Wednesday November 27, 2024

One Small Mistake

It is amazing that one small mistake of handing the wrong envelope to another can create a global crisis. That is what happened to PwC, the accounting firm, at the Oscars.  The US chairman of the firm who was in the audience understood that something was wrong when he saw his partners on stage. The company […]

Dark Transparency

In bygone days of tobacco litigation, lawyers for the companies would dump a million records onto plaintiff lawyers doing discovery.  The tactic worked for a long time because law firms had neither the time nor the money to plow through hundreds of boxes of paper.  Call the tactic dark transparency.  One could claim to the […]

Transparency And Science

The core of scientific understanding is the ability to reproduce an experiment.  If it can be done again and arrive at the same result, then the hypothesis is correct.  The problem with modern science is that many reproduced experiments aren’t coming up with the same results.  In fact, two-thirds fail.  This lack of transparency is […]

Ads And PR

Google is using a PR tactic to verify the efficacy of its placement of online advertising.  The firm is allowing an outside auditor to analyze the process by which it places ads on behalf of companies and whether they are going to the right web sites to guarantee optimum consumer exposure.  This is important for […]

A Moment’s Change

Vladimir Putin who only yesterday was condemned by Republicans is suddenly gaining popularity among them.  Credit the Trump presidency for the change of heart.  Politics makes for strange bedfellows, the old saw states, and none is odder than this. Putin took Crimea from Ukraine, teamed with the President of Syria to bomb Syrian citizens, hacked […]

Words Too Far

In the internet era, words that go out of the boundary of common decency tend to resurface at inopportune times.  At least, that was the case for this fellow.  He has been an arch-conservative flamethrower for awhile and supported on Breitbart news, but his quasi-endorsement of pedophilia was too much for the news site and for […]

Poking The Barrel

There is an old saw in journalism that one should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.  President Trump has either never heard the bromide or has his own theory.  Cow the media until they do what you tell them to do.  If he believes he can override journalists, he […]

Small Things

PR can be small and seemingly insignificant things, such as this.  Consistent labeling standards for perishables has been long in coming, and it wasn’t until the big players got involved that it happened.  Walmart is looking after its customers.  Ten label warnings have been reduced to two – “Best if used by” and “Use by.” […]

Medical PR

Here is a medical PR challenge.  How do you convince doctors that a medical procedure isn’t effective and to stop doing it?  It turns out some physicians and surgeons don’t get the message or reject it because they feel they are being effective.  Thus, you have areas of the country where certain medical procedures are […]

Road Riddle

Self-driving cars are on the way but one feature of their computerized systems still doesn’t work.  That is handling road construction.  Lane change signs and traffic cones confuse the systems set up for straight-through driving.  It presents a major marketing and PR challenge for auto manufacturers as well.  How do you sell a feature that […]