Reputation

Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer released a joint statement Monday (March 9, 2020) about the organizations’ preventative strategies surrounding coronavirus.

Where does the communicator start? With panicked stories circulating in the media, employee and customer concerns are rising.

It’s impossible to predict now, but coronavirus could usher in a highly inward-looking society as more of us fear leaving the safety of our homes.

In a wide-ranging address during day 2 of PRNEWS’ Crisis and Measurement Summit in Miami, political strategist Ana Navarro had positive and negative things to say about social media. In the end, though, she believes PR pros have a difficult but important mission to promote truth in messaging. “Don’t give up on the facts,” she said.

Last week the still-profitable brand Victoria’s Secret (VS) was sold. Could this be part of the brand’s attempt to recover its reputation? Is the sale a way of signaling VS is ready to make a significant change in its products and messaging? From a PR, crisis and reputation perspective, will it be too little too late? Can VS come back from its low point and convince customers that it’s a label for women with various body types?

It can be a dirty business defending criminals. Whatever you might think of those who represent Harvey Weinstein in court, you have to admit his lead attorney, Donna Rotunno, is, for the most part, using earned media tactics well. Her PR goal seems to be building name recognition in anticipation of future #MeToo clients.

No longer confined to China, coronavirus is beginning to move from a foreign story to a domestic one. More than that, it’s become a communications and reputation story. When iconic brands get involved, we tend to listen more closely.

Technology has made the world much smaller. Still, in many ways, humans remain very insular. What’s in front of us often receives most of our attention. As a result, where a news story occurs can… Continued

For several years, marketers and communicators have feared the damage done to the brands and public figures they represent via the propagation of “deepfakes,” videos and photos that use the assistance of machine learning technology to replace faces and objects with false, but realistic, images. As fake news and misinformation continue to plague online discourse, Facebook says it has taken a significant step to deter the spread of doctored video and photos.

Away continues to experience a public failure that undermines its stated values as a community-focused global travel brand. It’s painfully clear that the luggage company’s senior leadership, especially its co-chief executive Steph Korey, needs a lesson in reputation management.