On the surface, it seemed like a good idea: leverage the highfalutiness of the Hamptons brand to bolster the low brow Kardashian brand, and especially the latter’s TV reality show coming to E! this fall. Yet, unlike the MTV’s Beach House or Jersey Shore, these two brands are as about incongruous as they get. It’s…… Continue reading Trash Hamptons
Category: The Flack
I Hate The Term Media
Facebook co-founder and publisher/editor-in-chief of The New Republic Chris Hughes proclaimed his distaste for the term “media” on the I Want Media-sponsored “Future of Media” panel held today in Cooper Square as part of Internet Week New York. Given the many flavors, formats and deliver mechanisms the “media” comes in nowadays, I don’t blame Mr.…… Continue reading I Hate The Term Media
An Unhealthy Funding Event
Ahh. The yin-yang of it all. Today, the Twitter trumpet Launchticker touted the $80M round of financing for Oscar Health Insurance, founded by New Jerseyan Joshua Kushner of Thrive Capital who’s the brother of Jared Kushner, owner of the NY Observer and husband of Ivanka Trump, daughter of The Donald, the perennial faux GOP presidential…… Continue reading An Unhealthy Funding Event
Google Exec Bolts Keynote
Landing clients for speaking gigs at industry conferences is often a key deliverable for PR firms. Some events are more prestigious than others. For example, these last couple of days we’re swimming in the breathless doings at TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place in the Big Apple. Yahoo! chief Marissa Mayer took the stage this morning with…… Continue reading Google Exec Bolts Keynote
Russia’s Media Trolls
Nearly six years ago, I penned a post titled “Leaders Who Lie,” mostly about the blatant misinformation campaign propagated by one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I followed it up several years later with a similarly themed post titled “PR Rogues Gallery,” which broadened the meme to include Yasser Arafat, Syria’s Assad, Libya’s Qaddafi and Russia, which could…… Continue reading Russia’s Media Trolls
22 New Yorkers Over 50 Who Get I.T.
I recently caught up with an old friend and former client who’s steeped in the world of tech startups, digital media and information technology (IT). Neither my friend nor I are coders, but at 50 years+ apiece we can still hold our own when it comes to assessing, articulating and advancing the commercial prospects of…… Continue reading 22 New Yorkers Over 50 Who Get I.T.
The Pleasure & Pain Of Branded Social Media
During a recent Bulldog Reporter webinar I moderated on the subject of media relations 2.0, a senior communications professional from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) noted that when the organization wanted to announce news, it simply posted the story to its Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest pages, Twitter and Instagram feeds, and probably one or two…… Continue reading The Pleasure & Pain Of Branded Social Media
The NYC Techonomy Boom
A week doesn’t go by without some news org touting one city or another as the next Silicon Valley.  Here’s a random sampling: Singapore Aims to Become Southeast Asia’s Silicon Valley (Wall Street Journal, Feb 26, 2014) Some day Silicon Valley will move north. Here’s why it should settle in Oakland (GigaOm, Feb 17, 2014)…… Continue reading The NYC Techonomy Boom
Where Digital Marketing Reigns Supreme
This week, I attended the Ad Age Digital Conference, which this year moved from its former home in the Metropolitan Pavilion to Pier 36 on South Street aka “Basketball City.” Judging from the packed auditorium, and number of exhibitors, I’d say the Ad Age team, including @aerocles, should be very satisfied with its work on…… Continue reading Where Digital Marketing Reigns Supreme
Drone On, Travel Marketers
In the immediate aftermath of the last major Mexican earthquake, our Mexico tourism client pleaded with us to help counter the U.S. media’s overly dramatic reports that the entire country was destroyed. In fact, the damage was isolated to just a few areas, and most of the big resort destinations remained relatively unscathed. Given broadcast…… Continue reading Drone On, Travel Marketers