Employee advocacy is a popular topic among executives and communications leaders alike. The increased recognition that employees are a powerful force in shaping conversations about your brand, and ultimately a huge factor in your reputation, has created a wave of initiatives and campaigns designed to unlock the potential of employees as advocates. In many industries, restrictive…
In case you missed it, OJ Simpson wants to set the record straight…and has taken to Twitter to do so. While some may view this as a move of a desperate has-been sports star/presumed murderer to remain relevant, it also points to the power and longevity of the court of public opinion. Twenty-five years after…
I’ve worked with more than half a dozen airlines in my career, and a very wise, “elder statesman” of that business told me early in my career, “When you put an airplane somewhere it doesn’t belong, you’ve earned your spot as the lead story. The question is, how long will you stay there? That’s where…
These days, it seems like no one is safe from a crisis arriving suddenly and unexpectedly. Some have subscribed this phenomenon to hypersensitivity on the political left and right, goaded on by professional activists who subscribe bad intentions to…well, everything. In fairness, there’s something to this idea that culture warriors jumping to conclusions (or trawling…
With the White House flooding the zone, there is a new reputation topic worth talking about almost every day. I’ve been thinking about companies and their response to the immigration ban, and meaning to write about it, especially after spending a day at JFK volunteering with the #NoBanJFK legal team. Why did Starbucks win, and…
Admin’s Note: Carreen Winters recently discussed this issue in The Wall Street Journal’s Crisis of the Week blog which is available here. Apple’s high-stakes showdown with the Justice Department in the iPhone hack case is far more than a PR battle. It’s a deep-rooted ideological issue pitting privacy against national security, where PR plays a…
Last night at dinner with some colleagues, the topic of Brian Williams and his Paul Bunyan tale of being shot down in the Iraqi desert came up. Is he a liar? An embellisher? Or a victim of some sort of false memory syndrome? No doubt, experts more qualified than me will be filling the airwaves…
The verdict is out on the impact of “Blackfish,” the 2013 documentary that put SeaWorld’s treatment of orca whales in the line of fire: SeaWorld reported another disappointing quarter this week, with its profit falling 28 percent and its stock price down more than 50 percent from its 2013 April IPO following the news. We’ve…
I came across this slideshow about the biggest brand scandals, and its simplicity made the problems, and the solutions so clear. Here are three ways to avoid brand scandal: Learn from the mistakes of others – Victoria’s Secret tried to launch a “sexy” line of underwear for tweens. Abercrombie did the same thing, and got…
Documentary filmmakers often struggle to get their work noticed beyond the film festival and art house theater crowd and can find it especially difficult to compete against the release of summer blockbusters. However, for the folks behind Blackfish, an examination of Orcas in captivity and the tragic death of a SeaWorld trainer in 2010,…