Does Obama Need a Hail-Mary PR Pass on Health Care Reform?
Back from Vegas, where the famously in-touch Vegas taxi drivers were 100% against Obama’s health care plan. Why? Who the hell knows. Probably because the right wingnuts on talk radio are tearing it down. But there’s a serious grain of reality in these man-on-the-street insights. Eight months ago, Obama’s PR machine had created a feel-good [...]
If You Can't Measure the Effectiveness of Your PR Effort , You'll Never Get to the C-Suite
Here’s your business school saying of the day: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Here’s your Catching Flack corollary of the day: “If you’re not measuring the effectiveness of your PR programs, your career path will be severely limited.” I’ve railed recently about the lack of professional standards in our industry and [...]
Pitching Business Media Is Getting Tougher and Tougher
One of the untold stories of PR over the last quarter century has been the great rise in business journalism, from a media backwater to a front-and-center element of the media. It just so happens that I had a front-row seat for this transformation, as I entered business journalism in 1981 as part of the [...]
Storytelling Gets the Harvard Business School Seal of Approval
Anyone making a living in PR ought to know this, but it always bears repeating: a good story is the best way to convey information. Dry facts = boring. Good story = interesting. And interested people are much more valuable than bored ones. But if you’re the type who needs academic facts to back up [...]
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 [...]
How to Keep Your Spirits Up and Boost Your Success in PR
Doing PR can be a pretty frustrating job, with endless client/boss demands, temperamental reporters and editors (and bloggers), pitching difficulties and the like. It’s a wonder any of us enjoy making a living at this at all! Over the years, I’ve found that working in teams, brainstorming with colleagues and having the occasional bitch session [...]
Maybe Dan Abrams Is On To Something
Dan Abrams, the MSNBC talker and would-be PR counselor, has been taking some heat (from this blogger and elsewhere) about the stated strategy of his Abrams Research shop to use working journalists as moonlighting PR consultants to his clients. With journalism under siege and journalism jobs vanishing faster than you can say “Huffington Post,” it [...]
Dan Abrams Update: My "Journalists" Are Really Freelancers And the Like
As previously discussed here, I’ve been quite skeptical about whether MSNBC’s Dan Abrams had a viable business plan when he created his Abrams Research, a new PR shop that claims to use working journalists as corporate communications consultants. Dan is speaking this morning at the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit, so I’ve got some fresh [...]
Chevron Rebuts '60 Minutes' With Its Own Video
Chevron got grilled on “60 Minutes” a couple of weeks ago for its alleged contamination of the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. If you’re huge oil company, that’s definitely par for the course. Causing environment damage? Check. Getting caught? Check. Getting unfavorable treatment on 60 Minutes? Check. This is the pattern that major multi-nationals have [...]
Even Hizbollah Has a Media Relations Department
There’s a new book out by the New York Times correspondent Neil MacFarquhar called, amazingly, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday. Yes — you read that right. The Lebanese militant organization Hizbollah has a PR department, and it sends birthday greetings to New York Times correspondents. What a world. MacFarquhar’s [...]