Posts tagged as Public Relations
This Week's Tech Conference: Three Days Inside the Bubble
By the time I took my seat at [TechConference] on Monday, I had already seen its host’s logo 51 times. The name was printed twice on my conference badge, five times on the lanyard holding that badge, 16 times in the conference agenda, nine times on the side wall of the conference’s main hall, and finally all over the 20-logo tessellation on the stage background. (A giant wooden statue outside the front door spelled out its initials, but we won’t count that.) As I sat down for the first panel, heavy synth-and-bass beats shook the speakers overhead. It was the conference’s theme song. The only lyric: The conference’s name, recited—not sung—over and over again. READ MORE
Goldman Sachs Wants You Regular Train-Riding Kind of People
Goldman Sachs has a new ad campaign for their Asset Management division! I'm not really sure why this is something they need to market. It's probably less true in asset management but in Private Wealth Management, certainly, they inherit their clients, and it's not like it's a tough sell to sign up a few more millionaires at GS. The company makes them money! And even though their clients don't like the firm necessarily, it's not like they ever leave with their money. For where? Wachovia? Anyway the new campaign is pretty funny because, in this iteration, from their website, there's a woman in cowboy boots—taking a train! (A very clean train, in a very clean station.) A woman who apparently used to sleep in something the poor people call "a bunk bed"? So yes, this is how they pimp mutual funds, to appeal to the aspirational set of the semi-average rich little people who, it appears, can also hustle in their own way into the big money tent.
When PR Goes Wrong: The MAC-Rodarte Fiasco
So not long ago now, the cosmetics manufacturer M·A·C and fashion label Rodarte teamed up to... no, really. Sell cosmetics, I was going to say. And then I was going to add their own phrase, "inspired by." But then I just had to stop for a second, because it ain't easy to complete this sentence, because what the sisters Mulleavy of Rodarte were allegedly "inspired by" is the border city of Juárez, Mexico. As Style.com's Nicole Phelps explained back in February about the Rodarte Fall/Winter 2010 collection, "[T]hey became interested in the troubled border town of Ciudad Juárez; the hazy, dreamlike quality of the landscape there; and the maquiladora workers going to the factory in the middle of the night." For serious. READ MORE
Real America: Your Civil Rights Sausage Is Made in Minnesota
As we noted in our last look at some of the funding in the Minnesota governor's race, Best Buy has joined with Target by donating $100,000 in cash to MN Forward, a PAC that supports Tom Emmer, the vehemently anti-gay rights GOP candidate for governor. READ MORE
Yours is a Very Bad Press Release
Hi! We're the media. We get a lot of press releases. Press releases are almost always bad. Especially those that come to our personal email inboxes. Here's a better idea: write an email to someone you know will care. Or don't! You could just blindly send out a bunch of crap and then bill your client for it. I mean, why not, right? It's not like some snarky asshole will publish your press release online, with derogatory inline notes. Oh wait. READ MORE
LeBron James: Ultimate Millennial
LeBron James is 25 years old. If he had gone to college and completed all four years, he would have graduated in 2007. Think of the people you know who are that age, think of the decisions they make and how they carry themselves, take a quick glance through their Facebook tagged pictures, and then imagine them with hundreds of millions of dollars and the freedom to do whatever they want. Do they seem like super well adjusted people who are driven enough to have excelled in their vocation, if they had skipped college and had been working for the last 7 years, to have elevated themselves to the third or fourth best person in their field? Probably not. READ MORE
Smirnoff Rep Speaks: We're Not Behind 'Bros Icing Bros'
Since we last checked in, Bros Icing Bros has become even more of a THING. This bro himself was Iced five times in a 36-hour span over the weekend. A Bro friend at Stanford Business School sends word of what was potentially the first-ever group Icing on Monday–at the hands of a restaurant waiter, who brought an ice-cold sixer out with the entrees. One of the victims was the CE-Bro of a pro sports team. Another Bro acquaintance had to schlep to three different Lower East Side bodegas on Sunday to find one that even had Smirnoff Ice in stock. I will make an educated guess and say that that was the first time that any of those bodegas had ever sold out of the drink. READ MORE
List of PR Firms Currently Banned From My Inbox
Here is the current list of PR companies that are blocked on my Gmail. Offenses by these firms in recent email subject lines include: "Heads Up – Hybrid gets a makeover," "Miss USA 2010 Odds: Louisiana's contestant will be crowned on Sunday!," "Story Idea: Get Carrie'd away with these delicious low calorie Sex and the City Cocktails!!," "Dan Aykroyd's Crystal Head Vodka Celebrates One-Millionth Bottle," "Recall: The future of Post-Kate Dancing with the Stars," "Is Jane Lynch really rocking a $395 engagement ring?," "Blog Material – Jennie Garth in Grand Central Station" and "Is "Brexting" the New Break-Up?" Oh and who can forget: "Snooki's Diet Weapon: COOKIES!" I welcome communications from these firms and any others when they stop spamming me.
Police Force Turns PR Crisis Into PR Opportunity
"An extremely well thought through entry that the judges felt demonstrated the skill and tact required in this sensitive case." READ MORE
