Gail Sideman Publicity

Do ideologies belong in business publicity?

Is Sticker Mule a donkey's tush for pushing political ideology?

The primary purpose of public relations is to establish, improve and maintain public perception. I advise PR and publicity clients to prepare for overwhelming benefits from public exposure as well as blowback that may result of something they say, write or do. When you’re forward-facing, the company you keep becomes part of your publicity. So […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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. […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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