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What Can Olympic Teams Teach Business Leaders?
For .Biz Builder Magazine… By Mark de Rond, Ph.D., Author, “There Is an I in Team
Over the next few weeks, the world’s brawniest athletes will lock horns in pursuit of sport’s biggest prize: an Olympic title. The world’s number one Taekwondo star, Aaron Cook, won’t be one of them. Controversially, he was passed over in favor of world number 59, Lutalo Muhammed, in only the latest of a series of high-profile selection disputes in the Great Britain camp. To avoid just such confrontations, selection decisions are typically based on the most objective grounds possible:
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When C-Suites Turn Sour: 10 Reasons to Fire Your CEO – and How to Do It Right
For Corporate Communications… By James E. Lukaszewski, President, The Lukaszewski Group
How do you know when it’s time for the CEO to go? What are the indicators, the mistakes, and the evidence that signal the need for departure? Who makes the decision, what’s the sequence of events, just how tough, and embarrassing, is it going to be? A number of sources each year, usually the business magazines, take a poll, do some kind of survey, look up at the sky, and come up with the top 10 reasons CEOs have to go.
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What Hollywood Teaches Business: How to Find Your Brand Story
For .Biz Builder Magazine… By Laurence Vincent, Director of The Brand Studio, UTA
I am cursed with a career-limiting visual impairment. It’s called eye rolling. Lately, this malady has embarrassed me whenever someone tells me they help brands tell stories. When the phrase “we’re in the brand storytelling business” rolls off their tongue, my eyes roll away to the corner of the room. Curiously, I do believe that brands tell stories. I just think most people who talk about brand storytelling don’t know what it means.
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Study: Amateur User-Generated Video Held Attention Faster and Stronger That Professional Video
By Jessica Thorpe, VP of Marketing at EXPO Communications, for the Social Video Channel
It’s common sense – use the strengths of the medium to tell your story. The ability to demonstrate the benefits of a product give video an advantage over text and image. Yet, this obvious piece of advice can often get lost in the heat of the creative process. Fine-tuning the words in the script can often overtake the hard task of selecting the right action shots to maximize the impact of your product video.
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Keeping Brand Visibility Flowing: A Look at Brand Streaming
By PR Newswire for the Agile Engagement Channel
The concept of brand streaming is the ability to tell your story across multiple mediums, creating an “always on” presence that attracts and engages people when they’re actively seeking information, whether they’re chatting on social networks or using a search engine. With this approach, brands are tasked with being not only entertaining but informative, accessible and engaging. This can be a lot to handle if the communications teams and processes aren’t empowered to develop messages dynamically and respond quickly as opportunities arise. This week on our webinar titled, “Keeping Your Brand Visibility Flowing through Content: A Look at Brand Streaming in Action”…
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Employee vs. Animal Welfare: The Fight for Rights
By Michael Broadway and Donald Stull for CSRwire for the Corporate Social Responsibility Channel
In early 2008, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) released a video showing workers at a California slaughterhouse using electric prods on cattle unable to stand on their own (called downers) and ramming them with forklifts to make them stand for inspection. (Federal law requires that animals be able to walk into the slaughterhouse, and downed cattle are banned from human consumption because inability to stand may be a symptom what is commonly called mad cow disease.)
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Chick-fil-A PR Exec Dies Amid Furor over Same-Sex Marriage
Detroit Free Press/Freep
The chief spokesman for Chick-fil A died early today amid the furor sparked by his boss’ biblical opposition to same-sex marriage. The Georgia-based fast-food giant did not cite a cause of death for 60-year-old Don Perry, vice president of public relations, but local news reports said he died of a heart attack, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. He had worked for the fast-food giant for 29 years. “Don was a member of our Chick-fil-A family for nearly 29 years,” the company said in a statement. “For many of you in the media, he was the spokesperson for Chick-fil-A. He was a well-respected and well-liked media executive in the Atlanta and University of Georgia communities, and we will all miss him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.” In the past week, Perry found himself on the front lines of the controversy that erupted after Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy, whose father founded the business, reitereated the company’s belief in “the biblical definition of the family unit.” That prompted an outcry from gay-rights advocates, politicians and some businesses, but also drew praise and support from evangelical Christians and traditionalists …
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PR Gaffe: Obama Campaigns Says Romney’s Olympic Comments “An Embarrassment” to U.S.
The Los Angeles Times
President Obama’s campaign said Sunday that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s gaffe on the London Olympics raises questions about “whether he’s ready to be commander in chief.” In a face-off between two top campaign aides, Obama advisor Robert Gibbs said Romney’s public questioning of whether the Games would come off smoothly “was an embarrassment for our country.” “To go overseas, stand in the country of our strongest ally – and the Olympics that they’ve been preparing years for – and question whether or not they’re ready, does make you wonder whether or not he’s ready to be commander in chief,” the former White House press secretary said on ABC’s “This Week” news show. Romney, who oversaw the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, said on Thursday “You know, it’s hard to know just how well it … will turn out.” He said reports of logistical problems were “disconcerting.” …
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Social Media Marketing: Instagram Passes 80 Million Users, 4 Billion Photos
Venture Beat
More than just an insta-success, Instagram announced that it has surpassed 80 million users who are sharing photos with friends via its iPhone and Android apps. The nearly two-year-old photo-sharing and filtering service, the property of Facebook pending close of that deal, is also today celebrating nearly 4 billion photos shared. The milestones are quite remarkable and demonstrate that the mobile photo phenom can maintain its red-hot status as a Facebook property. Instagram added more than 50 million users since it released an Android application in early April, which was also just days before Facebook revealed its intentions to snatch up the burgeoning service. The two major events have clearly contributed to the app’s continued success and growth …
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Apple Talks with Twitter Said to End without Deal: Twitter Ad Sales to Hit $540 Millon Soon
Bloomberg
Apple isn’t currently in talks with Twitter Inc. about investing in the operator of a micro- blogging service, according to two people familiar with the matter. The companies were in discussions more than a year ago and talks ended without an agreement, said one of the people, who asked not to be named because the deliberations were private. The two held talks in recent months about Apple making an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the New York Times reported on July 27. The deal would have valued Twitter at more than $10 billion, the Times said. Representatives from Cupertino, California-based Apple and San Francisco-based Twitter declined to comment. Twitter, while still smaller than online competitors Google Inc. and Facebook Inc., expects to generate at least $1 billion in sales in 2014, two people with knowledge of the matter have said. Researchers at EMarketer Inc. have said that in 2014 Twitter advertising sales, which account for almost all its revenue, will rise to $540 million from $139.5 million last year …
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SEC Alleges Insider Trading ahead of CNOOC-Nexen Deal
Reuters
The U.S. securities regulator filed a complaint in court on Friday against a firm controlled by a Chinese billionaire and other traders, accusing them of making over $13 million from insider trading ahead of a bid by China’s CNOOC for Canadian oil company Nexen Inc. The SEC said the federal court in Manhattan had frozen assets worth over $38 million belonging to Hong Kong-based Well Advantage, controlled by businessman Zhang Zhirong, and other unnamed traders who used accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore to trade in Nexen stock. They made trading profits of $7 million and $6 million respectively by using inside knowledge of the merger to buy Nexen shares before the announcement, the SEC says …
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Dow Tops 13,000: Stocks Continue to Defy Investors’ Sour Mood
The Wall Street Journal
Amid a fresh barrage of bad economic news, the mood among investors these days is glum. So it might come as a surprise that stocks are actually up so far this year. Stocks had swooned during the spring amid yet another flare-up of worries about Europe, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 820 points in May alone. But since then, the Dow has rebounded almost 700 points. It topped the 13000 mark on Friday. Crucial to the bounce has been expectations that the Federal Reserve will move quickly should the U.S. economy deteriorate further. As a result, even after a couple of white-knuckle days last week, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index is up 10% so far this year. The Dow has struggled a bit more, gaining 7% so far in 2012, but the technology-heavy Nasdaq is up a hefty 14% …
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PR Pros in the Spotlight: The Dreadful PR Amateurs Who Surround Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Chicago Tribune
PR pros often are thrust into the spotlight when they bungle media relations efforts, especially when their clients or bosses happen to be political players. Here’s the latest example, which drummed up considerable (and sometimes funny) reader commentary: On Friday, when the Sun-Times first reported that [Democratic U.S. Rep Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago] was at [the Mayo Clinic] based on sources, Jackson chief of staff Rick Bryant told the Tribune, “I would not report that.” Asked if the report was wrong, Bryant responded, “Yup.” Hours later, after the Mayo announcement, Bryant explained that he had taken the day off. How many new ways can Jackson and his advisers make a total mess of this story? …
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London Olympics: P&G Among Advertisers That Have the Golden Touch
Telegraph UK
What brands are best leveraging their Olympic advertising? At a consumer brand level, P&G has astutely leveraged its sponsorship to introduce the largely unknown parent brand behind Pampers and Fairy as “sponsors of mums”, to a surprisingly heartwarming response. They performed less well in their other event ‚Äö√Ñ√¨ the altogether clumsier and self-serving bid to “clean up London”. Lloyds TSB tops most surveys of Olympic sponsorship awareness and must be congratulated for – among other things – cannily piggybacking the popularity of the Olympic Torch, rather than going about the expensive and awkward business of creating standalone assets as others have attempted. Cadbury, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s have all had their involvement queried on the grounds of their fit with a celebration of athleticism and exercise. But the last suffered perhaps just as much PR damage in the wake of “ChipGate”, just one of a number of rights-enforcing actions that have set Games organiser Locog and some of its sponsors on a collision course with modern, more open, marketing convention …
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In Case You Missed It: NBC Sells Record $1 Billion in Olympic Ads
The Globe and Mail
Comcast’s NBCUniversal booked a record $1-billion (U.S.) in national television and digital advertising sales for the London Olympics, paving the way for the broadcaster to recoup the $1.18-billion it paid for U.S. media rights to the games. NBC is amid the most extensive broadcast of the games to date. Kicking off with the opening ceremony on Friday night, NBC is now presenting more than 5,535 hours of coverage across its television networks and digital properties. NBC is live streaming every athletic competition–or 3,500 hours–to the web. For the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, NBC live streamed 2,200 hours online. The U.S. broadcaster said its digital offerings have bolstered ad sales, but that it still had capacity for further adsDigital sales this year are more than $60-million, about three times more than in 2008. NBC’s total ad sales for the London Games have been $150-million higher than during the Beijing Olympics …
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