Category: PR

A Reporter & A PR Guy Were In A Bar

About this time last year, I took the PR agency biz to task for what I felt was its fatalistic reliance on the benevolence of journalists to advance their clients’ communications interests. Sure, a great “placement” (I hate that term) in an influential news outlet like Bloomberg, The Journal, Mashable or Buzzfeed still has a…… Continue reading A Reporter & A PR Guy Were In A Bar

Walmart and JPMorgan: Tales From The Trenches

The most seasoned and successful practitioners in the public relations business have a finely honed instinct for how something will play out in the court of public opinion. Recently, however, two very big corporate gaffes made me wonder whether their communications consiglieres turned a tin, if not deaf ear to activities that would prove deleterious…… Continue reading Walmart and JPMorgan: Tales From The Trenches

A Musky PR Pitch

I recently wrote about Tesla’s PR travails (think burning car), and how company founder Elon Musk took it upon himself to directly and earnestly respond to the fallout. This was the second time that Mr. Musk (does anyone call him Mr. Musk?) penned a point-by-point refutation to quell criticism.What did I gain for my timely attention…… Continue reading A Musky PR Pitch

Apple Censors A Wi-Fi Critic

iPad AirApple may not have to constantly contend with a corporate mission statement like “Don’t Be Evil,” but the world’s most esteemed brand certainly recognizes and understands the value of cultivating consumer confidence. It does so by building great products, including tomorrow’s public release of the iPad Air, which, if the (company-managed) reviews are any…… Continue reading Apple Censors A Wi-Fi Critic

Reputations: The AP & The Boy Scouts

Two venerable institutions were in the news this past week for ethical transgressions from individuals within their respective organizations.  At first blush, the incidents didn’t appear to be all that serious, yet both resulted in the organizations taking swift and decisive action. The transgressors were summarily fired.I’m talking of course about the Boys Scouts of…… Continue reading Reputations: The AP & The Boy Scouts

Elon Musk Takes The Wheel

Tesla Model SSeveral years ago I agreed to have breakfast with a soon-to-be former senior executive of the nascent Tesla Motors Inc.. The employee chose to leave the then-struggling company whose chairman, he insisted, was not publicly forthright in divulging the company’s shortcomings. He told me that the sales projections weren’t all they were promoted…… Continue reading Elon Musk Takes The Wheel

Dressed to Kill the Pipeline

John Boehner (Image: Getty Images via @daylife)In their zeal that led up to the shuttering of the U.S. government, House Republicans believed they had this President right where they wanted him. So much so, they expanded their list of demands to include an array of partisan issues, some of which they reasoned might actually fall…… Continue reading Dressed to Kill the Pipeline

Advertising Gone Awry

When the media cognoscenti think about church & state, their focus typically revolves around the wall separating editorial decision-making and advertising sales. Journalistic purists at nearly every established news organization resist any influence an advertiser may try to exert over the news/feature hole.In fact, the church-state model is more than a metaphor at many media…… Continue reading Advertising Gone Awry

The Optics of Marissa Mayer

I recently wrote about Yahoo! and specifically its CEO’s efforts to revitalize the laggard Internet brand, a brand that started life alongside Altavista, another once-dominant Web brand whose fate Yahoo! hopes not to share (in spite of acquiring it).The take-away of the earlier post was to draw attention to all the media attention Marissa Mayer was drawing to…… Continue reading The Optics of Marissa Mayer