Why media training is important
Missed opportunities. That’s what I tell clients you can avoid with media training. Chances are interview opportunities are going to be far and few between. You don’t want to regret or waste those one or two sound bites you’re going to get. I know many new and seasoned business owners who panic and/or don’t know [...]
Good apology by Yahoo! Fantasy Football
Just after 11 a.m. CT Sunday, Nov. 11, I went to the Yahoo! Fantasy Football page to double-check my line-up for any injuries, as I and many others always do. To my surprise, the page didn’t load, and wouldn’t load after many retries. I even tried my mobile app, but that didn’t work either, so [...]
When heads roll …
Someone tweeting for @KitchenAidUSA posted “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics” during the debate. It was immediately taken down and replaced with this apology: “Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion. #nbcpolitics” [...]
Penn State and the NCAA
I’ve read a lot of columns and letters-to-the-editor calling for the NCAA to hand Penn State Athletics the death sentence. I’m against this, because why should the innocent athletes and coaches be punished? That solves absolutely nothing. Imagine your dad committed a crime, but you had to go to jail. Is that fair? Instead, the [...]
Facebook email gaffe
How many times can Facebook screw up? It’s lucky it’s beloved by millions, because in the real world, if your company keeps agitating its customers, those customers go to your competitor. This time around, Facebook changed users’ email to a Facebook email account without telling them. How simple would it have been for Facebook to [...]
Wal-mart Hides Scandal
How many scandals can Wal-mart have in one week? First their stores in Mexico are caught for bribing politicians (and then Wal-mart covered up the investigation), and now they are being fined by the Labor Department for denying workers overtime pay. Who cares about another Wal-mart scandal? Well a few years back Wal-mart’s then CEO [...]
Standing up for Beef Products, Inc.
Dear Eldon Roth, Regina Roth, Jeff Carlson and others at Beef Products, Inc.: This is not a battle you have to fight by yourself. Let us be your partner in helping to educate the public that your product is 100 percent beef and most importantly, safe. We’ll roll up our sleeves and work with you [...]
Those lying coaches
I really thought Urban Meyer, who today was announced as the new head coach of the Ohio State football team, was a classy guy. No more. Not since he lied about being offered the job. On Wednesday, Nov. 24, the AP wrote a story that Urban denied being offered a job: “I have not been [...]
Weighing in on the NBA lockout
Didn’t the NBA learn anything from the NHL? The cancellation of the 2004-05 season of the latter did a lot of damage to the league and its players. For example, ESPN replaced its missing programming with college basketball and got a ratings boost; NHL games are now seen on Versus. In addition, the league had [...]
Bad decisions by a company
One responsibility of a public relations or marketing department is to explain to senior management what the outcomes of any company decision would be. Usually, bad decisions can be stopped or altered in the pre-planning stages before it gets too late. I can’t imagine this scenario was played out at Netflix. In July, it announced [...]