Stories by Sophie Maerowitz

Are #MeToo moments part of a movement, or have they become a marketing tactic? To many, the Jan. 28 Grammy Awards fell short of the former, paying lip service to the women of #MeToo and #TimesUp without making a real statement. Most of the night’s award winners were men, with female performers like SZA—who was nominated for five awards—losing to the likes of The Weeknd and Bruno Mars.

Snapchat’s coming redesign, which aims to court advertisers and make the interface easier to use (especially for the 35-and-above set) is currently being tested in the U.K., Australia and Canada. But so far, users in those countries have not been impressed, posting negative reviews on the App Store and tweeting complaints at Snap Inc.’s support handle.

Top communicators have pointed to video—where Facebook has made major investments in recent years—as the next best frontier of online advertising. While Facebook Live remains a popular and highly viewed feature for organic content, Facebook Watch seems to be the frontrunner for Facebook’s ad business. Here’s what we know so far about advertising on Watch.

In an effort to combat harmful advertising in the beauty industry, CVS has made a commitment to keep it real. The retail chain has unveiled its Beauty Mark campaign, promising that it will no longer “digitally alter or change a person’s shape, size, proportion, skin or eye color or enhance or alter lines, wrinkles or other individual characteristics” in the imagery it creates for its stores and marketing.

Each January, the Consumer Electronics Show spotlights the most promising new technology on tap. But a few areas will get more stage time than others at next week’s event. So get those Google Alerts ready: Here are five topics being showcased at next week’s show that PR pros will need to stay on top of in 2018.

The city of Erie received 65 inches of snow from Christmas Eve through Dec. 27—breaking a 59-year-old record for a two-day snowfall in the state. And this PR News reporter just happened to be visiting Erie for the holidays. Here are a few observations on Erie’s communications around the storm.

Amtrak is facing a crisis after a derailment caused at least three deaths and dozens of injuries in Washington on Dec. 18. And in the early aftermath, the organization has done an exemplary job of crisis communications, providing frequent updates on social media, opening a microsite for more information and offering transparency by holding a conference call soon after the accident.

To get a broad sense of some common New Year’s hopes and dreams, we asked eight communicators—all of whom will be speaking at PR News’ DigiComm Summi in Huntington Beach, Calif.—to share their PR resolutions for the coming year. Their answers ranged from better time management and recruiting talent to building relationships and creating more personalized content.

When it comes to holiday tweets, should brands play naughty or nice? Netflix’s snarky tweet, calling out fans of its program “A Christmas Prince,” begged the question. In a statement to PR News, Netflix wrote: “The privacy of our members’ viewing is important to us. This information represents overall viewing trends, not the personal viewing information of specific, identified individuals.”

Stacey DePolo, social media manager at GoDaddy, Claire Baumann, head of public affairs and digital marketing and senior editor at the UN Foundation and Jasmine Atherton, head of social, Americas, at Airbnb share their insights into producing effective live videos.