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Scoop.it!
We all know that Mitt Romney can never, ever be elected the President, but somehow none of his friends, advisors, family and acquaintances have the guts to tell him that. Especially his advisors, whom he should promptly fire.
[Romney handlers' stunning PR Fail - JD] 
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Let's start with the end result here, just to get that out of the way: a very deserving charity received a lot of money. So far so good. It's the way it all went down that makes you want to retch.
Allan Jones, CEO of the poor-people-misery exploitation firm Check Into Cash, issued a press release crowing about how amazing it was that Jones pushed the bidding up to such high levels before backing out, like a cheap coward. As the release states, "Jones eventually pushed up the bidding on the tractor to $535,000 before declining to move forward. His efforts resulted in a significant financial windfall to the Fisher House Foundation." An anonymous source involved with the event confirmed that the "efforts" referred to in the press release consisted entirely of pushing the price up, with Jones having no actual intention to buy nor did Jones donate any money at all to the charity....
[The headline says it all - a classic PR fail - JD]
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The public relations industry often seems like a vast sea of ineptitude, studded with fetid islands of grotesquerie. No more so than when approaching Valentine's Day.
This is PR Dummies. The worst of the worst, on a weekly basis. Among this press release's crimes: 1. Inability to avoid evoking the disturbing specter of forbidden man-pet love.
[ARGHHH! Bad PR alert - JD]
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The practice of public relations can turn a holy man into a god damn dolt. We shine light into flackery's darkest corners every week in our PR Dummies column.
[Oh man, the bad PR is everywhere - JD]
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Joe Maturo is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Well, perhaps that is not the best fast food metaphor but the East Haven, CT Mayor delivered a whopper of a bad interview the other day.
While being questioned by WPIX-TV about the arrest of four police officers who were charged with unlawfully targeting Latinos in town for searches and abuse -- the mayor was asked what he was doing for the Latino community. Kind of a broad open question. The Mayor opened his mouth and stuck his foot in it by saying "I might have tacos when I go home." Yeah, that will help....
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Ryanair CEO and his PR putzes have come up their latest “brilliant” PR stunt – charging you extra for the privilege of viewing porn on your PC.
You know you’re having another bad day in PR when your CEO gets headlines like Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary: ‘Passengers to Greece can pay in mountain goats’. Unless you work for Ryanair, where PR stunts like this are only an excuse to come up with something even more outrageous tomorrow.
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary and his PR putzes have come up their latest “brilliant” PR coup. Yes, the airline that wants to make you pay for going to the potty. Now, it hopes to add value to your cheap air ticket by charging you extra for the privilege of viewing porn on your PC or smartphone inflight....
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I don’t know whether the accusations by the women accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment are true. But I do know he dropped the ball last week with his response. Or, more accurately, responses.
Cain made at least four mistakes in responding to the accusations. He’s not alone. His mistakes are so unbelievably common by politicians and executives who find themselves in crisis situations that they’re worth noting...
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In the annals of 'no frigging clue why I'm in PR, this one is right up there...recounted uproariouslyby The Blogess...
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Murdoch-owned News Corp. is making headlines again this week, further demonstrating that unethical behavior does not pay.
The mother of a terrorism victim filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the News of the World of hacking her son’s phone after his death. The lawsuit is the first legal action filed by a relative or victim of the 7/7 London train bombings, according to the Huffington post, but it probably won’t be the last....
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In our 16 years of business, we've represented a few particularly, foul-mouth executives.
I remember a young, dotcom PR director, for example, whose salty language would put any longshoreman to shame (note: PR Week actually named her one of the ndustry's bright, young stars way back when). Not surprisingly, I've haven't heard or read of her since. My guess is she's plying her trade as a stevedore these days....
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"Colorful and blunt" just boiled over into an unprofessional tirade.
...Carol Bartz went nuts on the Yahoo board in an exclusive Fortune interview, saying they "f**ked [her] over" and were "doofuses."
She suggested they were right to be called the "worst board in America."
And she said Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, the man who has presided over the destruction of the company over the past 11 years--and the man who hired her--didn't even have the "balls" to can her without reading from a script....
Journalists dancing, CEOs wincing and PR having conniptions.
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Private Equity Hub (peHub) reporter teaches a PR lesson about "off the record" to a consultant who should know better.
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Alan Hirsch, a now-retired PR pro and my former boss and partner, offers these thoughts from his years in the PR business. He calls them bad PR stories, although I'm sure similar cases of bad behavior can be found in any industry. Bad behavior isn't unique to the PR business. Here are Alan's stories....
[Poignant PR reflections from ex-PR firm CEO - JD]
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While social media continues to be at the top of marketers’ list, it doesn’t always yield the results they expect. Some of these outcomes cause problems marketers never saw coming. As a result, they don’t know what to do and take longer to respond than social media participants expect....
Among these worst-in-class social media executions are seven important marketing lessons....
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Today, Woody Harrelson’s PR agent decided to “kick things up a notch.” Instead of a typical press event for Woody’s new film “Rampart,” this press agent decided to show his level of “internet prowess” and offer Woody Harrelson up for interviews on Reddit, one of the most “real” Internet sites out there. (By “real,” I mean that it’s pretty much full of people who have their bullshit filters on a constant “ten” and can pick out when something is hype in about two seconds.
So, of course, they did. You can read the post, and the resulting crap that Woody Harrelson got here. It ain’t pretty....
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How important are consumer-generated reviews in your purchase-making decisions? If you're like me, the answer is VERY. When assessing hotels, the write-ups on Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor invariably make or break my booking. The reviews on Yelp play the deciding role in tipping the restaurant scales. Same with Fandango for movie reviews.
Then there's the granddaddy of them all, Amazon, which recognized the intrinsic value of its customers' reviews early on in the game. It even applied for and was granted a patent.
As I think about it, nearly all of the big-branded retail websites today allow customers to weigh in -- good, bad and ugly....
[Excellent post by Peter Himler - JD]
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Like an awkward actor on stage, McDonalds has found itself at the mercy of hecklers.
McDonalds promoted a tweet for feel-good stories regarding the brand, #McDStories, only to find the hashtag taken over by Twitter users with a sense of the absurd.
Now, #McDStories serves as a case study for what not to do when promoting a tweet. So, what can you do to avoid ever causing such a hashtag nightmare for your brand?...
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Just like NetFlix, Virgin America is alienating its customers--but with some deft moves, it could win them back...
Being hip is all very nice. But being reliable, functional and at least appearing to care about your customers matters a whole lot more. That's the lesson Reed Hastings has learned at NetFlix and the lesson that Virgin America is still learning.
With the cute tag line "We're shaping up our back end" Virgin America may have thought it had prepared their customers for a bumpy ride, when it changed over to the Sabre reservation system. But everything that could go wrong did go wrong - including Virgin's catastrophically blasé response to their customers' outrage....
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This woeful PR publicist's pitch to humorist Dave Barry, yes THAT Dave Barry, is wrong in so many ways it deserves to be shared as a lesson for all PR pros. Read it and weep....
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Keith Zakheim is the president of Beckerman PR, a multimillion-dollar public relations firm in New Jersey. Keith Zakheim is also a big fan of milk. Don't test him!
Below is a real email that Keith Zakheim sent his lazy, selfish, milk-sucking staff yesterday....
PR leadership? Not so much!
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An interesting story about putting the PR blame where it really belongs. It started when I read a whining complaint from a high tech entrepreneur.
...I decided to look at Cabulous’ past PR efforts and do a quick analysis to figure out why it never got its fair share of media coverage. It looks like such an interesting product and story.
Their PR problems were painfully obvious....
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In the annals of CEO firings, Carol Bartz’s departure from Yahoo is right up there for conflict, emotion and great soundbites. But what are the PR lessons?
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Isn’t it ironic? After years of railing against PR people, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington certainly could have used a good PR person when announcing CrunchFund, his first formal and well-financed foray into funding tech startups....
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What happens when you bring together 96 PR failures all in one spot? After the collective gasp? Hopefully, a whole lot of learning for PR pros.
Here's a plethora of PR Fails from the past five or six months for your reading enjoyment. The goal is to shine a light on poor PR practices and to reflect on more professional, more strategic and smarter ways to do public relations....
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