Reputation

On the tranquil island of Santorini, Greece, hugging the cliffs overlooking the azure blue Aegean Sea, it’s one person’s job to touch-up a boutique hotel’s white exterior. Every day; and it’s a full-time job. The hotel spends $29,000 annually on white paint. The hotel’s pristine exterior makes guests feel special, part of something luxurious. Does your brand’s image need a fresh coat of paint?

It wasn’t long ago when brands were told to steer as far away as possible from politics and social issues. The situation is more complicated today. Some consumers expect brands to take stands and will reward them for it. Several brands in the Washington, D.C., area are reacting to the government shutdown with acts of kindness. Will they be rewarded?

PR News’ regular Roundtable feature asked senior communicators to discuss what they believe will be the toughest challenge in 2019. Perhaps concerned with the headlines of the day, many of them had trust and integrity issues on their minds. Others mentioned breaking through the clutter to get their narrative heard.

Industry icon Jack O’Dwyer has died at 85. A respected journalist and publisher, he founded his O’Dwyer’s Newsletter 50 years ago. That led to other publications that became industry must-reads. A journalist’s journalist, O’Dwyer was a fixture at industry events for decades, carrying his reporter’s pad and pen. “He was one of a kind,” says veteran communicator Andy Gilman.

The holiday season is here and many are making merry away from their desks. Yet social engagement doesn’t end, not even on Christmas, says Emma Monks, Crisp’s head of trust and safety. In fact, more social messages are sent to retailers during the holidays than at any other time. Here are a few ways brands can mind their social channels and reduce risk during the holidays.

Google’s controversial plan to create a censored search engine in China enabling state surveillance has become a tale of two memos. The optics of Google’s willingness to work on a “pro-surveillance” product is particularly untimely as talk of user privacy issues and data regulation continues to dominate the news.

“Lena Dunham Comes to Terms With Herself” has its fair share of lessons for communicators, especially those in media working to build out their personal brand. The piece artfully uses scene, narrative and exposition to demonstrate the blind spots that Dunham, and those caught up in the digital generation’s ‘cult of personality’, can easily miss. Here are a couple.

Vaporizer manufacturer JUUL Labs has gotten out in front of looming regulations on the e-cigarette industry by transforming its brand into stewards of legitimate and responsible vape use. Yesterday, the brand announced it would cease sales of its four flavored vape pods in all of the 90,000+ retail stores that currently carry its products, and delete all social media accounts but Twitter.

The amount of corporate attention to the 2018 midterms during the last few months is a sign that the relationship between companies, consumers and politics is undergoing a significant and permanent change. Brand publicity in this election cycle is a harbinger of what’s to come as consumers expect brands to take stands on relevant issues.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the stage at Wednesday’s International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners open session and took a pot shot “platform and algorithms” that “weaponize personal data,” as senior executives from Facebook and Google watched in silence. His words support the increasingly popular belief among communicators that social media regulation will actually be good for the big platforms, as it leads to improved user trust.