PR friends, it appears that Sheryl Sandberg was wrong. We do not need to “lean in” to be winners, we need to stand up straight. According to Amy Cuddy, creator of “Power Posing,” the second most visited TED talk of all time, at our agency’s next new business meeting or your executive presentation, we should […]

communications, Crenshaw Communications, crisis management, ImPRessions, public relations • September 22, 2014

The NFL’s Black Eye Offers Lesson In Crisis PR

For the NFL, the (reputation) hits just keep on coming. Commissioner Roger Goodell’s press briefing following the release of the notorious Ray Rice videotape in which he knocks then-fiancee Janay Palmer unconscious is a lesson in crisis PR, but mostly about what not to do. Here are some of the more instructive learnings from the […]

Crenshaw Communications, PR Fish Bowl, public relations • September 17, 2014

PR Debate: Big Data vs. Big Intuition

Has all the focus on Big Data steered smart and experienced PR people away from one of our greatest strengths – our intuition? This will be just one of the big issues tackled at the Council of PR Firms Annual Critical Issues Forum in New York on October 23. The speaker, Teddy Goff, Partner, Precision Strategies, led the […]