public relations

advertising, communications, Crenshaw Communications, marketing, public relations • March 2, 2011

What Good Public Relations Cannot Do

Hearing about someone’s bad experience with a PR firm has a train-wreck kind of fascination for PR agency people. It’s painful to hear criticisms and generalizations about our business, but we can’t resist jumping in to diagnose the problem. That’s the case with our most recent public flogging, “The Trouble With PR,” which appeared in […]

Crenshaw Communications, public relations, reputation • February 22, 2011

The Care And Feeding Of PR Interns

Guest post by Liz Savery When I started in the PR business, interns fetched coffee and picked up dry cleaning for agency VPs. Serf labor. Then, after the Lewinsky scandal of the nineties, the very word became a punch line. But things have changed, right? Not so fast. Last week, a fresh intern “scandal” broke […]

advertising, Crenshaw Communications, ImPRessions, public relations, reputation • February 15, 2011

Is Any PR Good PR?

Of course not. PR agency professionals have been preaching that for decades. No marketer in his right mind would recommend a strategy that involves offending customers, or demeaning the brand. But, think about some of the celebrated marketing gaffes of the past two weeks. Socially-conscious Super Bowl viewers were outraged at Groupon’s rookie commercial on […]

advertising, communications, Crenshaw Communications, crisis management, public relations, reputation • January 30, 2011

"Thanks For Suing Us!" Taco Bell Takes On "Beef-Gate"

A California woman’s beef with Taco Bell over the ingredients in her taco served up an interesting crisis management case study last week. The food fight has turned into a class-action lawsuit alleging false advertising by the chain. The suit claims its tacos are only 36 percent beef, which, if true, means they wouldn’t even […]

advertising, branding, communications, Crenshaw Communications, public relations • January 25, 2011

Banned-Ad Gimmick Loses Super Bowl PR Points

As Super Bowl XLV approaches, marketing pundits are suiting up for the ad-stravaganza, but I’m naturally more interested in the PR Bowl. It’s a big part of the marketing investment, and it’s fun to watch brands try to score free media coverage weeks ahead of time. But, one much-practiced play that’s losing ground is the “banned” ad. […]

communications, Crenshaw Communications, leadership, public relations • January 19, 2011

Tucson And The Power Of Metaphors

When, in the aftermath of the Tucscon tragedy, some linked it to Sarah Palin’s gun sight map, I was actually irritated. Any attempt to politicize what happened is revolting, and it seemed like a red herring at best. (In my book, images don’t kill people, semiautomatic weapons kill people. But this blog is about communications.) […]

communications, Crenshaw Communications, public relations, reputation, social media • January 12, 2011

When Bad PR Is Good For Business

Boycotts are powerful, but they can also be PR magnets, drawing attention where none is deserved. That seems to be the case with the attempts to pressure Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, to drop one of its sellers. Etsy is known not only for the business opportunities it provides to artist-entrepreneurs, but for […]

communications, Crenshaw Communications, crisis management, public relations, reputation • December 31, 2010

The Worst PR Moves Of 2010

It was a good year for bad moves – when it comes to PR, that is. Here’s our list for 2010’s biggest PR blunders. BP. Let’s get it out of the way. There’s not much more to say about BP’s response to the flood of bad press after the Gulf oil spill. Its handling of the […]

communications, Crenshaw Communications, crisis management, public relations, reputation • December 28, 2010

The Best PR Moves Of 2010

This year brought well-publicized disasters, misbehaving celebrities, and corporate goofs. But, which individuals and companies communicated most skillfully during 2010? Here are our nominees. Wikileaks. Whether Julian Assange is a hero or a “high-tech terrorist” depends on your point of view. But in 2010 Wikileaks perfected a media relations strategy for maximum impact for the […]