As Oprah is set to close the curtain on her 25-year reign as Queen of Daytime talk, it brings back memories – albeit frustrating ones – of attempting to pitch her show. It was early on in my career, but I recall trying to pitch one very heartwarming story, and then later trying to get [...]
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PATCH AND THE RISE OF HYPER-LOCAL JOURNALISM
Just like there is no such thing as being too good-looking or too rich, there is also no such thing as being too well-informed. Thankfully, with the arrival of things like Facebook, Twitter and smart phones, consumers are able to get important news as fast as possible, and can read or listen to as much [...]
THE VALUE OF ALL-NEWS RADIO FOR PR PROS
As this recent article from Media Life Magazine reports, radio as a whole is losing influence as a primary news source, earning the favor of only 16 percent of respondents to a December 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. Despite this, the ratings and billings for all-news radio stations [...]
SNOW MY GOSH: THREE TIPS ON PR DURING A SNOWSTORM
This morning, Baltimore awoke enveloped in the panic-inducing bear hug of snow. Our local reporters were up way before the crack of dawn (WBAL-TV went live with its snow show at 4:30 a.m.) to bring us various tales of snow-related horror – unplowed streets, downed electric wires, abandoned cars, school closings and so on and [...]
KANYE’S TWITTER REDEMPTION
Since opening an account in summer 2010, Kanye West has become notorious for using Twitter as his megaphone to the public. The famously egomaniacal rapper has been a longtime blogger, but only began tweeting about two months ago. Since then, he’s amassed a following of close to 1.5 million. With over 1,000 tweets in such [...]
TEAM COCO GOES LOCO FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
So, I probably shouldn’t be admitting this, but I spent a pretty decent amount of Wednesday and Thursday glued to the Live Coco Cam. If you’re not familiar, Conan O’Brien gave fans a live, 24-hour voyeuristic look into the mayhem at his LA offices, as a way to plug his upcoming TBS show, which starts [...]
A GAP IN PUBLIC PERCEPTION
Last week, Gap quietly introduced a new logo. The decades-old blue box with white typeface was flipped inside out, with black type on a white background with a small blue box behind the “p.” Almost immediately, the logo was met with intense online criticism, with marketers and non-marketing folks almost universally bashing the design.
While we all [...]
A PR PUSH FOR PORTA POTTIES
This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I heard a news report about how the organizers of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive in Washington, D.C., are having difficulties get one major detail squared away prior to their events on Saturday, Oct. 30.
Evidently, to get [...]
WHAT DO MARK ZUCKERBERG AND LINDSAY LOHAN HAVE IN COMMON?
I am an ardent student of celebrity pop culture. I highly enjoy investigating the elaborate PR schemes behind every move in Hollywood. Most celebrity PR stunts are harmless, created by movie producers and publicists to get the general public more interested in a certain celebrity, and therefore boosting ticket sales, album purchases and ratings. Most [...]
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROOFING
Last week, a billboard in South Wayne, Ind., was pulled following the realization of an unfortunate spelling error. The billboard, which was meant to tout South Bend schools, directed viewers to visit a website to find out the “15 best things about our pubic schools.”
That’s right, the billboard was displayed prominently for five days with [...]
FRIEND OR FOE? THE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEWS MEDIA AND PR
by Kerry ONeill, PR Account Director on Jul 27, 2011 in Commentary, Public Relations
A few weeks ago, I read a story about how the New York Times was “curbing” freelance columnist David Pogue’s ability to speak at various events involving publicists or public relations. The story said that his participation in these paid events, specifically one hosted by Ragan Communications, violated the Times’ ethics policy, which states “Staff [...]