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The public relations industry is the birthplace of nutrition-free filler that grows up to become pseudonews. Sometimes, it can be a terrifying thing to behold in its rawest form. This is PR Dummies. The dumbth of PR, every week. This week: surveys are a classic way to drum up fake news coverage. Surveys can be dumb. But they can't be super, super, super dumb. This one is.... [Classic PR Fail and stupid PR trick - JD]
Blogger outreach is an important part of marketing and PR strategies. But there's a right way (and many wrong ways) to conduct effective outreach. ...But this post isn’t about influence measurement, really — it’s about blogger outreach. And how to do it in the most respectful, most effective and most fruitful manner possible. My longtime friend Fernando Fonseca had an experience that might broadly be called “influencer outreach” or “blogger outreach” recently that inspired him to blog about it. He was nice enough not to call the brand in question out on their tactics publicly, but we’ll use Fernando’s experience as a case study in what not to do when you’re engaging in blogger outreach. And please, for all that’s holy, heed this advice....
You can't insist that the media cover your event. Well, you can --but you are destined for disappointment. Univ. of Louisville Coach Charlie Strong
This sounds like an April Fool's story -- but apparently it is not. A number of reports say that the University of Louisville football coach, Charlie Strong, has banned local news organizations from covering his team -- because they failed to show up to cover the Cardinal's spring practice....
The public relations industry is often called upon to smooth over the errors of others. This makes their own mistakes all the more delicious. This is PR Dummies. This week: a public relations drama in two parts. We encourage you to stay tuned for the dramatic ending. First, this press release, billed as a story about some sort of sci-fi-ish self-published book, hits the inboxes of reporters...
A quote in this story from the councilman’s PR guy is priceless—a must read. Did you hear about the Philadelphia councilman, the politically connected PR guy, and the social media firm? It’s no joke—although the story is hilarious. Jim Kenney, a councilman in Philadelphia, is reportedly paying $28,000 in taxpayer money to a firm called ChatterBlast to handle his social media strategy....
Prominent brand makes a joke out of sexual assault in its advertising... The dateline on this story is not a mistake. The year is 2012, and a prominent brand has made a joke out of sexual assault in its advertising. Belvedere vodka drew an outpouring of derision on social-media websites after it posted an ad on Facebook and Twitter on Friday. The ad showed a young man smiling as he grabs a woman from behind. The woman has a frightened look on her face and appears to be trying to get away. The text of the ad read: “Unlike some people[,] Belvedere always goes down smoothly.”...
Guess what iconographic villain of greed and wretched excess may be seeing the light of day as soon as this August? None other than Prisoner 05A4820 himself! What's that, the number doesn’t ring a bell? Then, try this on for size: Dennis Kozlowski, or ‘Koz’ as his fellow inmates call him, may soon be reentering mainstream society. Next to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (a.k.a. the Hitler & Goebbels of corporate greed), Dennis Kozlowski was the poster child for living large and milking a company dry. To refresh your memory, Kozlowski was convicted in 2005 of grand larceny, conspiracy and fraud for, as The New York Times put it, ‘…essentially using Tyco as his own piggy bank, replete with outsized bonuses.’ Koz was the guy who reigned supreme from a palatial, 13-room palace at 980 Fifth Avenue that featured a $6,000 shower curtain, a $15,000 umbrella stand and the occasional Monet or Renoir painting. He’s also the dude who feted his wife to a truly bacchanalian, Roman orgy-type of birthday party on a Greek Island (all at company expense, thank you very much).... Assuming this real life Gordon Gekko of greed does see the light of day, how would you help him rehabilitate his tattered image?...
Presumably in a move to inject some cultured class into their latest line, UK clothier Topshop recently unveiled a new line of T-shirts printed with one of the most beloved lines of English literature: “Romeo Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo?” But as Britain's Metro reports, the quote, taken from arguably the most famous play by William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet,” is followed by a serious misspelling. Topshop UK -- Is this a typo which I see before me? Topshop's errant garment. [Marketing screws up again - JD]
The video below shows how NOT to do it. The clip is of Rhode Island U.S. Senate candidate, Barry Hinckley, and his five-year-old son Hudson, being interviewed by Fox News Channel's Neal Cavuto. Hinckley elected to put the kid in a campaign advertisement talking about the burden of the national debt. One can argue the wisdom of putting a young child in scripted ad like that -- but clearly it is high risk to ask him to appear live on TV.... [Stupid media interview strategies usually deliver what you deserve - Bad PR - JD]
When a San Francisco reporter was investigating allegations of wrongdoing at a California hospital, a spokesperson refused to stop touching him. Don’t touch reporters. Especially when they ask you not to. Twenty-seven times.... [Brad Phillips hits a home run with this classic PR fail - JD]
"The management would like to express its deep regret over the series of events leading up to..." Boring. DOA. Cliché dregs from memo hell and the leftover crumbs from legal intervention. [Some superb cartoons and PR insight mixed in with the fun - JD]
Let's start with the end result here, just to get that out of the way: a very deserving charity received a lot of money. So far so good. It's the way it all went down that makes you want to retch. Allan Jones, CEO of the poor-people-misery exploitation firm Check Into Cash, issued a press release crowing about how amazing it was that Jones pushed the bidding up to such high levels before backing out, like a cheap coward. As the release states, "Jones eventually pushed up the bidding on the tractor to $535,000 before declining to move forward. His efforts resulted in a significant financial windfall to the Fisher House Foundation." An anonymous source involved with the event confirmed that the "efforts" referred to in the press release consisted entirely of pushing the price up, with Jones having no actual intention to buy nor did Jones donate any money at all to the charity.... [The headline says it all - a classic PR fail - JD]
While social media continues to be at the top of marketers’ list, it doesn’t always yield the results they expect. Some of these outcomes cause problems marketers never saw coming. As a result, they don’t know what to do and take longer to respond than social media participants expect.... Among these worst-in-class social media executions are seven important marketing lessons....
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Continuing our Friday look at this year's social media crises to date, I couldn't help but be struck by the number of misguided attempts at humour there have been so far. Particularly sexist gibes. Listen up men (I'm going with my hunch on the authorship here): taking the risk of insulting half your audience - the purchasing half at that - just isn't a clever idea.... [What's up with stupid marketers? - JD]
In the annals of corporate history, I doubt any company has ever flipped their shit more completely than Lotus just did in this Facebook post. [Yep this one is a big time PR Fail! -JD]
Plenty of marketing campaigns are kicked off without the benefit of market research. And often they work out just fine — there are, after all, loads of marketing experts out there developing savvy programs and using creative tactics. Sometimes however, those best laid plans can run horribly amuck. And those of us in the research business (and elsewhere) are left scratching our heads. Really? No one gave this idea a second thought? Research insights can provide tremendous value — across innovation, product development, customer experience, and brand voice and positioning. Unfortunately for these five brands, the Insights team was clearly left out of the equation as these campaigns were drafted....
The Most Awkward Interview Ever in 7 Easy Steps: Dwight Howard asked Orlando Magic management that head coach Stan Van Gundy be fired. Van Gundy confirmed that to reporters only to have Howard interrupt the interview and try to pretend that he and the coach were friends. Are you strong enough to watch the whole thing?... [Oh, the horror! - JD]
Public relations encompasses a multitude of skills: audience analysis, persuasive communication, business savvy. There are those who do all of these things poorly. These are the PR Dummies. The dumbest of the dumb, every week. How do acquisitions for companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars get done? Generally not through unsolicited emails to the "tips" line of one of that company's media properties. Although you never know....
Wow. I still can't quite get my head around last night. What started as a few angry tweets, mentioning no names at all I may add, certainly escalated very quickly. My intention was just to vent, I was incredibly angry at being insulted in such a manner. I thought I would get a handful of replies and forward the offending email onto a few blogger friends as a warning. I didn't expect to gain 400+ new twitter followers as a result and @mentions I couldn't keep up with. [A PR agency gets stupid at blogger relations - JD]
The public relations industry is a festival of shamelessness in which the most shameless are never shamed. We are here to change that. This is PR Dummies. Celebrity endorsements are costly. Getting Jennifer Hudson to endorse a product would cost, at minimum, tens of thousands of dollars. Instead, why not just shamelessly drop Jennifer Hudson's name all over your press release, despite the fact that you actually have nothing whatsoever to do with Jennifer Hudson? That'll work. This is one of execrable PR agency 5WPR's favorite tactics.... [Speaking of bad PR...]
In less than a week, political radio host Rush Limbaugh has seen upwards of 30 sponsors flee his radio program. Their migration began in response to an public boycott campaign which has relied heavily on social media. The actions and inactions of Limbaugh and the companies involved provide lessons for marketers in how to respond to crises, buy media and even outflank competitors....
The public relations industry is full of whores. Sometimes, they get themselves confused with the rest of the world. We present one of those instances, below. What is the best way to celebrate "Women's Month" and "empower women?" Is it...by offering women a 2-for-1 deal on becoming prostitutes? Maybe....
We all know that Mitt Romney can never, ever be elected the President, but somehow none of his friends, advisors, family and acquaintances have the guts to tell him that. Especially his advisors, whom he should promptly fire. [Romney handlers' stunning PR Fail - JD]
Alan Hirsch, a now-retired PR pro and my former boss and partner, offers these thoughts from his years in the PR business. He calls them bad PR stories, although I'm sure similar cases of bad behavior can be found in any industry. Bad behavior isn't unique to the PR business. Here are Alan's stories.... [Poignant PR reflections from ex-PR firm CEO - JD]
If your product sucks, PR can't help you. Neither can marketing, advertising or any other form of communications you can think of. If your product sucks, breaks, never worked in the first place, then you're screwed. ...f your product sucks, you can write all the key messages you want. You can work harder than you ever have before to control the message. But at the end of the day, the message your customers will say loud and clear will be that your product sucks. And let me be clear that they’d be saying it sucks whether or not social media existed. Online or offline....
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