The Week in PR

Platform Prater: It was a Valentine’s Day gift from Snap Inc.to those with large followings and influencers who are members of Snap’s Stories program. The social channel began Feb. 14 providing robust analytics, such as weekly Story views, time spent on Stories, daily unique story views and audience demographics. The move is intended to help brands and creators and comes on the heels of Snapchat’s poorly received redesign. -- Google says it’s putting customer experience over revenue. From Feb. 15 the search engine giant’s enormously popular Chrome browser pledged to stop “showing all ads on sites that repeatedly display” disruptions such as videos with loud music and “giant pop-ups where you can’t seem to find the exit icon,” Google Chrome VP Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wrote in a Feb. 15 post. “It’s important to note that some sites affected by this change may also contain Google ads. To us, your experience...is a higher priority than the money that these annoying ads may generate—even for us.” The Coalition for Better Adswill guide Google in the process. Critics claim the Coalition is Google’s creation. -- Indictments Feb. 16 against 13 Russians and three companies in Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election indicate Facebook was their platform of choice. Facebook VP of ads Rob Goldman dispatched an 8-tweet thread claiming Russia’s main goal was to sow discord in the U.S., not influence the election. In a flurry of weekend tweeting, President Trump cited Goldman’s tweets as proof the election was clean. The grand jury indictments, though, say influencing the election was the goal. -- In a related story, Facebook said Feb. 17 it will send postcards via snail mail to those seeking to buy political ads on its platform to check whether or not they live in the U.S. Once ad buyer received the postcard he/she would be instructed to return to Facebook and enter a code. Facebook refused to say how this method would prevent foreign agents from hiring U.S. residents to thwart the system.

Punch Drunk: So far Carnival Cruise Line communicators seem to be handling the incident on Carnival’s Legend well. The Legend Feb. 16 offloaded 26 members of a family due to their violent behavior onboard. “We sincerely regret that the unruly conduct and actions of the passengers removed from the ship…may have prevented other guests from fully enjoying their cruise,” said Jennifer Vandekreeke VP, Australia Carnival Cruise Line, as passengers were offered a 25% discount on their next cruise. Passengers caught some of the action on video. Carnival said Feb. 19, “Our security team responded...to extremely unruly behavior...[although] the actions [by our security team], seen on the video...are not in line with our values and policies. We are conducting a full investigation and will take appropriate corrective action as necessary.”

What Were They Thinking? Or Where Were Their PR Pros?Arguably America’s greatest Winter Olympian Shaun White and entertainer Jamie Foxx seemed poorly media trained last week. Foxx, 50, was on a live ESPN broadcast Feb. 16 before the NBA All-Star celebrity game when anchor Michael Smithasked if Foxx prepared for the game by playing hoops with alleged paramour Katie Holmes. Foxx removed his headphones and walked off the set. And did White, 31, really think he could avoid being asked about the out-of-court sexual harassment settlement he reached last year with Lena Zawaideh, 26, a former drummer in his rock band? One way to try is to allow only males to ask questions, although two female reporters wanted to ask some, too. ABC’s Matt Gutman threw a monkey wrench in the works by asking White during a Feb. 13 presser about sexual harassment and his legacy. White answered the question poorly: “Honestly, I’m here to talk about the Olympics, not gossip.” White apologized for his word choice, not his behavior toward Zawaideh, the next morning on NBC’s The Today Show,which knows a bit about sexual harassment courtesy of Matt Lauer.

Growth: Geben Communications launched an insights/analytics service that new business insights lead Devin Hughes will head. -- Sacred Heart University of CT will introduce an M.A. in strategic communication and PR later this year. -- Robert Gordon University and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations are launching a diploma in crisis communications, Scotland’s first.

People: Starbucks’VP, global communications Linda Mills is joining Boeing Commercial Airplanes as VP, communications.