I thought the newspaper was asking me questions about my favorite travel destination. It turned out that the newspaper assumed San Francisco was my favorite travel destination — hey, why else would I live 53 miles south of San Francisco? — so my answers around Aix en Provence didn’t fit. As public service for those …more
Staying true to form during the last presidential debate, Donald Trump inferred that all smart business people find loopholes to avoid paying federal taxes, including Warren Buffett. I tried to come up with a plausible explanation for why Trump thought his comment on Buffett would go unchallenged. Then, the obvious hit me. He doesn’t care. It’s his words …more
I’ve been following the Samsung PR crisis. In the spirit of balanced reporting, this is what a Samsung Note7 looks like before it catches fire:When things go awry as they have with the Samsung Note, it’s easy to forget that “connection” underpins every brand. What is the consumer’s level of passion for the brand? How …more
The news release turns 110 years old on Oct. 28. I’ve already rehearsed my line for the party, How fitting that a train wreck — a three-car train from the Pennsylvania Railroad went off the rails and into a creek on October 28, 1906 killing more than 50 people — prompted the invention of the …more
Virtually every national and global company desires coverage in the business media. For B2B players, this quest presents an additional hurdle in shaping a story that the average Joe will understand, much less care about. For those who toil in the B2B arena, the pursuit of business media is not a job for squeamish. Often, …more
I am a fan of the anecdote, one of the most underutilized storytelling techniques in business communications. Executives often perceive anecdotes as fluff and put the kibosh on such content before it sees the light of the day. Which explains why if you were to audit the content generated by PR (in-house + agency), you …more
I’ve railed about the amount of money squandered by the PR industry in the name of the news release. Thanks to the internet commoditizing news announcements, I’m guessing that the media ignores a good 95 percent of the news releases flung over the fence. And out of those 5 percent that actually get a look, …more
Our U.S. offices tried an experiment this year. Straying from convention, we decided to give everyone a jump on the weekend by calling Friday at 2 p.m. “closing time” (cue the Matchbox 20 song). So how did folks spend the time? Here are some of the back stories. A Sunny Day of Music …more
Persuasive language has a say in the success or failure of virtually every job (ventriloquists get a pass). It doesn’t matter whether you manage a juice bar or lead a Fortune 500 company, the ability to win others over to your point of view matters. The word “others” covers a lot of ground, but let’s …more
