The heart of public relations
When you work in sports, there’s a point when something happens to your fandom, even if you’re lifelong loyal to one team. It’s not a thing that turns the fan dial. It’s a person. Or people. When friends play, coach, represent someone or work on a team’s staff, you find yourself cheering for their success, […]
League mandate sparks sports PR challenge
A lot of us go into business because we think we can do something differently or better. Produce a tougher widget. Provide better service. Offer stronger solutions. This past week, a sports publicity issue gnawed at me. The NFL reportedly mandated the Green Bay Packers to hold a moment of silence before its September 11 […]
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 […]
There are PR implications with Supreme Court rulings
I’m an emotional person. Sometimes that’s a good thing and other times, well …. I was a bundle of them last week when the Supreme Court announced it was overturning Roe v. Wade which constitutionally gave women the right to safe reproductive healthcare. I went so far in emotional dump writing to call it Taliban-like […]
Aaron Rodgers’s smart guy image takes a hit
This post was originally published in SIDEbar, gpublicity’s newsletter. If we learned one thing during the last week it’s the difference between the words “vaccinate” and “immunize.” When Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told media in August that he was vaccinated against COVID, his eyes veered downward, and he said he was “immunized.” To me, it felt […]
Buzz off buzzwords
Every year seems to have its buzzwords and many are overused. I’m sure that as you read this, you’re forming your own list in your head. I’d just as soon make up words than read these again en masse. So, as we close out the year, can we omit, or at least use the following, […]
As football’s PR efforts work to focus message on safety, violence rears its ugly head
When you’ve set a goal and created a PR plan to essentially rebrand football, the last thing you want are conspiracy theories and brawls in which one player could have killed another on national television. The public relations state of football is mostly good, despite complaints about officiating, reports about long-term head injuries and puzzling […]
Nationals PR staff probably busy the last few days
The Washington Nationals were in a precarious public relations position after they won the World Series. No, no one fell off a parade float or said anything that got past the dump button (that I know of). It involved one more team activity. They could accept an invitation to the White House to be honored […]
“We were wrong” only begins to address Houston Astros’ PR problems
It’s been a bad week of publicity for the Houston Astros, the least of which involves two home losses in their opening World Series games against the Washington Nationals. The Astros ills have all been public relations related. They began with a front office official behaving badly in the clubhouse after his now former team […]
NCAA self-inflicts PR pain
Name: It belongs to you. Image: None like yours (unless you’re an identical twin). Likeness: Artist draws a picture of someone with long curly hair pulled back with a distinctive headband that looks like you. Those things make your brand. They identify you better than any publicity or PR campaign could. When we say that […]