• 

• 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

Several mugs from the BBC are in trouble.

As a postcsript to my earlier post, the following view from The Guardian’s Mark Lawson has a certain ring of truth about it; he says it’s because of fearful of losing budget or journalistic jobs due to lack of audience participation. But if people don’t want to feedback Mark, shouldn’t an evaluation of your content be your best move, rather than falsifying connection to stuff that fails to engage?

In true PR crisis management style, BBC’s director general Mark Thompson has media-launched a mandatory training programme - entitled Safeguarding Trust - for BBC’s 16,500 staff (thereby being seen as taking identifiable action to ‘right a wrong’). This comes after revelations that key ‘editorial leaders’ had repeatedly passed themselves (or their family or friends) off as members of the public or fictitious winners in broadcast promotions. Sadly, even charity fundraising events such as Comic Relief and Children in Need appeals experienced such malpractice. Another programme was presented as live despite being recorded, too.

Memo to Mark Thompson: It’s not about ’safeguarding trust’ - your people clearly need instruction on ego-management and abusing power. Read more

Yesterday I was preaching to Edelman staffers and then a clutch of senior HK comms executives on the complete disappearance of the line between the personal and professional you. On cue, PR disasters from all over the world - NFL ball player Vick’s ‘fighting dogs’ antics and now a senior British golf official’s inept after-dinner speaking skills - back my point that your behaviour in your private life can sorely impact your professional reputational standing. Like I said yesterday, all of us (especially in PR) need to be in the ‘character management’ business as well as in the ‘reputation management’ side of things, too.

Read more

Presenting on PR disasters (and how to avoid), PR proponents regularly tell me that the challenge is not understanding the need for reputation plus character management, but in convincing their paymasters of the need to let PR’s manage both streams. Up here in Asia, I’ve been inspired by a new-found quote from Shinzo Maeda, Global Prez & CEO of (cosmetics co) Shiseido:
“We will continue to provide products and services such as cosmetics that facilitate health and beauty. And as we do so we will also seek to earn the love of people around the world, doing our best to ensure that every individual can enjoy ‘This moment. This Life. Beautifully’.”

Poetic inspiration aside, Maeda clearly gets the whole notion of corporate social responsibility, rather than just see it as an addition marketing channel. Of course, this won’t harm Shiseido in enjoying the manifold benefits of CSR including:
Development of new stakeholder alliances
Enhanced reputation
Improved community goodwill
Indulgence of media influencers in times of duress
Staff commitment, pride and loyalty.

Shari Lewis with her hand stuffed in a knitted sock called Lamb Chops.

Via a paid article at the International Herald Tribune (lovely work byBrad Stone and Matt Richtel) comes the PR disaster involving the CEO of Whole Foods (USA) - John Mackey - who has been caught blog posting as a fictional person (aka ’sock-puppeting’), in order to ‘dis’ the competition and support his own corporate aims, i.e. boost a flaggingstock price. Bloggers at 21stcenturymediarelations, and onebyonemedia.com are already guffawing in disbelief at this stunt, which is set to ruin another CEO’s reputation. Most bizarrely (and revealingly) the CEO concerned (or concerned CEO) has been saying nice things (as the not-he) about his own haircut (true!!). Of course, this Shari Lewis-inspired practice is not new, still no-one ever learns how easy it is to trace electronic code (as I recently proved to a slippery Toyota dealer in Australia). Mackey joins a growing list of bigwigs (Conrad Black) politicians (Tad Furtado) and even Pulitzer prizewinning journalists (Michael Hiltzik) who’ve used web invisibility to try disparage their enemies and paddle their own canoes. In dem canoes tho,only place they go is sh1t creek.

In preparation for my new book launch (about personal reputation management), I travel to Hong Kong next week for the city’s book festival, and to speak at the HK Overseas Correspondent’s club. There, and also at Edelman’s offices, I’ll be doing sessions on Reputation Management in the Internet Age (a topic that’s intriguing more than a few corporates and celebs these days). Unfortunately, Crisis PR expert Jonathan Bernstein - due to give his expert view on the thinly veiled Alan Didak, Hells Angels, Collingwood PR crisis snafu I outlined - has had suffered an unexpected difficulty, so he doesn’t have time to comment on that mini case study til later this month; you guys OK with that?
While I’ll try to blog on the road, it might be a tad fractured, but there’[s been some interesting things going on in the world of PR, most notably in the UK, where Prof Tim Chappell of the UK’s Open University, was speaking about PR, advocacy and truth. Here’s my take on what Tim was proposing:

The (PR) reason to be truthful may lie in the fact that if you’re not, you can lose credibility (and credibility and trust are a form of power in stakeholder relationships). Another reason to be truthful is that people hate being lied to, as many see lies as a real insult. To a large extent, there’s equally as much reason to ’seem’ truthful, rather than purely being truthful.
In aiming for truth, we certainly have some latitude to ’spin’ a story (to advocate in a specific way or direction). I.e. your interpretation of the truth may be as valid as another party’s take on the topic. Tim looked set to conclude that Advocacy (PR) is an art of persuasion, but good advocacy should always be constrained and directed by the truth. Truthfulness is a vital aspect of what any professional is ethically required to do and be.

		
		

		
		
		
	
		
	

		
Jul
		
6
	
	
	

		
Pit your skills against the Crisis PR expert
		
Filed Under Botched PR jobs,  Campaigns,  PR Disasters,  Public Relations | Leave a Comment
		
		
 Crisis PR expert Jonathan Bernstein
The following PR tutorial is a based on a real life PR disaster that’s currently consuming Melbourne media; Imagine you’re the PR adviser to one of the country’s biggest sporting clubs. One of your top stars is linked to an alleged murderer and career criminal. How would you manage this issue?

I’ve invited international PR crisis management expert Jonathan Bernstein (USA) to answer a few questions surrounding the PR handling of the issue (see end of case). After reading the evolution of the following case material, see if your answers match Jonathan’s expert response…which I’ll tantalisingly publish early next week. Check out who’s the best between you and your communications colleagues.<
OUR CASE BEGINS: An alleged criminal is awaiting trial for the murder of a lawyer and shooting of two civilians in an early morning incident in the strip-joint side of the city.

Media rumours have placed a sports star in the criminal’s company one week earlier, where the miscreant allegedly fired gunshots at a police vehicle. Read more
		
		

		
		
		
	
		
	

		
Jul
		
3
	
	
	

		
Definition of a PR expert
		
Filed Under Business,  Public Relations | Leave a Comment
		
		
Baffled by the perplexing PR decisions that seem to be taken on a daily basis and reported via the various media channels, I was chatting this thru with a learned legal eagle here in Melbourne. Tom asked me why I thought these decisions were poor and I answered on the basis of my PR and reputation management history. “Oh, so you’re the expert then?” he challenged me before offering a definition of same:

“Someone who finds out more and more about less and less until he discovers that he knows everything about nothing.”

Cheers, Tom!!