The Flack

Following my critical look at how Sen. Clinton's PR consigliere (unnecessarily) man-handled Mrs. Clinton's long-shot Senatorial election foe, it's only fair to draw attention to a small related item in yesterday's Times.

The story concerned the subtle message delivered by the Giuliani campaign in its run-up to a Presidential showdown with Mrs. Clinton.

One of Mr. Giuliani's big (Texas-based) donors set up a website nefariously funded by a 527 to swift boat Mrs. Clinton. The site aspires to "to shed light on the real Hillary Clinton and the danger she and her ideas pose for America."

According to The Times:

"While the Giuliani camp has no direct connection to Stop Her Now, some Democrats argued yesterday that Mr. Giuliani — who seems poised for a possible presidential run of his own — should disavow the personal nature of the criticisms that the group is leveling at Mrs. Clinton.

Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for Mr. Giuliani, declined to comment."

One would have thought that America's Mayor and Time's Person of the Year would not wish to appear in cahoots with this less-than-savory swipe at his future adversary. But, then again, how many campaign stops did the former NYC Mayor make on behalf of less-than-savory Bush apologists in this last election? Or what about the rumors that have RNC bad guy Ken Mehlman joining the still stealthy Giuliani bandwagon?

I guess the point of this rant has less to do with who should sit in the post-Bush White House and more about whether the next President will have risen above these unscrupulous means in earning the position. Thus far, the news is not encouraging.

PR politics Sunny Mindel Hillary Clinton Rudy Giuliani Ken Mehlman negative campaigning

New Line Cinema, no stranger to viral campaigns, has caught a malicious virus itself, which it now hopes to quickly cure.

You see, one famous director of the company's most famous film franchise, decided to have his dispute with the studio tried in the court of public opinion.

To understand the power of the blogosphere for driving public sentiment, we need not look past a single post "Lord of The Rings" director Peter Jackson made on theonering.net after he was removed as director of New Line's "The Hobbit."

"Within hours thousands of other fans weighed in on lordotrings.com, onering.com and other sites, worrying about the future of the Tolkien enterprise and asking New Line, which has an option to produce the film until 2009, to back down. Theonering.net was among those calling for a boycott of any Hobbit film not made by Mr. Jackson."

Gee, why don't my posts spur that kind of viral behavior? I guess this version of virality is reserved for the likes of Cuban and Clooney, Arianna and Arrington.

Z-list virality -- no matter how del.icio.usly optimized, Dugged, tagged, or RSS enabled -- struggles harder to percolate publicly, if it does at all. Are there exceptions? Yes, many. But the power of persuasion from a branded persona can be potent indeed.

PR Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings The Hobbit viral

As this blog and others pull a Monday morning quarterback on the handling of the Kramer and Regan crises, the New York Observer makes some observations about another crisis presently in full bloom, but without the same MSM attention as the others.

It revolves around CNN's brassy and bossy blonde legal eagle Nancy Grace and the crisis work that one of the nation's most esteemed firms has done, is doing, or is no longer doing for her. (Choose one.)

Some say that Ms. Grace's cross-examination of a young mother about her missing child may have been the catalyst for the mother's suicide the day following her taped appearance on the show. Sensing a catastrophic career fallout, Ms. Grace retained a friend of her executive producer to resurrect her tarnished image.

Now I'm not one to second guess a firm like Citigate Sard Verbinnen, but if the Observer's recount of the less-than-graceful strategy is accurate, it's no wonder that the outspoken TV host finds herself in an even deeper hole today. Here was the PR pitch:

"The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Observer, proposed a story on Ms. Grace’s upcoming trip to Florida, where she would join the boy’s father, Joshua Duckett, at an outpost called Team Trenton Headquarters. From there, Ms. Grace would broadcast her show each night, confer intimately with the police and continue to shine her national klieg light on the case of the missing 2-year-old—undaunted by the tragic fate of his mother, who, the letter noted, 'committed suicide after appearing on her show.'

Ms. Cordasco [Sard's crisis expert] mentioned parenthetically that Ms. Grace might even 'go diving' in search of Trenton. CNN could provide footage, or Ms. Grace would happily do a 'video diary.'

As near as can be ascertained, no one bit."

Here's the problem, folks. This "pitch" was perceived pure and simple as a public relations ploy by those upon whose ears and desktops it fell. No journalist wants to be spun, and this smacked of spinning.

What's unfortunate is that Ms. Grace was probably earnest in her offer to go out on the limb to help find this missing child. Unfortunately, this PR orchestration (seemingly to gain reputation points) struck the wrong chord:

"'A lot of the media feels like we coordinated our efforts around Nancy Grace and her show coming to Florida,' said Capt. James Pogue of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. 'And honestly, that is not the truth. '"

"On Nov. 22, Lauren Ritchie, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, pounced on Ms. Cordasco’s talking point. 'Just so the truth is known, Leesburg police did not invite Grace to come here, and when questioned about it, the public-relations firm backed away from that claim,' she wrote."

Lesson learned: put the newsmaker front and center, i.e., stay out of the story.

PR Nancy Grace Sard Verbinnen crisis communications public relations

Lest you think that social media and Web 2.0 PR will supplant traditional modes of media/public engagement anytime soon, look no further than Rubenstein's highly touted new clients: Kramer and Toosa.

Don't expect to see the creation of personal weblogs, Technorati-tagged news releases, Digg or del.icio.us posts, or even blogseeding here. The tried-and-true method of leveraging mainstream journalists to garner sympatico coverage remains very much in vogue.

In fact, that viral video rant that rose to the top of the YouTube charts had no socially driven counter-programming to speak of. The Letterman bit, tactfully orchestrated by our industry's newest PR consigliere, likely popped for its news value (and the content-sharing deal with CBS).

One has to wonder what career benefits accrue to Michael Richards and Atoosa Rubenstein (no relation) by appearing in news stories about the hiring of their PR firm. Is this even news?

Finally, some no doubt are questioning the PR tactic of giving added media legs to Mr. Richards' Mel Gibson imitation. Sure, his appearance with the Rev. Jackson seemed to make sense, but apparently it did not produce the desired result. Yesterday, Rev. Jackson called for a boycott of the heavily-advertised soon-to-be-released DVD of Seinfeld's seventh season. Ouch.

PR Michael Richards Atoosa Rubenstein Howard Rubenstein crisis communications

Over the long unusually mild weekend here in New York, I came across Jarvis's point to Michael Hirschorn's astute musings in which the storied Atlantic Monthly writer outlines his digital strategy for the nation's ailing newspapers, with a particular focus on the paper-of record. He made some blogworthy points, including this one:

"And while it’s true that fewer and fewer people are purchasing newspapers, it’s also almost certainly true that more and more people are reading news. This thanks to portals, newspaper Web sites, search engines, syndication feeds, and millions of blogs—a goodly percentage built on the hard labor of professional journalists, whose work the bloggers link to, praise, mock, and recombine with the hard labor of other professional journalists."

Hirschorn advocates building social media-driven franchises of followers around the erudite and eloquent journalists who presently populate the dead-bark medium:

"That, I’d venture, is how you start rethinking the newspaper business. Not only do you allow your reporters to blog; you make them the hubs of their own social networks, the maestros of their own wikis, the masters of their own many-to-many realms. To take but one example, Kelefa Sanneh is the pop-music critic for The New York Times. He is very likely the best music critic in the country, and certainly the best new Times music writer in years. Let’s say that Sanneh creates his own community around the music he likes."

He continued:

"Go even further: incentivize the critics and reporters by allowing them to profit based on the popularity of their sites; make it worth their while to stick around."

Mr. Hirschorn concludes that newspapers and other print media can still be relevant to many:

"Online news, microchunked, consumed on the fly, is fast food; the newspaper, fed by its newly invigorated journalist-brands, is the sit-down meal."

One such sit-down meal was served yesterday in Richard Siklos's Sunday New York Times piece on the comings and goings of today's digital media gurus and pundits. The reporter ponders the question: Do any of them really have what it takes to tame the digital future?"

PR social media newspapers The New York Times digital media Michael Hirschorn

If my memory serves me well, it was perhaps the second or third year of Nintendo's very existence when the Super Mario makers wanted/needed to rise above the din of holiday shopping toy lists.

The fledgling gamer brand decided to resort to the old PR standby to make news: a seemingly scientific survey. The "North Pole Poll" was born.

The Gallup poll, fielded at shopping malls across the country, asked families what their top toy picks would be for the holidays. They choose from a pre-selected list of popular toys. And the winner was...Nintendo!

We released the survey results to coincide with Black Friday (today), which, back then offered a still-fertile news hook for the start of the holiday shopping season. A satellite-fed VNR propelled the story onto local TV news, which propelled Mario into Super Mario.

Of course, the company didn't have the Playstation or XBox franchises to contend with, which brings us to the point of today's post. News is made when a story defies conventional wisdom or expectation. We didn't expect the Wii to produce the same kind of frenzied fans and eye-popping graphics as its two formidable foes. This, from Seth Schiesel in today's New York Times:

"Nintendo realized years ago that it simply did not have the financial and technical resources to compete with Microsoft and Sony in vying for those hard-core gamers who always want the latest, snazziest graphics, the most realistic physics modeling and all of the other bells and whistles that top-end systems so amply provide. "

Needless to say, the conventional wisdom didn't hold out much hope for the later-debuting Nintendo Wii. How could it possibly compete with the cool consoles from SONY and Microsoft?

We awake this morning to two (and probably more) unconventionally upbeat reviews of the system that many had counted out. The New York Times's Seth Schiesel writing about Wii in "Getting Everybody Back in the Game:"

"But for many people it will be the most fun, and that’s what really matters."

The Washington Post's Mike Musgrove's unscientific PS3-Wii matchup (using his friends) produced this:

"By comparison, most of my friends arrived having heard little about Nintendo's new system. But, as it turned out, that device was the hit of the party."

Sure, the respective nine-figure marketing budgets from SONY and Microsoft may ultimately prove insurmountable for Mario and the gang. But there's much to be gleaned from Nintendo's lack of hyperbole in bowing its new game system. Musgrove's headline: "In the Wii-PS3 Playoff, Nintendo Upsets Sony on the Fun Factor."

Hey, if the ultimate underdog Rocky Balboa can make a comeback this holiday season, you better think twice before putting Nintendo down for the count.


PR XBox 360 Nintendo Wii SONY PS3 video games Super Mario

The Iraqi media reported the arrival of the Veep to celebrate Thanksgiving with the troops.

Mr. Cheney's spokesperson denied it. Or did she? Reuters reports:

"A spokeswoman for Cheney, Megan McGinn, told Reuters in Washington: 'That is not true. He is not there now.' Asked if he had plans to travel there later on Thursday, she said: 'Not to my knowledge.'"

Talk about equivocation! Frankly, I find this non-denial denial deceitful, and endemic of what's wrong with the brand of communications that has pervaded the White House these last six years.

Look. Perhaps there's some veracity to Mr. Cheney's mouthpiece's tap dance, but reading between the lines, it sure appears that he's breaking turkey and sweet potatoes with the troops. Even the military is in on the ruse:

"Asked whether Cheney was in Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq, the U.S. military said it was 'unaware of any information of the vice president being in Baghdad.'"

The military is "unaware?" More obfuscation. I guess we'll just have to wait until the staged images make their way into our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, wherever you are.

PR Dick Cheney Thanksgiving Iraq

A number of years ago, our firm was retained by a Tennessee-based catalogue company called the House of Windsor Collection. The company featured merchandise that held the "Royal Warrant." You know, "By Appointment To His" or "Her Majesty."

What's more, a member of the British Royal Family agreed to wax poetic on HOW's line of products in a series of U.S. media interviews -- something we later learned had never been done before by a British Royal.

Prince Michael of Kent, first cousin to the Queen, and husband of (the tempestuous) Princess Michael of Kent, visited our shores for appearances we had arranged on GMA and Larry King. Both entailed an anecdotal walk through the catalogue with HRH Prince Michael. He was a natural -- properly British, unflappable, even a bit glib.

All was well in Camelot until we learned that Her Majesty the Queen caught the Larry King segment while vacationing in Bermuda. She was none too pleased, and the relationship abruptly ended.

With this long pre-amble we arrive at a little item I came across about another famous Brit making an unusual TV appearance. No, we're not talking Heather Mills' audition for "Desperate Housewives" on the syndicated TV tab "Extra." We're talking instead of the video crew HRH Prince Charles hired to capture a day in his life tending to the Royal duties.

Could it be? The future King of England making his video news release debut? Now this gives new meaning to command-and-control! The video will be posted to his website. Pretty soon, he'll be blogging, i.e., engaging in a conversation with the commoners. While that conversation may be one-way for now, I'm still impressed by the effort. Vlog on, Chas!

PR Prince Michael of Kent Prince Charles The Royal Family House of Windsor Video Blog Heather Mills Extra Desperate Housewives Larry King

I've been meaning to flag Lee Odden's thoughtful look at the yin yang of public relations in this day and age. In it, Lee cogently captures what many of us have grappled with over the last year -- how to balance traditional "top down" media relations with the magnetism offered by some of the Web 2.0 tools.

His push-pull analogy works well, as does the practical tactical advice he proffers. Will one approach make the other obsolete? I don't think so...not anytime soon. This is a most worthwhile read for PR pros.

PR social media release Web 2.0 public relations

Gee, I forgot about this one. Here's a re-run of a post from April 11, 2006.

PR golf
public relations NASA

My son Matt came to me last month and declared that he took some of his summer earnings to purchase shares in Yahoo! I groaned and asked him why, knowing full well that the world's largest portal has fallen behind its competitors in some key areas. He was nonetheless resolute in the prospects for his investment.

I've been keeping an eye on Donna Bogatin's ZDNet's coverage alleging an intentional leak of an internal memo penned by a Yahoo SVP that found its way onto the front page of The Wall Street Journal's "Marketplace" section yesterday. (My son sheepishly pointed it out.)

Ms. Bogatin intimates that the so-called "peanut butter" memo, a supposed internal rallying cry that destructively dishes on Yahoo's business strategy, was purposefully leaked to The Journal.

"Yahoo appears to be 'OK' with last weekend's strategically published "document" in the Wall Street Journal, saying it is a sign of the "open, collaborative culture" inside the company, according to Financial Times reports."

Sensing that Terry Semel is all too aware of his company's lack of media mojo of late, I would find it hard to believe that the Sunnyvale CEO authorized planting this in The Journal. Could it have been leaked by others within the organization? Sure. In fact, issuing any memo within a high (media) profile enterprise is tantamount to putting out a news release. Also, wasn't this widely reported online before The Journal had it?

Ms. Bogatin claims that the kitschy language used in the memo, and the fact that The Journal did not divulge how it came into its possession, gives the memo a sinister PR-like pale:

"...the kitschy peanut butter branding of the "document" bespeaks a broader, deliberate corporate communications mission."

Curious theory, but again, if given the choice, I am all but certain that Mr. Semel would have preferred that his company's dirty laundry remain in the dryer.

(Matt, Yahoo's stock is up a half point today.)

PR Yahoo Wall Street Journal ZDNet peanut butter leaked memo corporate communications

TMZ managing editor Harvey Levin:

"Britney is gold, she is crack to our readers. Her life is a complete train-wreck and I thank God for her every day."

Perez Hilton:

"I am not some safe, cookie cutter, queer-eye-for-the-straight-guy homo. I am dangerous. I am gonna push the envelope. I am gonna be who I am: a loud, gay Latino that has opinions and in my own way, subserviently, I am trying to make the world a better place."

The Times on both coasts today outed two of the more pervasive online purveyors of salacious celebrity gossip and news. Perez Hilton, the saucier next-gen Gawker-type snarky blogger, and TMZ, e.g., Three Mile Zone (for celebs in L.A.) whose Warner Bros./AOL parentage probably serves as a libel-preventing restrictor plate, take their respective star turns in today's editions of the The LA Times and New York Times.

In assessing television's impact in 1963, Marshall McLuhan (pictured) said:

"With the new media, however, it is now possible to store and to translate everything; and as for speed, that is no problem. No further acceleration is possible this side of the light barrier" (McLuhan, Understanding Media - The Extensions of Man, 1963).

Well, not exactly. Further acceleration is possible judging from what NYT's David Carr calls this "mashed-up form of journalism." Mr. Levin:

"'You are watching a soap opera serialized in real time. That is the beauty of the Web site. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton really do go out almost every night and instead of waiting for some packaged version, you watch the raw version of it unfurl."

He continued:

"We have created a vibrant news organization that is breaking news in real time. I think the model is changing to the point where in five years, the distinction between television and Internet will be meaningless. They’ll have to call it something else.'"

Mr. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira and who once toiled as a publicist, has fast become a media brand:

"...Hilton will star in his own reality show. He is the subject of a four-page layout in December's GQ, will co-host MTV's New Year's Eve special, will appear on the cover of the Advocate next month and was just named to a list of 25 powerful Latinos by the New York Post..."

Especially telling was Mr. Carr's observation that online news brands can be built nowadays as fast as one can say Lindsay Lohan:

"TMZ is yet another lesson — a depressing one for old media types — in the Web’s ability to create a brand at breakneck speed. In October, TMZ, a site that did not exist one year earlier, was the No. 1 entertainment news site, with far more traffic than E! Online, TVGuide.com and People.com, a Time Warner site."

Depressing for "old media types," indeed. Just flip to the NY Times's profile of the 21-year-old college student blogger behind mediabistro.com's TVNewser or, worse, contemplate the price YouTube fetched.

PR Perez Hilton TMZ Marshall McLuhan TVNewser Harvey Levin celebrity gossip

Yesterday I noticed a ProfNet post in which the journalist was seeking experts to comment on when a company shouldn't write a blog.

Other than the usual reasons -- not the least of which is the first-person time commitment required to opine on a subject in which readers actually are interested -- I think it's also important to take the time to explore what others are saying in "the online conversation." Your RSS reader can only take you so far.

Last night I was doing some exploring and came upon Jeff Jarvis's assessment of how the new "information architecture" has necessitated a change in the way PR pros need to deal with their new D-t-C powers.

"So this isn't just about a new ethic of information necessitated by the link and search. It is also about a new form of self-interest for those who say they are in the business of public relations and public information. We're the public and now we can not only come to you directly, we can penalize you directly when you lie to us."

Mr. Jarvis's post is well worth reading, but I found one snarky shortcoming. He insinuates that PR people have dishonesty in their DNA, and it's the "new ethic of information" that's curbing their "mission" to "always spin." I don't buy it.

Before the myriad bloggers arrived on the scene and before newsmakers had the ability to create and syndicate their own news, companies were inherently honest. If not, they faced the wrath of other stakeholder groups, e.g., consumers, shareholders, employees, unions, NGOs, regulators. They still do. In addition, a PR person's effectiveness, if not livelihood, was directly related to his honest dealings with the ink-stained filters that stood between him and his audience.

Are PR people today more forthright in their advocacy knowing that some blogger may publicly dissect, discount and disseminate their every word? I'm not so sure. I do know that (the smart) PR people are increasingly encouraging their clients to engage their detractors in dialogue. Mr. Jarvis concludes:

"There is a positive side to this message: Now that you have direct access to your public and now that the public can come directly to you for information, then give it to them completely, honestly, openly, easily. If you have a good product and service, if you treat your customers with respect, then that becomes the best public relations you can have."

Gee, Jeff, that's what I thought we've been doing all along.

PR Jeff Jarvis public relations spin blog relations transparency corporate communications

So enough already with murderers, toilet paper, pedophiles, celebrity miscreants, and hair dye down under...

I've been working on this fab project these last couple of months wherein Pearson, MIT Sloan, Wharton and a community-minded Web 2.0 company called Shared Insights have collaboratively embarked on the creation of the first management book to be written solely as a wiki.

The book, We Are Smarter Than Me, will solicit more than a million alumni, faculty, students, etc. to serve as its authors and editors. Slated for publication in the Fall of 2007, We Are Smarter will capture case studies and anecdotes that demonstrate how community networks and Web 2.0 tools have successfully been used by the business enterprise. Some in the blogosphere have called it a hybrid "mixing pros and amateur-generated content."

The Wall Street Journal's Bill Bulkeley gave the endeavor its MSM coming out today on the cover of B1. Publishers Weekly's Judith Rosen did the same a week or so ago. Here's the quote in the news release from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales who serves on the WAS board:

“Like Wikipedia, and with core contributors initially comprised of many of the world’s leading business thinkers, We Are Smarter Than Me may usher in a new model for how book publishers can acquire, create and market their content, as well as how their books can be distributed and used,” said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and member of We Are Smarter Than Me’s Board of Advisors. “I look forward to reading this work in progress.”

I'm sharing this info, less because it's a client, and more because ours is an industry that seems to have embraced these new tools more than just about any other. As a result, we collectively hold a wealth of relevant knowledge and insights that will inevitably lie dormant on some agency's Intranet server.

Here's a chance to share your Web 2.0 successes with others (with your client or employer's approval naturally), and by so doing, shine a positive spotlight on today's profession.

PR We Are Smarter Than Me Pearson Wharton MIT Sloan Shared Insights Wiki Jimmy Wales community collective intelligence

Sounds like a law firm. True to the pendulum theory of fame in the 21st century, these three souls have dumbfoundedly re-emerged this week to give the tabloids and tabloid shows their raison d'etre.

The most bizarro resurrection -- as if anything could top a ghastly and ghostly-looking Mr. Jackson tooling around London's nightspots -- has O.J. Simpson poised to discuss his new book If I Did It. He's taped a two-parter on the one network that's bound to give him fair and balanced treatment.

How did this deal get bound? I guess the quid pro quo entailed having the book's publisher herself conduct the interview. This is journalism?

The bigger enigma remains: what the heck is going through this man's head? I certainly don't remember reading anywhere that he fired his long-time publicist and hired his sister to restore his strategically forgotten image. What can he gain by this tasteless public performance (versus what can he lose)?

In an age when we are treated to the most ill-conceived celebrity behavior -- hey let's get married before I bury my dead son -- we are ambushed by three of America's Most Notorious: a presumed murderer, an acquitted but admitted pedophile, and a segregationist . I hope for Jeb's sake that Mr. Lott's anointment does not portend what lies ahead for the GOP.

Back to Mr. Simpson. Maybe his Frey-like tome should only be sold in Second Life. And then maybe he'll be re-tried there as well.

Update (11/20): Sanity Prevails

PR O.J. Simpson Judith Regan Michael Jackson Trent Lott Fox TV

Some days, I struggle to unearth a PR-infused topic on which to write. Other days, it seems that every news story or blog post resonates with some alluring PR twist.

Today everything pops. A story in Crain's New York's daily e-newsletter touted McDonald's hiring of former Deputy New York City Mayor Randy Mastro to fight the proposed ban on the use of trans-fatty acids in NYC eateries. (The magazine just happened to be hosting a breakfast this morning on the same subject.) Concurrently, arch rival Burger King announced its intention to curb unhealthful advertising to children in the UK. Hey, McDonalds, have it your way. Update: McDonalds working on it.

This morning, Floyd Norris looked at Citigroup's $400 million, 20-year deal to re-name the new/old Shea Stadium CitiField. This intrigued me, not only because I had played a small role helping QUALCOMM garner some attention for its newly branded stadium in San Diego, but I found Mr. Norris's analysis of the cost-benefits especially deflating:

"Citigroup obviously thinks that the naming rights are valuable, but history does not indicate such deals have done much for other banks, or for the ball clubs that play in them. Stocks of banks with ballparks have tended to do worse than stocks of other banks, and teams in these parks have tended to lose more games than they win."

I never understood the branding rationale for slapping one's (already ubiquitous) brand name on a field or sporting event. Granted, if such sponsorships translate to hospitality for prospective customers, e.g., think PGA, or if the deal comes with a TV advertising package, perhaps the cost-benefit can be justified. I mean Citigroup already has two of the most prominent billboards it could possibly have in this city.

This all brings me to the final topic of this post: toilet paper in Times Square. Yes folks, this may be one Times Square promotion that will clean up. The folks at P&G have spent millions to install bathroom stalls in a vacant store front on the Great White Way to promote Charmin Ultra. The stalls come with personal attendants hired to clean up after each use. (Now there's a resume builder.) Cost, in fact, was the main thing keeping Charmin from doing this sooner.

"'Real estate is so expensive in New York, we just couldn't be sure the economics would work,' Mr. Legault [brand manager for Charmin] said. 'But we know that New York is the center of the universe, so we just had to give it a try.' (...retail space in the area goes for $150 to $225 a square foot per year, and the restroom will occupy from 7,000 to 8,000 square feet.")

Again, the branding experts, not PR people, weighed in:

"'This will provide a much-needed service for women, who I suspect are Charmin's main buyers,' said Judy Hopelain, a partner at the marketing consultant Prophet Brand Strategy."

"Michael Watras, president of the brand consultant Straightline International, figures that the costs, no matter how high, are a pittance for what the promotion will glean. 'They're showcasing their brand to a gazillion people in the toughest place in the toughest city,' he said. 'They'll get more publicity than any advertising campaign could ever provide.'"

With the same (but opposite) end in mind, we once urged a champagne maker to take over a vacant E. 60's Madison Avenue storefront and create a fabulous window display exclusively for the holiday season. They didn't drink the bubbly. Let's see how P&G fares on the ROI (store)front.

"Mr. Legault concedes, 'evaluating this is going to be a challenge.'"

PR Potty Palooza P&G Charmin public relations CitiField Procter & Gamble McDonalds Times Square Citigroup branding Qualcomm

This blog has consistently extolled the virtues of communications professionals who stay out of the media spotlight and choose to put their clients' news front and center. Now here's one client whose product deserves to remain cloaked.

It started with a buzz-inducing advertisement in Cosmopolitan, which caught the eye of some writers for Leno. Then, with a little push from New York's LaForce & Stevens, the below-the-belt product landed in some national magazines, on drive-time radio and in the (still) influential Daily Candy newsletter.

I guess in this day and age, it was inevitable that "Only her hairdresser knows for sure" would be replaced by "For the hair down there..." The product's founder proclaimed: "Men can be betties, too!" Nah.

PR Betty Beauty Leno Beauty Products public relations hair

I have mixed feelings about today's high-profile profile of Hillary Clinton political strategist Howard Wolfson. Sure, the Dems romped, especially in New York State where Mr. Wolfson plies his trade.

It just seemed to me that Mr. Wolfson might have chosen to remain behind-the-scenes to allow his client to take the bow. (Though who can blame him for acquiescing to The Times' request for a profile?)

This graph also raised my eyebrows:

"In many ways, Mr. Wolfson’s bare-knuckle brand of politics is reminiscent of the tactics of Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser — and a man whose skills Mr. Wolfson admits to admiring. While other Democrats tend to run campaigns that largely focus on issues, Mr. Wolfson is more than willing to make an opponent’s character the central theme of a race."

Is this a good thing? Some in our profession may argue that Mr. Rove is a skilled tactician whose no-holds-barred approach is something to admire and aspire to. I don't. Frankly, I find the swiftboat-like attacks abhorrent (especially when they are leveled against a candidate I support!).

Isn't there enough issue fodder on which to build a cogent case for voting against (or for) some candidates? This is how the paper characterized Mr. Wolfson's (successful) effort to defeat Republican Senatorial candidate John Spencer, in a race that was never even close:

"It could have gone after him on his record by pointing out that he had increased taxes and spending in Yonkers. It could have gone after him on his politics by hammering away at the fact that he opposes abortion rights and supports gun rights. But instead, it chose a third way, reflected in just about every one of Mr. Wolfson’s public comments about Mr. Spencer. Mr. Wolfson sought to cast doubts about Mr. Spencer’s stability by noting, again and again, how Mr. Spencer had once joked about wanting to kill a federal judge and a governor who had crossed him."

Finally, I was surprised that today's profile made no mention of the famous founding partner of the firm for which Mr. Wolfson works -- Glover Park Group. I've met Joe Lockhart and wonder whether he condones the tactics for which Mr. Wolfson is lauded. Perhaps I'm naive to think that a new regime would usher in a kinder, more constructive approach to PR on the campaign trail, but the again, who can argue with success.

PR politics Howard Wolfson Hillary Clinton Joe Lockhart Glover Park Group negative campaigning

I remember the first time I heard the two-word term. It was during a strategy session with the senior corp comm exec for a very large, foreign pharmaceutical and chemical company. At first, I parsed the words to try to determine their exact meaning. I certainly knew each word as a stand-alone, but taken together they eluded me.

"Sustainable development" initially struck me as some kind of insidious corporate double speak created to assuage a company's outside critics, e.g., NGOs, unions, etc., while appeasing its shareholders, e.g., those who profit from its profits. The two words in tandem had an incongruous feel.

Over the weekend, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera explored this incongruity in an astute analysis (TS required) of the annual "Business for Social Responsibility" conference held recently in New York. His piece, titled "The Paradox of Business Do-Gooders" examined the "sexy field" of corporate social responsibility, which, as you know, often falls in the domain of the corporate communications professional.

Mr. Nocera cited a 35-year-old article by economist Milton Friedman entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase its Profits.” He went on to quote some CSR skeptics:

“C.S.R. is a misguided attempt by a subcategory of business managers to deal with the crisis of corporate legitimacy,” said Isaac Post of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Nocera noted:

"...in fact, what initially spurred the modern corporate social responsibility movement was the rise of nonprofit activist groups, which pushed and prodded — and boycotted — companies to force them toward, say, treating workers better in developing countries."

He went on to cite Nike's good work monitoring, then establishing standards for worker conditions in its overseas factories. The Timesman then observes:

"Its customers took comfort in that, and so did its employees. Did it help sales? It’s hard to say. But no one’s complaining that shareholder money is being wasted. That’s what the culture was demanding."

More troubling, in Nocera's mind, was Ford's highly touted "sustainable" initiatives...juxtaposed to the company's robust SUV and truck sales. Sure, Bill Ford is totally earnest about the environment, but did his company's green-ness really have the pistons to get the job done? Could it have more quickly followed Toyota's lead in the hybrid front? Did Ford really make the tough operational decisions that let the environmental rubber meet the road?

"It’s a lot easier to come out against global warming than it is to change, fundamentally, the way you do business," Nocera observed.

In the end, Nocera concludes that external forces, e.g., the public, versus internal forces, tend to drive a company's CSR initiatives:

"If the movement takes that next step — if it really does become about the core business model — it won’t be because corporations have led the way. It will be because the rest of us have."

Right.

PR CSR corporate social responsibility Business for Social Responsibility corporate communications corporate reputation Nike sustainable development Ford Joseph Nocera

Well, at least she didn't dangle a baby from a hotel balcony to impress the paparazzi. Instead, B-lister Denise Richards decided to jettison not one, but two laptops from her balcony beaning two old ladies below.

Her publicist blamed those pesky photogs for the ex Mrs. Charlie Sheen's lunatic moment in Vancouver where she was filming some straight-to-video movie. Pay attention, Naomi.

"Based on the actions of the paparazzi, they are lucky their laptops were the only things that were thrown off the ledge,'' Richards' publicist, Nicole Perez, said in Los Angeles on Thursday. (A prepared statement?)

Maybe Panasonic should enlist the actress in a TV campaign to promote the company's toughbook. Now there's a spot that'll go straight to YouTube giving the tertiary laptop maker a viral shot in the arm!

In typical Hollywood fashion, Ms. Richards (pictured as cyborg above) will likely have succeeded in giving her sleepy career the tawdry boost it needs. Right, Courtney?

PR YouTube Denise Richards Panasonic toughbook laptop Vancouver

As the eyes of the world were focused on the shift-of-power resulting from America's midterm elections, the FT published a piece (subscription required) on the shift-of-power resulting from the citizen journalism and social networking movements.

Sarah Murray opens her piece titled, "When Blogs Put Brands at Risk," with a insidious-sounding quote from PR pioneer Edward Bernays: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society." Gee, don't you hate when that word "manipulation" is used to describe the practice of public relations?

Anyway, Ms. Murray goes on to outline the challenges (and loss of control) faced by the modern PR practitioner in advancing a company's message persona in the age of CGM, MySpace and YouTube. She writes:

"For companies worried about how consumers and activists view their business practices, these new media channels present a fresh challenge, undermining a traditional command-and-control approach to corporate communication and reputation management."

"Public relations post-Gulliver" is how one blogger views the sea change on which Murray reports. My friend and colleague Rob Key of Converseon had this to say:

"It's frightening for companies to think that their reputation is in the hands of third parties but, by definition, it is."

Alice Marshall is less sanguine about the challenges posed to PR pros by the unwieldy and uncontrollable blogosphere:

"If you are running a profitable company you must have happy customers. Some of them are probably blogging about their positive experiences. A check of Technorati may reveal pleasant surprises. Firefox and GMail are two examples of products that benefited from blogger evangelism. PR shouldn't be so afraid of the big bad blogosphere."

"Yet while many companies have policies on how to engage with traditional media and even with blogs..." Murray writes, "...few have any in-house rules covering the kind of instant response required by bloggers and social networks."

"There's a level of vigilance that didn't exist two or three years ago," Converseon's Key observed. "Companies are going to have to continue to be good corporate citizens because if they don't, they'll be called out on it very rapidly."

Murray ends her piece with four pieces of advice for onine managers: "See What's Out There," "Respond Pro-Actively," "Manage Online Conversations," and "Match Rhetoric with Action."

PR weblogs social media command-and-control public relations corporate reputation YouTube MySpace Financial Times Edward Bernays citizen journalism CGM

Predicted here on October 1.

PR Donald Rumsfeld

It's hard to single out one person responsible for yesterday's Democratic "tsunami." After all, conventional wisdom says that voters cast their ballots more in retaliation for this administration's misdeeds, and less in support of some cogently articulated Democratic platform. (Was there one?)

Much of the Dems' success, in my opinion, had less to do with the public embrace of some enticing new political direction and more about the party's new-found ability to fight fire with fire, i.e., against the Republican communications machine -- a sophisticated and nimble operation that made "command and control" of the national media agenda seem so effortless.

This time around, however, it appears that the Dems actually executed on a pre-conceived strategy that involved social media, rapid response, and the effective deployment of surrogates (some almost regretfully). I'm not sure who deserves the full credit.

I imagine the McCurrys, Carvilles and their ilk of the world played stealth roles in this election. But a quick scan of the political folder in my RSS reader points to Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer as the primary architects.

I watched Howard Dean go mano a mano with Chris Matthews, and frankly, the head of the Democratic National Committee didn't seem to have his mojo with him. (I did however like his phrase "culture of corruption.") Nonetheless, it's Chuck and Rahm who merit a round of applause this rainy Wednesday morning after in NYC.

(Now, big agencies, aren't you glad you didn't dismiss your Democratic PA operatives?)

PR Mike McCurry Rahm Emanuel James Carville Mid-term elections public relations politics Chuck Schumer

From the land of the Kiwis, we learn that a local PR agency induced journalists with an all expense paid trip to the greatest city in the world, in exchange for adding the name of its client's new drink, disguised as an adjective, into their stories. Many imbibed the bribe, and that's where the debate started.

Influx Insights reports on the ethical dilemma, which ensnared a local TV reporter. Her news director boss made no bones about his "starkish" feelings: "If she wins that trip, she won't be going," he said.

In fact, a blog dubbed The Starkish Debate is tracking places the word has appeared. "They include a cappuccino topping, advertising for a clothing label and an entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which has since been deleted."

There are some among us who may praise the agency for its creativity and ability to game the digital landscape. (These are the same people who thought Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction was a stroke of PR genius.)

Personally, I think the initial idea is kind of fun. It's the execution thereof that left me high and dry...especially these days when we find ourselves taking it on the chin.

PR weblogs New Zealand Stark public relations starkish astroturfing

With the image and profit-corroding stain of fire-prone laptop batteries finally faded, SONY's PlayStation 3 is poised to make some noise.

The AP moved the first of what will likely be a multitude of stories leading up to the Nov. 17 U.S. debut of the Japanese antidote to Microsoft's XBox 360.

After some face-losing delays, the next-gen Playstation got a boffo send-off from some adolescent gamers in Hawaii this weekend. Gizmodo's on it (from Hungary), as is engadget.

In fact, the buoyant tone-setting AP story, "Sony PlayStation 3 Gets Rave Reviews," also speculates that SONY will fall short on fulfilling consumer demand -- a happenstance driver of the XBox's unprecedented buzz when it was first introduced. (Some believed the production shortfall was intentional.) The AP reports:

"... getting one will be as challenging as finding parking at the mall after Thanksgiving. 'Unfortunately, there are going to be some shortages," [SCEA chief executive] Hirai said in an interview. "I ask for everybody's patience. We are pedal to the metal in terms of trying to get as many units as possible into both the Japanese and American market.'"

Even with a projected console shortfall, SONY's PS3's U.S. advertising already has kicked in. (Screen grab above.) SONY Consumer Electronics also issued a warning to consumers to avoid pre-ordering the PS3 from unauthorized retailers. Most of the other news from SCEA revolves around PS3 software (40 titles to be exact).

With XBox 360 now in stores, Nintendo Wii slated for a U.S. debut December 8, and PS3 bowing here ten days from Election Day, that furry red T.M.X. Elmo will have his PR work cut out for him this holiday shopping season.

PR SONY Playstation 3 XBox 360 Nintendo Wii T.M.X. Elmo

If there ever was a reason to subscribe to TimesSelect, here is Tom Friedman's column from Friday's New York Times:

Insulting Our Troops, and Our Intelligence

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to the U.S. military than to send it into combat in Iraq without enough men — to launch an invasion of a foreign country not by the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, but by the Rumsfeld Doctrine of just enough troops to lose? What could be a bigger insult than that?

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than sending them off to war without the proper equipment, so that some soldiers in the field were left to buy their own body armor and to retrofit their own jeeps with scrap metal so that roadside bombs in Iraq would only maim them for life and not kill them? And what could be more injurious and insulting than Don Rumsfeld’s response to criticism that he sent our troops off in haste and unprepared: Hey, you go to war with the army you’ve got — get over it.

What could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in uniform than to send them off to war in Iraq without any coherent postwar plan for political reconstruction there, so that the U.S. military has had to assume not only security responsibilities for all of Iraq but the political rebuilding as well? The Bush team has created a veritable library of military histories — from “Cobra II” to “Fiasco” to “State of Denial” — all of which contain the same damning conclusion offered by the very soldiers and officers who fought this war: This administration never had a plan for the morning after, and we’ve been making it up — and paying the price — ever since.

And what could possibly be more injurious and insulting to our men and women in Iraq than to send them off to war and then go out and finance the very people they’re fighting against with our gluttonous consumption of oil? Sure, George Bush told us we’re addicted to oil, but he has not done one single significant thing — demanded higher mileage standards from Detroit, imposed a gasoline tax or even used the bully pulpit of the White House to drive conservation — to end that addiction. So we continue to finance the U.S. military with our tax dollars, while we finance Iran, Syria, Wahhabi mosques and Al Qaeda madrassas with our energy purchases.

Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. That is the kind of genius Karl Rove is. He is not a man who has designed a strategy to reunite our country around an agenda of renewal for the 21st century — to bring out the best in us. His “genius” is taking some irrelevant aside by John Kerry and twisting it to bring out the worst in us, so you will ignore the mess that the Bush team has visited on this country.

And Karl Rove has succeeded at that in the past because he was sure that he could sell just enough Bush cigarettes, even though people knew they caused cancer. Please, please, for our country’s health, prove him wrong this time.

Let Karl know that you’re not stupid. Let him know that you know that the most patriotic thing to do in this election is to vote against an administration that has — through sheer incompetence — brought us to a point in Iraq that was not inevitable but is now unwinnable.

Let Karl know that you think this is a critical election, because you know as a citizen that if the Bush team can behave with the level of deadly incompetence it has exhibited in Iraq — and then get away with it by holding on to the House and the Senate — it means our country has become a banana republic. It means our democracy is in tatters because it is so gerrymandered, so polluted by money, and so divided by professional political hacks that we can no longer hold the ruling party to account.

It means we’re as stupid as Karl thinks we are.

I, for one, don’t think we’re that stupid. Next Tuesday we’ll see.

TimesSelect Thomas Friedman Mid-term Elections Iraq The New York Times

Last month, this blog cited the always citable Mark Cuban about the copyright-challenged YouTube. I think he said at a New York advertising conference that "anyone who buys that (YouTube) is a moron" because of potential lawsuits from copyright violations. (He later took a moment to add his comments to this blog.)

Well, we all know what happened next. The $1.65 billion deal of the decade, notwithstanding, Mr. Cuban's assertions still hung out there. Pretty soon YouTube ramped up the PR with a string of joint news releases with the major content providers partially paving over the litigious road ahead.

One related announcement had YouTube agreeing to remove all of Comedy Central's content from the site...or so we thought. My clued-in colleague Colin just informed me that the much-ballyhooed announcement had no clothes. With 300+ Diggs, Jon Stewart lives again on the video site.

Some clever alphabetical manipulators took a page from the purveyors of V!ag5a to sidestep YouTube's filters and give Mr. Stewart the second life he deserves.

I just hope that Diebold's voting machines are not as susceptible come this Tuesday. Good weekend, everyone.

PR YouTube Mark Cuban Comedy Central Diebold Jon Stewart Google copyright

A bevy of branding pundits, including my old friend and former WPP colleague Allen Adamson, weighed in yesterday on the timing for Citgo's advertorial campaign following the Venezuelan-owned company's "crisis" involving one Hugo Chavez. New York Times scribe Claudia Deutsch opened her piece by posing the following:

WHEN a potentially image-destroying event occurs in the middle of an image-building campaign, what should a company do? Ignore it? Concentrate on it exclusively? Or address it briefly, then go back to image building?

What intrigued me was her choice of branding consultants, not crisis PR experts, to wax poetic on the timing and tenor of the Citgo paid advertorial, and continuance of its corporate posititioning campaign. I guess when the word branding enters the mix, we PR people are left at the altar in spite of our presumed competency for addressing such communications challenges.

In seeing Claudia's must-read (for PR pos) piece yesterday, my thoughts strangely turned to the Dixie Chicks. Huh? From Hugo Chavez to the Dixie Chicks? Well, if you remember, the top-selling female musical group also hit a rather large bump in the road...tour.

Getting past the day-to-day death threats and public statements designed to quell the red state, Limbaugh-fueled, anti-American attack on these musical artists, someone insightfully decided to document the un-Democratic debacle. That filmed documentary, "Shut Up & Sing," just opened to positive reviews. (Did you know Gregory Peck's daughter Cecilia is co-producer?)

In both cases, the beleaguered encountered an editorial filter that prevented their respective messages from reaching the public. Both resorted to controlled, albeit more costly, communications tactics to reap vindication in the court of public opinion -- via a full-page advertorial and a documentary.

Ironically, the advertisements for the Weinstein Company's film chronicling the Chicks' plight have been rejected by NBC and others. (Maybe a full-page newspaper advertorial would fly?)

PR branding Citgo Hugo Chavez campaign spending public relations Dixie Chicks Weinstein Company crisis management Cecilia Peck advertorial

If you're still not convinced of the sea change that's upon us in the way consumers parse and consume news, look no further than the who's who who have invested in Daylife, a new "distributed news platform" whose:

"...mission is to gather and organize news in ways that are most relevant to the user. That could be by event, topic, author, geography or other factors. Source pages that show what a journalist writes about or who is quoted are part of the mix. RSS plays an important role."

The New York Times Co. is the lead investor, but you also have The Huffington Post, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, MeetUp's Scott Heiferman, former Time Warner corp. comm. consigliere, Huffington Post co-founder and RLM namesake Ken Lerer, Craig's List's Craig, and bold-face named advisors like Dave Winer, Jeff Jarvis and many others leading the Web 2.0 revolution. The service was founded by Firefly co-founder Upendra Shardanand.

Daylife's PR advisors have given the intrepid Staci Kramer of Paid Content first dibs, e.g., the exclusive on the news in advance of Monday's expected "soft" announcement. With PaidContent's mover & shaker audience of media moguls and media wannabes, we are assured that Daylife will see the life of day next week following its initial blogospheric buzz.

Shardanand expects Daylife to apply his collaborative filtering ways to the news biz in a similar fashion to how his Firefly Networks helped consumers discover music and eventually movies, websites and communities. Staci observes: "He sees opportunities in news because it hasn't evolved as much technologically as areas like e-commerce." (Gee, I wonder if my New York Times has been delivered yet.)

PR Daylife New York Times Co. Huffington Post Craig Newmark TechCrunch Michael Arrington Dave Winer Upendra Shardanand MeetUp Jeff Jarvis journalism media Staci Kramer paidcontent