Southwest: Too Fat to Fly
Here’s where Southwest Airlines really fumbled in handling its customer and social media crisis caused when filmmaker Kevin Smith was kicked off one of its flights because he was deemed to be too fat for one seat.
PR vs. News Style
I was being interviewed the other day by a global corporate consultancy about the success of the online newsroom model of ISCNewsroom.com versus other, more stereotypical corporate newsrooms. It comes down to one word … Style.
Driving Toyota’s Reputation into the Wall
All of the problems, the issues, the crisis, the severe damage to brand reputation currently facing Toyota are self-inflicted by the company. And, there are revelations each day that Toyota has been aware of safety issues.
Social Media Reality Check
Let’s get real about the current hysterical … near orgasmic … hoopla over social media. While there are new tactical tools in this digital era, the concept of social media is nothing new.
How to Get Great Media Coverage
Event publicity is a tough business. There always seems to be something sexier, more appealing competing for the media’s attention. On top of that, resources of today’s mainstream media to cover stories is stretched by cutbacks and shrinking budgets.
First Attempt to Dig Out of Snow Storm
My neighbor Drew was first out today with his trust snow blower, attempting to dig out of the massive amounts of snow dumped on the Washington, D.C., area. Here’s some HD video.
How Looks Can Be Deceiving
It would be so easy to drive through Lutcher in southern Louisiana and not pay any attention to the weathered, century old, two-story storefront in bad need of paint. The building appears that it might even be abandoned, at first glance. Ah, but looks can be deceiving.
Anatomy of How to Report TV News
Television news today – local, cable or national – is all formula driven. There are a few exceptions, like PBS NewsHour and HD Net’s World Report, but just a few. The rest of it is mostly shallow, inane and predictable.
Corporate Dumb and Dumberer
CTS Corporation of Elkhart, Indiana – a company many of us have never heard of – has bubbled into the news as the maker of the faulty Toyota accelerator pedals linked to the biggest vehicle recall in automotive history, a recall even NPR, which chooses its words carefully, has called “unprecedented.”
News Alert: Steve Jobs is Speaking!
Good friends – senior execs in the field of corporate communications – tell me of getting calls from executive search recruiters who are trying to fill senior level PR positions at Dell Computer in Austin, Texas. A couple have gone through the interview process … “It’s like falling down a rabbit hole,” one said.
How to Damage a Good Brand Image
Wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard an in-house marketing person exclaim, “We’ve got to work on improving our brand!” And, then, they’d go on to talk about a catchy new slogan, changing corporate colors or (groan) updating the mission statement. An organization’s brand is its heart and spirit.
