Southwest Airlines took a PR hit, but can recover
In case you didn’t hear, Southwest Airlines got into quite a public and customer relations pickle this week. More than a million people reportedly saw flights canceled or lost luggage during a high-volume holiday travel period. Passengers and even some of the airline’s staff took to social media and slammed the airline’s internal operations. I flew Southwest Friday to […]
NFL, Hamlin emergency confirms need for crisis communications
People who work in or play football know that the sport comes with risks. I think, however, most of us have never seen anything like what happened to Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin on the field in Cincinnati Monday night. We were horrified earlier this NFL season when Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa experienced a seizure after […]
Earn fans with a newsletter
Popular publicity question: “Do I need a newsletter?” If you want to attract attention to your genius, then the answer is yes. You may be an electrician, professional team owner, teacher, sports official, author, doctor, movie producer or anyone else who seeks publicity for their work; the answer is yes. Newsletters don’t get enough credit as a simple way […]
Should you create your own podcast?
It feels like at least a dozen new podcasts are introduced each week. The No. 1 question for anyone who coaches publicity is, who’s listening to the reported 2.4 million shows? The quick answer is revealed in a variety of surveys, but each overwhelmingly identifies white males (54% per earthweb) as the dominant audience, with other demographics growing each month. […]
It’s not PR, it’s Rafa’s heart
Let’s talk mensches. Or menschen if you want to be origin-correct with the Yiddish plural of mensch. Specifically, Rafael Nadal. The 22-major-winning professional tennis player continued to show his menschiness when he left the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London after withdrawing from the tournament as a semifinalist. Nursing a reported seven-millimeter torn […]
Endorsements are more than PR props
This was originally posted in the July 20, 2021 SIDEbar newsletter. To subscribe, visit gpublicity.com and click on the envelope in the lower right-hand corner of the page. George Clooney is true to his acting and tequila. Although Casamigos was acquired by Diageo in 2017, his story is of product lore because he and a friend did […]
The best and worst in PR this week
Like a lot of people who follow and help produce news for a living, some of it was tough to read and hear during the last few months. From sports to politics, the COVID-19 outbreaks got worse, people got uglier in how they dealt with it and then … the elections. So, it’s all over […]
Clarity and consistency could have prevented college football conundrum
In public relations, consistent communications help audiences remember you. Create a message that’s easy to recall; repeat the message, emphasize the message and weave that same message into the end of conversations so it’s the last thing people hear. It’s the same theory as marketing’s Rule of 7. The problem with college, which is at the […]
PR during a pandemic can be tricky
My job is to get businesses or people noticed by their ideal audiences and the media. That part hasn’t changed since most of America began to hunker down in wake of the COVID-19 or coronavirus pandemic. How and when to send out publicity pitches — approach people about business news and notes — has become […]
NFL, XFL – it’s still football season
I took mental notes while surfing the newest version of the XFL and probably like most people that tuned in, compared it to the NFL. Having recently been immersed in everything NFL during Super Bowl week in Miami, it wasn’t hard to get on board. That, and it was snowing truckloads where I was this […]