Digital & Technology

Burger King has transformed a simple TV ad into a mouthwatering engagement goldmine…almost. The fast-food chain would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids at Google (and on the internet at large). On April 12, Burger King aired an ad in which an actor asks, “OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?” The line was intended to prompt Google Home devices to read a list of Whopper ingredients from Wikipedia, but anonymous pranksters edited the Whopper Wikipedia article to include some less-than-appetizing ingredients.

Journalists and influencers believe that factual content ranks higher with online audiences than emotional content, according to a recent Cision report. Yet at a panel discussion in New York this week, communicators said that emotionally driven content has undeniable power to attract audiences and can even build trust in a brand.

Timely content is king. The good news in today’s digital world is that companies are now in the content driver’s seat. But with so many channels and platforms at their disposal, many brands struggle to be relevant on all of them, all the time. That is leading some to make poor decisions about content type, timing and topic. Here are two examples of how Southwest Airlines strikes while the iron is hot.

Social media exposes many ironies, including the possibility that we are less social because of social media. Remember the days when we used our phone for talking, not typing? And when a friend was someone… Continued

A Personal Blog Network (PBN) is a network of sites that you control which are designed to direct links to a site that you’re monetizing. If you have an existing PBN, or are building one up, you’re going to need to take steps to ensure your digital presence is effective, safe and secure. Here are five tips in setting up your PBN.

If you’re a PR professional and you’ve never had the opportunity to work a SXSW show on behalf of a brand, you should definitely add it to your career bucket list. There’s the sheer geography of SXSW—every street is lined with branded facades as companies take over venues for experiential marketing stunts. Not to mention the volume of social media and social ads that pump through every channel.

Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger (both part of the Facebook family) are powerful platforms that are now being used by more and more people. As mass adoption occurs, the tipping point makes it justifiable for brands and services to invest in the development of bots and AI. And judging by this week’s SXSW, that tipping point isn’t far away.

Lyft and Uber have been locked in PR warfare against each other this year, but the first weekend of Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest was a feather in the cap of both ride-sharing platforms. And they didn’t have to do a thing—they just stood by and watched as others failed to do their job successfully.

Rarely do I mess with cookies, except to eat them. But an experience over the last two weeks with a furniture retailer had me clearing the cookies from my computer. So annoyed was I by… Continued

New digital platforms are driving the evolution of communications departments into media conglomerates, generating graphic, video and other content for both broad and targeted audiences. The agenda spans from an annual horizon of what we need to communicate, all the way down to what just happened a moment ago online and whether there is an organic way to join the conversation. So, Southwest Airlines is exploring how to create content from conversation trends, born out of data and presented in a timely manner.