PRBreakfastClub

Over the last few days, I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading about Google’s new privacy policy. It has received some positive and negative views. Privacy, to many, is a premium; we don’t want our information shared or sold to anyone. Of course, I enjoy privacy, too.

Here’s a (not so) little secret, though. When you log onto Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., your information is out there. You signed up for a Gmail account or to have a Twitter profile, you understood there was a risk. So why so many complaints about your privacy being infringed upon? Because we all need something to take issue with nowadays. Read the rest of this entry »

If you mentioned that you had a BlackBerry to a friend or colleague a few years ago, you may have heard some envy. Research in Motion’s (RIM) product was solid and perfect for the on-the-go business person. Lately, though, RIM has seen it’s reputation tarnished. It has left many wondering if the company will ever really recover.

Just this year, BlackBerry has seen the PlayBook launched to lukewarm reviews and disappointing sales. Earlier in October, Best Buy announced that it was cutting the PlayBook price by $200. In September, RIM’s said it shipped only 200,000 PlayBooks. On top of all this, revenues fell sharply after a disappointing second quarter of 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

Alongside the announcement of Google’s acquisition of Motorola the companies pulled some additional quotes from other Android partners.  Take a quick look at the quotes below.  Underlines are mine.  You tell me, which ones of these things is just like the others… Read the rest of this entry »

By now, our world has experienced and started actively using the latest in social platforms. Google+ launched to excitement and rightfully so. Google has been looking to enter the social space for some time. But, I think we need to temper this giddiness a bit. Much like Facebook and Twitter before it, time is needed before we can really understand how Google+ will fit into our plans. Should we do our due diligence on it? Absolutely. Any good social media manager or PR professional should be researching and planning to uncover any which way it can be used effectively.

In the last few weeks, though, I’ve seen that it will be a “Facebook killer.” I’ve also read numerous stories telling me that LinkedIn needs to watch out because Google is coming with “Google+ for Business.” The old adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day” fits here. How can anyone truly know what it will do to Facebook? We had no idea that Facebook would eventually make MySpace irrelevant. Who saw Twitter becoming a success? Read the rest of this entry »

Some quick thoughts from a marketing, PR and ad perspective on Google’s just announced new foray into social networking — the terribly named Google+ (as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land terms it*).

As I tweeted earlier in the day:

keithtrivitt: Prediction: Ad buyers will be all over Google+. More open analytics plus more targeted networks to tap into http://t.co/usHznta

I like that Google has started out by opening Google+ to only a select few and allowing them to invite their friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you were living under a rock last week, you likely have heard about the big ethical flap that PR firm Burson-Marsteller found itself in after it was outed by USA TODAY for engaging in an attempted smear campaign on behalf of its famous client, Facebook, against Google. “Whisper-Gate” it’s being called.

Long story short: things blew up — dramatically — in one of the most egregious displays of unethical practices our business has seen since Edelman got caught in 2006 for its fake blogging tactics on behalf of Walmart. Let me be clear: B-M’s actions on behalf of Facebook were unethical and improper.

All of the details of this epic tale have already been fleshed out (including new revelations over the weekend from WIRED.com reporter Sam Gustin that B-M was deleting negative posts about the firm on its Facebook wall) in the hundreds of stories that were written last week. Now, it’s time to consider the long-term impact this will have on PR.

Will our profession use this as a teachable moment; an opportunity to reassess our commitment to serving the public interest and being ethical counselors to our clients? Or will we just brush it aside as yet another instance of an ethical lapse taking center stage for a couple of news cycles.

Speaking as someone who manages advocacy for PRSA, a professional organization that strongly advocates for stringent ethical standards in PR, I sincerely hope it is the former. This unfortunate incident has cast a negative shadow upon our profession; one we can ill afford to become the de facto standard operating procedure.

And I believe that, on the whole, the majority of PR professionals are ethical and have the public’s best interest in mind. While B-M certainly made an ethical lapse in this case, we should give the firm some credit for admitting in a statement that “When talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle.”

All that said, I was a little shocked to read in PRWeek UK a quote from Speed Communications MD Steve Earl that, “Smearing is an integral part of PR.”

I won’t try to get too high and mighty about this topic, but I will say this: Smear campaigns and unethical non-disclosure of clients and/or clients’ intentions are most certainly not an integral part of PR. That type of work is unethical and against most recognized global standards of ethics in the profession, including the PRSA Code of Ethics.

Thankfully, Mr. Earl’s assertions were counterbalanced in the same PRWeek article with a more sane statement by Fraser Hardie, senior partner of Blue Rubion, which just so happens to represent Facebook in the UK. Mr. Hardie made it clear that his firm had no knowledge of the B-M smear campaign and he went further by taking the stance that his firm is not willing to cross the line between advocacy and smearing.

This incident was an embarrassment to all parties involved, and more broadly, to the PR profession. It was also unethical. But I’m confident we’ll learn from this and add additional value to our work by keeping the public’s best interest in mind, even if that comes at the expense of our clients’ wishes.

We just need to take statements like Mr. Earl’s with a fine grain of salt to get through the murk.

For marketers, 2010 has thus far been a tough year – at least on the branding front. We’ve seen the downfall of several of the world’s top brands, including the ongoing BP oil spill debacle and the ensuing fallout for its corporate image and brand, along with Google’s recent privacy concern issues and several other high-profile branding dustups.

A recent Financial Times article (PDF Version) examined the perils of a tarnished brand. After reading the article, we thought it might be interesting to examine the broader issues and implications from a marketer’s perspective, with Jeff Esposito coming from the point of view of a corporate communications guy working for a global brand (Vistaprint), and Keith examining this issue from the perspective of a PR agency exec who works with SMBs, global brands and everything in between. Read the rest of this entry »

She's the one in the middle

One of the best examples of the power of social media was the campaign to get Betty White on Saturday Night Live. How awesome is that that millions of people found a page on Facebook and decided to become a fan of it (or, “like” it), ultimately resulting in Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live? I’m pretty sure no one imagined that something like this could happen, but producers (Lorne Michaels and company) actually listened to what the millions of people were saying. So the masses did it – social media got Betty White on Saturday Night Live, but was it the right person to waste a campaign on? Read the rest of this entry »

Do you ever feel like you are the only one that believes in something or honestly doesn’t care at all about something? For example, I feel that the botched Times Square bomber should suffer a public execution, regardless of if it was a failed terrorist attempt. I’m rooting for the guillotine, but a hanging or stoning would be fine in my book as well. When I say things like this people look at me like I’m so weird.  Umm, my words to you…you spend all day in the spot he tried to bomb and then come back to me. Anyway, that’s just an example of what I’m discussing here.

So what’s the big deal with Facebook messing up this week? Everytime Facebook makes one mistake the Internet blows up saying so much nonsense.  Ahhhh Privacy! I’ve been exposed, I have to run for the hills and bitch about it! People, it’s the Internet…as mentioned in previous posts nothing is private. Read the rest of this entry »

With the Internet constantly evolving, I feel like we have forgotten some of the basic rules of thumb that we all used to go by years and years ago. From the first day in 1993 or whenever I was in third grade, my father would always remind me of some of the following rules. I thought that this would be a good time to remind everyone about these rules, just because everyone needs a gentle reminder from time to time.

1. Everything you send, every website you visit, everything you type is there forever – Now I’ll be the first to say that I say what I want, when I want to, with or without censors, but I do have to put myself in check sometimes. Sometimes I do go overboard a little bit, and definitely don’t think what the consequences could be in the long run. Do I really want to be known as the guy that plagued the Internet with poop and jokes 5 years from now? Read the rest of this entry »