Tiger Should Go With His “New Hugh” Persona

Now that the stories about Tiger Woods have descended from “marital woes” to “all out sex/party maniac,” I think Tiger needs a new strategy: Tiger should go full-steam ahead and plant his flag as “the new Hugh Hefner,” or in my shorthand (trademark pending), “The New Hugh.” I’m serious here. Hugh Hefner has made a [...]

The Ugly Truth About Tiger Woods and All His Enablers

So it turns out that Tiger Woods has been a carousing, hard partying guy, both as a bachelor and as a married man. In essence, this doesn’t surprise me one bit — in fact, it makes a lot more sense than the partial stories that were coming out the first week about his “transgressions.” I [...]

Tiger Woods and the Concept of Super-Replicators

One of the more interesting things that has been said about Tiger Woods  is that now he is “human like the rest of us.” This is undoubtedly true, though quite painful for him and us to live through this week. We all have our human failings — can you imagine coming to terms with yours [...]

Tiger Woods Caught With His Pants Down, But He Keeps His Guard Up

Uh-oh. It turns out that where there was Thanksgiving Day smoke, there was definitely fire. Tiger Woods has been caught red-handed being a philandering adulterer. Goodbye pristine reputation, maybe goodbye marriage. But is it goodbye golf game and goodbye endorsements? No and probably not. Woods issued another statement today, this time saying he “let my [...]

Tiger Woods Takes the Right Media Relations Tack

As the Tiger Woods car accident story was becoming known and starting to be covered in the media, my other half passed along an article talking about “what Tiger should do,” and suggesting that I weigh in. In the moment, I have to say that I had a hard time forming a strategy, partly due [...]

Ticketmaster Tries to Solve a Big Problem With a Little PR Push

One of the most important lessons of crisis communications is that most crises are not communications problems, they’re operational problems. Communications can help in many ways to diffuse a crisis and calm people down, but if the operational issue at the heart of the problem isn’t addressed, no amount of PR spin is going to [...]

Online Media Echo Chamber Tries and Convicts Domino's

I’m skeptical about the supposedly major damage done to the Domino’s brand by a gross YouTube video a couple of its employees made showing them sneezing on a sandwich and doing other inappropriate food-handling things (you can search for the video online if you want). Soon after the video hit YouTube and started to make [...]

UC San Diego PR Nightmare!

It’s that time of year again, as parents and high school seniors anxiously await the ‘fat’ or ‘thin’ envelopes from the colleges of their choice. Only this year and for some time, colleges have also sent out emails announcing the news. That’s what UC San Diego did this week — except they sent the “you’re [...]

Was Maddow's Rant Against PR Fair or Foul?

By now you’ve probably heard about the otherwise wonderful Rachel Maddow’s rant about PR and specifically, about industry giant Burson-Marsteller, regarding B-M’s representation of AIG, the big insurance company that has gotten tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout cash. Maddow let her inner media whiner out and went on a classic anti-PR rant [...]

Blagojevich PR Blitz is a Laughable Farce

With imbeciles like Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich using media relations tactics to try to influence the outcome of his impeachment trial, PR gets another black eye. Yes, there are many times when you should go on the offensive, make yourself available to the press, and try to sway public opinion to your cause. In fact, [...]

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