In a slight shift from my posts where I have been talking about starting my career in PR, I wanted in light of recent events to talk a bit about Public Relations as an industry. Specifically, headlines such as Sunday’s Toronto Star; “Spinning in the First Week of Michael Bryant’s New Life” and today’s Globe and Mail article; “Michael Bryant’s political strategy: PR 2.0”.

Both articles discuss PR in relation to Michael Bryant’s case, and from my reading of it and as someone working in PR I was a bit put off.  To pull a few quotes from the Star article; “It helps to have friends in PR”, “Look, the headline of this story should be: ‘Navigator, changing your perceptions without you even knowing it” and “He refers, of course, to Navigator Limited, the smooth public relations firm hired by Bryant (when exactly is unclear) to massage the message”. The article then continues to a full page analysis of the inner working of the messaging surrounding this tragic incident. The Globe article takes a look at Navigator’s use of social media (Twitter, Blog and Facebook) in relation to their client.

Personally, I resent the fact that PR is often tied to “spin”, deception and manipulation. I do not feel that reflects the work that I do, or the many other professionals who are passionate about communication and social media. However I did find it very interesting that the article pulls into the spotlight a PR firm, whereas usually the agency stays in the background.

I want to make it very clear that I am not choosing sides and making statements about Michael Bryant’s guilt or innocence.  I feel this is a very tragic situation for both sides. Lives have been changed forever. But facing these serious charges and the media onslaught, I can sympathize with Michael Bryant for enlisting the services of Navigator just as I respect the work they are doing on behalf of someone who will be forever affected by this moment in time. PR does not change “the facts”.  A strong team of media savvy professionals helping in the face of any crisis can provide advice, support and direction.

What do you think of the role PR plays in image management issues when a crime or tragedy has occurred?

As you may have noticed, Twitter is VERY “twendy” right now.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Twitter (the micro-blogging site where users can send and read other users 140 character updates known as tweets) has been ALL over the media lately. This was due in large part to the fact that Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) was the first Twitter account to reach 1 million followers. If you want to learn more, my colleague Dave Fleet did an interview with CityOnline on the subject and also wrote a blog post about it.

Twitter has been around since 2006, but only in the past couple months has it really reached its tipping point. I started on Twitter last September when it was still in its growth stage, and it has been very interesting to watch it develop into what it is today.

I like Twitter. I get a little sneak peak into the lives of the people I am interested in. I follow everyone from friends, to coworkers, to news sources, to people who tweet about subjects I’m interested in, to celebrities. And people even follow me too! There are a lot of great things about Twitter, but many people seem to think it’s just a fad.

I think the future of Twitter really depends on how people continue to use it. There are a lot of people who use it to foster an instantaneous and mass-audience type of communication that can’t be achieved elsewhere and also those who simply post really neat information and tidbits about their lives. However, there are others who unfortunately use it to spam or try to get the most followers.

Personally, I think Twitter is an amazing tool for communication and I can’t wait to see where we take it.

What is your opinion on Twitter? A useful tool for communication or just a fad?

Happy Tweeting

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.