Ray Rice: A Public Relations Crisis for the NFL – PART II

Ray Rice: A Public Relations Crisis for the NFL – PART II



For those of you that looked at the first post, here is part 2

Ray Rice: A Public Relations Crisis for the NFL – PART I

Ray Rice: A Public Relations Crisis for the NFL – PART I



As many of you have heard, most of this years NFL season has been drowned out by player conduct off the field. The NFL has done an awful job of handling these scandals and has completely dropped the ball when it comes to gaining integrity from a business standpoint. I found an article directed to the Ray Rice scandal and how the NFL once again had a chance to come up big, but fumbled when it mattered most.

Carnival Cruise Lines - submitted by MELISSA (not Jenny)

It’s no secret that in the past few years Carnival Cruise Lines has faced a few disasters that have been detrimental to not only their ships but more importantly their image. The first event occurred and was an obvious disaster. There was no power to the ship and was called the cruise from hell. After they finally arrived back to port their disaster was just beginning. They were left with a large number of unhappy guests and a very negative image. Just as they began to recover from that catastrophe, disaster struck again just 13 months later. With this being the second major disaster in such a short period of time it left the company and public very uneasy.

Although their image was degraded they handled the public relations and crisis communication better the second time around. After the first incident they created a better PR plan to be more equipped for disaster and it paid off. For example they ensured the safety of the guests was their number one concern and made sure everyone knew it. Carnival reimbursed all passengers, gave them credit to use toward future cruises, provided each passenger with $500, and compensated them for losses at the ship’s casino tables. Instead of avoiding social media like they did the first time, they embraced it in order to keep everyone updated and show they weren’t hiding anything. Carnival Cruise Lines is a great example of what to do and what not to do. They are a solid organization but they have made a few mistakes that everyone can learn from. All of these are important skills we have learned throughout the semester. What an organization can do better, how to fix PR nightmares and how to use social media to benefit your organization.

1. Castro, Nicole. Friday Five: Brands Go the Extra Mile to Remain in the Public’s Good Graces.  http://prsay.prsa.org/index.php/2013/05/31/friday-five-brands-go-the-extra-mile-to-remain-in-the-publics-good-graces. 31 May 2013.
2. Morgenstein, Mark. Mungin, Lateef. Carnival cruise line in more troubled waters. http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/15/travel/carnival-problems/. 16 March 2013. 

Hewlett-Packard spying scandal

In HP's company culture, "trust and respect the individual, respect for employees" is a very important one, HP just made a fatal mistake, to spy out the employee's private. At the same time, we also see, HP "Pretexting" exposes many of enterprise need face that crisis of leakage of information. Along with the development of informatization, network popularization, the leak of enterprise become more than before.

According to Business Ethics NOW, “corporate governance is the process by which organizations are directed and controlled.”(P105) Ethical corporate governance is an important part to running the enterprise. Private information only belong to the individual, others have no right to interfere. If a President of the company often monitor other directors by call records, who will take this job? In order to improve the work efficiency, the board of directors must be mutual trust between each other. After a few years downturn, HP had just come up, and “Pretexting” let Hp a step back again.

It also a model for other enterprises, and at the same time remind all enterprises pay attention to the protection of commercial secrets, also need pay attention to avoid the violation of the enterprise ethics or invasion of privacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/technology/08hp.html?_r=0 

Sony executive apologizes after internal emails are leaked (Minji Jung)

Sony executive apologizes after internal emails are leaked By Beki Winchel

 

Sony, as we know, is a famous brand. Recently, a group of hackers, calling themselves Guardians of the Peace, attacked Sony. Since then, five of the studio’s unreleased films, including the new remake of “Annie,” have appeared online for downloading purposes. Sensitive employee information, including salaries and Social Security numbers, have been made available as well. In addition to these, a series of internal emails was also made public, including a nasty fight between film producer Scott Rudin and Sony Entertainment Chairman Amy Pascal. A thread referencing movies President Obama might like to watch (they were all racially themed, with “12 Years a Slave” and “Django: Unchained” specifically named) drew particular criticism. I think this is truly a PR “nightmare.” First, they failed in their protection of the privacy and security of their employees; secondly, their executives were also humiliated. “Sony Pictures needs to figure out a way to stop the bleeding, before it can get to healing,” according to Edgar Alvarez.

            Sony’s response was to write a PR statement to the public, from each affected executive, apologizing for the inappropriate comments that had been made in private emails. They also chose to “fight fire with fire,” in that they are releasing corrupted data in combination with the already downloaded material. This, in turn, will corrupt any true data that is downloaded, helping to stop the spread of these unreleased films. Some directors and writers that have worked with Sony, also spoke on social media in defense of Sony. Their tweets help the public understand what has occurred and garners sympathy for Sony.

            Some of the strategies Sony utilized, including public apologies, are following the best course of action to recoup their losses. Hacking into the downloading stream would not have been a strategy I would have thought of, but is overall, effective. Using other directors and writers to garner sympathy is useful, but may not really help the situation. The main issue is to ensure the privacy and safety of worker’s pay and private information. Once this has been completed, a policy should be implemented to prevent these types of emails being allowed at work. Nothing should be permitted that wouldn’t be acceptable for all to read. They must have some internal process to follow this through, and a PR statement should be made, following the public apology, to let the general public know this has been implemented.

 

 

References

Beki Winchel (2014, 12.12). Sony executive apologizes after internal emails are leaked. Retrieved from http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Sony_executive_apologizes_after_internal_emails_ar_17778.aspx

Drugs & Concussions in the NFL - submitted by PAURIC (not Jenny)

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/susan-milligan/2014/12/01/the-nfl-has-to-pay-up-for-concussion-and-drug-problems

This topic involving the NFL with drugs and concussions has been floating around the media for quite some time now and although some action has been taken resulting in many lawsuits some may still say it is a problem for the face of the NFL.

Many retired players today are struggling immensely with both physical and mental health issues that will probably end up haunting them for the rest of their lives, but, what are the NFL doing to help these players who used to be the faces that made the league what it is today, a billion dollar industry? The answer is little or nothing. In an article I read in the US News involving a former Buffalo Bills star Darryl Talley wrote that he has been struggling ever since retirement with health and financial issues. Darryl stated that he considered suicide because of the physical pain he endured daily and with little help from the NFL, his previous employer who states they had nothing to do with his injuries, he has no choice but to think that way. He has taken hits, beatings and torment to the head and the body because of the work he put in daily for his team and the NFL.

The NFL needs to be more sensitive to this topic and look after those players who served in the league from past years. According to US News “NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in 2010 should be making in the neighborhood of $25 billion in revenues a year by 2027. And Goodell, like the owners, doesn’t have to mark notches on pigskin to keep count of how many concussions he’s suffered for the money he’s making.” If the league is making that much revenue then surely they can give the NFL a better name by serving these former players what they deserve for making the NFL a prestige league that it is today.

The NFL must make the field a war of attrition but it must also be safe for the players so that they can live a long healthy life and not just 15 years of glory while being a pro footballer. The NFL’s priority must be health and safety over money that way the reputation of the NFL is good and not always down in the mouth in the media. 

Bill Cosby Scandal - submitted by ANDIE (not Jenny)

I’m sure by now that everyone has heard that more than one woman has now come forward with claims that they were molested by Bill Cosby. More than a dozen women reported being drugged and sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby. This ordeal has had a massive impact on Mr. Cosby’s endorsement deals and fundraising campaigns. For example, Bill was on the board of trustees at Temple University and has recently resigned due to allegations that he molested a woman that worked for the University’s basketball team. “He had been the school's public face, appearing in advertisements, fundraising campaigns and delivering commencement speeches” (McCartney, 2014). According to PR guru and crisis specialist, Howard Bragman, Cosby has little options to rectify the situation and none of them are that great. Here’s what Bragman says Cosby’s options are:

1.    "You can not talk."

2.      "You can go on record and deny it, which he has done and more people keep coming out of the woodwork."

3.      "Or you can say, 'Yes, I did it and I'm going to get help for it,' but that would open up all sorts of litigation and I don't think that's something you can advise him to do."

(Weisman, 2014)

Maybe these sorts of options actually make things easier for a PR professional. Rather than trying to fight it Cosby’s best choice is to slide out of the spotlight and let people forget this ever happened. I would think that keeping the public’s attention away from Cosby would be easier than trying to restore his image.

According to an article from Business Insider,” Netflix and NBC are indefinitely postponing their projects with Cosby” (Weisman, 2014). Two of Cosby’s tour dates have been postponed as well. Unfortunately along with his fall from grace will come a great loss in regards to comedy tours, endorsements and advertisements.

McCartney, Arthur. (2014). Woman claims Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her when she was 15. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/woman-bill-cosby-sexual-assault_n_6258594.html

Weisman, Aly. (2014). PR Guru's Advice To Bill Cosby: 'Shut Up And Disappear' Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-cosby-response-2014-11

I found an article on the NFL, the most popular sports league in Northern America. It talked about the recent accidents involving domestic and child abuse. The article had shown 6 different cases of abuse and or assault from players in the NFL ending in arrest. The most recent shown was a Arizona Cardinal running back Jonathan Dawyer arrested on alleged of having assaulted a 27 year old woman and 18 month old child. Inexcusable. Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice have been at the forefront of this PR nightmare since they were the most popular players. Adrain is deactivated with pay because of child abuse accusations. Ray, hitting his wife knocking her unconscious in an elevator caught on tape.  Other players got turned a blind eye too but had accidents none the less those players and accusations are the following. Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panther defense accused of threatening to kill his then girlfriend. Greg like Adrian was suspend with paid under exempt. Defensive tackle for the 49ners Ray McDonald accused felony domestic violence. Last New York Jets practice player Quincy Enuwa also arrested and charged with simple assault of a woman. All the players were inactive for their teams during this nightmare the NFL faced this season. New penalties and reprimands have since been set in place with the NFL taking a strong stand on this issue. Really taking a no-tolerance stand point which I agree and fully support. There is no time or reason for this problem among everyday civilians and if anything the professional athletes that we see on the television and pay millions every year should be held to a higher standard and should know better.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/17/us/nfl-off-field-problems/

Most Scandalous Business Events of 2013 - posted by MICHAEL (not Jenny)

http://fortune.com/2013/12/27/11-most-scandalous-business-events-of-2013/

In this article from fortune.com is goes over the most scandalous business events of 2013.  Each one of these were huge at the time they came out and were total PR nightmares.  Some of the biggest ones were the NSA leaks, healthcare.gov launch, and Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal.  From a PR standpoint these were all nightmares at the time.  Looking at them now they certainly aren’t in the news near as much and they have seemed to calm down.  For example the healthcare.gov launch was nothing short of a total failure of launch.  Glitches, crashes, incredibly low enrollment numbers were just a few problems.  There was such a big deal made about the launch of the site that it put a lot of pressure on those in charge.  The first month the site was offline more than it was online.  Needless to say the president and the government had to tread lightly during those curtail months.  

Another good one was the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.  After years and years of denial Lance Armstrong finally came clean to none other than Oprah.  He lost most of his sponsors and more importantly all of his titles.  PR teams were put to work over that scandal and it already seems like a distant memory almost a year later.  All of the scandalous events could have certainly been handled worse and made the problem much bigger, but for the most part these all were handled as best as they could. 

Why Discovery Channel's 'Eaten Alive' failed to consume its audience

Last Sunday the Discovery channel aired a show called “Eaten Alive” that had everything but someone being eaten alive. Paul Rosolie was supposed to be swallowed by a giant anaconda for the show. For the vast majority of the show viewers spent time watching Rosolie try to find the large reptile only to fail when the snake started to wrap around him. Discovery built up suspense and interest only to fail by a mile. Discoveries views have since been down and many frequent audience members have lost trust. Brand managers are going to have to work twice as hard to promote shows from now on. They do not look every good in the public’s eye when they lie or fail to meet promises. If a show is called eaten alive, people are going to expect that. Viewers joked on twitter of posting pictures of their dog biting their finger, asking for their own show. Or humoring tweets about the snake wasting hours of its own life on the show. Rosolie was even mocked by being squeezed by a possibly fake snake and having to be saved at the first sign of pain. People are very upset with Discovery and the PR team has a lot of work to do.

http://www.prdaily.com/socialmedia/Articles/17754.aspx

- David

Timing is Everything! - Submitted by NATOSHA (not Jenny)

In this first weeks of class, I had finally saved enough money to go get a new Galaxy S4. I was so excited. When I went and bought my phone there was a new app that they promote called ISIS. When you downloaded the app were given $25.00 as a promotion for their new mobile payment app. Shortly after that the terrorist group ISIS was all over the news. I remember thinking what a complete "nightmare" for the PR representatives. This is something they couldn't possibly have accounted for. What terrible timing!!! They were forced to re-brand their app, it is now SoftCard. There is a firm in the UK who had the same issue. They were forced to rename their company after the name ISIS became associated with the terrorist group. 

http://www.saltshein.com.au/corporate-affairs-insights/isis-forcing-companies-to-re-brand

"Diversity" - submitted by JESSICCA (not Jenny)

I would like to talk about a recent article By Marielle Legair called “A Cultural Code: Will the PR Profession Ever Reflect the Society It Serves?” This article explains how Marielle is one of very few black, female public relations professionals and how the concept of diversity should be simple to grasp.

Marielle explains that accepting diversity is as easy as three simple steps.  First accept that everyone looks different.  This is self-explanatory.  By accepting that everyone looks different and speaking to everyone as whole, this will help messages to be received effectively.  This does not mean to eliminate culture, just simple embrace it and make necessary changes for languages barriers.

Second, recognize the value in diversity.  Marielle explains that having friends from different cultures makes the process rich with synergy.  I think that having the knowledge of how to relay messages to many different cultures is beautiful.  I also think that having different cultures in the room allows you to have the best possible sounding board.  This means you can make sure your message is sent in the right context at all times.

Third, she says that your network is your net worth.  This applies to everyone everywhere.  Having professionals that you keep in touch with that are related to your field is an asset that is very valuable.  I feel that being able to pick up the phone and figure out the answer to any question is amazing.  I appreciate having those people in my corner when I need it.

There is diversity in our world and that is what makes it amazing.  Having many different cultures allows us to continue learning and developing.  It is also important to keep in mind we need it in the business world to help reach those different cultures.  Without learning about a culture or having someone who knows the culture we are setting ourselves up for failure, and possibly even hatred from others. 

Here is a link to the article in case anyone would like to read it. http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/10867/1102/A_Cultural_Code_Will_the_PR_Profession_Ever_Reflec#.VH_T6tLF-T8

Football's New Mission

Three days a week I watch football.  During every single game I see the commercial for nomore.org.  They show player after player saying "No More not my business... I'm sure they'll work it out... but he said he was sorry, NO MORE."  It should be no surprise that the NFL is taking a stand against domestic violence.  After all the bad press with Ray Rice hitting his wife, and then accusations against Arian Peterson abusing his child, the NFL is at risk of having the image of the overall establishment damaged.  Most people understand that you can't judge all football players by the actions of a few.  However, like any company with a dishonest employee, punishment must be swift and sure in order for the public to separate the actions of one from the whole.  With the events coming out so close to one another, there is an even greater possibility for people to look at the NFL as being easy on violent crimes. 

The choice to join NOMORE.org was a wise one for the NFL to make.  It will not only tell the world that the NFL stands against domestic violence, but it will also shine a light on men who are the opposite of those appearing in the news lately.  They are generating good press for the few chosen men who are "passionate and demonstrative about their beliefs" and who "are confident in their manhood and know that women should be respected and revered, and they are not afraid to take a stand for what they believe."  There is no smarter way that they could have approached a mountain of bad press about the poor choices of a few players.

You can read more about the foundation, or view the original article at:
http://nomore.org/nfl-troy-vincent-football-new-mission-domestic-violence/

NFL needs to clean house

This year there have been many off the field PR issues in the NFL. There was an article on ESPN that was titled: "Cleaning House" that talks about how the NFL is creating new rules and policies to try and promote better off the field role model behavior. The first issue that we all probably heard about was the Ray Rice beating his girlfriend in the elevator. This issue was the big start of the cleaning house issue. Rice was the foreshadowing for the vibe of the season. So how is the NFL suppose to act? Is it the NFL who should be held accountable or the players them selves? I personally feel the NFL should be held accountable because salaries that are offered are so high and there fore I think the expectation. 

In a public relation aspect the NFL really has its work cut out for themselves. The first issue is they did not look into the Rice issue before the rest of the media did. This created major back lash on them and really killed the professionalism of the NFL. The other PR back lash was the Raven organization because they first put a statement out saying they supported Rice. After the video of the elevator issue came to main media the Ravens I feel handled the issue the best. The Owner came out with a statement in front of the press in person saying they took responsibility for not looking into the Rice issue further and failed to conduct a proper and professional investigation. He also said the fans deserved better from their football teams and that they will be better. This is what so many PR issuers do not do. The honest way to go was the best they made us as viewers see them as regular people who make mistakes.

http://www.newstribune.com/news/2014/sep/14/press-box-nfl-needs-clean-house/
http://www.baltimoreravens.com/

Look closely into political campaigns. You will learn 'something' from them.

     I haven’t been interested in politics because I have always thought they get paid from us, citizens but they do not do what they are supposed to do. In 2007, I interestingly read 2007 president election campaign handbooks about each candidate. Everyone had different promises. After the election it turned no promises had completed appropriately. Thus, when I went to PRSA website to read some articles, I found “What Political Campaigns Can Teach PR Professionals” would be interesting. I had a doubt whether political campaigns can influence PR practitioners.

     Did anyone know that it has been said that the world’s first PR professionals were politicians? The article starts with this fact and gives some information which is common senses for both political and public relations campaigns. It doesn’t directly say what things PR professionals can learn from political campaigns. But when you read through the article, you will understand what the title meant. Some of things from the article are that (1) to counterbalance one negative message, there should be three or more positive messages; (2) PR practitioners need to work harder than they may have realized to combat negative attacks; and (3) repeat key messages.

     If you are going to work in PR field, this article helps you have some ideas that you have to keep in mind to be an effective PR practitioner. Please visit http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/Tactics/Articles/view/10843/1101/Casting_Ballots_What_Political_Campaigns_Can_Teach#.VGKIDtEtDIU to read this article.

Steriods in Baseball Alex Rodriquez

Professional athletes play as a big role model for many people. In the textbook it talks about how public relations in the entertainment business can involve serving as a publicist for a celebrity/sports figure. What happens when public relations campaigns are initiated to generate public awareness of an individual who has done some bad things? Alex Rodriquez has been suspended from playing in Major League Baseball all of last season because he has taken steroids. This is not the first time has been suspended because of it.

Professional athletes are role models for many people. If you know people are looking up to you why set a bad example. When it comes to taking steroids your morals and ethics come into play. You have to make a decision on where you know what you are doing is against the rules but it can make you play better. That’s something that so many people face with is to make a decision about steroids. Athletes of all sports know that kids look up to their favorite athletes so set a positive example for kids and do things right. Show kids that hard work and dedication does pay off.

Here is an article about Alex Rodriquez. This article is fairly lengthy.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/3811116/  

No class of mine would be complete without referencing something in sports so my PR topic is the battle for renaming and re-branding the Washington Redskins. There are dozens and dozens of articles that talk about what is appropriate for the Redskins to do and all kinds of speculation into why nothing has been done yet. I think this is a HUGE  public relations matter for the sport world. There is a group of people widely unhappy with the implications and associations of the Redskins, people that are offended by it (albeit more recently public since the Redskins were formed back in 1932), yet the organization has done very little about it.

Here at LCSC we faced a comparable situation with the Nez Perce tribes being offended at many of the mascot ideas that we had in order to go along with the Lewis-Clark State Warriors that we are. Instead we've been forced to go more with the Lewis and Clark aspect. Does this mean the end of the Warriors?

Here's a link to many of the different articles about the Redskins if any of you are interested :)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/washington-redskins-name-controversy/

Information leading to action

             I found an article on the Forbes website about how the world of public relations is changing from focusing on social awareness to behavior change.  The article claims that there is an issue with public relations campaigns today and there is a “gap between the impact of the work and the unclear objectives of the work”.  This means that public relations campaigns have intentions, which involve action, but the campaigns are focused too heavily on the informational side of public relations.

            Public relations professional are very effective at creating relationships, which is one reason why they utilize social media so well. “PR people were among the first business people to embrace social media, and they made early efforts to integrate it into their portfolio of services.”  Being able to connect to an audience on a personal level is crucial but that connection also needs to be able to motivate and inspire action.  For example, if your are hired to increase good will towards Justin Bieber in a PR campaign promoting his altruistic side, you would also be wanting that good feeling to correlate with album sales, that is why he hired you.

            The author states that public relation firms have begun integrating into marketing.  Public relations has always operated closely with marketing and the author believes that good social campaigns asks you to do something not just talk about it or feel a certain way about something. I believe that this article has an interesting view on public relations and the points it make in regard to action should be considered when creating a PR campaign. In conclusion the narrative portion of a campaign is the “first mile”, and action is the last step, which should not be overlooked.

Reference:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2013/09/28/designing-for-action-the-last-mile-in-public-relations/ 

Can anyone say "Crisis Communications" or "Issue Management" in regards to Ebola? Having finished some of those topics last week in Chapter 8, I'm curious what your assessment or insights might be in regards to the Ebola outbreak in the U.S. - from the standpoint of either the CDC, American healthcare facilities - preparedness, and/or President Obama's Administration. If you choose to post replies to this, please try to keep it not about politics, but about applying what you read/learned in Ch. 8 that allows you to now understand effective crisis communications and issue management.

Did someone say Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream?  Count me in!  When I was young, it was a tradition for my dad and I to buy a container of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream once a month if I kept up with my share of the chores.  We always had to try the newest flavor and I have been hooked ever since.  So when I came across the article Ben & Jerry’s Refuses to Change ‘Hazed & Confused’ Name from the PR Daily website, it immediately caught my attention.  

The company’s newest flavor name “Hazed and Confused” has received criticism because certain anti-hazing activists claim it correlates with hazing in higher education institutions.  The parent company of the Ben & Jerry’s brand, Unilever, has claimed a pure advocacy stance.  Executives at Unilever held their ground after taking into account Internet responses and comments.  The company found that its marketing did not condone, support, or infer hazing in any form.  The PR spokesperson for Unilever, Sean Greenwood, stated: “It didn’t make sense for us to change the name…We named it because it’s a pop culture reference” (Stanford, 2014). 

I found this article relevant to this class because it relates well with the material covered in chapter eight of our textbook.  The company chose to use a pure advocacy stance and may have to dynamically alter their response if complaints continue in the future. 

For more details, please visit:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-17/ben-jerry-s-won-t-rename-hazed-confused-after-complaints.html

Reference

Stanford, D.D. (2014).  Ben & Jerry’s refuses to change ‘Hazed & Confused’ name.  Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-17/ben-jerry-s-won-t-rename-hazed-confused-after-complaints.html

I am interesting in an article from Public Relations Student Society of America about personal branding which is named March Brandness with Jason Mollica.

I think this is a curious article, I like is very much. The author talked about how to become the CEO of your personal brand and how to build a personal brand. I agree with everything what he talked about in this article.

I like the four key points in personal branding which are trust, honesty, responsibility and transparency. In my opinion, they are all important key points to help people to build a good personal brand. I think that try to trust others (classmates, friends and so on) is the first step of becoming the CEO of your personal brand. I think if you trust others and make a good relationship with others, others will also trust you. The second step is honesty; I think a good personal brand should be honesty at all time. If you are not honest, you are going to lose friends, reputation and job. The third step is that taking responsibilities for everything. For some examples, take responsibility for your kids as a good parent, take responsibility for your working as a good worker, and take responsibility for your homework as a good student. The last step of becoming the CEO of your personal brand is transparency; try to make everyone know who you are and what kind of personality you have. If everyone knows about you always trust others, you have a high reputation and you are responsible person that means you are succeed to build a good personal brand.

 

http://www.prssa.org/news/chapter/news/display/1314

Brazzle Box Social Media for Small Businesses

Recently we have been learning about how the role of the PR professional has greatly increased with the influence of expanding technology. Giving PR professionals such tasks as keeping up with new media, blogs, twitter accounts, and various forms of social media. This has presented opportunities( direct communication with stakeholders) and challenges( keeping up with these messages and articles. But also opening the doors on the possibility of networking and gaining readily available resources. As of September 18, 2014 a new small business Social media site called Brazzle Box joined the scene. This social media site is there to help small business or entrepreneurs connect, endorse, create or join groups, and to help build effective creative ad campaigns. This site gives companies another opportunity to network, promote, and gain credibility for their business. For more information check out www.brazzlebox.com or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mWvqaPQo-U and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6AGvwSm_WI.

Priceline's Founder Gives Some Tips

I found an article that I thought was pretty good about how to promote your business to the media in order to get media begging to write about you. It is a very short article, but the author, Jeff Hoffman, has some great points. He is an entrepreneur and helped found Priceline.com.

"How Smart Companies Use PR to Get the Word Out" 
http://www.inc.com/jeff-hoffman/smart-companies-public-relations-spread-word.html

Do you care if a company is environmentally conscious?

        The article I found in the news is from Bloomberg, a website that gives updates and the latest news in the business world.  One Public Relations article in particular caught my eye, its title, “Companies Don’t Care Anymore That You Don’t Care Anymore About This Sustainability Thing.” Author Eric Roston begins the article by stating that many people “dismiss corporate sustainability as empty green PR.”  Meaning, that even though there are definitely those people out there who are searching out “green” conscious companies and giving them their business, there are still many people who find much of what they hear about sustainable companies to be a ploy for their business.  Or people who do not care either way whether a company is environmentally conscious or not as long as the product is cheap, convenient, or aesthetically pleasing.  

   However, according to the article many companies still turn to environmentally friendly or sustainable options anyway, to the degree that the decision would be good for the shareholders. From a PR perspective the PR professional’s goal is to shed the company in its best light, regardless of trying to worry about whether or not the decision would entice people into buying the companies products and services.  If one product is from a company you know to be environmentally friendly, are you more likely to buy it than a competitors brand?  Or do you believe some companies only "talk the talk" of environmental sustainability, but don't "walk the walk?"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-14/companies-don-t-care-anymore-that-you-don-t-care-anymore-about-this-sustainability-thing.html

University of Oklahoma Research

Looking into the news on the PRSSA website I found an interesting article about the University of Oklahoma who conducted some research on the people of Oklahoma, in order to find out what attracts Americans to visiting places in Germany like Erfurt. I thought this would be an important article showing how students conducted surveys and interviews to do their research and the students that had the best data would present it in Germany. This gave the students a lot of experience and they mentioned how you can’t teach this business setting in a class room which I couldn't agree more, especially with the different background people have in different countries. This could be some real experience and if you’re looking at being with a firm that is internationally focused, then it could be a good start to developing those much needed skills that cannot be taught.

I wanted to bring this into consideration for the group, because of how research is the first step towards finding this answer. Then doing the next steps in order to then present data to the city marketing department in Erfurt. I think many public relation firms are doing this because they want to know how to bring income into a location or a certain business. They need to know, what attracts the tourists that makes them want to go back or go there in the first place. In the book the section that I feel is important to mention is defining audiences and segmenting on page 92 because it explains how gathering information about demographics, lifestyles and characteristics help. I believe also this is the reason why they used interviews and surveys instead of a simple questionnaire. These tools helped find beyond the information and onto the reasons behind that decision.

http://www.prssa.org/news/chapter/news/display/1335

Welcome to our Class Blog! Please review the purpose, instructions, and requirements in the "Class Blog Instructions" document in the Rubrics folder on our Home page in Blackboard.

Then, Blog-away!