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One of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, KFC, was selected by PR News’ panel of judges for its creative reimagining of a brand icon via its “Rotating Colonel” campaign. Over the past few years, the mascot has been given several new faces—perhaps most memorably, Reba McEntire. The brand kept audiences holding their breath for the next influencer to don the signature goatee and white suit. PR News asked Staci Rawls, director, PR & internal communications at KFC U.S. to pull the curtain for a peek behind one of the most beloved campaigns in recent history.

Healthcare communicators have plenty to worry about, particularly working in a regulated industry where lives are at stake daily. Add to that the upcoming elections, where the Affordable Care Act is a major issue. Speaking of affordable care, questions abound when the story of a school teacher’s $100,000 hospital bill being cut to $800 is raised.

As Hurricane Florence makes its way towards the U.S. Eastern seaboard, officials are urging residents of coastal North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia to evacuate before the storm makes landfall. But, as with all with major storms, some people just won’t listen. Communicators across government agencies and political offices alike must contend with skepticism, fear and just plain stubbornness from constituents when making announcements about hurricane preparedness and evacuation.

The New Yorker has published a 14,000-word profile on Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While regulation continues to be proposed as the umbrella solution to several of Facebook’s problems this year, here are a few takeaways from the story on what Zuckerberg thinks about external regulation—and what efforts the platform is taking to regulate itself.

It was a quick switch. IHOP, a household name, became IHOb. Not long after, the ubiquitous pancake house went back to its roots. It was stunt perhaps worth replicating, because a few months later, people are… Continued

Every day we throw something out, tossing it into the garbage or recycling bin without much thought. At home, we cart the trash can up to the curb (or have our kids do it) and go on with our lives. Meanwhile, back at the office, we are letting a lot of work garbage pile up. We hold onto projects, ideas and missions that are starting to stink up the place. Either we feel we can’t toss them out or we just don’t think about the notion that some ideas expire, that products or campaigns need to be sun-setted. So, what garbage do you need to clear out?

PR pros aren’t sweating the congressional scrutiny of social media and the push for new regulations, with some seeing the changes as beneficial to an industry that has long operated in opacity. The hearings last week saw Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testify on Capitol Hill. More regulation—both by the platforms themselves and external agencies—is likely to result. But this is not raising alarm among communicators.

One of this year’s Hall of Fame inductees, CVS Health, was selected for its CVS Quits campaign. In 2014, the company announced the banning of tobacco products in its stores. The brand received a slew of media accolades for its bold move in mainstream news publications, on social media and from influencers in the health space. Furthermore, it successfully established itself as a health care organization, rather than simply a pharmacy chain. In a PR News exclusive Q&A, CVS Caremark’s VP, corporate communications Carolyn Castel shared some of the communications victories of the initiative.

While some of the initial figures for Nike’s latest iteration of the Just Do It effort with Colin Kaepernick are mixed so far, the brand likely weighed potential costs and benefits before embarking on the campaign. Despite protests against the brand this week, Nike knew what it was doing when it entered the conversation on racial discrimination. It’s important to understand why.

Twitter has finally banned conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones from the platform, citing violations of its abusive behavior policy. While this may seem like a step in the right direction for the social media site, which has been criticized over the past month for allowing Jones to remain active on Twitter despite evidence of previous policy violations, there are still questions surrounding whether this was just the platform bending to public pressure and how the policies actually deal with hate speech and will do so going forward.