Gymnastics Tumble: In July we praised a mea culpa statement veteran USA Gymnastics board chair Paul Parilla issued after a report blasted his organization for allowing longtime team physician Larry Nassar to sexually harassing female athletes ( PRN, July 17, 2017). At our press time this week, Parilla, vice chair Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley resigned as scores of former and current gymnasts blasted USAG during Nassar’s trial. The U.S. Olympic Committee applauded the ousters, although it, too, was hit hard for ineptitude during the trial.
Thinking Visually:With social video set to account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2019, according to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, you have to like Nike’s thinking this past weekend. On the courts at the Australian Open many of the world’s leading tennis players, including the men, donned hot pink Nike togs. Sam Shipley, Nike’s apparel design director, says pink was meant to grab attention of viewers who’d miss watching the tournament on TV and instead caught bite-size morsels of it on social. “We utilized dynamic geometric shapes and flooded color to grab the viewer’s attention,” he says on Nike’s site. “We wanted something that vibrates when you see it on screen.” With the courts a cool turquoise, the pink vibrated.
Fries With Your Twitter? As you know, social listening is essential for major brands for a variety of reasons, although the most often-cited example is for reacting to or possibly squelching potential crises. Social listening could be useful in other ways, too. For example over the summer we noted Mack Trucks and other brands developed products as a result of what they’d heard while monitoring social conversations ( PRN, Aug.1, 2017). Another example is on its way and owes at least some of its conception to social listening. In an Oct. 29, 2017, tweet Mark Hoppus, the bass player and singer from blink-182, told his 3.1 million followers he loves Taco Bell but was bummed about its lack of fries. The brand tweeted back 2 days later that this would change. Jan. 3 Taco Bell made it official, launching a #NachoFries hashtag and deciding on Jan. 25 to debut the $1 side item. During the weekend the socially-astute brand ( PRN, June 12 and 19, 2017) further teased its fries offering with an ad during the NFC Championship game.
Platform Prater: Twitter sent email to 680,000 users late Friday telling them they may have followed, liked or retweeted some 50,000 accounts linked to a “Russian government-linked” propaganda effort during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In a blog post Jan. 19 Twitter reveals it’s found additional malicious accounts. Twitter users are miffed: since the Russian accounts were removed, it’s difficult to know which ones you followed, liked or retweeted.
Growth: rbb Communications launched Reputation & Risk Advisors, augmenting its crisis practice. -- Hospitality and real estate PR firm C&R unveiled C&R Content, a native advertising and publishing arm. C&R named veteran journalist Bruce Wallin of The Robb Report to head the creative services unit. – SharpOrange opened its doors in Boston late last week. Its co-founders are veteran communicators Adam Zand and Greg Peverill-Conti, the latter most recently was with InkHouse Media and Marketing.
Oh, Wells: Scandal-prone Wells Fargo drained accounts of some customers last week after mistakenly deducting bill payments twice. The bank apologized socially but failed to say how many accounts were affected. Earlier in Jan. Wells said legal fees resulted in a $3.25 billion Q4 hit to earnings.
People: Facebook named American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault to its board, making him the first black director on what was an all-white group. – W2O Group named Jennifer Gottlieb president, a new position, reporting to founder/CEO Jim Weiss (see photo). She’ll oversee W2O wcg, W2O twist and W2O pure. A 12-year W2O vet, Gottlieb most recently was COO and client service head. – Brittney Manchester, recently a senior advisor at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, joined APCO Worldwide’s D.C. healthcare practice as senior associate director. – WE Communications promoted 19-vet Tiffany Cook to president; she’ll continue overseeing WE’s consumer sector. EVP and chief strategist Katie Huang Shin was named president, technology sector and chief strategy officer. – Markstein named former Time, Inc., president of sales & marketing Greg Schumann VP, strategic initiatives; former Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl director of integrated marketing Jessica Black was named a director. – Communications agency Hotwire named former BOLD CMO Dawn Crew its next CMO-in-Residence. – RepEquity named Ashley Barna VP, digital advertising and SEO.