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With 2017 virtually in the rearview mirror I thought it would be good time to sit down over a couple of Cobb salads with Katie Creaser, SVP at agency Affect and a longtime friend of PR News, and talk about the trends that’ll have the greatest impact on PR practitioners next year. Here’s just one: Expect an acceleration of brand crises in news cycles, and for all brands to continue to lose control over the narrative in a crisis.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in communications and marketing. This week’s edition features stories about Kevin Spacey’s poorly crafted apology and Mark Halperin’s fairly good one. We also look at offensive art on a cereal box and a big personnel move on the agency side in Washington, D.C.

Spacey was accused of a forceful sexual advance by actor Anthony Rapp, who was 14 at the time. Halperin was accused by 12 women of sexual assault and harassment during his tenure as political director at ABC News. Their statements differ in some very important ways.

That idea you have, which everyone is calling crazy and couldn’t possibly work: well, it probably won’t work. But you should try it anyway. Such was the advice of Guy Kawasaki, one of a dozen powerhouse speakers at the Synergy Global Forum, a blockbuster event that inspired entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs to go big.

PR measurement may seem like a huge undertaking and many PR pros might not consider themselves data scientists. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find meaningful correlations in your PR data. Take it from Katie Delahaye Paine, also known as The Measurement Queen, who has been a pioneer in the field for more than two decades.

It’s no secret that audiences respond more readily to their peers’ brand engagement than they do to messaging that comes directly from brands themselves. But what can communicators do to convert those engaged users into brand advocates?

Stacey DePolo, who manages social media and advocacy at domain and business services provider GoDaddy, considers that question often. She works daily to build GoDaddy’s community of brand advocates, which she defines as “a group of people who are passionate about a brand, product or cause that promotes their community either in person or online.”

While the NAACP’s travel advisory for African Americans is only the most recent reference to airlines’ perceived discriminatory behavior toward travelers, its calling out of a specific brand perhaps augurs a new era of coordinated confrontation between mission-based nonprofit organizations and brands.

Product launches can produce a headache for communicators in any field. Technology product launches, though, often provide a special brand of torture, what with last-minute updates to capabilities and shifts in deadlines to market. Yet there are several tactics communicators can use to successfully pitch tech products and reduce tension.

Every user will be able to see all ads currently running on Twitter, how long they’ve been running and associated creative, and for political ads, additional information about the advertiser and the amount of money they’ve spent. Ads that do not specifically endorse a candidate for election but instead concentrate on issues are up in the air.

In what he promises will be the final installment of his series on how watching the political scene can provide PR pros with a free, crash-course on crisis management, Arthur Solomon emphasizes the importance of telling the truth. While it might not help you keep your job, telling the truth about a situation or a person can keep you out of costly legal jeopardy, he argues.