Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

What can this small chapter tell us about what’s to come?

That Trump will be what columnist Frida Ghitis of the Miami Herald calls “the gaslighter in chief” — that he will pull out all the stops to make people think that they should believe him, not their own eyes. (“Gaslighting” is a reference to the 1940s movie in which a manipulative husband psychologically abuses his wife by denying the reality that the gaslights in their home are growing dimmer and dimmer.)

“The techniques,” Ghitis wrote, “include saying and doing things and then denying it, blaming others for misunderstanding, disparaging their concerns as oversensitivity, claiming outrageous statements were jokes or misunderstandings, and other forms of twilighting the truth.”...

Just when you think the Bad Lip Reading videos couldn’t get any funnier, along comes this treatment of the recent Republican presidential primary debate.

In this version, the candidates tackle the issues that really matter, as the scurrilous accusations fly.

And they make some crazy pledges to the voters.

While at least one contender’s nerves seem to get the better of him.

In an innovative tweak to the debate format, the candidates get to make their pitches through the medium of song, just as the Founding Fathers surely intended.…while throwing some funky moves....

Earlier this year, Hack PR had a problem. The unorthodox public relations firm had snapped up a new client, a deep-pocketed entrepreneur with political ambitions. Unfortunately, nobody really knew who he was, and the campaign it launched for him failed to convert into any real coverage save for a couple of pieces in the Huffington Post and The Washington Times. They needed another idea.

So, in their words, they hustled.There’s an old Internet joke that says politicians should wear the logos of their donors, much like Nascar drivers wear the logos of their sponsors. Taking inspiration from that, Hack PR pitched the idea to its client that it try and make it law through a California ballot initiative.

But unfortunately, this didn’t pan out either. It wasn’t for lack of trying. The firm took the provocative step of printing a full-sized cutout of everyone in the California Legislature, adorned with the logos of Chevron and AT&T, and other prolific donors. These were left at the steps of the Sacramento State Capital building for all to see. But as before, nada.

Then....

We’re only three weeks into the new year, but “fake news” could already be the phrase of the year. After reports suggested that fake news on Twitter and Facebook contributed to Donald Trump’s win in last year’s US Presidential election, the latter is finally clamping down on the issue.

The company has announced new tools to curb fake news in Germany, presumably as a measure ahead of the country’s August 2017 elections.

“Last month we announced some tests to address the issue of fake news on Facebook,” Aine Kerr, the company’s manager of journalism partnerships, wrote in a press release....