I was not a big Brian Williams fan at the beginning. Frankly, I didn’t think he could shine Tom Brokaw’s shoes. For some reason at that time he reminded me of the William Hurt character in the movie Broadcast News. Hurt’s Tom Grunick with his good looks and likeable on-air presence ended up winning the day despite having “fake cried” his way into the hearts and minds of the viewing audience. But time has a way of changing one’s mind. Williams in ten years went…
Read MoreMy wife served Super Bowl snack/dinner a little late last night. My family, including my 15-year-old daughter and my 11-year-old son, was still sitting around the dinner table in the first half when Nationwide aired its #makesafehappen Super Bowl spot last night. As it ended the voiceover said, “At Nationwide, we believe in protecting what matters most, your kids.” Tell that to my kids who audibly gasped about 15 seconds earlier when the boy in the spot announces that he “couldn’t grow up because I…
Read MoreIf we keep up at this pace, hackers may very well be Time’s 2015 “Person of the Year.” By now, we’re all familiar with the Sony/The Interview/North Korea saga, where North Korea allegedly hacked Sony’s servers—releasing loads of damaging emails, contract details and the like—with the United States allegedly shutting down the country’s Internet for 36 hours in response. Then over the holidays, news broke that Amazon was hacked, putting thousands of passwords and credit card numbers online. As an Amazon Prime evangelist, this one…
Read MoreSo, you're the content manager for your company's social media channels. Congratulations! You've been selected as the voice of the company and the one who "gets it." On top of that, everyone thinks you're hip and in tune with what's going on in the world. Life is pretty good for you, my friend. Until there's a social crisis. Then, all eyes are on you and everyone will wonder how you let this happen. My advice? Don't let it happen. Growing up, my mom often reminded…
Read MoreLifetime ban. Two words I actually didn’t expect to come from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver yesterday concerning Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist rant. Especially since just three days before, Silver said the Sterling crisis deserved “due process.” I expected a hefty fine, of which Silver delivered to the tune of $2.5 million. The two words I thought would come out of yesterday’s press conference were “suspended indefinitely.” But Silver, with the NBA in full crisis mode during the peak of its season, went further. And…
Read MoreI usually don’t watch much of the Winter Olympics, other than figure skating, but this year I paid much closer attention. There was a lot of hype surrounding the Olympics this winter; however, much of it wasn’t about the games themselves. Instead, headlines surrounding the Olympics focused on what was going on in Sochi: the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are some public relations lessons we can learn from the events at Sochi this year. Hotels were built, but hardly complete. Upon arriving…
Read MoreEarlier this fall, Barilla made headlines for all the wrong reasons: its president said they’d never use a gay family in advertisements. News outlets reported on planned boycotts, people flocked to social media expressing outrage and clever Photoshoppers edited the company’s trademark blue Barilla box to say, “Bigotoni,” a play on rigatoni. Two months later the company is doing damage control by creating a diversity and inclusion board, hiring a chief diversity officer and participating in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. Too little,…
Read MoreAs Jon Newman has pointed out, some of us are rather fond of Star Trek references here at The Hodges Partnership. Personally, I’ve been known to watch a little Star Trek Voyager. In one of the worst episodes of that series, titled “Threshold,” Tom Paris successfully breaks the Warp 10 barrier and soon thereafter realizes he’s transforming into a pink salamander. I thought of this episode as I considered the speed at which organizations must make communications decisions when faced with fast-escalating scandals. Things can…
Read MoreIf you’re in PR, it’s never good when your alma mater is one of the PR/crisis communications case studies in “what not to do” that you will use as the prime example for the next 20 years. I’m glad my degree in is English. So the dominos have fallen since the “Day of The Tape” earlier this week and someone who I trusted and admired (still do, btw) has fallen on this sword. His bosses have held the obligatory news conference (so poorly I might…
Read MoreFirst, disclaimers. As many readers of this blog know, I was born into a Rutgers family, I am a proud alum, I am a donor to Rutgers Athletics and because of that I know and am friends with Tim Pernetti and others in the Rutgers Athletic department. This has not been a good 24 hours for my alma mater. But as a PR person it was agonizing watching the institution and people you know and love struggle with the crisis. Personally, I truly believe that…
Read MoreThinking about the Carnival Cruise Line floating disaster, I am trying to put myself in the place of those that endured days of insufferable hot air, of ubiquitous stench and of that panicky sense of confinement when you know there are no options for escape. Yes, I’m talking about Carnival’s PR team. You have to feel for them, a group that likely spends most of its time arranging “fam” tours for reporters and devising fun social media promotions to keep its image modern and fresh,…
Read MoreIt’s been a bad few weeks for Burger King. First, horse meat was found in beef patties at European locations. And today, hackers took over the company’s Twitter account, tweeting lewd and inappropriate content and making it appear McDonald’s bought Burger King. Now, the @BurgerKing account is receiving more retweets than the Triple Whopper has calories. Many mainstream news outlets jumped on the story, including ABCNews.com and CNN.com. If I was a betting man, I’d say this story lands in the nighttime news broadcasts and…
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