PR In the Headlines

Not quite a sitting duck, but well, these are larger fish

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rupert-murdoch-calls-pr-guru-212334  The Rupert Murdock saga continues and PR gets the headline.  Perception is reality and from this Hollywood Reporter headline the appearance to me is that Steven Rubenstein will be doing some dirty work. Do you get that?  The PR professional sharing the same prominence as the lawyer.  At least we are getting some attention and prominence if for the wrong reason.  A school of thought says all publicity is good.  Maybe Rubenstein will have the Johnnie Cochran effect and come up with his own cool slogan. "if the glove don't fit..."

PR Practioners Don't Think Up Stories: My Response to Mail Online Story

I read the Mail Online story “Insider reveals: PR men would think up a story and Rebekah’s Sun and News of the World would run it word for word. Some were complete fiction” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013046/Rebekah-Brooks-Sun-News-World-run-fictional-stories-insider-claims.html) and was pretty much disgusted as a former journalism student and more so as a seasoned PR practitioner.

Clearly the story was fired with the passion of a disgruntled employee but despite this fact I took issue with the salacious depiction of the field of public relations.  I take issue with the suggestion that we in the profession ‘think up’ stories.  Yes writing is a big part of what we do, but to say we sit and dream up stories for clients shows a total disregard and lack of respect for the profession.  Professional Code of Ethics governs the way the majority of professionals work on a daily basis.  Both PRSA (http://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/ethics/) and IABC (http://www.iabc.com/about/code.htm) have these codes prominent on their websites. READ FULL STORY

Disengaged employees costing companies dearly

Many companies today are operating at one-third of their people potential because the remaining two-thirds of their employees are not engaged, says an internationally respected specialist in employee engagement and internal communication.

And according to Ken Milloy, President of Ken Milloy Management Consulting Inc. those disengaged employees are costing their companies dearly through lower productivity and profits and by chasing away potentially loyal customers.

“The collective capability of a company’s workforce is a source of competitive advantage – a unique characteristic of the business that cannot be copied,” he told human resources and corporate communications professionals at a recent workshop hosted by the International Association of Business Communicators, Barbados Chapter. “But that competitive advantage cannot be tapped unless employees are truly engaged.”

Milloy said engaged employees are those who feel a “heightened emotional connection” towards the organisation that influences them to exert greater discretionary effort.

“Discretionary effort is that extra effort that employees can give or withhold – it’s their choice,” he explained.

The Vancouver-based management consultant said engaged employees can be recognized by the passion that drives them to build and innovate and to find new and more effective ways to accomplish their roles.

“They will take less than half as many sick days off as the average employee, and they are 87% less likely to leave the company,” he added.

Milloy identified several “core drivers” of employee engagement, including how well managers “walk the talk”, how well employees understand how their work contributes to the company’s performance, and whether the company makes an effort to develop its employees’ skills.

But the most important of all, he stressed, is the nature of the relationship between employees and their managers and supervisors.

“If employees don’t have a strong relationship with managers who set clear expectations, knows them, trusts them and invests in them, they are less likely to perform or stay,” he said.

(An IABC Barbados Release)

Be Remarkable!

I copied this from Judette's Facebook. Why? - because only last weekend someone asked me about putting merchandise from my company PRMR Inc. in a bag of give-a-ways for a Jazz show.

Not being prepared I insisted that there was nothing I had suitable to project my brand image at the show, and here it is I stumbled on Judette's Facebook post and she says it succinctly for me. Have a read.


By Judette Coward-Puglisi

I swear most marketers have no clue whatsoever what to do. So we do unoriginal things, or stall, or fail to deliver on our brand's promise.

Take this weekend for instance, master designer Claudia Pegus launched her resort collection," Breeze" at the picturesque Crews Inn. Pegus' line was stunning, what was in the goodie bag was not.

I imagine that the designer's team asked the show's sponsors and corporate partners for stuff that could be placed into the bag and guess what they all did? Each (with the exception of one) gave the exact same thing: flyers, brochures, newsletter, all good stuff, sure, but nothing bold or remarkable.

The exception here was the Jamaican milliner whose stuffer included a stunning red and black pin that could be worn on a hat or dress. It was something tangible. Something that the fashion savvy crowd could use. It was cleverly branded.

Marketers need to give deeper thought to how they position their products in the context of each situation instead of rolling out the same things, the same collateral in the same way.

Truly brilliant positioning is hard to quantify or predict. Same is true with marketing.