Murphy's Law

THE FOUNDATION FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS has conducted a study of 115 major US companies and found that ninety eight percent of CEOs took part in some political activity in the last year. A particularly alarming finding was that over twenty five percent of the companies surveyed had no crisis management team in place! Read more here.

IN OTHER NEWS, OVER NINETEEN Public Relations organizations (yep that’s nineteen) have come together to urge corporate America to take steps to restore the much damaged element of trust.

The nineteen organizations are: Arthur W. Page Society, Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, Corporate Communication Institute at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Council of Communication Management, Council of Public Relations Firms, Global Public Affairs Institute, Institute for Public Relations, IPR’s Commission on Measurement & Evaluation, International Association of Business Communicators, IABC Research Foundation, International Public Relations Association, National Investor Relations Institute, National School Public Relations Association, Public Affairs Council, Public Relations Society of America, PRSA Counselors Academy, PRSA Foundation, Women Executives in Public Relations, Foundation of WEPR.

The press release is here. You can find the URL’s yourself! 🙂

There’s a story on the UK-based HR Gateway website about how PR can’t hide poor HR practice.

The story is in advance of a free e-book being offered by Nicola Hunt on “Communications & HR” which is being released on February 3rd.

Following on from the story I posted about PR men slipping money to politicians in return for favors, a “PR” consultant (the BBC’s description not mine) has been found guilty of insider trading in the UK. The consultant, Tim Blackstone, has enjoyed a number of “customer service” positions during his career as a former journalist with the UK Sunday Times and a porn actor.

According to the BBC story, Mr Blackstone was fined �1,000, ordered to pay �16,000 prosecution costs and told to hand over the �3,000 profit he had made on the shares.

Last year the Hurwitz Group closed it’s doors, the highest profile casualty in the technology research business.

Today news reaches us that Forrester Research has purchased Giga Group. More detail at Computerworld.

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?

This is according to the Patrick Marketing Group’s study on Marketers’ Outlook for 2003.

Based on responses from 400 marketers across a wide range of industries during December, the study finds that:
1) Generating leads is the #1 priority for Marketing in 2003
2) The biggest trend affecting Marketing is lower budgets (closely followed by Internet Marketing)
3) The major Marketing-related challenge is the poor economy
4) And responsdents feel PR is the most effective tool for branding (closely followed by print advertising)

What are your biggest challenges for 2003? Let me know…

MarketingSherpa interviews the new Editor-in-Chief at Inc Magazine John Koten who has some interesting views on what makes a good press room and some tips on pitching stories to Inc.