PRBreakfastClub

It’s been an exceedingly busy couple of weeks for me, both personally and professionally. (A wedding coming up in two months will do that to you!) I have, though, been actively monitoring many of the issues bubbling up in the PR and marketing space, and I thought I’d very quickly weigh in with a few random thoughts on QR Codes and PR firms working with dictators (two totally disparate topics, I know):  Read the rest of this entry »

A respected academic posts a blog titled, “Spotlight on Ethics: Not Every Business Decision Can Be an Ethical One — So Where Do You Draw the Line?” Right off the bat he writes, “no one can go around living like Socrates, doing only what is ethical, moral and just.” I don’t know about Socrates, but if Diogenes saw or heard that line he’d grab his lantern and run.

Relax. This is not another holier-than-thou sermon on ethics. Rather, it’s a plea to stand for something more than just earning a buck, and to believe in what you do.  Read the rest of this entry »

“I work to promote the president and the message that he’s trying — the messages he’s trying to convey to the American people. But I also work with the press to try to help you do your jobs, to help you cover the White House, cover the administration and report on what we’re doing here.”

— White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, explaining his dual role of serving the President and the press, Feb. 16, 2011.

A ha! Finally we have a high-profile public relations executive saying what we all know to be true but far too often neglect to properly explain: in public relations, like many other professions, we’re playing a constant back-and-forth internal battle between our clients’ best interests and serving the public good. Read the rest of this entry »

I sit here today a recently unemployed public relations professional who is giving serious consideration to a career change.  I graduated college in 2005 and immediately entered the biz.  I had high hopes for myself and took every experience for what it was worth, learning every moment and dedicating myself and my career to the agency and clients at hand.  I loved it and have loved working in this field for over five years.

Recently I’ve made a few career moves to learn more, give myself more opportunities and resources, and also to make more money.  I’ve gone from a small agency of two, to a mid-sized agency of 25+ and I’ve noticed a few things along the way that I thought I’d share from my perspective.

I want to make more money, we all do.  But, I don’t want to make more money and love my job less.  Sounds like a simple statement that we can probably all share and support but in the public relations business, I’m not sure at my ripe age of 28, that I can see this as a reality.  With every agency move, I have indeed made more money.  But I also see things happening within the larger agencies that I strongly disapprove of and disagree with. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you know that one of my favorite pastimes is dining out. It’s obvious when you see the anti-Situation abs that I sport nowadays. [I've been doing a lot of GTL lately though minus the T so I'm expecting to get my washboard abs back.] Sorry, I digress.

In any case, one company that seems to be thriving in this awful economy is Groupon. I don’t have hard facts. My opinion is simply based on word of mouth, social media buzz and earned media coverage that I’ve seen for the company in the past couple of years. Most recent was Groupon’s first national launch with Gap where it likely garnered more in free publicity than the amount of Gap Groupons it sold. The company has transformed the way the average consumer saves by featuring mainly half price deals that change daily. The concept is attractive because it builds anticipation from its users on a daily basis, which I believe is a key factor, in developing any successful social media program. It has also changed the average consumer’s purchasing behavior, but it’s also fueled other companies to follow its business model such as Living Social, Half Off Deals, and many others. Read the rest of this entry »

Mere weeks after the PR world was shocked with news of unethical product review practices of client-developed iPhone apps by Reverb Communications, the profession is again faced with revelations of supposedly unethical practices, this time stemming from the undisclosed use of paid spokespeople by the toy industry as supposedly third-part, objective experts on local TV newscasts throughout the country, as Los Angeles Times media columnist Jim Rainey chronicled last week.

This glaring example of ethical misgivings from the toy industry brings clear an ugly truth in the new world of public relations: what is often best for the client is increasingly winning out over what is most ethical and best for consumers.

And that’s bad news for anyone serious about seeing the profession evolve and thrive. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve seen Terminator 2.  And if you haven’t, stop reading this post.  We are not friends.  Watch the movie, then come back here, so we can resume our regularly-scheduled friendship.

Hint: If you haven’t seen the movie, this is where you should say “Stay here, I’ll be back.”  I’ll wait.

Now that we’re all on the same page (and friends again), you are quite familiar with Judgment Day, the day where the robots take over and life as we know it ends.

Catastrophes and crises happen, especially in the PR world.  Every publicist has a “war story.”  Or ten.  Some of the juicier ones I’ve been a part of: a mall fired their Santa, 90% of media passes were revoked by the client 24 hours before a major-name hiphop/R&B concert, and a basketball team’s two biggest stars basically sat out a full-season injured.  Oh, there are more. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Thursday (Aug. 26), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Reverb Communications had settled charges alleging that the public relations firm had engaged in deceptive advertising practices by having its employees write and post positive reviews of clients’ games in the Apple iTunes Store, without disclosing that they had been compensated to do so.

The settlement brings to a close the Commission’s first case under its revised “Guidelines on the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” which took effect Dec. 1, 2009.

Those guidelines state, in part, that advertisers (in this case Reverb) are subject to liability for failing to disclose material connections between themselves and their endorsers. In a section entitled, “Disclosure of Material Connections,” the guidelines state that: Read the rest of this entry »

It must be hard to be a recruiter. I mean you might as well go into telemarketing since you spend 75% of your day scoping out potential recruits and cold calling/blind mailing people hoping that you can find the next superstar for your client. Just like telemarketing though, sometimes it’s just a bit out of control and silly. I’m not exactly sure how the process goes for finding candidates, but I wanted to point out something that really annoys me.

Please don’t try and recruit me at my job! I’m completely flattered that I was “confidentially referred” to you for an Account Executive position at some agency. Who wouldn’t want me? Read the rest of this entry »

As publicists we are constantly plagued by the famed phrase “Please remove me from your list.” Alright, fine, no big deal, we all know that what you’re really trying to say is, “Ugh, I’m so sorry but I don’t know where my delete button is and your e-mail is going to permanently stay in my inbox.” We get it, we got it. Woo. Sometimes we are all privileged to get messages saying, “YOU MOTHER #$%^$# PIECE OF @#$% REMOVE ME FROM YOUR $%^&*% LIST” (You can tell this person is young). Or you get the “I’m telling all your clients you wrongly e-mailed me” (This person is old).

Anyway, this week I was added to a list. Not just a mass e-mail list, a list attached to an e-mail so that when you replied to it, everyone on the list got it. About 10 of my colleagues, and about 150 others I imagine were all included on this e-mail. Read the rest of this entry »