PR Insiders

The C-suite increasingly is asking communicators to supply more authoritative data about their efforts, particularly in earned media. New demographic and firmographic technologies can help identify audience personas and find potential new audiences.

Every December, in the midst of holiday celebration, PRNEWS hosts our annual PR People & Rising Stars awards. While we certainly consider all of our awards shows to be feel-good events, there’s something extra special about this one. Celebrating the actual people who make the campaigns run, put out the crisis fires and lead their teams to success, along with the rising stars under 30 who are coming up fast, takes on an added significance during this festive season of togetherness.

Imagine a crisis resulting in a death is part of your first day on the job as a communicator. That was the case for David Gaier, a former chief of communications at NRG Energy. He offers lessons learned and crisis preparation tips after years on the job.

If you’re seeing purple today there’s nothing wrong with your eyes. It’s World Pancreatic Cancer Day 2019, and purple is the designated color for the awareness campaign associated with this deadliest of cancers. Hill+Knowlton managing director Larry Krutchik offers social media lessons learned during the 2018 effort.

South Dakota’s PR campaign around the state’s methamphetamine epidemic accomplished what it set out to do—create awareness around a state-wide health crisis. But the play on words, “Meth. We’re on it,” superimposed over pictures of teens, farmers and older women, also ignited a debate about the high cost of quick-won awareness, and whether it’s true that “there’s no such thing as bad PR.”

South Dakota’s PR campaign around the state’s methamphetamine epidemic accomplished what it set out to do—create awareness around a state-wide health crisis. But the play on words, “Meth. We’re on it,” superimposed over pictures of… Continued

November is PR and Communications Measurement Month. There’s plenty to celebrate about measurement. More communicators are measuring as they seek to meet the C-suite’s demand for data. On the other hand, many PR pros are measuring ineffectively, highlighting vanity metrics. It appears that colleges and graduate PR programs are largely ignoring measurement. And there are still a few remaining PR pros who steadfastly refuse to measure.

November is Measurement Month. I swear it is. Johna Burke, the intelligent and ebullient global managing director of AMEC, just wished me Happy Measurement Month. So I know I’m not totally mistaken. Despite events on… Continued

“If you want loyalty while working at a PR agency, bring your dog to the office.” That’s the advice of veteran PR pro Arthur Solomon. In addition to his words of wisdom about loyalty in PR, or the lack thereof, he offers advice about what to say and things to avoid when you’re in job-hunting mode. And you should be job hunting pretty much all the time, he says. Hey, that dog could really come in handy.

Messages now flood our digital channels, and these messages are usually drawn from experience. Morning Consult released a new survey on influencer marketing that found 61 percent of participants are likely to support and talk about brands they love, without—get this—being paid. Without any brand prodding or pushing, consumers have become a public relations channel for companies. And hopefully, most of what they are saying is good news.