PR's future

If you are in public relations then you understand that if the message is lost..all is lost. As PR students we learn everyday how communication and targeted audience is a major part of our job. Well I'm here to tell you that video is the future. PR has used video releases and satellite media for some time now, but the new trend is online video. Since the explosion of users on You Tube browsers now prefer online video. People love video...reading is alright but nothing grabs the attention and holds on to it like a great video. I once heard someone say a picture is worth thousands words...but I'm here to say that a video is worth a thousand pictures and a million words...

Hey folks...just thought I would spice up the blog a tad bit and ask the question....a question most people hate or lets say dislike answering. "Who are you voting for in the Presidential Elections" (sorry for all you Bush fans)..Well if you still haven't decided then here's some food for thought. Presidential runner Mitt Romney recently released an Ad campaign on his views but mostly on himself and how "right" he is for the job. I personally don't know who I am voting for but after seeing his commercials..I kinda have an idea it may not be him...after the long commercials I'm confused where he stands. He co-founded a significant investment firm. He led an overhaul of a corrupt Olympic committee. He served as a Republican Governor of a notoriously Democratic state. He is the son of a well-known pol who served as Governor of Michigan and ran for President. He is a Mormon. He has flip-flopped positions on three GOP issues: abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research.

I have one piece of advice for Mr. Romney...KISS (keep it simple silly) if the audience doesn't receive the message clearly then the messenger hasn't done his job...

Sarkozy For a Change

Finally, the French people said their word. They elected Sarkozy hoping for some serious interior reformation in the country.
Sarkozy, son of Hungarian immigrant promised to lower the unemployment rate and to be tough on crime and control immigration.
Sarkozy announced after his election, his support to USA even though some opinions may contradict.
Will the American – French relations witness closer ties than ever?
Days to come will decide.

Paris Hilton is going to jail

Paris Hilton, the 26 year-old hotel heiress is sentenced to 45 days of jail time.

Hilton is set to start her sentence on June 5th of this summer. The incident that apparently spurred on prosecutors occurred Jan. 22, when Hilton was cited for speeding in her Bentley, a violation of her no-plea on the DUI case, and for driving with a suspended license.

Paris is a walking PR case. The 6th season of The Simple Life is favorably watched, her CD released late last summer, the sex tape, and her notorious partying habits make her a strong figure in the celebrity world. She is constantly in trouble, or constantly at the hotest L.A. nightclubs.

Now Paris's Hiltons PR strategy is avoidance. Her publicist, Dan Flores, is the mastermind behind her crazy life. Flores has recently pulled Paris from numerous appearances. She was set to appear on: Live! with Regis & Kelly, TRL Live, CBS and the Late Show with David Letterman. However, her recent DUI charge has silenced her and kept her in celebrity hiding.

Fox officials are upset that Klores has steadfastly refused to take their calls about the situation, while their show The Simple Life is begining to air.

Letterman has begun to half-heartedly attack Flores for "his incompetence." He is offended that Paris is not allowed to come on his show.

"He's some kind of PR guy, and I believe for a time, lost his license to practice PR in this country, and he was running all his PR operations out of Mexico," Letterman joked on his show Monday night.

While Paris is painting her nails in jail, Flores will need the time to rethink Paris' public relations tactics for Hollywood.

Good news!!

According to Dennis Spring of Spring Associates, who just released the 11th annual “Official PR Salary & Bonus Report,” he stated that this is the year of fat bonuses and pumped up salaries for PR pros on both the agency and corporate side.

“We haven’t seen this kind of full employment in PR since the dot com boom,” Spring told PRBlogNews. “Agencies are getting new business and growing existing business. The pace accelerated in the last quarter of ‘06 and it is continuing through this year. Now that business has been good for a couple of years the benefits are filtering down to employees.”

According to the report, there was a huge jump in the bonuses last year even though the base salaries on the agency side declined and corporate communications salaries increased slightly

“The PR business always lags the economy by about a year,” explained Spring. “The dot com boom bred caution into the market but this economy has legs. With full employment and business booming across the board it is harder to find and retain good people. You get into negotiations with candidates, and there is a sense of urgency from the agency or corporation. A lot of activity in this market.”

For more information click here

Source: PR Blog News

New Camel Brand Targeting Women

Camel, a popular cigarette company, released a new brand of cigarettes in February targeting women. This new brand is called Camel No. 9, a brand that advertises being "Light and Luscious" and has a packaging that reminds people of perfume boxes. But with a new brand comes new controversy. Some are getting mad over Camel No. 9, remarking that it's only purpose is to attract new consumers that are mainly young female teens or young women in their 20's. According to MSNBC, spokesman David Howard said this new brand was only meant "for women who were asking for a product that better reflected their taste preferences and style" and "to connect with women adult smokers", not other consumers.
According to NPR, many are angered by this new brand because of it's advertising strategies. People see it as aggressive advertising since R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company even held lavish parties targeting women. The company held"event[s] promot[ing]...a girls' night out, where women can sample cigarettes, get massages, have their hair styled and take home gift bags that include makeup and jewelry."
The company may say that the brand is meant to target women who already smoke, but through its aggressive advertising, who knows if it will, in the end, intentionally target young non-smoking women, too.

A Magazine about Pocasting and Blogging

As the name indicates, Blogger and Podcaster, a new type of magazine about podcast and blogging is going to appear in print market this month. The major contents will focus on news, feature and tips on how to express our voice, exchange information and skills on how to expand business through different platform available on the Internet. As podcast and blogging are becoming one of the major tools for our everyday life communication, it is beneficial for companies to target their audiences and communicate with customers.

- Jasmine

Take a Lesson in PR from China

I came across an article in Newsweek that I thought was really interesting. It was mainly about China learning the value of good PR and is beating the United States at its own game. It went further to discuss how PR is increasingly blending with international politics.

For example, early this month, Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Russia for a three-day visit. This is remarkable because not too long ago, Chinese leaders rarely left home. Now, Russia has declared 2007 the "Year of China," and plans to hold hundreds of China related business, educational and sport events in the upcoming months. In addition, Hu along with Russian President Vladimir Putin both pledged to build a series of cooperative energy projects.

A major public opinion poll last year found that most ordinary Russians now think China has "a positive impact on the world" and the United States has a negative one. We have to stop and really think of how others around the world now view the United States before we get a really tarnished image that may not be salvageable.

I'll leave you with one quote that really stuck out when reading the article:

"Ordinary people across the planet now view China more warmly than they do the United States. Polls taken by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and the BBC show that majorities of people in most countries today consider China to be a more positive influence and less of a threat to international peace than the United States is."

Conversation Marketing

Marketers are finding themselves in an increasingly frantic race to get people talking about their brands. Consumer can be any number of things—sometimes all at once. And that fact is driving marketers, businesspeople, and brand managers crazy. Consumers are producers, users, participants, members of niche communities, or even critics capable of effectively mobilizing others. The article proposes marketers become "conversation architects." Communities are forming around popular social platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Ning, Twitter—the. These platforms facilitate conversation and this is where marketers should begin their conversations about products or organizations. Marketers, businesses, and designers must have an intimate understanding of how these platforms are evolving and influencing human behavior. There has to be an in-depth understanding of why some us of love to incorporate these services in our digital lives. They need to be taken seriously in this evolving world.

Lying to get a job?

We are all about to go into the career world looking for our first job. However, does that mean we are going to have to lie on our resumes before anyone hires us?

It has become more and more common to lie on your resume. Human resource surveys show consistently that more than a third of people have lied on their resume or "enhanced" it in some way in order to get the job http://jobs.aol.com/article/_a/resume-indiscretions-remain-widespread/20070430123309990001?ncid=AOLCOMMjobsDYNLprim0001.

Even though it is unethical, some companies need to take the blame as well. If the background checks they were doing were thorough, then some of these people would get caught and the rates might decrease. In 2004 a report by the Government Accountability Office found that 463 government workers had lied on their resumes and were not caught. This makes me a little nervous that our own government can not do a thorough background check.

Lying on a resume is not something new. We have seen many CEO's, football coaches, government officials and the dean of admissions for MIT all get caught for lying, or embellishing, their resume and losing their jobs. It can be a message to all of us: DON'T LIE.