Monitoring the Car Conversation

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Talking cars. My new car has a six-month trial subscription to Sirius. On long drives - like those visiting the boys at college - we usually scan the dial and almost invariably end up on NPR Now. Of all the shows on that most civilized network, I gotta say that it's Tom and Ray whom we find the most entertaining.

Who? The Magliozzi brothers of Bahston (pictured). You know, "Car Talk!" These guys are authentic and naturally hilarious with impeccable timing. They also have a syndicated newspaper column, which brings me to the subject of today's post.

The column tomorrow (Friday) in the Seattle PI advises a woman who wrote them to rant about her 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan -- the one on which both sliding doors literally "fell off," i.e., became completely unhinged within a month of one another. Toyota customer service refused to cover the repairs (except for parts).

In their column titled "Car Talk: A little publicity just might get Toyota to fix Sienna doors," the twin-turboed talkers advised their new pen pal as follows:

Tom: Well, I'd suggest you write to a couple of newspaper columnists and see if you can get them to print your letter, Kate.

Ray: Yeah. I can't imagine that Toyota would want to squander its worldwide reputation for quality over a couple of underdesigned door hinges. I mean, do you think Toyota wants the word out that its doors are falling off after 28,000 miles?

And you know what, Kate? I'll do my Jarvis-like part by posting on your delinquent door dilemma, but take it one step further. On Monday, I'm moderating a panel with Bruce Ertmann, Corporate Manager, Consumer Generated Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. He's skedded to present:

"Harnessing the Power of User Generated Media at Toyota Motor Company," a case study on the "...lessons learned about how one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world embraces consumer generated media as an important part of its overall branding and communications strategy."

I think I'll mention your predicament (and Tom & Ray's column on it). Come to think of it, if he's doing his job, he'll likely see this RSS-fueled post even before we have a chance to meet. I'll even add a tag for Toyota Sienna to make it easier to find.

Below the Belt

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The WashPost's Gene Weingarten is up to his old PR-bashing ways. No. He didn't publish the e-mail addresses of those he intends to blackball for lobbing misguided story pitches his way.

He simply and quite understandably pointed out how inane and "lazy" (to borrow a term from our long-tailed friend) some PR pros can be.

He opens his most amusing, (though not for some of you) "Below the Beltway" Sunday column , via BL , as follows:

Whenever I check my office voice mail, I have to spend the first 15 minutes deleting messages. They all sound pretty much the same:

"Hi! This is Amber McChippie of Ernest N. Forthright Communications, and I was just following up on an e-mail I sent you about our client's intriguing new book, Squat-Thrust Your Way to Inner Peace and Firmer Abs, and . . ."

(star-D)

"Hi! This is Madison Rosenblatt-Gonzalez of Constance Naggington Communications, and I was just following up on an e-mail I sent you about our client's exciting new line of kangaroo--themed party bunting, and . . ."

(star-D)

"Hi! This is Heather . . ."

(star-D)

Mr. Weingarten attributes the barrage of misguided queries to the fact that one of the media database companies lists him as a "lifestyle" reporter. Imagine his glee when that database company called to offer a chance to elaborate on what he really does at The Post? Here's how he began:

Q: What are your beats?

A: My primary responsibility is to savagely attack the quality of retail products and services. I rely on initial cold-call contacts from PR professionals to select which companies I will attempt to bankrupt through unfair reporting techniques leading to shockingly unfounded criticism...

Gene, thanks for the wake up call. Maybe one day you'll make honest brokers out of all of us.

Old and New Media

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Two related items today: one new, the other old, but still fresh. Who hasn't heard of Kindle? If you answered in the affirmative, go back to Bulgaria. Truth is: the PR folks at a resurgent (buzzworthy) Amazon did a fine job to get the word out on the company's new book, blog and periodical electronic reading tablet.

(There's just something about how a mainstream exclusive with Newsweek's Steven Levy, alongside some live blogging of a Jobsian-like launch event can kindle a viral flame.)

Now that the fire is 25% contained, we enter the post-intro phase of Kindle's boffo debut, namely, Robert Scoble's less-than-effusive (though perhaps nit-picky) video review, which I stumbed across from a twitter post by Jeremiah Owayang pasted onto the blog of client Aaron Strout of Mzinga (formerly Shared Insights).

Here's a sound bite from Scoble's post that unequivocally sums up his impression:

"Whoever designed this device should be fired, and fired now."

(Hint: it has a little something to do with ergonomics and networkability, for starters.)

Moving on, we turn to David Carr's very relatable column in today's New York Times in which the astute observer of all things media extols the virtues of a, God forbid, weekly print magazine. Not just any magazine, but The Week, on which this blogger waxed poetic nearly two years ago.

The editors of The Week aggregate and publish on paper their take on the week's most important news and feature stories culled from a range of respected journalistic sources. At a time when the media powers-that-be are extending their brands online to hedge the offline migration of ad dollars, The Week's formula apparently has struck a resonant chord:

"A success in Britain, the American version of The Week has posted double-digit growth in the last eight reporting periods of the Audit Bureau of Circulations. It has hit a nerve, coming at a time when the familiar American newsweeklies are struggling to maintain their footprint. Newsweek, for example, announced this month that it was cutting almost a fifth of its circulation, dropping its rate base from 3.1 million to 2.6 million."

In pondering the incongruity of it all, I turn back to Kindle. Can an A-list blogger with loads of online tentacles snatch the wind from Kindle's sails that have been propelled by headlines like this one from ABCNews.com:

"Will Kindle Be the Next iPod? A Digital Book Reader From Amazon.com Has the Potential to Create a New Market."

Can traditional magazine publishers learn a thing or two from The Week's aggregated approach to paper publishing? (Think print versions of CondeNet or Pathfinder, may it rest in peace.)

Finally, that $399 thing that Scoble's holding in his hands doesn't inspire me either.

PR for Lori Drew?

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Tooling around the Web this weekend, I stumbled across this curious item that quoted my left coast friend and sometimes PR collaborator Howard Bragman of 15 Minutes fame.

Apparently, the editorial minds at Radar thought it would be a good idea to pose a "how would you handle" scenario to the Hollywood hypemaster.

Unfortunately the prospective beneficiary of Howard's wisdom happens to be the sicko Mom in Ohio who posed on MySpace as a 16-yr-old paramour to an impressionable 13-year-old girl, an ex-friend to her daughter. That young girl took her own life after learning the faux teen's true identity. There should be a law against cyber-bullying.

Does Radar think that PR can restore a semblance of civility to this warped woman, and which firm would consider even repping her, other than perhaps this one? Maybe someone should position the mother as the victim of online vigilantism? Howard offered up this correct, if not understated observation:

"A lot of times when people have problems, they perceive them to be PR problems, but they're not. They're life problems. This family has life problems."

Frankly, there are so many other more important and provocative PR peccadilloes percolating in the online conversation this weekend. Among them:

-- How can Hillary overcome her perceived "command & control" ways for the benefit of the voting populace (and her candidacy)?

-- What PR advantage does a terrorist-backing state like Syria hope to gain by participating in a U.S.-led Mideast summit...in Maryland? Come to think of it, how will this administration milk it?

-- How much truth is there in the class action claim that the world's biggest-selling video game actually causes damage to the machine on which it was designed to play?

Put these in your PR pipe and puff on them for a while. As for Lori Drew, she should crawl back into the anonymous hole from which she emerged...if the tough online crowd will let her.

Two Vids with the Social Media Trimmings

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As we head into this weekend's gorgefest, gorge on these:

My Space (pointed to by Corante's Francois Gossieaux on Twitter via Facebook)

Who's Your Favorite New Media... (from Scoble via Pete Cashmore of Mashable)

Happy Thanksgiving.

Stuck in the PR Past

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In taking the microphone at the Council of PR Firms' recent Critical Issues Forum, co-hosted by Ketchum's Rob Flaherty and Council prexy Kathy Cripps, I had hoped to balance the reality of agency existence with its social media aspirations.

In a nutshell, the industry, including the largest independent, remains possessed, if not hunkered down by the practice of generating ink and airtime for clients. And it's not necessarily the digital variety. MSM faves like The Wall Street Journal, NBC "Today" and Newsweek still hold considerable clout when it comes to how clients (and agency management) assess the worth of their hired hands.

Media "placements" still drive, if not validate our industry's raison d'etre. They produce industry awards. Clients crave (and pay handsomely for) them. And our success by-and-large continues to be measured by this age-old deliverable. Is it right? Does it jibe with the times? Is it changing? Is it changing fast enough? Does it even need to change?

I had hoped to make an impression (forgive me) on that esteemed gathering of agency leaders by inspiring a re-think of how clients measure our output. After all, what happens when the old media guard no longer has the juice to drive sales, stock price or reputation? Will clients still see the value in our product offering?

One would think that the accelerating mass fragmentation of news/info/entertainment media, coupled with a new generation of media consumers, changes the formula, right? Sadly, not yet. What's worse, our sibs in advertising have an habitual upper hand. Their clients have never measured their agencies' performance based solely on the breaking of an ad execution. They've always had quants to assess their effectiveness.

As an industry, we need to more quickly embrace a measurement standard that looks at how our efforts produce qualified leads, measured perceptual change, stock price increases, etc. The days of quantifying media impressions are numbered. Qualified impressions, however, along with SEM, SEO, a comfortable home in that book of faces, magnetic digital content, etc. are ascending.

My buddy Howard Bailen pointed me to a curious piece out of Australia in which a mainstream tech journalist lost his job because his offline product reviews didn't generate enough online clicks. Will we, as an industry, soon follow the same fate?

YouTube Killers

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Who hasn't come to the conclusion that digital video - whether delivered to your desktop, laptop, PDA or cell phone -- is entering a Renaissance? Was it that proclamation from NBCUni's digital honcho Beth Comstock who, as a former communications pro, inspires PR types everywhere:

“Video has been liberated" [from the TV set].

I had mentioned in a tweet last week that I was "invited" to participate in a "private beta" test of Hulu.com, NBCUni and NewsCorp's much-heralded entry into the YouTube-killing category. Sure, me and millions of others.

I do however like the service. It's got a clean GUI, and the resolution of the videos, full-screen included, is excellent. (But then again, it could be my new 20" iMac.) The selection, however, was relatively sparse, but episodes of "The Office" and "Family Guy," pleased my 15-year-old. I was sucked in by one of my all-time favorite flicks, Steve Martin's "The Jerk." The content offering is sure to grow.

In grazing some of the digitally minded media sites this morning, a number of cool-sounding (or at least cool-sounding in the eyes of their corporate branding specialists), stealthy big-branded-backed video hosting sites surfaced. Among them:

Fora.TV - Andy Plesser's (of Beet.TV fame) reported for AlwaysOn on Fora.TV, "the thinking person's YouTube as also covered by TechCrunch's Erick Shonfeld. I want my Fauna TV.

VBS.TV - Then there was The Times profile of the grittier VBS.TV, in which MTV/Viacom is an investor. Tom, is this the boat you allegedly missed?

Current.TV - The AP reports that Al Gore will be honored at the International Emmy Awards. Current.TV, also one of my faves, figures quite favorably.

Crackle - I caught ClickZ's report on SONY's Crackle, formerly knows as Grouper, in which the video site's efforts to line-up advertising bode well for the re-made site.

I can't keep up, and I didn't even check out NewTeeVee. Life was once so simple, Rocketbottom, Blip.TV, and Revver.

Media Control

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Rather than properly preparing their executive to deal with the most expected of questions, the Starbucks-fueled Apple PR staff swarms on the unassuming British TV reporter, with cameras still rolling, to demand a journalistic detour under the snarky threat of postponing the interview altogether, e.g., "we're very busy today."

The folks at Gizmodo titled their video post "Apple Resists the Hard Questions with PR Force Field."

What's surprising is that the executive in question, Phil Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing (pictured), looked like a deer in the headlights when the reporter asked him about the iPod and iTunes duopoly. I mean is this a question that hasn't come up previously?

No matter. When it did, he simply gave his handlers the "gee I didn't expect this" look, a signal for them to physically insert themselves between himself and the inquiring journalist.

Phil, a simple acknowledgment and lighthearted quip like "Sure. iPod and iTunes have the dominant market share because those that use them love them. They're simply great products. And sure, they go together like peanut butter and jelly."

Clearly, your PR staff could have armed you with something better than, "give us the nod and we'll give him the boot!"

The PR Architect

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Buried in Keith Kelly's column today we find the following squib amidst the news of Patricia Duff's party for Fats Domino last Friday at Michael's where the ubiquitous Mel Brooks made a brief appearance:

"In a far corner sat the Rubensteins, Howard and son Steve, chatting with architect Frank Ghery [sic]."

More on that in a moment.

This was just another gathering of media & entertainment movers & shakers at Michael's, a restaurant that's giving Elaine's, and perhaps even The Four Seasons, a run for the money. I'm told that even my very first boss Bobby Zarem who keeps Elaine's name boldfaced in the columns, is now a regular at the West 55th Street spot. Meanwhile, our bi-monthly men's lunch, which played host to one esteemed media reporter for The New Yorker, was moved to the Country Club. (Geesh. I'm hoping that's short-lived, but admittedly things could have been worse.)

Getting back to the Rubensteins public meeting with the esteemed Mr. Gehry. You mean you didn't hear? Mr. Gehry is being sued for negligence by MIT for "flaws in his design of the $300 million Stata Center in Cambridge." Design flaws that allegedly "caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up."

Maybe I'm misreading this, but do you remember the scene in "Working Girl" where Melanie Griffith reveals how she conceived the idea for Trask Radio? (Hint: a New York Post gossip item.) Well, reading Keith's column today, one has to wonder whether Messrs. Rubenstein have a new client in Mr. Gehry.

What I'm wondering is what's the purpose of meeting in such a media hotspot? Does the fact that Mr. Gehry has retained HJR to restore his good name speed the restoration process? Last year, I took one big agency to task for agreeing to sit for a lengthy New Yorker feature focused on the firm's work for its very controversial client.

And then this week there was Portfolio's pseudonymous Jack Flack pointing to a Business Week profile of another self-aggrandizing brash agency head who's finally being outed as the self-promoter he is. In it, the reporter re-plays one client's take: "I saw more press releases on him than any work for my firm."

Look, I don't think there's anything wrong with listing your clients on your website - with permission of course. And frankly, some clients feel that hiring a name-brand agency can lead to greater legitimacy. But, as a rule, I believe it's a good idea to step away from the Poltergeist spotlight to let your client stand front and center.

And then again, maybe I've misread the Post item altogether. For all I know, the quintessential NY PR man is actually retaining Mr. Gehry for some design work, or the two simply are fans of Fats Domino. Nah.

Birthday Bashed

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As our industry redefines itself to capitalize on two seminal changes/disruptions affecting all -- the mass migration to digital media consumption and the mass empowerment of consumers as media producers -- a great many people still equate pubic relations with event management and party planning.

The portrayal of PR in popular culture serves to feed this all-too-common perception. Have you ever caught that vacuous TV program "The Hills" on which the Prada-wearing devil wannabes at Teen Vogue push around their publicity interns, or its equally mindless forerunner on the same network, "PoweRGirls," in which Lizzie Grubman and company party-hopped under the guise of our profession? Trust me: neither are worth the Tivo time.

Nonetheless, the media event still playa an important role for garnering attention from the filter. Who can argue with the success of Steve Jobs's periodic on-stage performances? Just count the breathless media bi-product each one produces.

Still, it's one thing to look at the iPhone for the first time, and quite another to watch some bold-faced names mingle to mark the anniversary of a magazine. Did any of you see the coverage from the 150th anniversary celebration of The Atlantic magazine? Having worked on the 100th anniversary of the Ochs-Sulzberger family ownership of The New York Times, and the 150th anniversary of The Associated Press, I had to wonder what the organizers were thinking when they chose this format to mark the venerable magazine's sesquitennial.

In a nutshell, the media-worthy guests took the stage at an NYU venue, while all other attendees were relegated to star-gazing status from the theatre-style seats to watch the partyers mingle. Huh? Gawker exclaimed: "The Atlantic' Attempts a New York Party, Bombs."

"In a striking display of awful judgment, the VIPs (Arianna Huffington, Moby, the Mayor) were allowed (forced) to mingle on stage. The poors sat in chairs in the auditorium and watched."

New York magazine, which under Adam Moss's steerage is relevant again, had this to say: "The ‘Atlantic’ 150th-Anniversary Party: A Play in One Act."

"The curtain rises on an empty stage, set with just one large circular bar in the center, manned by four bartenders dressed in black. The house is empty, so the hundreds of red velvet chairs cast an eerie crimson glow on to the party. Revelers drift in, including the writer Tom Wolfe, Amanda Burden, Moby, P.J. O'Rourke and Atlantic editors."

Even The New York Times was puzzled:

"The event — part cocktail party, part panel, part concert, part performance art — seemed a bit puzzling, even to some of the hosts."

Much of what we do in PR comes down to instincts: what is right and what is wrong. Clearly putting the noteworthies on stage for the rest to gawk at could not have possibly seemed like a good idea. In deference to the PR people, maybe the magazine chose one of those faux-PR, marketing promotion shops that creates "media events," but have little understanding of journalistic peccadillos? Happy birthday, Atlantic.

Control & Authenticity

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At least she didn't plant reporters in the audience. (Think Gannon and FEMA.) As I ponder the early salvos of the swift-boating of Hillary Clinton, I implore her PR handlers to take extra caution in the conduct of her campaign.

Over the weekend, my right-of-center buddy Ike gleefully twittered this left-of-center blogger with the "news" of an indiscretion by the Iowan campaign of America's would-be first female President.

To be honest, it scared me. No, not Ike's twitter, but rather the carelessness of the candidate's consiglieres in trying to astroturf her message. Don't they know that even the slightest, most meaningless misstep can spell doom for their candidate?

The widely reported gaffe was especially alarming given my personal and political conviction that she is the most qualified candidate of the whole bunch. Her handlers, in their quest to manage the message, handed her salivating antagonists, including Sen. Edwards, the talking point they crave: Mrs. Clinton is inauthentic and calculating.

This is not the first time this blogger has raised a red flag about her campaign's public obsession with control and how its prominence is certain to have a deleterious effect on the electorate.

My advice to the campaign PR staff: let Hillary be Hillary. Sure, you can keep your control, but do not let it interfere with her authenticity. Trust me. It's possible. I met her briefly and she was exceedingly warm and engaging. Help her surface that aspect of her being.

The voting public, and the media it consumes, bristle at the notion of being spun. If the misstep in Iowa isn't an early wake-up call, then just ponder how swiftly John Kerry's canned antics sunk his boat.

PR's Great Expectations

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Stopped in to Brightwaters at the South Street Seaport this morning to take part in the second annual Council of PR Firms-sponsored Critical Issues Forum.

With the Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop, the 100+ "who's who" agency dwellers were treated to four speakers including former CBS News prexy Andrew Heyward, IBM's SVP, communications Jon Iwata, Pete Blackshaw, formerly of Intelliseek now EVP of Nielsen Line Strategic Services, and luncheon keynote and best-selling author Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller and Hillary strategist (in which order, I don't know).

Harvard B School professor and Marketspace chairman Jeffrey Rayport moderated the event with aplomb. He kicked it off with some eye-opening metrics, some of which I Twittered via my Blackberry. He said that digital media now comprises 35% of consumers' worldwide media consumption, yet only 7% of companies' marketing budgets are allocated to the digital space. (eMarketer expects that number to increase to 10% by next year.) Still a huge gap, representing an even huger opportunity for those in the e-marketing space.

He also said that the four "portals" (I'm dating myself) - AOL, MSN, Google and Yahoo - have a 92% share of gross ad dollars, and that's growing, bolstered by some $15 billion in M&A deals in the online advertising and analytics space over the last year. Finally he shared yearly page-view growth rates of some online favorites: portals, roughly 8% year; entertainment sites, 21% a year, and...ta da, Facebook 240+%. Make room, he predicted, for a new online conglomerate to displace the old.

Rayport reminisced about Marc Zuckerberg's rejection of an offer that would have valued the online community in the $900 million range. Enter Microsoft a year or so later, and we're now talking a $15 billion valuation. This may even be a low ball.

I had a chance to talk privately with former CBS prexy Heyward about the state of media and journalism. One question, and he was off to the races. Here's the audio clip (RT: 5:04). Ketchum CEO and incoming Council chairman Ray Kotcher also was on hand. He had this to say (RT: 6:41) about the brave new world that lies ahead and our industry's great expectations.

Incestuous Interplay

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Do you think Todd Defren will ever break free from his character in Seinfeld to assert his broader industry wherewithal? I do. Defren, best known for getting PR tongues-a-wagging with his social media news release, is more versatile than the SMNR-saddled character with which he's most closely associated.

In his blog post today, Todd astutely derides firms for isolating their social media practice from the rank and file.

"I think it's a mistake to separate your so-called Social Media specialists from the rest of your agency PR staffers. If anything it is more critical than ever for our industry to hve a holistic perspective on the ever-more incestuous interplay of Social Media and Mainstream media."

In fact, at a recent industry conference, I was told that the firm mainly credited with turbo-charging the social media revolution actually has many naysayers within its ranks (i.e., "the majority"). "There are two camps," it was explained. "Some buy into it, others reject it outright. It's a real war."

From a media perspective, however, there's no denying the "incestuous interplay" to which Todd alludes. Nicco Mele, Howard Dean's former digital media strategist who clients currently include Rosie (we forgive him) and others hoping to build a digital voice, recently quipped that one day there will be no dominant media brands -- just thousand, millions of specialty outlets appealing to every possible interest.

So while the mainstream media grows increasingly agnostic about the medium(s) in which their content is accessed, a myriad new voices sprout every day seeking discovery (and self-aggrandizing) attention. As for the current practice of dividing PR people into two distinct camps -- traditionalists and new media specialists -- those days will (should) soon be over.

The Buzz on Jessica

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At first blush, it appeared that The New York Times was poised to pull an Alessandra Stanley/Katie Couric trashing of the former Jessica Sklar (aka Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld).

Today's piece opened with a list of allegations that included plagiarism, a soleful bribe of Oprah, and entrapment that resulted in Ms. Sklar landing TV's most successful funny man as husband shortly after the ink dried on her pre-nup with her first husband. The Times's Allen Salkin snarkily writes:

"Together such factoids add up to an image of a woman people find easy to disparage."

I thought to myself: why would the successful and seemingly grounded Mom of three -- who donates her little free time to a charity she founded to help NY area children -- agree to replay all this unfortunate innuendo in her hometown newspaper? Leave well enough alone many PR consiglieres might argue.

On the other hand, when falsehoods refuse to fade away, many PR types are quick to advise their clients to take definitive action to set the record straight. The big determination, of course, is which outlet (and which reporter) will give one's beleaguered client the fairest (most sympatico) shake? ET? People? Barbara Walters? The New York Times?

In this case, Ms. Seinfeld's handlers, whom we presume are reasonably PR savvy, chose the newspaper of record, The New York Times, to tell her side of the story. Ms. Seinfeld would "begrudgingly" avail herself to a rare interview and a subsequent email exchange. The result is a Times-like balanced piece in which the beginning enumerates all the "wrongs" allegedly committed by Ms. Seinfeld.

The second half of the story, most of which unfortunately appeared after the jump, captures Ms. Seinfeld's heartfelt voice and quite plausible explanation of each sticky situation.

"Journalists get a lot of pleasure making me or someone in a situation like mine seem like god-awful people, and that’s always been the assumption about me," Ms. Seinfeld said.

In the end, Ms Seinfeld did a genuinely fine job in making her case.

One problem: the allegations, which already were quickly fading from the public eye, are now firmly back on the radar of Times readers and beyond, many of whom had no cognizance of them in the first place.

Sure, having an intelligent and articulate newsmaker going toe-to-toe with a pre-disposed journalist is a wonderful PR asset. On the other hand, the 24/7 news cycle and an increasingly fickle (and forgetful) news consumer no longer necessitates the newsmaker's deployment. Uncomfortable stories simply fade faster today than at any other time in history. (Gee, what was it that Britney did anyway?)

Secondly, and not insignificantly, Ms. Seinfled might have considered skipping Mr. Salkind and The Times (and the unpleasantless of this story). She could have published her point-of-view online and in multiple mediums direct to the media consumer, thus bypassing the media filter altogether. Just a thought.

Mario!

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So it's only a blog. Big deal if it was left in the lurch or not recognized as a bona fide media outlet by the PR person in charge. Makes no difference that the outlet has a super-charged Technorati Authority ranking of 2842, (e.g., #285 out of 100 million+ blogs):

"'Well, these people are journalists,' she said patronizingly (apparently she didn't see the three separate media badges hanging around our necks). 'It's better for him to talk to a group of people rather than only being able to spend time with them one by one.' Better for whom? All the while, the grumblings amongst the Mario fans were getting louder."

This is the recount from Gawker Media's turbo-powered Jalopnik blog for motorheads, I mean automotive enthusiasts. Apparently, a group of journos were baited for a spin around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway with legendary Mario Andretti, then switched due to poor PR planning. The result was this headline: "Mario Andretti and a PR Flim-Flam at Las Vegas Motor Speedway."

"After more than 20 minutes of listening to others' idle chit-chat (and no driving), we got up the gumption to ask Mr. Andretti if he was going to drive us around the race track, to which he shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'I do what they tell me to do.'

In the end, the writer wryly noted:

"We still admire and venerate Mario Andretti. But his PR people, at least this time, ended up doing more harm than good. But, oh - they made sure each one of us got a press kit before we left. "

Just doing their jobs.

Chris Anderson: Unplugged

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Lots of fallout from Chris Anderson's (anti) publicity ploy earlier this week. Some of the more notable reactions:

-- The Guardian "Is Wired's Chris Anderson Right to Out Lazy PR Spammers?"

-- From Brian Solis: "Dear Chris Anderson, an Open Letter to Make Things Right..."

-- And one inimitable PR veteran's private (now public) exhortation:

"Who wants to write the retort about above-it-all, lazy, narrowminded reporters and editors who call at 5:30 pm "on deadline" demanding the CEO, treat facts as optional, know their ultimate story before they do the interview, and have lost touch with everything but their overinflated egos.

Homework assignment: that, and each of you not on Chris's list needs to send him a completely irrelevant pitch. I'm personally going to see if he wants to cover five easy ways to bake scrmptious chocoate chip cookies for the holidays."

-- And my personal favorite, from Silicon Valley Insider titled "PR Shops in Flame War," which captured snippets of the battle brewing between the firm that had more emails on Chris's blacklist per capita than any other, and another that had none. (This blogger subtly flagged the offending firm in his original post on Tuesday.

Many more observations on this subject linked to in Brian Solis's post.