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Just as Facebook has disrupted social media in its emergence, the same phenomenon could be happening with the movie about its founding, The Social Network. I say this chiefly on the way it is being promoted.
comment | 08/31/2010
Toyota. BP. NBC’s treatment of Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. ESPN’s special on LeBron James leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers. Participants in these recent debacles said they were sorry afterward. But were they really?
1 comment | 08/04/2010
You would be hard pressed to find a more impressive example of the interdependence of traditional and social media than the current campaign with the shirtless Old Spice guy, who many people believe is my twin. But let’s ignore that and focus on the implications of this success for both media forms.
comment | 07/23/2010
For the first time ever, this week Forbes magazine released its annual index of The Celebrity 100 by including social media presence in calculating a star’s rank based essentially on fame and fortune. It’s a wise decision, even if the results are questionable to some.
1 comment | 07/01/2010
I just returned from a trip to Disney World, which naturally prompts interest from everyone when I mention it. But you don’t get the same intense reaction if you tell them that you went to most other theme parks such as Carowinds, Kings Dominion or The Old Country – why is that?
1 comment | 06/10/2010
The best news I have heard so far today is that Bill Cosby is returning as spokesman for JELL-O after a 10-year absence. Almost as satisfying has been the way Kraft Foods, maker of JELL-O, has announced the reunion in its news release.
1 comment | 05/18/2010
As a trusted reader of this blog, I ask that you don’t tell anyone this confidential tool we have at MMI to help our clients. Got that? Good. The secret weapon is …
comment | 05/12/2010
Last week NPR did a story worrying that as teen texting soars, social skills will suffer. Oh, please!
1 comment | 04/28/2010
Veteran reporter Bob Schieffer said on his program Face the Nation that when it comes to child sex abuse scandals by priests, the Catholic Church has more than a PR problem. The fact that he acknowledges that the organization does at least have a PR problem speaks volumes of its situation.
1 comment | 04/15/2010
If social media is only for the young, why has it won a hosting job for a woman who got her first Emmy nomination back more than 60 years ago?
1 comment | 03/31/2010
The recent passing of Peter Graves brings to mind his remarkable ability to rebrand himself for an acting career that spanned 50 years. Graves was a master at rebranding himself.
comment | 03/18/2010
comment | 03/17/2010
The tragic death of a trainer last week at SeaWorld brings up a tricky PR question: How do you convince visitors to come to a business by promising risks and excitement, but safety for everyone as well? No one is comparing SeaWorld to Jurassic Park, mind you. But a killer whale mauling an employee is not what families come to see.
comment | 03/01/2010
It has been one year since I joined Facebook. Since that time, I have learned a few tips personally about social media that I would like to share with you, in case you have not yet used it or are just getting ready to employ it.
comment | 02/17/2010
Recently there has been a rash of what I call “so-so public relations,” where the parties involved addressed the issues at hand without resolving the matter to satisfaction. But a halfway successful PR response is better than none at all, right? Or is it?
3 comments | 02/03/2010
Less than a month into 2010, we appear to have the PR disaster of the year – or decade, maybe the century. NBC President Jeff Zucker’s decision to force Conan O’Brien off The Tonight Show in favor of old host Jay Leno has not only prompted derision (a former NBC producer has called it “one of the most shameful fiascoes in the history of modern broadcast television”), but also has resulted in Zucker receiving death threats.
9 comments | 01/20/2010
Time has called 2000 through 2009 the worst decade ever. Business Insider reviewed the period and wound up with the 15 biggest PR disasters of the decade. Yet there was good news in public relations during the aughts, or whatever people finally choose to call this time, and I thought we would look back at what I believe were the best advances in PR over the last 10 years.
comment | 01/06/2010
PMK/HBH and BNC probably mean nothing to you, but if you enjoy movies or television, they should. They are two of the biggest PR firms in Hollywood, and their recently announced merger has resulted in resignations, layoffs, and fears and confusion among the entertainment community in general. It’s like a summer thriller, only in real life!
comment | 12/16/2009
One film I had in my queue on Netflix that I neglected to view until recently was Street Fight , the Oscar-nominated documentary about the 2004 faceoff in Newark, N.J. between incumbent Sharpe James and Cory Booker. What a great movie! It also serves as a primer of what not to do for good PR in a campaign for public office.
Producer/director Marshall Curry wanted to cover both men, but the suspicious James camp not only denied access but acted against Curry, making James come off pretty much as a villain despite rather even-handed treatment. The ramifications were … well, let’s review what James and company did wrong first.
comment | 12/02/2009
According to The New York Times, the announcement by mega-bank Goldman Sachs that it is setting aside $500 million to help 10,000 small businesses recover from the recession is in no way motivated by criticism of its greedy reputation. Right. And Bernie Madoff is a misunderstood altruist. No bigger firm generates worse PR than Goldman Sachs does right now.
comment | 11/18/2009
