Your PR Architect

Thousands of years ago, Bedrock Motors mailed Fred Flintstone a fake granite car key. The mailer promised a chance at starting a new car. Fred went over to the dealer, tried the key, and it didn't work. He was annoyed and left to shoot pool with Barney. By Schumi4ever (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)] , via Wikimedia Commons And this hoary old marketing technique has continued unchanged ever since. I'm sick of it. Even more today, because the fake keys sent by my town's Dodge dealer are plastic and metal -- and therefore not recyclable. If the dealer sends out 1,000s of key mailers twice a year, that's a needless burden on the waste stream. It's bad PR for his business if I mention the name of the Dodge dealer here. But there's just one Dodge dealer in my town. Its name rhymes with "arena." You can figure this out. So

I can't begin to talk about the psychology of rape or rape victims. I don't know what I don't know. And, probably, neither do you. But when the recent round of accusations against Bill Cosby surfaced last week, and the only rebuttals came from Dr. Cosby's attorney (an interesting choice of spokesperson), my PR gene kicked in. By cropped by JGHowes from File:Lee Archer memorial service  (2010).jpg [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Cosby calls these charges "innuendos." Given the number of women who've stepped forward with claims, the word "predatory" comes to mind. Either way, it's a sad capstone for Dr. Cosby's decades of professional achievement and acclaim. Here's a recent account: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2838255/Whoopi-Goldberg-sides-Bill-Cosby-expresses-skepticism-sexual-assault-claims-didn-t-accuser-rape-kit.html The PR guy in me asked: "If I'm a beloved 77-year-old entertainer whos

Eric Friedman makes a number of good points about employee communications in this blog: 10 Steps to Keeping Employees Engaged and Motivated -- but he skims past an important step: listening to employees, face-to-face. His communications advice: " Communicate well and often.  Training sessions, memos, newsletters, FAQs, and regular meetings can all be used to present your vision to your employees. Make sure to ask questions, and if they are confused, redesign the way the information reaches them." "Trim for ansatte hos NVE" by Henrik Svedahl/Norges vassdrags- og  energidirektorat - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ nve/4174242876/. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share  Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Trim_for_ansatte_hos_NVE.jpg# mediaviewer/ File:Trim_for_ansatte_hos_NVE.jpg This advice feels at once both intelligent and dated, because Eric's cited source is about 10 years old. Memos and newsletter

PR people know how to tell and sell a story. They know how to persuade. They don't always know how to promote themselves. This week, an agency sent a pitch and a link to their YouTube channel. They offered a series of 90-second clips showcasing their wisdom regarding social media. Here's one: Each of their videos sounded like it was recorded in a restroom. At a fast-food restaurant. Not how I'd want to come across on the web. PR is a business of persuasion. You must persuade clients that you know your topic, know your media targets -- and you know what you're doing. I'm sure these people are smart. But when you post videos with poor audio quality, or don't re-shoot segments in which a speaker makes an obvious on-camera flub, you're not persuading anyone. You're only telling me that you don't attend to the quality of content that's the meat of social media. Truly smart shops recognize that you can't persuade anyone with vid

This one's pretty simple, really. CBC talk show guru Jian Ghomeshi was let go last week by his employer. And before tongues started wagging, he got out in front of the story, publicly describing the circumstances surrounding his departure in an online missive. Jian Ghomeshi (2009) By Penmachine (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)  or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Both CBC and Ghomeshi claimed he was sexually active. Sometimes past the point you might expect. The Vancouver Sun has a succinct summary of activities to date: Jian Ghomeshi’s CBC lawsuit is hopeless — even if he’s telling the truth Credit Ghomeshi for getting his story out first. He defused the kind of protracted gossip and speculation that fuels much of the U.S. media's obsession with celebrity misbehavior. The PR lessons: Tell your story first, with a singularity of voice and message Do it without a news conference Give