• 

• Categories

  • Blogs (67)
  • Business (223)
    • Marketing Public Relations (28)
    • Public Relations practice (89)
  • Celebrity (47)
  • Corporates (78)
  • Government (50)
  • Media (80)
  • Online (121)
    • Internet Public Relations (81)
  • Politics (34)
  • PR Disasters (182)
    • Botched PR jobs (40)
    • Naughty Public Relations agencies (31)
  • Public Relations (198)
    • Campaigns (21)
    • Firms (45)
    • Services (34)
  • Public Speaking (49)
  • Site News (1)
  • Sport (18)
  • Technology (93)
  • Top Spins (3)

• Buy Talespin

  • Buy Talespin from Amazon UK
  • Buy Talespin from Amazon US
  • Buy Talespin from Dymocks AU

• More blogs to read

  • Andy Lark
  • Constantin Basturea
  • James Horton
  • Kevin Dugan
  • Lee Hopkins
  • Mark Borkowski
  • Media Orchard
  • Paull Young
  • Peter Himler
  • Philip Young
  • Richard Edelman
  • Shel Holtz
  • The Friendly Ghost
  • The Media Hunter
  • Todd Defren
  • Tom Murphy
  • Trevor Cook

Out of San Diego, a little report on some nice public speaking touches from the world’s seemingly favourite ‘kicking boy’. Whether they were original or scripted, he still delivered them nicely.

Earlier this week in the Fin Review, Neil Shoebridge wrote interestingly about a Grey Advertising/Sweeney Research study showing the qualities that make a brand great include; trustworthy, honest, best quality and reliability. (Sorry, can’t link cos it’s not online.) It seems that more than 60% of Aussie consumers want brands they can trust and perceive to be honest, Neil says. But less than 40% polled in the report said they could trust big business, and 60% said they’d sooner trust a small business. Interesting when we look at this week’s crop of PR disasters- Ribena and Microsoft journalist dossiers - and look at the role trust plays in these situations. QUESTION; is trust a wholly negotiable quality? I mean, these consumers say they want ‘trust’, but will they stop drinking blackcurrant drinks or switch to Apple because of questionable corporate behaviour? Course they won’t, which suggests that it’s dangerous to read too much into survey results; answering questions on paper is easier than making changes to your own consumerist behaviour, isn’t it? Just to add a few throwaway stats in finishing, 67% believe that big business - not individuals - need to take the lead in finding environmental solutions, and 15% said that blogs were reliable sources of information (now there’s a stat we need to believe!!)

A few weeks back, Trev Cook highlighted Sydney shock jock Alan Jones’ interviewing technique. Now, research by University of Queensland academic Graeme Turner spotlights how AJ’s particular style - including message and sound bite repetition, memorable mnemonics and tactics bordering on propaganda dissemination - show there’s at least as much spin as substance in Jones’ broadcasts. Tarred and marred by earlier implications in ‘cash-for-comment’ rows, the study again calls into question the role of media personalities like Alan Jones as spinners/spruikers; makes a change from PRs, I suppose.

After hearing the title track from his new album on Saturday afternoon radio, dragged Jarmy and Davo along to see Chris Smither at the Corner Hotel in Richmond last night. Somewhere in the bluegrass/blues/country/folk territory, Chris’ concert was quite brilliant; his ace fingerpickin’ at times sounded like 2 or 3 guitarists and his voice - as dry as a grit-encrusted hard shoulder - was full of pained emotion. His between song patois, was a contrastingly light tone, too. Grabbed an album from the merch stand, and played it b4 work this morning. Thanks Chris; right up there with the Gillian Welsh concert here some two years back. Check the album out here.

‘Larry Liebena’ - courtesy of Robert Fiddaman. ‘Full of Vitamin Bullshit’, the caption reads.
“If it hadn’t been for those pesky kids!” Like the plot from an old Scooby Doo cartoon, GlaxoSmithKline has found itself in the middle of an unseemly PR disaster over its false and misleading advertising claims concerning the Vitamin C content of its supposedly ‘healthy’ Ribena brand drink.

Who’d've thought that one of the world’s most powerful drug and food companies could be undone by two 14-year old New Zealand high school pupils? But it was! The two kids performed their own science tests to determine the sugar and Vit C content of Ribena, and found the content claims to be completely false. Contacting the company, the pupils’ letters and emails were ignored then fobbed off by the powerful corporate. After securing some media interest, tho, GSK has been investigated and found guilty of false and misleading advertising, marketing and packaging, and now faces up to $3million in fines; also, the company’s new Ads don’t mention any Vitamin C content!

As a quick case reader, the issues include (not in order);

• false product claims by GlaxoSmithKline
• abuse of corporate power
• infusing arrogance in stakeholder relations (with the kids)
• inept PR handling leading to adverse publicity
• demonstration of consumer empowerment
• massive product rebranding and new communication campaign costs
• reputational damage
• dent in stakeholder confidence
• and $3mill financial penalty via the punitive fines

Other questions also needing answers;

• where was Glaxo’s CSR and corporate leadership?
• Where was GSK’s scientists and product teams in all this duplicity?
• Where were the food and drink marketing regulatory bodies before the school pupils got involved?
• What was the role of advertising and PR agencies in perpetuating the Ribena health myth?

Transcript of radio story [ABC AM]

If you’ve read my PR Disasters book, you’ll remember the case study about P&G trying to manage damaging rumours of its alleged Satanism. In an update to the story, News Ltd is reporting how execs from rival company Amway may be forced to pay US$20mill in compensation for their role in spreading the rumours. This case has bedevilled P&G for decades, when people said that their logo showed the 666 mark of the beast, and was a covert sign that the devil had made a corporate acquisition; and people believed this and voted with their wallets!!

Via The Guardian, we can eavesdrop on what ITV execs have been learning about developments in digital communications. Jemima Kiss blogs about contributions from futurist Gerd Leonhard who discusses why MTV has flatlined by trying to tell kids what’s cool (whereas YouTube listens to the kids own views). MySpace’s Jay Stevens talks up the importance of peer-to-peer comms in the TV landscape of tomorrow, where viewing habits will be driven by trust and perceived value. Mention’s also made of how to enlist consumers as brand advocates and champions - give ‘em the content and let ‘em mash it up (as my ‘make Your Own Socceroo Ad’ campaign did so well last year). Ben Hammersley pronounced that brands were dead and that content was stamping down the turf on their coffin and that mash-up interaction was essential for the 3billion onliners. And blogging has arrived as a recognised brand medium, it was claimed. Cross-refer this to my post from yesterday that PR’s are at the vanguard of blogging, and we see how PR can have a lead role if shaping the comms landscape of tomorrow; that’s if we don’t let marketers claim the territory as their own! Great work, Jemima; thanks.

AdWeek’s Catharine P Taylor has an interesting piece on why blogging doesn’t appeal to many CEOs. Based on research by Porter Novelli/TNS Media Intelligence, it confirms that PRs and product managers are the most likely corporate bloggers. Reasons for CEO reticence include; fear of criticism, fear of open communication, time commitment, how to calculate ROI and fears that internal bloggers will reveal market sensitive information (so far unfounded among its leading proponents). With corporate attitudes like those revealed in the research, the 2-way model of idealised PR seems like a Grunigian pipe-dream for many progressive comms execs.

Next Page →