Day: January 20, 2003

Reed Bolton Byrum has been appointed as the 2003 President and CEO of the PRSA. Byrum is an “independent strategic communications consultant” for Trilogy and other technology companies. PRSA’s publication PR Tactics has an interview with Byrum……

A debate between PR people and the media in Dubai got a little heated last week.

Young and Rubicam has closed it’s PR subsidiary in Australia with the loss of 14 jobs. The agency had billings of around AUS$2 million.

A survey of Canadia CEO’s by Hill & Knowlton found that they believe print and broadcast criticism is a bigger threat to their organization’s corporate reputation than the ethical behaviour of their firms.

In more sobering news, three PR staffers at HSR Business to Business, Cincinnati, were killed in a car accident last Thursday on their way to a client meeting. The victims were Barbara M. Conry-Dressman, Patrick J. Cunningham and Kevin J. Pfirrman. Details of the arrangements are on the HSR website.

I just received the latest installment of Ketchum’s “Perspectives” newsletter.

Some interesting opinions in there. A roundtable on what’s coming up for communications came up with the following areas:
– On the legal front, the worldwide ripple effect of corporate scandals and the election of Republican majorities in both houses of Congress explain the fresh interest in litigation and proposed legislation affecting it.
– Market research climbs in value as a persistently weak economy forces companies to demand a return on their investment in communications.
– Interest in multicultural marketing is propelled by the population strides that Hispanics, Asians and other minority groups have made in many countries, especially the U.S.
– The outlook for the media remains of paramount interest to all public relations practitioners, across all specialties.

Anne Holland who looks after the SherpaBlog has released “Marketing Inspiration for 2003” which includes insight from over 600 marketing professionals on the lessons they learned during 2002. It includes a section on PR and more general marketing areas.

Welcome to a new week. To kick off, here’s a professional dilemma.

You work in an agency, you have a long standing client, very run-of-the-mill, a relatively small business but profitable business. They’ve been a happy client for a long time – and you’re happy to have them as a client.

However, one day all hell breaks loose. The owners are arrested on child pornography charges. As their PR consultant they turn to you for support. PR support. You find out the charges are correct, your client is guilty. Do you persevere or do you walk away?

What do you do? This mirrors a recent case where the PR in question did defend their client in the court of public perception, I’m don’t think I would.

What about you?