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Public Relations
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PR Pitch Of The Day
Rudy Giuliani stopped to piss at Nespresso Boutique Bar in Manhattan today. According to a flack, who found this information worthwhile enough to blast out to the world via email, "he promised to return and sample Nespresso's coffee drinks another day." Nespresso: good enough for a fascist to piss in, though their coffee sucks.
College Is About Lessons For A Lifetime
Adweek got its hands on a leaked copy of an internal investigation from Hunter College about the school's shady Coach-sponsored PR class teaching kids how to be dishonest corporate shills, which we covered earlier this week. They say it was a bad idea! For a more detailed summary, go read the story. [Adweek]
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controversy
Dove Denies New Yorker Hypocrisy Allegations
Beauty product purveyor Dove has finally responded to allegations, first reported in a New Yorker story, that the company retouched photos of the "Real" women in its "Campaign for Real Beauty" ads. Which would make them big hypocrites. But according to a statement from Dove this morning (via its PR agency, Edelman), the New Yorker was wrong. The company even got a quotable refutation from controversy-courting celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz! Their full denial is after the jump. More »
flackery
Jim Strzalkowski Simply Must Tell You The Irrelevant News!!
What's the word on the street these days? "Word on the street is that Brian Anthony is also fighting hard to open for Madonna on her upcoming "Hard Candy" tour." This Brian Anthony, who is some type of music maker, did a mashup of his music with Madonna's and put it on his Myspace page. Now, "The 'Worked Up!' mash-up is being passed around the Madonna camp and the buzz is BIG on it." How can we be so sure? Because we got the information firsthand, in a hilariously inept press release from Jim Strzalkowski, fantabulous PR man—and fan—to the D-list stars! More »
boycotts
Slutty Starbucks Logo Offends Crazies
"The Resistance," which describes itself as a "Christian Group" but, judging by its website, is more of a "Wacko Conspiracy Theory Group," has just launched a boycott of Starbucks. They object to the coffee chain's new retro-style logo, which features a mermaid who wantonly possesses boobies. They "might as well call themselves Slutbucks"! In the past, The Resistance has lobbied celebrities like Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise to change their "ridiculous" behavior. So their calls for action have clearly been huge failures thus far. The full, weird press release is below. More »
scandals
Dove's 'Real' Women: Fakes?
You know that Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty," which featured women slightly less skeletal than the average model, and therefore demonstrated that Dove is the greatest, most big-hearted company ever in the world? Well now there's a scandal about it! A new New Yorker story about Pascal Dangin, the world's "premier retoucher of fashion photographs," contains this tidbit on Dove's campaign, which ostensibly celebrates authentic, unadulterated womanhood: More »
polls
Which Is The Worst PR Pitch Of The Week?
We get all types of PR pitches around here, and, as you might imagine, many of them suck. So we're going to list the three worst ones we've gotten so far this week, and ask for your considered judgment on which is the worst of all. The winner may be specially ridiculed in a future post! Our three entrants: The aforementioned New York Dance Parade pitch, urging us to publish a story on "socialdancing" lest we lose our job; a pitch for Time Out New York's sex issue, which opened with "Feeling hot and bothered? So are we, and we've got the boners to prove it," and touted its "interactive pole, I mean poll"; or a pitch from the Brooklyn Paper promising "Breaking News," reading "Here we go, folks — a hot one (with video!). Enjoy." Which was, disappointingly, for this inane video of two dudes sitting in an office discussing marginal news. Don't overpromise! Cast your vote below: More »
public relations
Why Tina Brown Should Shut Up
So Tina Brown has lost the design superstar who was supposed to be sprinkling magic dust over her benighted news aggregation website. The former New Yorker and Vanity Fair editor—whose internet project is backed by Barry Diller—said she'd hired Ian Adelman, well-regarded design director of New York magazine's website when outsiders first got wind of the new venture. Now Keith Kelly reports that Adelman is back with his former employer. More »
public relations
CEO Ready To Sponsor Event Where Nothing Dies
You like to play with the pretty horses? Step away, until you pony up some cash, ha. High profile horse racing has become an entirely corporate marketing-driven spectacle, where horses are sponsored by UPS and owned by hedge funds. The big sponsor of the Kentucky Derby is YUM Brands, owner of Taco Bell and KFC. Who could embody the noble spirit of galloping stallions better than the nation's leading purveyor of Mexican Pizzas? Anyhow, YUM's CEO, David Novak, found out the perils of sponsoring an event with live animals when a horse up and died on the track at the Derby last weekend. With no idea what was happening, Novak stepped up moments later and gave his little speech plugging his company, which has proven to the world that he hates dead ponies: More »
public relations
Mocking Fox News "Seemed like a good idea at the time."
Rich Jernstedt, the chief marketing officer of the massive PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, emails us to explain why, exactly, someone at his firm had the bright idea of mocking Fox News as a nasty, bedbug-infested den of disease, and offering Fox guests a free de-lousing in order to get publicity for a pest control client. Rich, Rich, you don't understand: we're with you on this one. Fox News is a nasty, bedbug-infested den of disease. And we like to see a PR firm uncharacteristically attack a powerful media outlet. We're hoping for a full-on war here! But, reading between the lines of Rich's email, it sounds like Fleishman has done some serious groveling since its CEO got mocked by Fox on-air in retaliation last week. His full email about "our friends at FOX," below: More »
blog wars
WSJ Does Good Imitation Of Portfolio Blogger
"Jack Flack" at Portfolio.com is one of a small handful of bloggers who writes things that are interesting and intelligent about corporate PR. One of his trademark constructions is "Parsing XYZ," where he takes some statement or speech or press release full of corporate doublespeak and decodes it. I identify him so closely with that stuff that I even gave him credit the last time I used the word "Parsing!" But not so for the Wall Street Journal, which ran a column last weekend with a premise virtually identical [see update also, below] to an earlier Jack Flack column: More »
public relations
Coach Brand Teaches Students How To Be Dirty Shills
Hunter College, the luxury brand Coach, fraudulent PR campaigns, and dishonest corporate collaboration with academia are the topics of the day today. Important topics! Adweek has just come out with a long investigative piece on a Coach-sponsored PR class at Hunter, which reeks of impropriety and dishonesty, and ended up tangling a bunch of college kids up in a fake online PR blog that makes them all look like a bunch of shady, dishonest undercover marketing hacks. "I knew a lot of hell would break loose about the class. And it did," said the teacher. Indeed. The condensed version of the whole sordid tale, after the jump. More »
public relations
Make Fun Of Fox News And Pay The Price
Fox News will always have its revenge! Back in March, news of a bedbug infestation in Fox's newsroom surfaced, and the huge PR firm Fleishman-Hillard took advantage of it to promote one of their pest control clients—offering a free de-lousing to any Fox guests. You just knew that Fox wouldn't let that insult slide. Today, the fair and balanced station got its on-air vengeance against the PR firm [PRNewser], with a little of Fox's trademark gratuitous humiliation: More »
health
Tan Or Die
The Dermatologist-Sunscreen Industry cabal is trying to kill us all! They want us to be pale, shivering closet cases, scared to venture outside for fear of being melted by the sunlight, like bloggers. Luckily, the fearless Indoor Tanning Association is here to bring the truth to light, ha. The group, which represents the major industry of Long Island, is running an ad in USA Today decrying the health nuts' attempts to "wrongly scare people out of the sun." They point out that a little sunlight gives you Vitamin D, which protects against many cancers! Except the skin cancer you got from being out in the sun. After the jump, the Indoor Tanners' press release [via AgencySpy], with the type of foolproof logic you would expect from those who spend hundreds of hours under artificial radiation lamps: More »
kind of magic
David Blaine Fails To Drown Himself On Oprah
Droopy-eyed magician David Blaine, a man who sounds high at all times, went on Oprah's show today to try to break the world record for holding one's breath underwater. Not to give away the ending, but he did it! Seventeen minutes. Perhaps his success will inspire him to go freeze himself in a block of ice, or lock himself away in a box, or some other activity that will take him out of the public eye. The actual clip of the breath-holding, as you might imagine, is not very thrilling to watch. So instead, after the jump we've put a clip of his video blog leading up to the stunt, in which he explains his motivation while sounding high. And another clip of that trick where he ties his shoes with no hands, which is way cooler than holding your breath any day. More »
public relations
Useful Media Relations 101
This email has been floating around for a week or so, but we're going to run it as a public service. It was first circulated by a PR guy named Peter Shankman as a classic "How Not To Pitch A Reporter" lesson. In this case, the email pitch below was sent to a hedge fund reporter. That is to say, a professional journalist who spends his days chronicling the ins and outs of the secretive high finance world. So one might have expected that a PR firm would cull its email blast list just a bit before it went to work on behalf of its "Long Island based car shop" client. But no! Pitches like this are why reporters hate PR people. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH PR AGENCY THIS CAME FROM? The full pitch (to, again, a hedge fund reporter), and the stunning reveal of the agency's identity, after the jump. More »
astroturf
