Among the torrent of comments and opinions on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and relentless reporting in mainstream media that followed the dramatic exit of flight attendant Steven Slater, 38, who snagged two beers before he popped the emergency exit chute and slid out of the aircraft — came the challenge to PR professionals as to what would be their response if they were JetBlue.

Couldn’t resist, so here goes…

Same response as that of JetBlue — curt, funny, a bit irreverent, true to brand, direct to their customers via their blog and yes, 48 hours later.  While it is true that this goes against the grain of every crisis communication principle, I would start by asking what were they supposed to respond to… the rage of a single individual, who had an irrational moment caused by unrestrained anger that triggered him to lose all sense of reason?

An official statement from the corporate office would have given this incident way too much credence.

Past just the brazen surprise of it all, the extended news of this incident got tied to the airline’s cutbacks, which made Slater just a victim of the state of affairs, a part of “an overworked, overwrought and exhausted crew,”  thus making a case, or excuse, for Slater’s disruptive behavior.

Nonsense.  They teach kids to “use their words” in lieu of having temper tantrums.  Good advice for Slater.

Finally came a voice of reason from the Seattle Times, when Peter Loeb wrote, “The point here is, once again, the public is playing victim in this JetBlue incident. Praising Slater for totally unprofessional behavior condones conduct that decimates what’s left of our service-based economy.”

And even better, Loeb went on to say, “Put Slater off the payroll. I am sure he will delight in his 99 weeks of unemployment.”

Indeed.

But disruptions like this one have a cultural appeal.  According to The New York Times, “he has become a paparazzi chum, a working person’s James Dean. Fans have set up a Steven Slater Facebook page, shout-outs are pouring in from every corner of the Internet, and at least three Slater ballads are making the rounds on YouTube.”

Somebody is likely to offer him a book deal, a reality show, and get him on the road of talk shows. Yes, he may get off JetBlue’s payroll, but our American culture will most likely turn him into a folk hero and that will bring him compensation well past his JetBlue salary.

The good news is that it will surely be short lived, for even folk culture cannot sustain the total lack of substance.

Remember Joe the Plumber?  Probably not.  Things like that have a tendency to fade into oblivion.

Special guest post by James Flanigan. James Flanigan is a business columnist for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and other publications and has covered national and international business and economics for 46 years. James’ blog and information about his current book can by found at: http://jamesflanigan.com/.

For almost half a century, I’ve experienced public relations from the other side of the table, as a business journalist. So I’m going to tell a few stories, parables if you will, with points about PR in each one.

I’ll begin with a public relations man who did his job well and helped me at the same time. I broke in as a business reporter with the New York Herald Tribune, assigned to cover the oil, chemical, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries. Jack Gillespie was public relations for Socony Mobil, as the company was then called, and he figured it would be good if a reporter covering the industry also understood it. So he set up interviews not with top executives but with working oil men who were on temporary assignment in Mobil’s New York offices. Typically, a crusty fellow, uncomfortable behind a desk, would explain the economics of exploration, say, or how natural gas occurs along with oil and can be recovered.

Gillespie didn’t gild the lily; there was seldom a direct connection to a story about Mobil, but there was an indirect one in that industry stories were at least knowledgeable. In any event, no story comes from a single source and critical comment is always available–in those days it was from upstarts like Occidental Petroleum or ENI, the Italian state oil company, which were shaking up the solid front of the major oil corporations.      A contrast is a story about British Petroleum, which has run into horrendous public relations trouble currently. In the late 1990s, after BP had acquired Amoco and was preparing to buy Arco, I interviewed its chief executive John Browne, later Lord Browne. Browne, to be sure, had intelligent perspective about the industry, but he was already preaching the company’s “beyond petroleum” environmental message.  I wrote a column in the Los Angeles Times after that interview but in subsequent meetings it seemed to a skeptical reporter that image building grew into hype. I didn’t write and declined later offers of interviews because reporting is not stenography and interviews, even with CEOs, do not necessarily a story make. The point is that business is a human story and the most important quality a company can convey in any PR campaign is integrity.

So, I’ll tell one more story about an executive and the late, great business editor James W. Michaels of Forbes Magazine. Each year at Forbes, staff writers had to contact CEOs to compile information for the Jan. 1 industrial rankings. It was tedious work, often to get a boilerplate quote from the CEO. But I called Nathan Cummings, the founder of Consolidated Foods (later Sara Lee Corp.) and he was delightful and informative about the industry and the company. So I asked Michaels why if this guy is so informative, are others dull and evasive? And Jim explained: “Nate owns the company” (which was nonetheless public). “The other people are just hired hands, afraid if they say something in Forbes, they’ll lose their job or be in hot water at the country club.” In PR terms, that tells you not only what you want in a client but what to understand about editors.

Following is the next video in a series celebrating The Pollack PR Marketing Group’s 25th Anniversary:

Special guest post by Chris Paine. Chris directed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” His next film, “Revenge of the Electric Car” is set for release 2011.  Currently, he is working on two projects related to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.facebook.com/revengeoftheelectriccar http://www.facebook.com/chris.paine

Exxon Valdez veteran marine toxicologist and author Riki Ott (“Not One Drop”) laid out some disturbing comparisons of the two oil disasters during our recent shoot in Louisiana.

BP is using the same playbook Exxon used on us in Alaska.  It’s all about minimizing liability and damages in court. So right off the bat, BP is underestimating how much is spilling, understating harm to the environment, claiming  dispersants are “safe” and “not toxic” to marine life, and putting workers at risk because BP doesn’t want to supply respirators. BP says it will pay all “legitimate” claims, but what this means is ’see you in court.’ Same old story with Exxon.

Here are a few examples:

1). Broken Promises:  The oil industry makes false promises to get permits:

-Exxon: Promise: Double hull tankers and advanced vessel tracking so ‘not one drop’ of oil would spill in Alaska.  Actuality: Single hull tanker grounds, destroying pristine ecosystem and fishing industry for decades.

-BP:  Promise: State of the art drilling platforms with fail-safe safety procedures. Actuality: Multiple reckless decisions lead to massive oil spill threatening wide destruction of Gulf ecosystem, fishing  and tourism.

2). Manipulate Government Regulations

-Exxon:  Manipulate government regulatory bodies to receive multiple exemptions. Examples: A) Take advantage of OSHA exemptions for colds and flus to mask chemical poisonings of cleanup workers  B) Convince EPA and Coast Guard to rubber stamp contingency plans like using low grade “mill pond” buoys instead of “ocean grade” buoys. C)   Circumvent vastly variable effectiveness  of dispersants for different oil grades by persuading EPA to create one “compromise” effectiveness rating D) Convince EPA to sign off on toxicologist reports for dispersants that have only  been tested on older animals, not juveniles.

-BP: Examples A-D above still apply.

3). Spiller in Charge

The oil polluter becomes a ‘super state’ in charge of running response and cleanup. America leaves spiller in charge of cleanup. The Coast Guard sides with industry.

-Exxon:  USCG signed off on “miles of beaches” treated. USCG backed up Exxon’s control of images.

-BP: Signs of similar activity.

4). Under-Reporting Spill:

-Exxon:   In Alaska, Exxon reported up to 3 times less oil spilt then estimated by independent experts.

-BP:  IN Gulf, BP at first estimated  its spill at 1000 barrels of crude oil per day, then increased it to 5000 once researchers said it was at least this much. Now independent researchers using satellite images estimate as much as  70,000 barrels a day.

5). Under-Reporting  Cleanup

-Exxon: Said that it recovered 10 to 12% of oil on beaches in Prince William Sound but this was based on its own underreported spill size. When you take actual spill size into account, Exxon actually only cleaned up about 4%.   Eyewitnesses reported as much of 80% of recovered “oil” as being water in the last of three tankers that off-loaded “oil” from the stricken Exxon Valdez.

-BP:  Initially claimed to be recovering 20% of spill with its first siphon but this was based on inaccurate flow meter data . Later estimates for recovered oil per day are considerably lower

6).  Minimize public perception of impact

- Exxon: immediately put a flight restriction over area to prevent photography. It also required cleanup crews and workers not to talk to media or take photographs

-BP:  Many reports of similar measures. Dispersants used to prevent visible oil slick. Massive messaging effort to minimize public and government reaction.

7). Sick wildlife

-Exxon.  Ecosystem collapsed 4 years after Exxon Valdez spill.  Pink Salmon eventually recovered but Herring fishery utterly collapsed and 15 of 24 species have not recovered 21 years later

-BP:  Effect of oil and dispersants still unknown — and NOAA has not yet initiated comprehensive ecosystem studies despite vast extent of oiled estuaries and marshes.

8). Sick Communities

-Exxon.   Medical and social trauma caused by collapse of fishing industry never anticipated or compensated.   Domestic violence, divorce, suicide, drugs, and depression rates due to financial stress and cultural dislocation were at historic highs for 20 years with PTSD as high as 99% increases.

-BP.  Hospitalized oil clean up workers.  Already signs of severe financial stress amongst unemployed fisherman just recovering from Hurricanes Katrina/Rita.  Cleanup workers facing illness without proper protection.

9). Minimize liability, Write off legal costs

-Exxon.   Exxon appeals $5 billion punitive fine for 20 years until claim to reduced to $507 million – about 10% of original claims. Legal fees become a business expense, written off against revenue from taxpayers.

BP: ‘We will pay all legitimate claims’.  “Translation?” says Ott, “See you in court.”

Following is the next video in a series celebrating The Pollack PR Marketing Group’s 25th Anniversary:

We introduce our sixth guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary this year, Paul Holmes, the highly regarded PR industry analyst.

Paul Holmes is editor and publisher of The Holmes Report, which provides knowledge and insight to public relations professionals, and manages the SABRE Awards, recognizing Superior Achievement in Branding & Reputation.

I just returned from Barcelona, where more than 200 PR practitioners and evaluation experts gathered to pass the “Barcelona declaration” of research principles, an attempt to set global standards for the measurement of PR.

The principles are much needed. My publication runs the SABRE Awards competition in North America, EMEA and Asia, and so I see something like 3,000 PR campaign summaries a year, and measurement is far from standardized. I see everything from clip counts to advertising value equivalency (roundly condemned by the Barcelona delegates), while relatively few seek to link PR to business results.

I have long believed that public relations is about what the words say it is about: building, maintaining and leveraging relationships between an organization and its publics. As a result, I believe the best measure of success is the impact a campaign has on relationships.

The past few years have seen the emergence of new evidence suggesting a strong correlation between an organization’s relationships and business performance. Specifically, Bain & Company’s Fred Reichheld has looked at the connection between advocacy (the likelihood that someone will recommend a company to a friend or colleague) and performance, and found that advocacy (or what he calls net promoter score: the number of advocates minus the number of detractors) is a strong predictor of future success.

This ought to be great news for the profession, because I believe PR is uniquely positioned to create brand advocates. It is hard for me to imagine an ad campaign that would make me more likely to recommend a product to others, but there are plenty of PR campaigns that have done this: communicating a commitment to CSR, linking products with causes, special events that touch people directly. (It’s also easy to imagine PR failures that create brand detractors: BP being the most obvious recent example.)

There are two obstacles to progress on evaluation, however: agencies and clients: agencies, because they all want a proprietary measurement tool that differentiates them from competitors, at a time when we badly need an industry standard; clients, because they remain fixated on traditional reach and frequency measures at a time when social media are demonstrating that engagement and advocacy are what really matters.

As an industry, we need to develop a standard and sell it to clients if we are going to take advantage of the opportunity for leadership offered by this new social media age.

It is either a brilliant marketing ploy calculated to boost the giant liquor company’s sales or a spontaneous lucky streak for Smirnoff.  Or not — for the popularity of the ‘Bros Icing Bros’ game, which originated on college campuses and quickly spread virally via all social media channels, may very well cast a shadow on Smirnoff’s public image and its stance on responsible drinking.

Although Smirnoff has denied that this might be a company-mounted marketing scheme, the jury is still out, considering that the winner clearly is the liquor giant itself and that it has remained largely silent. The game has also triggered sales of Smirnoff Ice drinks within demographics that probably never even heard about the sugary ice malt beverage.

The rules of the game, which had a murky start somewhere in either Florida or Vermont, are explicit on the web: a ‘bro’ hands a friend (or ‘bro) a Smirnoff Ice and he (most participants have been men) “has to drink it on one knee, all at once — unless he is carrying a bottle himself, in which case the ‘attacker’ must drink both bottles.” The listed rules include: “You cannot refuse an Ice.  If you refuse to drink the Ice you are instantly excommunicated and shunned and thus can never Ice another bro or be iced. If you are Iced by a fellow bro you can Ice block.  When presented with an Ice, you pull out an Ice of your own and reverse the Ice on your bro. The ultimate ice insult…”

The mercurial spread of ‘Bros Icing Bros’ from the Web to living rooms and offices around the country seems bizarre, when you consider that it has gone way past college fraternities and now includes young professionals and minor celebrities such as the rapper Coolio, the actor Dustin Diamond and members of the rock band The National.  According to the New York Times, there is even a campaign online that aims to Ice Ashton Kutcher, who often serves as a kind of Kevin Bacon of Web memes, linking disparate areas of the Internet in fewer than six degrees.

Here’s the rub…If it is a social media trend that sparked spontaneously, the game will play out virally until the next ‘thing’ comes along, that is, unless Smirnoff finds ways to disavow the game.

However, it can also end abruptly if the young ‘Bros” get a sense that they have been co-opted by the brand for its own purposes, that they’re being used, in fact, to market a drink that, by all accounts, they really don’t like. But this will surely come back to “bite” the Smirnoff brand.

It’s every company’s dream to have sales rocket through the perennial roof without spending for a marketing campaign.  But this is about a game that extols uncontrolled drinking, with one particular product, with the potential of youths of questionable drinking age, participating.

It raises doubts…

A Smirnoff company statement says, “We never want under-age ‘icing’ and we always want responsible drinking.” Well, that’s good. But if, in fact, Smirnoff had nothing to do with initiating the game, how about taking a stronger stance to distance the company from all the ‘Icing’?

Not happening as yet.  Sales are good.

The British should be familiar with parodies.  After all they invented the form…

BP is ripe for mocking, as witnessed by the launch of the faux BP Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR,  which already has outdistanced BP’s real Twitter stream, attracting nearly 60,000 followers, compared to the company’s 7,000 followers.

While it is true that the company’s real twitter account @BP_America offers continued updates about actions taken toward a solution of the international calamity, no one buys that the effort alone is commendable.  And yet, in reading and watching all the hyperbole that the company puts out, all the gaffes made by its CEO and all the meager attempts at “talking” to a public through full page ads in the NY Times, daily, the company continues to exude a righteous behavior that is irritating and obnoxious, as well as arrogant and disdainful – certainly not characteristics that can endear a company to its many publics.

In the words of a tweeter, “The engineers (may) be busy but PR (folks) are (in) hiding.”

And so, while BP’s PR advisors seem to be AWOL, people turn to mocking.

It’s a real circus out there.

Twitterers are tweeting about the now “extinct mermaids” to the “sharks getting entangled in oil geysers” to changing the word catastrophe and agreeing to call it a “whoopsie daisy.”  The faux account has sold “BP cares” T-shirts with the profits from the sales going to the nonprofit Gulf Restoration Network. Apparently its humorous blasts have been re-tweeted by everyone from filmmaker Michael Moore to singer Michelle Branch.  And then there were preposterous headlines made by Kevin Costner and numerous TV appearances by Bill Nye, the Science Guy, the children’s show host who is apparently now an authority on the issue.

Apparently the faux twitter account’s fictional character “Terry” who has steadfastly remained in character, weakened and fell out of character when asked as to why this effort, to which he answered, “Companies screw up and then they hire folks like me to come in to make it look like they’re doing something while they figure out how to make money again.”

Well, there you have it – the public mocking of a company…

The curious thing is that according to a dialogue that Ad Age had with BP spokesman Toby Odone, he said that, “he wasn’t aware of any attempts by the company to have the feed taken down.” In playing the role of a real BP spokesman, the bogus one took the opposite stance – the one that the real BP should have taken in the first place by saying, “I’ve heard rumors of fake BP PR accounts, and I assure you if we find out who is in charge of them, we will annihilate them.” In further mocking the company, he added, “BP is doing everything we can to save our reputation and hopefully salvage some oil out of all this.”

Here’s advice for BP: hire the faux twitter account owner for advice as to next moves or push your PR folks out of hiding and make them unleash a PR campaign that is based on critical thought and one that is substantive…

The next video by The Pollack PR Marketing Group as part of our monthly 25th anniversary celebration:

As if the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, with the potential of a global calamity of unimagined proportions, is not enough of a disaster for BP corporate, the company’s well recognized “Beyond Petroleum” campaign, launched almost 10 years ago, has come back to bite it.

The “beyond petroleum” campaign, which positioned the company as “transcending the oil sector” and as being innovative, progressive and environmentally responsible and performance-driven, now seems more of an empty marketing ploy than a true descriptor of a company on a mission.

It has the stench of public deception.

It is not BP’s first petroleum mess and PR disaster that it has wrestled with, proving that being environmentally responsible has to go beyond a marketing tag line. In 2006, it was disclosed that BP’s Prudhoe Bay pipeline, which supplies 8% of U.S oil production, was corroded and leaking — for many years because nobody inspected it. It is interesting to note John Kenney’s wry comment at that time in The New York Times, “The company that claims to be ‘beyond petroleum’ shut down a pipeline that serves up 400,000 barrels of oil a day. Maybe Coca-Cola’s new line should be, ‘It’s good for your teeth.’”

This time around, according to BP PLC Chairman Lamar McKay, “no preparations for such an accident were made because it was unforeseeable, and seemed inconceivable, that equipment in place to avert an oil-well blowout, would fail,” referring to a valve mechanism sitting on top of the oil well nearly a mile down in the ocean, which failed to shut in the malfunction. Reports surfaced that it had forgone a $500,000 “acoustic trigger” shut-off device required of offshore oil wells operating near Norway and Brazil.  Apparently, this valve is the last line of defense against oil spurting out of the earth, but it didn’t seem to warrant another half-million expense.

Wouldn’t an environmentally concerned company have a plan ready for the “inconceivable” even if it was “unforeseeable” and include a plan that addresses the “last line of defense” as well?  As Kenney commented back in 2006, “If BP hadn’t been so “holier than thou” in its marketing during the last few years, I doubt that it would be getting hammered right now — at least to this extent. “

Speaking of history repeating itself…

Creating a glorified company image through marketing tag lines, without a genuine effort to become what it says, will always backfire.  Far better to take the cautious track and first make a genuine attempt to engage the public in a debate or a corporate rallying cry to change the paradigm – before you preach to the world what you cannot, or have not intention to, uphold.

In an ironic twist, BP was recently named as a finalist for a federal award honoring offshore oil companies displaying “outstanding safety and pollution prevention.”

Retiring the “Beyond Petroleum” posturing, has been urged before and considered, but rejected to date.  Now is a good time…

Wearing my PR marketing hat while reading today’s New York Times’ article by Leslie Kaufman headlined, “At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business,” I found that the position taken by Denis Hayes (the national coordinator of the first Earth Day and who is again returning 40 years later to organize this year’s activities), regarding how Earth Day had turned into a marketing platform for selling products and services, totally out of whack. Hayes said, “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” and goes on to dramatically say, “It is tragic.”

Perverted marketing?  Tragic?  Not really. Opportunistic, yes, but that’s the good side of Corporate America – doing what it does best, but with a capitalistic bent, and jumping on the bandwagon of what seems a worthy and popular cause and — well OK, making a profit in doing so.

In part, Corporate America is actually responsible for supporting the original intent of Earth Day back in 1970 – to raise awareness of the urgent need to save our resources and stop the pollution of the planet — by developing services and products that are green and bringing them to the marketplace. The very marketers that Hayes criticized so harshly, the ones that saw an opportunity of maximizing Earth Day as a marketing platform, are also those that have been responsible for the rise of eco-consumerism, albeit as a by-product benefit.

So I say to the many pioneers of the environmental movement that find that eco-consumerism detracts from Earth Day’s original intent – think again. In part, it is continuing the job that the pioneers intended and spreading it far wider than bullhorn demonstrations ever could dream of.

Just consider what has happened over the forty years that ensued since that first Earth Day, back in 1970, when Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York City addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Union Square, amidst an atmosphere that The New York Times then likened to a “secular revival meeting.” Forty years ago, only environmental activists thought about re-cycling or land fill poisons or polluted fisheries.  Now, before consumers buy, they check labels as to what “poison” might be in cleaning products, think “organic” before buying produce and use recyclable containers where possible, just to mention a few habits that have crept into our norm. We are becoming a society of eco-consumerists, and we have Corporate America to thank for its leadership in environmental innovation, as well as in getting customers to care, and then buy.

So I thank FAO Schwartz for its Greenzys penguin toy that, as an “ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste” serves as a good role model for kids, and also Bahama Umbrella for its specially designed umbrella, with a drain so that water “can be stored, reused and recycled,” and the Gray Line, for its “Earth Week” package of day trips to green spots, as well as the many more companies that are turning us into an eco-consumerist society.

It’s become a partnership between environmental activists and Corporate America.  One needs the other for the good of all.

We introduce our third guest blogger of our monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, Jay Baer,  who writes in the below blog, on forward thinking social media programs and their composition.

Jay Baer is one of the world’s most popular social media strategy consultants and bloggers. His Convince & Convert social media blog is consistently ranked among the top business blogs, and he speaks to tens of thousands of marketers annually at conferences and conventions. Founder of five companies, he’s a digital marketing pioneer that started online in 1994. He’s worked with more than 700 brands since then, including 25 of the Fortune 1000 (Nike, Pepsi, Sony, Cadbury, Conoco/Phillips, Procter & Gamble). He’s a tequila-loving forest dweller with a passion for tequila, and spreads his “strategy first, then tactics” message like a digital dandelion.

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Cincinnati last night, surrounded by televisions with the sound turned down. The bartender approaches, and asks if I’d like to hear the TV. I say “sure” expecting him to saunter over to a monitor, and turn up the volume. Instead, he reaches under the bar, and pulls out a Soundog unit.

The Soundog is an ingenious device – a small, personal speaker with switching capabilities, enabling me to listen to whichever game I prefer without bothering nearby patrons.

Happily using this handy new technology, I was struck by its utter usefulness and the fact that it neatly addressed a common (although perhaps not world-changing) problem.

Why can’t your social media program do that?

The difference between “selling” and “helping” is only two letters, but the gap is in reality, much larger.

The best – and most effective – social media programs aren’t based on promotions and message distribution. Instead, they revolve around removing friction and uncertainty for potential or current customers.

Nationwide Insurance has a terrific iPhone app that allows you to document a vehicle crash in real-time, including photos, collection of the other drivers’ insurance information, and other key details. They aren’t trying to sell you more insurance – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad makes its living providing technology configuration and repair services, via BestBuy stores everywhere. But yet Geek Squad has a YouTube channel that includes hundreds of videos showing people how to do it themselves. They aren’t trying to sell you services – at least not at that point – they are being helpful.

Geek Squad Founder Robert Stephens was asked about the contradiction of a services company providing helpful videos at a conference where I spoke. He said that the reality is, their best customers are those that can do some of it themselves. If they can assist them initially, they’ll appreciate it and turn to the when they need more help.

That’s understanding the difference between selling and helping. That’s understanding that social media success is a long putt, not a tap-in. That’s measuring results on an annual basis, not a weekly basis.

That’s what you should be doing.

Start today by conducting a Helpfulness Audit for your company. Talk to your customer service department, or survey your customers and document the top 10 problems that customers have with your product or service. Then, strategize ways you could make those problems disappear by providing better content (as with Geek Squad), faster response (as with Nationwide), or better access to help (as many companies are doing by launching online customer support communities using Get Satisfaction or other systems).

Our agency opened its doors on March 25^th 1985. It’s been a quarter of a century, today. It’s our day…

We are privileged to have been a witness to some of the most accelerated changes in history — moments that occurred from 1985, the year of our founding, to today — moments in time that have impacted not only history, but the PR consciousness and subsequently changed the ‘way it was’ from that ‘moment’ forward.  Recognizing this, we set out to put it all into some perspective to crystallize these impactful moments.

Our choice of 25 PR Defining Moments, over our 25 years, is capsulated in the video below.

We sought out ideas for our list from our colleagues, PR professionals and journalists, asking them to submit their ideas.  The criteria for inclusion was that the ‘moment in time’ over the last quarter of a century, had to have found its place in history or altered the way we live our lives, and also had to have impacted change within the context of public relations.  The ‘moments’ submitted could have influenced a lifestyle change, unfurled a technology that would change the way we lead our everyday lives, spotlighted a news happening through an inadvertent camera shot, or changed a political order or the societal landscape.

What we got was astounding, way more than 25…

So we chose our moments, from the many, and listed them in random order, so that we would be free to include ‘moments’ that fit our criteria, rather than be limited to the year in which they occurred.

If you wish, please let us know about ‘your moment’ that is not on our list via: Twitter @PollackPRMktg with a #25PR hashtag, comment on the blog, or email to info@ppmgcorp.com.

• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
• The Televised Car Chase
• September 11, 2001
• The Cola Wars of the 1980s
• US Airways Flight 1549
• Fall of the Berlin Wall
• War Time Coverage
• Demi Moore’s Cover for Vanity Fair
• Real-Time Communication
• Barack Obama’s Social Media Election Campaign of 2008
• Dan Rather Exits As News Anchor
• First Dot Com Web Domain
• Debut of Roger & Me
• Gen-Y Changes the Playing Field
• Demise of Seattle News Institution
• The Rise of Pundits
• The Oprah “Effect”
• Reality Television
• Mosaic Browser Introduction
• Entertainment As News
• Product Craze
• Death of Princess Diana Media Implications
• Faux News Scandal
• First Blog Post
• You!

The world’s largest soda brands face off in a battle for market share and brand loyalty dividing the country into two distinct groups of rival soda drinkers. The cola wars brought consumer engagement to a new level as brand choice was viewed as a lifestyle decision.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

->View the Complete List

Live car chases would become an international phenomenon after the slow-speed chase of OJ Simpson in 1994, which captivated national viewers. But over the next decade, declining viewer interest resulted in decreased coverage of car chases by local news.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

->View the Complete List

Numbering over 70 million and spending over 200 billion dollars annually, Gen Y has changed the playing field for marketers. Immune to traditional marketing tactics, marketers had to reinvent themselves in order to reach the Gen-Y target, effectively flipping the marketing equation in just a few years.

->Back to 25 PR Defining Moments

->View the Complete List

Compiled By The Pollack PR Marketing Group, The List Is A Collaborative Effort Of

Colleagues, Journalists And PR Professionals

LOS ANGELES (March 25, 2010) – As part of the celebration of its 25th anniversary, The Pollack PR Marketing Group (PPMG), an integrated PR and marketing agency, released today a list of 25 PR Defining Moments that occurred from 1985, the year of its founding, to today — PR moments in time that impacted not only history, but the PR consciousness and subsequently changed the ‘way it was’ from that moment forward.

Several months ago, the agency sent out a call to colleagues, PR professionals and journalists, requesting them to submit their ideas for such a list.  The criteria set for inclusion was that the ‘moment in time’ over the last quarter of a century, had to have found its place in history or altered the way we live our lives, and also had to have impacted change within the context of public relations industry.  The ‘moments’ submitted could have influenced a lifestyle change, unfurled a technology that would change the way we lead our everyday lives, spotlighted a news happening through an inadvertent camera shot, or changed a political order or the societal landscape.

According to Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Noemi Pollack, “What first prompted the making of such a list is that over our 25-years we have been witness to some of the most accelerated changes in history.  As such, we wanted to put it all into some perspective to crystallize these impactful moments in time. Clearly, we recognized that many more than 25 ‘PR moments” would qualify for the list, so this list represents our choices of the numerous ones that were submitted. We chose to present the selected 25 in random order, so that we would be free to include ‘moments’ that fit our criteria, rather than be limited to the year in which they occurred.”

The agency was founded on the 25th of March in 1985, as Pollack & Setzer by senior strategists Noemi Pollack and Paul Setzer.  Almost two years later, at the time that Setzer left the firm to pursue a focus on advertising and graphic design, the agency was renamed The Pollack PR Marketing Group.  In the ensuing years, the agency continued its early focus on consumer products and services and, in recent years, has expanded its niche to include online and offline consumer branded engagement.

Fourteen years after its founding, the agency became a partner in The WORLDCOM Public Relations Group, a consortium of 110 agencies in 94 world markets, which added the collective resources and talents of 2,200 professionals that creatively and collaboratively handle small to large scale local, national and international public relations and marketing campaigns, seamlessly.

Additional plans for the year-long celebration include: developing and posting videos on the 25th of every month of forward-thinking communication concepts and ideas that incorporate evolving communication trends, as well as concepts that can support smoother adoption of ‘change’ by corporations – globally; a community relations “roll-up-your-sleeves” plan, whereby each agency professional gets an opportunity to work an 8-hour day at a charity of their choice on the 25th of every month and, in return, the agency will offer a donation to each charity; a monthly guest blogger column on the agency’s blog on the 25th of every month; and, of course, social festivities.

To date, guest blogger contributors include: futurist and author, David Houle, sales “guru” Jeffrey Gitomer; social media strategist, Jason Baer, author and sales strategist, Tom Searcy; PR publisher, Paul Holmes; and journalist, James Flanagan.

Says Noemi Pollack, “When we think of ourselves as a quarter of a century old, the longevity in that phrase really astounds,” and adds, ”We look forward to the next 25.”

ABOUT THE POLLACK PR MARKETING GROUP

The Pollack PR Marketing Group (PPMG) based in Century City, CA, is a 25-year old mid-sized, multi-specialty agency that develops communication platforms and programs, manages corporate reputations, launches new products and services and promotes consumer brand engagement for clients ranging from innovative start-ups, to Fortune 500 companies, with a focus on consumer products, technologies and services. PPMG is a partner in The WORLDCOM Public Relations Group, a consortium of over 100 partners with offices around the world. For more information, visit http://www.ppmgcorp.com, or http://www.pollackblog.com, or follow us on Twitter @PollackPRMktg.

It is arguably widely known in the public relations world that “social media press releases” can tremendously impact the appeal of a press release to both the media and consumers. Popularized by communications professionals like Brian Solis, these releases offer a different tone in language and often include multi-media assets like photos and videos  as well as widgets that make the release easy to share. In the past two years, wire services have caught onto the trend and now provide social media release templates in their service packages.

While social media press releases do make an otherwise dry communication tactic more interesting, the real potential of how press releases can evolve has yet to be realized. There are many emerging tools that can make releases compelling, interactive and even viral. Thinking outside of the “press release box” can add a mark of creativity on press communication that not only garners more attention but also invites the recipient of the release to be more involved with the news.

When constructing a social media press release, one should consider assets not traditionally used for multi-media and develop a narrative around the release that will captivate and engage a wide audience.

Following are examples of the potential for creative interactive elements that can be used:

1. Slideshows

Many companies already know about the power of SlideShare. The ability to create a presentation, upload, and use on other sites as embeddable content, can be an invaluable communication tool. In the context of press releases, this can be a way to organize the message and make it interactive. Also using SlideShare provides the added benefit of having your messages exist in a social and sharable online network.

It is often awkward to have more than one photo on a release, but a SlideShare embed will allow for as many photos as you please and can be easily browsed by the reader. Another use is presentational communication. Putting key points with engaging images can be a visual way to punctuate information within a release.

In particular, releases about new products, studies, or other stories that require a great amount of support data, a slideshow, can encapsulate the information visually for the reader and encourage media to re-use the element in their story.

Podcasts may bring visions of radio production with a mixer board, headphones and cables into one’s head. In reality, podcasts are very easy, extremely popular and effective. In the increasingly mobile world, podcasts are an upward trending way consumers access information. For the purposes of a press release, it can be a one-shot deal or part of a regular program of communication.

Podomatic is a powerfully simple website that allows one to freely record, host, and embed podcasts. Once recorded, they can be shared, downloaded, embedded or distributed throughout social media. Putting key messages into audio in the form of a “news report” or interview can be a powerful way to demonstrate the newsworthiness of the story and also deliver an element that the media would be inclined to use in their coverage.

3. Video

With innovative sites like xtranormal you don’t need a camera, actors, or location to make a movie. You can simply type in a script and use animated characters, in a setting you choose, to speak the lines. This, like the others, can be easily embedded and distributed online.

Many in the blogosphere have taken advantage of xtranormal and often make  humorous movies that offer commentary for their audience. This can also be a valuable tool for press releases. Putting information from a release into a visual conversation creates a shareable element for media to use, but also delivers the messages in an engaging way to viewers.

Here is an example of one I made to demonstrate the point:

All of these methods ultimately accomplish a broader objective of bringing messages out in a variety of vehicles to reach a broader audience. Using sharable tools like the ones mentioned here provide a level of interaction in social media releases that images or twitter buttons alone won’t accomplish. They also provide more reasons to push that “Share This” button.

It took 18 months, hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal loans and a Gallup poll that found consumer confidence in financial institutions at the lowest level since the poll began asking the question 34 years ago, to have banks get into gear and do something about their much-tarnished public image. Apparently the wheels turn slowly with financial institutions…

Here’s how it went: financial institutions continued their staid and true messages of stability and longevity for the first few months of the financial crisis; this was followed by “no message is the best message,” clearly a stance that never works; then messages slowly evolved into a defensive blame game, which quickly turned around into rounds of apologies; and now, finally, recognition seeped in that something needs to be done about re-building public trust of their industry.

It took 18 months and the public remained indignant.  Just consider the arrogance of it all…

According to Nathaniel Popper’s report in the LA Times, some banks are now forging new ground in connecting to the public. The surge in marketing has taken banks into uncharacteristic new territories. Bank of America has staffers responding to customer complaints via Twitter; banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America are having their respective CEOs trotted out to make personal appearances at individual bank branches; uplifting ad campaigns are launched such as Citigroup’s, in which CEO, Vikram Pandit says, “It’s clear that we made some mistakes coming into this environment, and we have to acknowledge that.”  Bank of America has actually moved away from same old traditional ways by adding a new website that centers on public perception of the bank, rather than products or services.

But nothing has really begun to pierce the intense public anger.

Although the recent moves reflect a recognition that a different approach is needed to contend with the public’s ongoing outcry, I project it to be a long road ahead.  For example, just last week in my blog of February 24, titled Chase Bank – The Latest Poster Child For Customer Service Ills, I noted that customers calling the Chase #800 number were getting the same old run around, without change, in their search for a solution to their query.  Announcing management, operations and staff changes, as did Citibank and Bank of America, is not sending any message.  It is simply news and not likely to tweak up the trust factor until the news evolves into a positive result.

Public Relations counselors would do well to encourage financial institutions to take a page out of the original Community Reinvestment Act passed in 1977 (which requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits) and become active in neighborhoods in which they do business, where they would be seen as partners in rebuilding communities. They could also send a strong message of “caring for a community” by taking an active interest in community education; behave as leaders in the communities by partaking in city councils; and become conversant with customers on social media networks. Investing resources into such a program would “buy” them the much-needed trust — sooner than later.

As a direct example, the Los Angeles Unified School District is in deep financial trouble.  Just today it announced a 4,000-teacher/staff/administrator layoff. The implications to the future of education of children are disturbing.  Would it not be a great slot for any of the bigger banks to fill?  What a hero the bank would be…

I have to add that I take exception to the quote in the LA Times report of CEO of Financial Marketing Solutions, Tim Pannell saying, “We need some really genuine, believable pathos — look you in the eye and say, ‘We acknowledge the troubles, we understand maybe we could have done things differently’.”

Pathos may make everyone feel better, but actual customer engagement will effect a change.

Last week a Digital Trenches discussion noted the rising trend in interest surrounding daddy bloggers. But in face of this week’s eMarketer published report, mommies still have that edge with marketers.  And for good reason. According to the report, 68% of new mothers began using “mom-centric social media” after having children, and 33% increased their use of social media in general. Couple that with the current estimate that mothers control 80% of household spending, then it becomes clear why marketers prefer Moms. Senior eMarketer analyst Jeffrey Grau commented that moms come together to “share information about product deals” – a valuable bonus to marketers.

Is the value of mommy bloggers in their buying power? Or is it more about their networking power? The evidence is in what marketers approach mommy bloggers for: endorsements. If their value is really buying power, then simply advertising on a “mom-centric” social network like BabyCenter or Circle of Moms would likely get the job done. While that may be happening, the activity getting the most attention in 2009 by, not only the media, but the FTC, was product reviews.

One can easily conclude then that the value of mommy bloggers is their ability to influence other moms and to leverage their buying power. If that is true, then a mommy blogging is something akin to consumer journalism and marketers would be wise to take note.

Here are five ways marketers can earn a mommy journalist’s respect for a highly valued third party endorsement:

1. Construct meaningful, personalized and targeted pitches about products that clearly appeal to the blogger.
2. Don’t expect a positive review, but an honest one, and do not try to tell the mommy journalist what to write.
3. When following up, be respectful of time and do not spam with email or voicemail messages.
4. Read the blog before pitching so that there is a thorough understanding of what they do or do not write about.
5. Thanking a mommy blogger for writing about the product can build a long-term professional relationship down the road.

Mommy bloggers have an invested interest in their readers and approaching them with a journalistic respect will show that marketers truly understand the value of a mom.

We introduce our first video of our new monthly video series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary. This video addresses the role of social media in customer service.

We introduce our second guest blogger of our new monthly series on the 25th of every month, in celebration of our 25th anniversary, who encourages, in the below blog, those who are still hesitating to engage in social media to do so.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling and president of Charlotte-based BuyGitomer, gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at salesman@gitomer.com.

It started like a small bunch of burning leaves. A little MySpace, here and there  –  a blog or two. And then the wind picked up. Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. Growing from a windstorm to a firestorm, social media is a tornado running wild over the Internet plains.

How social are you?

How serious are you about social media?

REALITY: You can’t ignore it. Hundreds of millions of people are involved so far, and it’s just a few years old.

I tried to ignore it for a while, but it soon became apparent that this was the new, new wave – about a year ago I became a player.

I admit I have an edge. I have a lot of readers and followers who are interested in what I have to say and want to know what my immediate thinking is. That’s two of the values in social media – it’s immediate and it’s informative. It’s also fun – that’s why Facebook and YouTube are worth BILLIONS

The major networks in social media are growing by the second…

• For photos, it’s Flickr – worth billions

• For videos, it’s YouTube – worth billions

• Social networking for the younger set starts with MySpace – an original

• Social networking for the growing and grown set, it’s Facebook – worth billions

• To get connected and network with the business set, it’s LinkedIn.

And for that private message, there’s texting – it’s easy for me – I have an iPhone.

And that is just a partial picture. There’s more…

• For individual expressions, there are weblogs, or blogs.

• If you want to say a few words, there’s micro-blogging and interconnecting – also known as Twitter – worth billions.

• For chronologging, it’s Wikipedia – worth billions.

• And, of course, there are your personal website and business website. Priceless.

All of these medias are, or try to be, socially engaging – sticky if you will. All of them are, or try to be, passed on – viral if you will. Or, better stated, if you tweet, are you good enough or bad enough to be re-tweeted?

I have made a serious commitment to “socialize,” in other words, to expose more of my personal self and my business self through social media. I will still maintain my value-based philosophy, but I will personalize it, and humanize it to a point that others are attracted to it, benefit from it, and want to pass it on to others.

I will be social and viral at the same time.

So, what does this mean to you?

What’s the opportunity to you and for you?

Why should you get involved?

Social media is an opportunity, a new frontier, a space in cyberspace that gives you an individual place to play, build awareness of you and for you, brand yourself, and potentially profit.

You have to ask yourself …

Where’s the beef?

Where’s the fun?

What’s the value, both to you and others?

And how – if desired – do you monetize it?

Well, unless you’re one of the few people in an ownership or founding position of these social medias, your monetizing opportunities are at the moment limited – in spite of various claims by “experts.”

Here’s what I recommend to get going and get positioned, so that your value – either in social, business, fun, or money — can be realized:

• Sign on.

• Establish an account on each of the major medias.

• Post something.

• Tweet something.

• Connect with someone.

• Do it yourself.

• Do it every day.

And learn by updating as much as you can on your own.

Social media is fluid – it moves and changes daily. It’s text, audio, photo, and video. It’s every media and it’s every second. It’s current and it’s constant. Ever see a section of a website labeled “latest news” and when you click it, the last update is from 2004? Not good.

The Internet is instant. Social media is instant. And you have to be ready to participate consistently, and in a meaningful way, if you want to win.

Please don’t wait.

© 2009 All Rights Reserved

You do not want to be Chase Bank these days.

It has just suffered a public humiliation by a single customer whose several requests for negotiating overdraft fees went unanswered by Chase and who, despairing at the lack of response, resorted to waging a YouTube war against Chase’s customer service — or better yet, lack thereof.  In a You Tube video (watch below) Chase was called – evil.

It’s the classic tale of David winning over Goliath, a real vindication for all of us who have, at some point, been rendered completely helpless in trying to solve a need or problem whether banking, retail, warranty or other, via an 800 number, that then asks us to punch in number after number only to get more and more recorded messages that finally leads us to a “thank you for calling, goodbye,” message, without ever solving the problem in the first place.  Or, if lucky, you can leave a message for a supervisor knowing full well that chances of a return call are about the same as becoming famous overnight.

Chase can take an example from companies on the edge of consumer trends that have begun to equate social media with customer service. Those companies ‘get’ that today’s customers view social media as a communication tool for dealing directly with a company’s customer service and have created a platform for dealing with each, in real time.

But it’s not only about Chase.  Southwest got hit recently when film director Kevin Smith tweeted that the airline kicked him off a plane because he was too fat, a photo of which subsequently landed in the mainstream print and broadcast media.  Happily for Southwest, its blog, Nuts for Southwest, addressed the news story giving it a social media bullhorn in which to respond.  But the company did have to publicly apologize.

Clearly, a well-oiled company’s social media effort like Ford’s, does not wait for ignored customers to vent, offering a platform for interaction where the customer can get heard.  In other words, they have “invested” in online conversations with their customers.  Ford also understands that social media is threading its way through not only marketing and sales, but also through research and development and, most importantly in this case, customer service departments.

And then there is Comcast that “invested” in online live chats with a Comcast service representative allowing for an open forum, as well as its online community forum, where customers can get answers from fellow Comcast customers and moderators.

Another company that understands this is Best Buy.  In my blog of July 8, 2009 titled, “Sales, Service And Twitter, An Ideal Threesome” I wrote about Best Buy’s Twelpforce, which was launched on July 19, 2009 with a 500 person sales team that was to engage with consumers by Twittering away, entering into 140-character conversations with those who are both consumed with consumer electronics as well as those who needed answers to product uses or other questions. Best Buy had basically made a “pay forward” move, which now, eight months later, has the service humming away with happy customers.

The Chase video is yet another example of how social media has put the power to undo companies’ reputations in the hands of customers. Not bothering about customer care today is akin to loosing loyal customers tomorrow.  It takes people to react to people…

Recorded messages and 800 numbers are so yesterday.

Mommy bloggers certainly captured a lot of attention in 2009. This often elusive, yet highly influential network of moms that took to social media with flagpoles, megaphones, and important insights on parenting, was all the rage in the media. Headline after headline we saw that these parental bloggers were so influential, they began accomplishing the “Holy Grail” of social media: churning a profit. If advertising was not enough, companies began buying reviews from mommy influencers to the point where the FTC had to step in and wag a finger, a story we weighed in on in our Strategy and Musings blog last June.

But if 2009 was the mommy blogger year, 2010 is already being penned as the “year of the daddy blogger” by an expert, a daddy blogger, a social media marketer, and a poll (currently resulting in 65% favorable to the idea). We even discussed the rising trend in Strategy and Musings last August in response to Sony’s DigiDad project.

Certainly daddy bloggers are on the rise and so are networks that are supporting them. They have taken to Twitter with their stories on parenthood and are already involving brands in their publications. Like the moms, each of them target a particular interest, but with a focus on parenthood, as a theme.

Here are a few:

The Dad List: http://www.thedadlist.com/

Natural Papa: http://naturalpapa.com/

Daddy Is Tired: http://www.daddyistired.com/

Mocha Dad: http://www.mochadad.com

DaddyGotCustody: http://daddygotcustody.com/

Playground Dad: http://playgrounddad.com/

LookyDaddy:  http://www.lookydaddy.com/

DadGoneMad: http://www.dadgonemad.com/

CynicalDad: http://www.cynicaldad.com/

LaidOffDad: http://laidoffdad.typepad.com/

DadCentric: http://www.dadcentric.com/

DadLogic:  http://dadlogic.net

This new trend of blogging begs the question, is this actually a new trend? And if so, is there a discernable difference between mommy and daddy bloggers apart from gender? Certainly topics will vary between the two types of blogs, but ultimately they are parenthood blogs and so, therefore, will appeal to the same demographics with the same marketing tactics. Parents read these blogs to participate in conversations about parenthood and to seek peer-oriented advice on products parents need. From a marketing perspective, the objectives and tactics will remain the same, whether or not the parent is a mommy or daddy.

The media is already making noises about  the next big trend and companies are not far behind in trying to tap this rising market. There is even talk of a daddy blogger convention. Regardless of whether that will happen, marketers will be trying to get a piece of the pie. Just follow any of the new daddy bloggers, and it will be obvious that an influencer can come out of anywhere — dads or moms, and that what matters most is the transparency in these types of consumer engagements.

Maybe 2011 will be the year of the Kiddy Blogger.