SEC Looking into Apple's Comms
Update on my earlier post about the lame job being done by Apple and its board regarding Steve Jobs’ illness: according to Bloomberg, the SEC is looking into Apple’s recent disclosures “to insure investors weren’t misled.”
Apple's Board Must Take Charge of Communications NOW
Enough is enough. Steve Jobs may be a legend, Steve Jobs may be personally responsible for virtually all the value that has ever been created by Apple, and Steve Jobs may run the company with an iron fist. But enough is enough. If the men and women who are the independent directors of Apple Inc. [...]
Good Auto Industry PR Means More Than Flying Coach
So GM and Chrysler say they “get it” and that their CEOs won’t be flying in corporate jets when they return to DC this week for Round Two of begging/arm-twisting/cajoling/blackmailing Congress into forking over billions of dollars to their companies. (Ford hasn’t said yet what its CEO will do to get to Washington) “We’ve gotten [...]
Yes, We Are Seeing PR Budget Cutbacks
Here’s a quick report on the poll we did a couple of weeks ago on possible PR budget cutbacks in 2009. We didn’t get a robust response, but the trend was unmistakable: 73% of agency respondents said they had heard about client-side PR budget cutbacks 53% of client-side respondents said they were cutting their budget [...]
How to Earn the Boss’s Trust in a Crisis
The phone rings. It’s the boss and there’s a crisis. Now’s your chance to shine — or be permanently relegated to the scrap heap. What should you do? Here’s what: Be prepared to give solid advice on the spot. “I’ll get back to you” is the kiss of death. Give the boss options, not just [...]
Bad Economy Becoming All-Purpose Excuse
Here’s your PR tip of the week: write yourself a page of new messages that include the phrase “because of the bad economy…” As in, “Our revenues are flat because of the bad economy.” Or, “We have to lay off people because of the bad economy…” Now, I’m not making fun of companies that are [...]
Are You Seeing Cutbacks in 2009 PR Budgets?
People are starting to make budgets for 2009 spending, and the conventional wisdom is that corporate spending will be cut, whether that company is starting to see actual business declines or not. We’re in that weird period of the cycle when there is more uncertainty than certainty, and so corporate bosses go into “better safe [...]
Planning a Layoff? Better Plan a Blog Post, Too
There’s no hiding in the Internet era, especially if you are a company with a tech-savvy employee base. According to a very interesting article in today’s New York Times, companies are now being forced to write blog posts about things like layoffs as soon as they happen: Blogging about staff cuts is particularly prevalent in [...]
Fighting a Recession With Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Is there any cheaper marketing strategy than word-of-mouth? You get people talking, and they go out and sell your product or service for you. Perfect for recessionary times. Of course, it’s not nearly that simple or necessarily that effective, but it certainly can be a frugal way to stretch your marketing budget. So as my [...]
Some Communications Guidance for Weathering the Financial Crisis
As much as anything, what people are craving right now is some guidance on what to say to employees, customers, partners, the media and others about how the financial crisis is impacting their business. Unless you work on Wall Street, what’s been going on is largely a mystery, and unless it has walloped you directly, [...]