Since a number of folks have asked me my opinion on this today, here it is. For background, Style Weekly reporter Chris Dovi, who has history of being a champion of the disabled was fired, by his employer for in an email calling a blind motivational speaker “a blind fucker.” A Norfolk-based PR firm was pitching Dovi on an upcoming Richmond event featuring the speaker. Dovi, who felt the PR firm was being over zealous in the pitching, wrote an email that he thought he was…
Truth. Honesty. Coming clean. They should be easy concepts to grasp especially in the world of public relations and marketing. But if they are why are we always pleasantly surprised when companies or celebrities actually tell the truth? The latest case of this “pleasant surprise” comes from Domino’s Pizza. In its latest campaign it fesses up to losing touch with their customers and re-launching their core product with a new recipe and ingredients. In the ads they show what unflattering things they said about their old product. …
A quick note to announce that this blog is now available on the PR feed of Alltop.com at pr.alltop.com. Alltop.com is a great aggregator of websites and blogs that is easily searchable by topic. So if you want to see top blogs for different subjects it’s the place to go. I’m pleased to join others like former colleague and Richmond-area PR pro Steve Mullen whose blog as been listed on Alltop for a while now. For more information about Alltop.com, its goals and founders, please…
The economy sucks. That’s not a news flash. It’s reality. We all know many people in the media and marketing communities that have been “on the beach” without a job. There are some that I know who have have not had a full-time job for more than a year. Two folks that I’ve come to know on Twitter are doing something about it. This Friday Valerie Simon of BurrellesLuce and Arik Hanson, a cool communications dude from Minnesota are launching the first ever “Help a PR Pro Out”…
Two things right off the bat in the spirit of full disclosure. I was part of the group that tried to get the ballpark in the Bottom and keep the Braves in town. I’m a sap for good, fun old-time promotions done well. And the folks with the Richmond Flying Squirrels are doing the second thing so well, it is making me slightly forget my disappointment over the first thing. The latest case in point, the unveiling of the new mascot “Nutzy” and the new uniforms…
So is your head swimming yet? Mine is (and I’m not even talking about the snow). First, Facebook fiddled with our homepages to make them more “user-friendly,” changing the streams, making search easier and making emails and notifications more prominent. Then yesterday the announcement of Google Buzz, the next great attempt from Google to bring all your social networking to one place (theirs) by melding GMail, Google Maps, video, pictures, IMing, etc. all into one spot. The great race is on. It is the race to become…
So the question facing many CMO’s today is, what happens when 106 million people see your Super Bowl ad….and it sucked? Is it worth the millions of dollars that you spent on it just to get the exposure? In the discussions I’ve had around the THP water cooler today and with others in Richmond’s heralded ad community, the general consensus is that with a few exceptions (Google, Hyundai, CarMax…and yes in the spirit of full disclosure we have friends at CarMax) there were few advertisers that really…
It’s an overnight success story, five years in the making. Anyone who has tried their hands in pitching a story knows there are many factors that lead to a yes or a no from a journalist or editor. The bottom line is sometimes a story is just not newsworthy but it is your duty as a PR or media relations professional to give it your best shot. That is not the case however with one of THP’s long-time clients, Commonwealth ChalleNGe, a great program funded by the…
I’ve written on this subject a couple of times over the last year or so and I keep on changing my opinion. My latest: The classic media tour is not dead. As a PR professional, you just have to try a little harder and get a little more creative. As a firm, we at THP have (or are in the process of scheduling) scheduled three media tours for different clients over the last couple of months. For the most part the targets have been in…
Okay, I’ll admit it, I get intrigued easily when a couple of people mention a new restaurant or store and tell me how great it is. It makes me want to check it out so I can see what all the excitement is about. That’s why I’m very intrigued by the possible business uses (especially small business uses) that have and can emerge by the GPS-powered APPs like Foursquare, Yelp and Gowalla. For those not familiar, these are APPs that you can download on your phone…
Dear Aaron, First let me thank you for keeping an open mind on Twitter and other social media platforms. Others would have simply ignored the folks who jeered them at a social media club meeting but you decided to use the opportunity to reexamine Twitter and its benefits to your and other businesses. I will preface my comments by saying that social media isn’t for everyone and far be it from me, or anyone else for that matter, to try to convince folks who see no…
Social media is an amazing thing. One minute you’re looking up prices for Super Bowl tickets, the next minute you’re raising money to help people in Haiti. So here’s what happened to me last night. I’m on StubHub looking up Super Bowl ticket prices on the off chance my beloved Jets get in the Super Bowl and the equally off chance that my wife and my business partner let me take the trip to Miami. So I tweet something like this: “Just checked Super Bowl ticket prices…