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TikTok Turns to Owned Media to Control the Narrative

Going back to the Trump administration, TikTok has been in the government’s cross hairs for data privacy issues. The government views user data saved outside the U.S. as a security risk. Rather than distribute a news release or talk to journalists on recent actions to address the issue, TikTok has controlled the narrative by issuing …more

Is Creativity Really a Team Sport?

Companies consider brainstorming a magical alchemy, especially if the business puts a premium on creativity. That’s certainly the case in a communications consultancy; not so much if you’re an accounting firm that depends on the rigor of process. The words “let’s brainstorm” bring multiple people together with the singular quest to find a better way. …more

Getting Serious About Southeast Asia

You might have seen the news earlier this month that we promoted Maureen Tseng to oversee our Southeast Asia operation from our hub in Singapore. We hired our first employee in Asia on April 17, 1997. That person was Maureen. The photo above depicts her and our Singapore team during the early days when we …more

Tackling Armies-of-One

By Chris Owen, Director, Hoffman Europe Blah blah pandemic, blah blah disruption. There we go — bigger picture ticked off without the need for a 150-word set-up. Let’s just get cracking on the discussion — namely, how we can learn from past experience and avoid the problems many face with remote working. First up, an …more

Autopsy on a Client Relationship That Went South

Trust — flowing in both directions — underpins healthy client-agency relationships. Imagine if we had to “fact check” every utterance from a client contact? It would paralyze the PR effort. We make the leap of faith that the client contact is telling us the truth. And we expect clients to trust our judgment. This doesn’t …more

Tesla Goes Autopilot For Latest Media Scrutiny

The media has questions for Tesla. After eliminating its PR department last year, Tesla doesn’t appear to have answers. The Los Angeles Times story “Tesla’s Handling of Breaking Bug in Public Self-Driving Test Raises Alarms” reflects the latest missives aimed at the auto maker: Tesla pushed out a new version of the experimental software suite …more

Stunts, lipstick, pigs, and COP26

By Chris Owen, Director, UK, The Hoffman Agency Earlier this week Co-op announced that six of its stores were to ‘rebrand’ as Co-op26 in line with what’s acknowledged as the most important climate summit we might see in our lifetime – COP26. See what they did there? Problem is, it begs the question that aside …more