Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

One day, we’ll have an entire Tumblr account for hilarious VR accidents, but until then, George Takei’s Facebook account will have to do. Takei, the Star Trek alum and current boss of sharing things on Facebook, recently shared a video of a man attempting to conquer a virtual cliff while inside an Oculus headset; it didn’t go well.

While climbing up a virtual mountain, the unnamed user had an unexpected fall — both in-game and in real life. The fall was a minor one, and it seems nothing is hurt but his pride.

The spill does outline a significant danger for virtual reality in that it might sometimes be too immersive. An immersive experience is what it’s all about, so it’s hard to suggest companies dial it back. Instead, maybe some genius out there can come up with a way to keep headset-wearers safe while they’re saving the world from pixelated zombies, or viewing some VR porn....

I once heard Seth Godin give a talk to a group of marketers in London. After this session, someone asked his secret to being so productive. Seth not only publishes books and starts ventures, he famously finds the time to reply personally to every single email he receives.

Seth replied simply, “I don’t watch TV and I don’t go to meetings.”

That really resonated with me. I’ve worked in organizations where more than 75% of every calendar day was blocked with internal meetings....

You’ve been on those conference calls with clients—the ones where you go around and around in circles, trying to nail down the brief, only to get so much confusing and conflicting information that you come away hopelessly pretzeled.

Aardman directors have been there. And today, the animation company—perhaps still best known for Wallace & Gromit, but involved in a slew ofadvertising productions over the years—has unveiled “Visualize This,” a 2:25 comedy film that parodies just those kinds of calls. Agency and production company execs everywhere will feel the pain of the director, as he tries to get clarity on just what, exactly, this client wants....

Science has explained that the Earth rotates at 1,000 miles an hour at its equator, but flat-earthers are not buying it. Wouldn't people feel the rush of the rotation if the planet were spinning at that speed, you could ask.

Well, no, you wouldn't -- think about when you're an airplane or train ride that's moving at a constant speed, as astrophysicist Sabrina Stierwalt explained for Cornell University's "Ask An Astronomer." As long as it's a smooth, constant speed, you wouldn't feel any movements at all.

When you're on a flight, do you feel like you are personally blasting at 570 miles an hour through the air? You feel a change in speed, not a constant. If the Earth suddenly stopped moving, the atmosphere would continue to blast forward at 1,000 miles an hour, destroying everybody, according to NASA. Web comic XKCD's creator Randall Munroe explains the morbid aftermath in his book "What If?"...

United recently announced that it’s joining Delta and American in creating a new Basic Economy fare class, one tier below Standard Economy. This no-frills tier cuts a few of the remaining “frills” of Standard Economy, like overhead bins and pre-assigned seats.

It’s a move to help the major airlines compete with discount airlines like Spirit and Frontier. Spirit advertises itself as “a cheap seat for a cheap-ass” and models after Ryanair which famously considered charging passengers £1 to use the inflight toilet.

A lot of brands offer a continuum of basic to premium, but I think there’s risk to brands that try to stretch this far, literally from “cheap-ass” to first-class. Many travel brands in particular follow a model of low base prices and constant aggressive upselling. But in the process, they can forget all about the impact on customer experience.

Rafat Ali of Skift described how travel brands market to customers as “hate-selling”....

Brand loyalty is more fickle than many marketers imagine it. Marketers often overestimate the role of consumer brands in consumers’ lives. In the world of FMCG, consumers are generally loyal to a repertoire of brands, not to a single brand.

This overinflated conception of brand loyalty can lead marketers to focus too much on current customers than on attracting new ones. In 2010, Byron Sharp rattled a lot of firmly held beliefs in marketing with his book, “How Things Grow”. He asserted that brand penetration is much more important than brand loyalty.

As Byron Sharp put it at an event last year, “We are loyal switchers. We don’t feel disloyal to Kellogg’s if we buy another cereal.”...

Regardless if you agree with the today's choice to put Donald Trump in the White House, there's one thing clear -- he's not a big fan of technology.

It’s not just that he doesn’t know what the internet is about, this is a guy that thinks he can call Bill Gates to shut down the internet. I mean, come on.

Nobody knows what the coming years will bring for the US, but from a political standpoint they’ll be very interesting — rest assured many will write about that in the coming days. But from a tech view, I’m scared.  At least Trump seems to have a friend that shares his views....

Humor can be a way to draw a circle around a group and pull them in—to say, “If you understand this joke, we’re in the same tribe. You get me and I get you.”

That’s a powerful message to send to your potential customers. And it’s a good way to get the less relevant folks to opt out, too.

To underscore this point, I wrote 20 brand-new jokes that only marketers will get. If any of these jokes make you laugh, groan, or smirk, you’re in my tribe. Matching T-shirts are optional.

What I’m trying to say is, there’s nothing like a good joke.  And believe me, everything you’re about to read is nothing like a good joke....

I empathize with these unlucky writers, though. Typos are inevitable. Sometimes, they tiptoe into my blog posts, and there’s nothing I can do about the embarrassment except lock myself in the nap room and wail into a pillow.

But the 20 pen slips below were so hilarious and shocking that my laughter pierced through all my colleagues' noise-canceling headphones. I couldn't stop chuckling at these editing blunders.

So, although our hearts sting for these writers, we decided to share their hysterical typos and grammatical errors. Hopefully, they'll forget the pain and laugh with us too....

Bringing ideas to life in an organization can be a bumpy ride.

We’re all familiar with the myth of Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree, waiting for inspiration to fall on his head. Newton’s apple is one of the more common symbols of innovation, right up there with Archimedes shouting Eureka from his bathtub. Metaphorically, that’s what we do when go to a brainstorming meeting to come up with new ideas. If the conditions are right, and the coffee strong enough, the next great idea just might fall on our heads.

What is often overlooked is what happens next, after the apple falls, when we have to actually bring that idea to life. If we’re not careful, Newton’s apple can turn into Newton’s applesauce, a watered down imitation of the idea. One of my first cartoons (back in 2002) was about this phenomenon.j...

As part of a tasty new tourism campaign, ad agency Lapiz just made Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs a reality. But instead of soup and juice, this futuristic cloud rains something altogether more buzzy—tequila.

Lapiz, a unit of Leo Burnett, used ultrasonic humidifiers to vibrate tequila at a frequency that actually turned it into visible mist. This mist was then condensed into liquid form, which fell as raindrops. All of this happened as a special exhibit in Berlin, Germany, during the rainiest month of the year—to promote Mexico as a vacation destination....

Nothing says "family" like pretending to love the terrible gifts your relatives have gotten you for the holidays.

That, at least, is the basic premise of a new 30-second Christmas ad from Heineken starring Benicio del Toro, and emphasizing that Heineken is, technically speaking, a family-owned business.

Part of Publicis Worldwide's new "There's more behind the star" campaign, it's the latest in a series of spots, launched earlier this year, featuring the A-list actor as a spokesman for the brewer, whose logo is, like him, a star....

Drawing the drama: Cartoonists from around the world on Trump's defeat of Clinton.

These cartoons give us a global perspective on the US election.