My morning started with a bang. Literally. A squirrel decided to eat some electrical wires coming out of the transformer across the street from my house. Needless to say, at 6:20 a.m., I was not impressed.

Today, I am going to do a roundup of stuff — stuff that I find interesting and that is somewhat germaine to what it is the PR Girlz do.

• In today’s Toronto Star, Bruce Campion-Smith reports how the Harper government controls its communication policies. It is the first report in the Secret Capital series from the newspaper. Harper’s communications policies are anything but open and stand in stark contrast to the federal rules for open access to information.
• Festival de Cannes ends today. Norm Wilner from NOW has been blogging the event from the French sea-side town. Check out the reviews now — you might be able to save yourself from wasting time at TIFF. [For the life of me, I don't know what Lindsay Lohan was doing there, though. Beyond Mean Girls (brilliant writing) and Altman's swan song (she was cast well), has she done anything deserving of Cannes recognition?]
• I want to play a bit with a Google lab release called Google Friend Connect. The server keeps crashing on me.
• Grant Robertson at the Globe and Mail reports on Wikipedia’s business plan and its desire to remain not-for-profit.
• Tim O’Reilly had a funny post on the weekend about Microsoft’s obsession with search.

Last week, I saw an article in AdAge that suggested that one of the world’s most famous ‘touch up’ artists, Pascal Dangin, had a hand in making the women in the Real Beauty campaign look gorgeous. Even though Unilever and Dangin have made statements denying the reports, AdAge maintains that it will still “go down as a footnote in advertising history or rate among its biggest scandals, alongside Campbell’s marbles in the soup.”

Really.

Since the success of their Evolution campaign, Dove has been the viral video darling of the marketing world. Everyone wants their online efforts to come out smelling like 1/4 moisturizing lotion. But that sort of success can’t be plucked out of the cosmetics aisle and let’s face it - everybody’s a bit jealous. And my feeling is that, last week when this rumour emerged, a lot of people would have gladly seen Dove go on trial for their alleged mistake.

Even if they did do skin tone touch ups or got rid of minor blemishes on the Real Beauty models … would that really make their campaign somehow bogus? For me the idea is the most beautiful thing about the Dove brand and their recent marketing efforts. Some readers of AdAge’s coverage of the ’scandal’ agreed:

Several readers commenting on Ad Age’s Thursday story saw the controversy as a tempest in a teapot. “The issue is being massively blown out of proportion,” said one. “Retouching to adjust skin tones, remove shadows, or combine two or more photos from the same session for the sake of shot composition is commonplace and completely ethical.”

“I think we are losing sight of what this campaign is really about — loving your own body,” said another reader. “Even if the photo was retouched a bit, it still conveys the fact that all women are beautiful, no matter what size or shape.”

Another great follow up story that looks at how Dove/Oglivy/Unilever could have dealt with the situation can be found here.

In the PR world, dealing with crises in an efficient and organized manner is the cornerstone. We have all heard of examples like Tylenol who handled their crisis well and sufferred minimal damage as a result. Bolthouse Farms, I fear, will have no such luck. Well luck has nothing to do with it. Blame the consumer who contracted botulism from your product without expressing any sympathy or concern and you may as well wave your white flag. How NOT to handle a product recall? The dictionary definition of bad PR reads: Bolthouse Farms.

Can anyone lend me $479,000?

Ciao, Amanda! It was fun while it lasted…

Text100 has opened a PR agency in Second Life.

I don’t really know what to say about that. When I read about Second Life I get an image of a big game of Sims gone awry, and I find it lends credence to the stereotype (or is it?) of online geeky folks living their lives via a mouse and desktop in the basement. Measuring out their lives with pixels instead of coffee spoons, I suppose.

Apparently the legion of “virtual” people is growing - BusinessWeek reported that 170,000 such devotees were online back in May, so I imagine there must be gazillions now. (Update: There are 595,000 “residents” now.) All spending real money (real money!) to buy fake money to buy fake things, like fake land. Or fake PR services, I guess. (As an aside, that’s one of the sadder things about SL - it’s a brand new world, no physical limits and endless resources. And what do people do? Shop.)

I can see why marketers have glommed on - obviously you have a large group of uh… motivated people with disposable income all in one place (kind of). It lets the digital marketing department have some fun, ‘cuz there’s a ceiling on the fun to be had buying real estate for web ads and subverting MySpace. And, well, it will garner you some ink in meatspace - see MTV, BBC Radio 1, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers Records, American Apparel and Major League Baseball.

I can see SL as having the potential to add new dimensions to distance learning, at least in parts of the world where broadband is becoming a utility. (For the rest of the world - I guess you could call them the un-online - they are probably poor people in a poor place so we can’t sell them anything anyway. Pity. Oh well…)

I can even, maybe, see why regular people might choose to spend their valuable, limited time pretending to be animated. We live in a taxing era - lots of people have limited, stressful or difficult lives (maybe even all of the above) so the fantasy that they can recreate themselves and live a totally different, unlimited life (albeit one which requires them to sit in a chair and stare at a monitor, natch) could have appeal. Some people, god love ‘em, are simply cashing in. In the real world, I mean - trading those Linden Dollars for currency. (Now that I can understand.) Linden Lab, of course, has created something that defies any easy label - let’s just call it clever - and I imagine they will monetize it in even more elaborate and creative ways. Understood.

But what will Text100 do there? They’ve explained they will make their best trainers available there for internal usage and offer up their “space” for client press conferences. Press conferences? I bear in mind that Text100 is a tech PR outfit so their target journos are likely to be much more tech savvy than your average daily beat reporter, but I’m interested to hear how (and if) that works. Anyone know?

Was reading this story in the Globe by Grant Roberts about the myriad deals TV nets are striking with websites, particularly NBC and YouTube. Check here for a recap, but basically NBC did an about-face and went from attempting to take YouTube to court for posting NBC clips without consent, to striking a partnership which sees it formally supply content to YouTube. (Broadcasting & Cable is reporting today on a promotional deal between ABC’s Good Morning America and YouTube, so I guess there’s no exclusivity joy for NBC.)

I love the comments on Grant’s story, all three of them. My favorite is from some guy (and I know it’s a guy, I just know it) who calls himself Fine By Me. According to him, “TV is dead.”

TV is dead. Newspapers are dead. The :30 spot is dead. Mainstream media is dead. Oh, come now. Time to get some sentient doctors to examine those death certificates because traditional media, though in flux, makes big profits, reaches billions. I’ve been staying at a friend’s place recently and TV is the star attraction over there - Big Brother, Rock Star: Supernova, anything with Gordon Ramsay in it. Yep, they’re watching it on PVR but they are watching it, rabidly. Three urban women, prime demographic, lots of spending power - there’s a big TV and a fat stack of glossy magazines. On the subway this morning, I was jammed in nose-to-armpit with thousands of commuters wrestling with a newspaper (though usually a free one).

Not dead, see? Business models changing? Yep. New competition? Yep. Still making money? Yep.

I like Strumpette. There. I’ve said it. (Or typed it, same diff.)

I don’t care if it’s written by one woman, three women and “a token male” (as asserted by The Washington Post) or three men and a baby. The best satire comes from inside, and satirists sometimes need anonymity. Big deal. For all their mumbo jumbo about empowerment, conversation, blah blah blah, the Blog Police are pretty quick to forge rules and get irate if someone dares ignore said rules. Rule #1, apparently, is that the “blogosphere” and pseudonyms don’t mix. Says who?

There are some lovely, civilized and incredibly intelligent people in my office who don’t like Strumpette, and I can understand why people might be put off. There’s partial nudity, there’s foul language, and a very specific hate-on for Richard Edelman. Women in the business - especially those who have worked and worried hard to bury any notion that women are second-rate practitioners in any way - might be offended by her characterization.

“Bottom line professionally speaking, I am 5’ 4” tall, athletic, Pantene shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs. I present well and am most accomodating. I’ve slept with clients. I sleep with my boss. I am the consummate PR strumpette. When I was 7 my mother told me I’d “never get anywhere with that mouth.” I’ve apparently dedicated my life in proving her wrong.”

But it’s satire. And even if you don’t particularly care for the way Amanda “presents”, she has something relevant to say about the business. I think she’s gotten under the skin of many because there’s truth in much of what she writes. (Plus, she can write. Plus, she doesn’t mind a bit of character assassination.) Most of what’s written by PR for PR is back-slapping, self-congratulatory word-fluff. Where’s the bigger crime? 

If PR-types are too thin-skinned to take some roasting about this business, then we might as well stop all the whinging and hand-wringing, hand the budget over to the ad agency, and lock the door behind us on the way out. OK, so Chapel (and friends) has a mean streak and will bite if provoked. Fine. Refreshing, even. If there ever was an industry that needed a florescent light, a magnifying mirror and a reality check, it’s ours.

The proposed acquisition of CHUM Limited by Bell Globemedia is the talk of the town today, particularly if you are in, or at all related to, the media world. Just about every newspaper, commentator and columnist has or will have something to say about this but I like to check in with Antonia Zerbisias at the Toronto Star.

Canadian journalists labouring in news rooms across the country are looking left, right and in the mirror worrying who might not be there once the dust settles. There are rumours that as many as 47 people got pink slips in the Vancouver CITY TV newsroom yesterday for reason apparently unrelated to the CHUM/Bell Globemedia news. The trend of “sharing” news resources may be a beneficial business practice but it is certainly the consumer that gets the short end of the stick. And perhaps PR professionals are the most acutely aware of the practical outcomes from media consolidation and it’s not good news. We know there are fewer people who have time to explore new story ideas– any stories — whether or not the news staff is working across print and electronic media.

I don’t know about you but for whatever reasons we are finding is that there are fewer really good “beat” reporters, the ones who you can approach with an idea. They know the subject matter, have the context and usually their own sources. You have to have a good idea too, because they slam the door really fast if you dare to hand them anything that smacks of a self-serving corporate pitch. They do the research – not just based on the stuff you give them.

We are seeing a lot of very hard working reporters but they have so much to do that even sound ideas are not getting a good hearing. Without the experience in say finance, health care or public policy a reporter may only be able to gloss the surface of an issue or will lack the ability to recognize the nugget in an idea or suggestion.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, when talking to friends and family about some of my client projects, “I had no idea” or “I don’t understand why I haven’t read or heard about this issue before now.”

Ok, the media critics will be quick to pipe in that PR folks should not be influencing the news. This tells us once again that: 1) PR as a profession has been tarnished by “snake oil” salespeople, the purveyors of the “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” approach and the lawyerly “say as little as possible at all times” stance; and 2) we haven’t made it possible for the media to believe that PR can enable and support their efforts.

The PR world should be standing up in solidarity with the journalists staring down the long dark hallway of media consolidation. But I can’t see a time when media would be interested in considering our support and encouragement. Too bad. We have a lot in common and no common ground when it is most needed.