Tuesday March 19, 2024

Another PR Coup

 NASA’s Mars helicopter has just completed its first flight on the planet.  It is a breakthrough moment for exploration and similar to the Wright brother’s first flight in their wood and canvas plane.  It is also a PR coup.  PR is what you do and are rather than what you say about yourself.  NASA and […]

Another One

The retail chain, Forever 21, is bankrupt.  It joins more than 5,000 sites that have shut down in 2019.  Forever 21 is a victim of online commerce, but it is more than that.  The chain made basic mistakes and they caught up with the company.  Marketing for retail establishments is more difficult than ever.  One has […]

Another Loss

First it was Comdex.  Now it is CeBIT.  Places for computer and software vendors to show their wares continue to disappear.  They are victims of declining attendance.  The huge crowds that used to show up have thinned.  One wonders why, and one answer is that they choked on their success.  They were overwhelming and one […]

Another Blow

NASA, SpaceX and numerous other companies are flogging the possibility of deep space travel to Mars.  But, problems in doing so keep cropping up and here is another one.  Sending astronauts on long journeys is likely to destroy their intestines and give them cancers.  There is no effective shielding today from injurious rays that would […]

Another PR Crisis

Uber doesn’t need any more PR crises, but it has another one.  The company’s self-driving Volvo mowed down a woman in Tempe, AZ and killed her. The vehicle had an operator on standby but was driving autonomously at the time.  This sparked international news and threw a wrench into the move to driverless vehicles. The […]

Another Scandal

Wells Fargo bank can’t avoid scandals these days.  Here is another one.  The bank was clearly out of control in its consumer insurance and lending departments and only now is the dysfunction coming to light. How the bank has fallen in reputation.  It came out of the 2008 financial meltdown on a high and with […]

Another Bubble

Why do PR practitioners persist in communicating the same message repeatedly?  Because people don’t learn. Consider, for example, tech bubbles.  We’ve been through a number of them, but investors still queue for the “hot” stock, the one that is going to make them a bundle in a short time.  Like this one.  A rational person […]

Yet Another Bubble?

Savvy observers are worried that Silicon Valley is in yet another bubble that threatens to burst.  How after the last wrenching shake-out is this possible?  Didn’t anybody learn?  It shows again that so-called savvy investors are gullible and buy into hype.  Where is PR?  There is plenty of flacking from company founders who are in love with their products and […]

Another Worry

As if the internet didn’t provide enough worry for PR practitioners, here is another.  Online vigilante detectives are reporting incidents faster than the news media, sometimes accurately but just as often inaccurately.  It is almost impossible for a PR practitioner to keep up with them in handling an incident.  For one, PR is bound by […]

Another Technology On The Way Out?

The PC market is slumping as youths move to tablets and cell phones.  It is hard to believe the marketplace has changed that much.  The PC won’t go away just as the mainframe hasn’t disappeared but it no longer drives electronics sales.  From a PR perspective, there isn’t much one can do to revive personal […]