Josh Bernoff of Forrester has “a new model for PR and influencers.” It’s a fantastic idea and one that I really hope will take off. Actually, I wished it had taken off two years ago.

You see, back in 2007 I started researching ways to improve the quality and relevance of PR pitches. I spent 6 months interviewing journalists and bloggers about how PR pros could serve them better. Based on that research I built Newsvetter, an online platform (not this blog) that improves the quality of PR pitches by asking users to answer ten basic questions every time they share news with the media.

But that’s not all. Journalists could also create their own profiles and specify how they liked to be pitched. They could also direct all pitches through the Newsvetter platform and then rate and comment on the pitches. I even created a profile badge so bloggers could feature it on their site to encourage on-target pitching. It was all quite wonderful.

The site launched in 2008 and had the fortune of getting some initial positive reviews from influential PR people like Shel Holtz, Sam Whitmore, Jon Greer and Kevin Dugan. But it was short lived.

Only a few journalists took the time to fill out their profiles. PR people started using it as a free press release site paying little attention to the quality of their pitches. A few PR people complained that the questions were too hard (they are not). In other words, laziness killed it. So I took it off line.

Now Josh Bernoff has HIRPS (Herpes?) which stands for Highly Relevant Pitching System. It proposes a profile system for influencers, a pitching system and ratings for PR people. Already he has floated the idea to the big wigs at Cision, one of the largest PR database companies. Cision would be an obvious choice and they would certainly have the resources to build and market it. Personally, I think this approach would be better suited to HARO, where this would be a nice add-on service for the journalists.

But the problem of laziness remains. If they build it, will PR and journalists come?

I wouldn’t count on journalists and bloggers to participate in any great numbers. That said, they would certainly welcome higher quality content from PR people.

It will be up to the PR pros to take the first step. Unfortunately, I have seen little movement on that front since 2007.

Maybe all that is needed is for a well-connected person like Bernoff to get things moving in the right direction. I sure hope so.

P.S. For those curious, here’s a slimmed down version of my PR pitching platform.

If you want to poke around without registering, use:

un: johndoe

pw: johndoe

I know. This probably isn’t a real trend (yet), but fake PR cases seem to be on the rise.

The most notable of course have been the following: the fake BP Global PR Twitter account, the General Mills press release hoax, and now, the fake PR account for AT&T.

My personal favorite is the Heishman Flillard stunt which is an obvious spoof of the well-known PR firm, Fleishman Hillard. It’s less an attack on Fleishman and more a commentary on how large PR firms are struggling to reinvent themselves in today’s world. Heishman has a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account and they recently launched a slick website complete with multimedia content and humorous copy like: “the most strategic, powerful and award winning tradigital force in public relations and social media in the universe.”

Although fake PR is not a new phenomenon, I believe PR professionals need to start preparing for more cases of it for three reasons:

• It’s really easy to create and distribute official-looking content via social media.
• It’s time consuming and challenging to shut down or remove fake PR off third-party sites.
• There is an audience for it, as evidenced by the 180,000 people that now follow the fake BP Global PR Twitter account.

So, how does one manage fake PR? Here a few steps to consider:

Step 1: Don’t bury your head in the sand. Issue a quick statement (preferably on your blog) acknowledging the existence of the fake PR.

Step 2: Talk to your legal department. Are the interests (not egos) of the company being seriously harmed by the fake PR? If not, is there a way your company can use the fake PR to its advantage?

Step 3: Consider fighting fire with fire. Don’t only consider serious solutions (e.g., cease and desist letters), consider using a humorous one. The real AT&T ought to engage the person running the fake AT&T Twitter account. For example, why not send him/her a Tweet that he/she’s been selected as employee of the month but needs to pick up the award in person?

Step 4: If the situation is highly sensitive (as in the case of BP), simply acknowledge the fake PR (Step 1) and leave it be (although continue monitoring for serious legal issues). Trying to silence the instigator is not likely to work in your favor.

Most of the fake PR cases that I’ve come across are not purposely malicious and don’t harm the company or its interests. They are meant to simply entertain and get attention for the author (at your expense of course). I don’t think there is any harm in that.

I think for most people the fake BP Twitter account served an important purpose. It became an outlet where people could vent their frustration through humor. And that’s probably a good thing.

But whatever you decide to do, don’t wait. Time is the enemy.

Rich Becker of Copywrite Ink has an interesting post today about how the lines between advertising and PR are blurring. I’ve been noticing this as well but I wonder if all this blurring could eventually lead to the replacement of many PR functions by advertising.

Here’s why I think this:

• People in advertising are better at telling interesting stories.
• They are not afraid to be provocative.
• They are free to explore all kinds of creative solutions to problems.
• They know how to create content for today’s attention spans.
• They are students of human behavior and culture.
• They are adept at using multimedia esp. video online.
• They have a strong background in the arts.

We are a content obsessed society looking to share the next piece of what Peter Shankman recently described as “finder’s candy.” In other words, that entertaining or remarkable piece of content that you just have to share. Who is best to feed this beast? In my opinion it’s advertising.

So what does PR bring to the table? The most important thing is crisis communications (and perhaps investor relations).

But in all honesty, drawing lines in the sand between PR, advertising and social media is kind of a useless exercise. What we really should be focusing on are skill-sets and the individual or group who is best suited for the job.

What are your thoughts?

Update: Some further reading:

(Many) Advertising Agencies (Still) Don’t Understand Social Media

Excerpt: It is far easier to spend millions on something cool and creative and hope to generate some short-term buzz that might lead to a measurable sales boost. But then what? What is the next call to action?  If the next campaign is not as fun or relevant, will those fans still rise to the bait and help promote it, or, will they fail to engage and ignore it?  Will someone who became a fan thanks to this fun campaign have reason enough to rally around the brand in a crisis? Advertising agencies don’t think such thoughts.  It is not in their DNA.  It’s not their fault, but neither should they fool themselves into thinking that this stuff is easy. Relationships buoy campaigns.  Campaigns do not create relationships.

Is Social Media Too Boring for Advertising Industry?

Excerpt: Whether “PR” or “Advertising” drive Social Media strategy has very little to do with which discipline better understands the New World Order.  It has more to do with which group is better prepared to wade in — and never leave — the proverbial community pool.

Most of you by now have viewed one or more of the brilliant viral YouTube videos titled: United Breaks Guitars. This topic is of special significance to me because I too was a traveling musician (violinist) who battled often with the airlines to ensure that my instrument didn’t suffer a gruesome death at the hands of Conan the Baggage Handler.

Dave Carroll, the creator of the videos, and his fellow band members were not so lucky. They got to witness the cruel treatment of their instruments by United’s baggage handlers first hand. You can read the whole story here.

Let me put this in perspective for non-musicians. The bond between a musician and his/her instrument is akin to that of the bond between parent and his/her child. You see your instrument being mistreated it’s going to piss you off in a major way. United Airlines failed to understand that and got what they deserved.

But my interest in United Breaks Guitars goes beyond just empathy. When Dave Carroll’s frustration with United Airlines customer service reached the breaking point, he didn’t get mad, he got creative. By doing so, he got what he wanted and more. The video campaign attracted millions of visitors, boosted sales for his music, raised awareness for instrument care on airlines, and birthed a forum where people could share similar customer service nightmares.

United Breaks Guitars has made Dave Carrol a very busy man. Luckily, I managed to snag a quick email interview with him last week (thanks Dave!). What follows is a great example of how to use creativity (and humor) to achieve amazing results.

Are you crazy? Who checks their instrument on an airline?

Some people have called me crazy but checking a guitar on many airlines is the only option. Air Canada’s policy for instance has been to force passengers to check guitars. I don’t recall for sure but I don’t believe I was told I had a choice with United Airlines. They certainly didn’t offer me the option to board with it.

Was writing the song more a form of therapy or did you have a specific goal in mind (e.g., raise awareness and help others with similar problems etc.)?

Both! I was frustrated by the customer service maze. I promised them (United) the three songs as a way of taking back my power as a customer. Worst case scenario I’d find a creative outlet to release some of that frustration. If they (videos) were successful then there would be an opportunity to affect real change. My goal was to enjoy doing it and not judge the success of it by the reaction of others.

Can you outline the steps you took to put the whole United Breaks Guitars campaign together? For example, how many people were involved? Did you put together a formal marketing/PR plan? How much did it cost?

There was literally very little planning put into the marketing for UBG. I wrote the first song and called some musician friends and said: “United broke my guitar and I’m recording a song about it. Do you want to play on it?”  They all said yes. When the song was done I sent it to my friends in the film industry here in Halifax and said: “Hey, United broke my guitar. Listen to this song and let me know if you’d be into making a funny video to put on YouTube.” They said sure. I called a few friends (all with no acting experience) and asked them to be in the video.

In June 2008 I went shopping and bought three sombreros, some white gloves, a globe, some mustaches and few other props. The entire production budget for the first video was $150. We met at the Waverley Fire Hall, where I am a volunteer fire fighter, at around 9 a.m. and we shot all the outdoor scenes that morning. We spent the afternoon at Curve Productions studio for the inside shots and finished at 6 p.m.

We had no real shot list just a few ideas: the guitar with the chalk outline was one, and the idea of having a handler throw the guitar like an Olympic hammer throw was another. Steve Richard had the idea to create an airplane fuselage out of white foam core but many of the shots were staged on the fly with one or two takes at the most.

Lara Cassidy edited the video but there weren’t that many shots to choose from because of the limited takes we had. I uploaded the video the first chance I had (July 6) and sent out a message to around 1000 Facebook fans and everyone in my outlook express email list. The rest is history.

Why did you choose to add video as opposed to just using the song alone?

I wanted to share the song with as many people as possible and songs don’t typically “go viral.” The visuals combined with a song are what gives people the strongest experience and I knew that Curve would deliver a great looking video. I knew that if I created a well written song with high production values in the recording and the video than it would be enjoyable to watch and one you would want to tell your friends about.

How well versed in social media were you prior to the United Breaks Guitars campaign?

I used Facebook and Twitter and understood the potential behind YouTube but the beauty of social media is that you don’t need to be an expert at all to use it effectively. If you make something relatable, that looks good, sounds good and makes people want to tell their friends about, others will do the work of spreading the word.

Were you surprised by the success of the United Breaks Guitars campaign? Can you tie a sales figure to this campaign? How has it opened doors in other areas for you?

I thought the potential was there to reach 1 million views with the three videos in one year. I had seen plenty of videos with more than a million hits with poor production value that were completely forgettable. I was convinced that because UBG was funny with great production value that it could get the numbers. What I didn’t foresee was how strong the reaction would be with traditional media and how people would watch it so many times. Sales jumped dramatically both online and with physical CD sales and I have had offers for record deals and publishing deals.

When putting together social media campaigns, what do you think is the most important consideration?

Relatabilty, high production value and humour draw people in. People will be attracted to shocking things and violence but if you can make them laugh the experience will resonate more effectively.

Do you believe you’ve had an impact on the customer experience for people flying United? In other words, are they more careful with musical instruments after the United Breaks Guitars success?

I met three Vice Presidents at United Airlines in September and suggested that a clearer policy be implemented on guitars. I’m told that that has been done and that musicians can bring their guitars on all United Airline flights if they are within a certain length. However, UBG has had an impact worldwide across most industries. Any big company stands to experience a similar customer service nightmare if they ignore the needs of their customers and have poor recovery plans in place. Mistakes will happen in every industry but there is a wide range as to how big companies are reacting. Since July changes are taking place. I understand United is doing better in both the industry and with long time flyers who say it’s better across the board. It’s gratifying to know you’ve had a positive impact.

My friends over at Elasticity had an interesting experience with the newswires the other day. In an effort to make their content stand out they used humor to spice up a press release announcing a few new hires to their team. Part of their outreach strategy was to distribute it via the major newswire services. PRNewswire initially refused saying “the content was not appropriate for the wire” and BusinessWire wouldn’t run it without substantial edits. Update: According to Elasticity: “PR Newswire did a 180 and agreed to run as-is once they realized they could lose the business from our clients.”

What’s interesting here is that none of the key information in the press release was inaccurate or offensive. They even had received third party permission for use of quotes from folks like Jason Falls, Brian Solis and Chris Brogan. The main crime appears to be only that it was funny. And that apparently set off alarm bells throughout the editorial halls of BusinessWire and PRNewswire.

Now I’m certain this isn’t the first time humor has been circulated via the newswires. Recently, Conan O’Brien used PRNewswire to distribute a humorous announcement about his departure from NBC. Did they edit him? Did they find his content inappropriate? Of course not. Anyways, most of the content distributed daily via the newswires is so bad it is funny.

I’m not sure how many other incidents like this exist (please share in comments) but one thing is clear: if the newswires have an editorial policy please make sure humor doesn’t get the axe. In fact, by embracing it, it may save them from extinction.

In this age of product-recall overload, it's easy to become inured to the daily flow of releases from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But if there's one exception, it would be the recall of about 1 million baby strollers last week by Maclaren, the gold standard of its industry.

Much has been written about this issue--which involves sharp hinges that have amputated children's fingers--ranging from the mechanical problems to how the information was handled. One sensible blog post came from the Harvard Business Review, which offered practical advice for any company unfortunate enough to find itself in such a position.

It is perhaps telling enough that such basic guidelines bear repeating from an article written in 2001, an indication that many businesses apparently remain clueless about addressing the very real potential for such crises. But the most disturbing illustration of this corporate density actually came in the form of a comment posted at the bottom of the blog, believed to be from the Maclaren CEO Farzad Rastegar himself. [Full disclosure: The comment in question has been attributed to Rastegar by the New York Times, but I did not confirm that it was written by him.]

One of the many criticisms has been the dearth of immediate information from the company after reports of the problem began to surface. To that point, the purported Rastegar note blamed an "early leak in the agreed joint recall announcement planned for November 10th." According to the comment:

"This leak was as a result of inadequate procedures to protect the necessary confidentiality of process in order to ensure that the objectives are not compromised. The result of this early leak was panic amongst parent[sic] and tens of thousands of calls and website visits to the wrong addresses. All of this with a company team that was preparing for the following day.[sic] When our staff were arriving for their final practice run oon[sic] November 9th, they were mostly unaware of the explosive media coverage with misinformation packed with conjecture. It was a quick awakening. We have tried to deal with it as best as humanly possible but the crash of the systems was unavoidable and the subsequent task of bringing things back on line was equally more challenging. Should we have assumed that things could go wrong in this process.[sic] The answer is yes, absolutely. However this is a first for Maclaren and we are learning fast."

There are so many problems with Maclaren's response that I'm not even sure where to begin, not to mention the dubious syntax, spelling, and punctuation of the comment above. But here are a few:

Unpreparedness. Maclaren's most obvious failing was its woeful inadequacy in dealing with the prospect of leaks, which have become almost inevitable on the web for issues of magnitude and controversy. This was underscored by the company's paralyzing website, phone, and Twitter problems, which would have likely occurred regardless of any breaches of confidentiality.

Oblivion. If it's true that the staff was "mostly unaware of the explosive media coverage with misinformation packed with conjecture," are they living on another planet? It should be routine for any communications professionals to know what's being said about their employer, especially under these conditions.

Slowness. The Rastegar comment says the news was leaked while the company "was preparing for the following day." Corporations must learn to act with far more sense of urgency in these instances, thinking in terms of minutes instead of days. When information is spreading like wildfire, speed of response is critical to have any chance of being heard above the din at all.

Insensitivity. As of this writing, the Maclaren website does not have a link to recall information on its front door. There is a temporary pop-up window acknowledging the recall, but it contains no links to further information or status updates; once it is closed, we are shown pictures of smiling families and a section labeled "Safe" that treats us to happy music and cartoon-like animations--hardly something I'd care to see if my child had recently been maimed.

Misjudgment. If the post is in fact written by Maclaren's chief executive, why was it? The typos indicate that it wasn't vetted beforehand, and a relatively obscure comment section is hardly the appropriate forum for this communication. In fact, the post has unwittingly elicited negative responses that continue days later. A good PR professional would have at least rewritten the note to avoid the backlash and the perceptions cited in the bullets above.

The bottom line is that all companies must have disciplined, code-blue systems in place for such emergencies, where top-level executives from the CEO on down can be assembled within minutes, virtually or otherwise. If there is time to include a crisis-communications expert, all the better, though not at the expense of expediency.

The goal should be formulation of an official response within an hour after the company learns of the situation. Any later than that and it likely won't matter, as far as the web is concerned.

That might seem like a Herculean effort in most process-laden corporate cultures, but consider this in the order of priorities: What other company affairs are more important than a breaking crisis that threatens to permanently undo your long-established reputation?

To that end, I believe that the most egregious problem in this case study is the insensitivity of Maclaren's site. People can forgive and forget mistakes, but an apparent lack of appreciation for the gravity of such situations can leave an indelible impression.

This Halloween I was visited by a demon that has haunted me for decades. It was brought to mind by this Tweet from Tom Foremski, an old pro from the Financial Times: "Are there new rules for embargoes? I'm not sure if there are..."

If there's one subject that will always elicit a frothing response from me, along with politics and sports, it's embargoes. Whether it's the kind that restricts news or bans Cuban cigars, I would rise from my deathbed to vilify either atrocity.

Unfortunately, my expertise in international trade is limited to my eBay account, but I do know something about the media version. So much so, in fact, that I have been blamed personally for the ridiculous notion of "breaking embargoes on the Internet."

After I helped found News.com at CNET Networks in 1996, one of my responsibilities as managing editor was to codify our operating principles. It was early in the online news game, so stuff like linking, privacy, cyber-ethics, and "Netiquette" was virgin territory. One of the issues was embargoes.

Our policy was simple: We did not agree to them, except for extraordinary circumstances. And for doing this, News.com became a poster child for the perceived recklessness of online media at the time.

Let me say this for the record, in no uncertain terms: An embargo can be considered violated only if the recipient agrees to it in the first place.

For some reason, many companies and government agencies seem to think that simply receiving so-called embargoed material automatically means you have agreed to it--even if you never knew the information existed, let alone had consented to any restrictions, before it landed in your inbox or mailroom unsolicited.

It would be the equivalent of my mass-emailing a contract to sell my house for $10 million, then holding its recipients to the provisions of the "agreement." When they rightly tell me to go pound salt, I would cry foul and claim that they broke the rules.

Because News.com did not agree to embargoes, therefore, their restrictions did not apply to us. It's impossible to "break" a contract you never agreed to.

My objection to the concept began in the Washington Bureau of the Los Angeles Times in the 1980s, when government agencies routinely placed embargoes on information for no reason other than mindless bureaucratic process. After I expressed my dismay at the practice, a colleague told me a story about my then-boss, the national editor, Norman Miller.

When Miller was D.C. bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal years earlier, he found it ludicrous that the White House embargoed the federal budget in a post-Watergate capital known as much for its news leaks as it was for the Washington Monument and Marion Barry's crack pipe.

Half of his reporters had agreed to the embargo, while the other half didn't. You can guess what ensued--beat writers avoiding investigative reporters, staffers trying to eavesdrop on coffee-room chatter, leaks reported by some that got their co-workers in trouble. The frustrated Miller, as the story goes, just decided to break the embargo and run with the full budget report, to the outrage of the administration.

(Full disclosure: I never attempted to confirm the story with Miller for fear that he might debunk it, and I've been telling it ever since. But if you knew Miller, a former Navy prosecutor who won a Pultizer in the 1960s for exposing a huge scandal in commodities trading, you'd have no reason to doubt its veracity.)

Yes, I have heard all the reasons that ostensibly justify embargoes: giving everyone equal access, providing enough time to digest information and ask questions, etc. But to my mind, the only restrictions that hold any water involve national security, as in arrangements for Pentagon "pool reporting" or journalists embedded with troops on the front line. An embargo on a product release doesn't exactly rise to that level.

What makes far more sense in this age of equal opportunity for content is for companies to write and publish the news themselves in accurate and accessible stories, as opposed to the stilted and jargon-laden format of traditional press releases. If companies are truly concerned about accuracy and equal access, why not simply do it right the first time and release the information to the world simultaneously, with no restrictions?

Even if the previous arguments for embargoes were legitimate, they're at best obsolete. In the ethos of the web, as we should all know by now, nothing is off-limits. Besides, as my Beltway experience illustrates, I learned early in my career that the real motive for imposing embargoes is to retain as much control over the news as possible--just for the sake of doing so, not for any logical or practical reasons.

As for my being blamed personally for all this, it occurred most recently when I met an executive of a national PR agency last year. Upon learning that I worked for CNET, the first thing he asked was: "Why do you break embargoes?" The exasperation of my reply matched the impertinence of his question.

Bottom line: If you are a PR professional or a government communications officer who insists on trying to control the timing of information, do not send it unless you are sure that the recipient has a policy to agree to embargoes. Then contact your targeted reporters and bloggers directly and discuss the specific provisions.

But my advice is not to bother trying. And if your bosses won't budge on the subject, use this post to show what veteran journalists think of embargoes and why they're unnecessary.

If you're old enough to remember when the web was called the Information Highway, you may recall a site called Suck.com. It was an irreverent daily zine (remember those?) launched in the summer of 1995 with the irresistible inscription, "a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun."

Yet what I recall appreciating most about Suck was not its wit or originality, but something only a bona fide ink-stained wretch would notice: Its use of hyperlinks.

You see, for a Luddite who once literally pasted together "takes"--newspaper lingo for typewritten pages of a story--before sending them off to the typesetting pool at the L.A. Times, all this online stuff was quite liberating. Hyperlinks were a game-changer for reasons of perspective, structure, emphasis, and even ethics.

Suck, however, couldn't be bothered with such mundane considerations. It capitalized on linking for a very different purpose, to enhance its writing with a devastating combination of humor and sarcasm.

My favorite example of this understated practice was what I call the "punchline link." Case in point:

"Every day, we confront the strange brew of dread and anticipation that comes with sifting through the drift and drivel that's dumped into our mailboxes. The keepers, generally hand-scrawled hate mail, or the occasional scrap from a prison paramour, are as easy to spot as the garbage, which usually bears Ed McMahon's countenance like a royal crest."

If you followed the lone  link in this paean to junk mail, you saw that it pointed to the erstwhile Sharper Image. To me, Suck was the original master of this art.

Unfortunately, even in their relatively short lifespan, such clever and elegant use of hyperlinks is all but lost. Rather, they have become buried in the universal junkyard that passes for writing today. Worse still, they are forced into syntactic prostitution as advertised keywords.

There is a reason for this nostalgia, other than just the self-indulgence of middle age. It serves as a reminder of why this medium is so powerful for prose--and why we, with our Prussian writing objectives, feel compelled to infect others with our unhealthy obsession on points such as these:

• Context. For old-school journalists who insist on such nuisances as supporting their claims, hyperlinking is a perfect way to divulge the direct source of public information without spending time rewriting background material. It's good for readers too: Those who are already familiar with a topic aren't subjected to extraneous explanation, and those who want to know more can drill down through the linkage to their heart's content.
• Depth. For even moderately prolific writers, linking is an ideal way to strut your stuff. An archive of, say, 50 stories will produce a surprising number of opportunities to link back to previous articles in your database. This serves the dual purpose of providing context while underscoring your authority. (A third reason is ancillary traffic to your blog or site, but that's not the point here.)
• Impact. Links are like martinis. Served at appropriate intervals, they lubricate the pace of conversation as well as its participants. Neither, therefore, should be abused: If you overdo it--the links, that is--they will lose their effectiveness and, depending on one's browser settings, make the body of your text look like it has some kind of pigment disease. Remember, graphical disruptions are just as bad as verbal ones.
• Reference. Not long ago there was a debate in certain journo-wonky circles over the use of "retro" or "pop" terms and citations in stories. The complaint was that such references alienated younger and/or overseas readers who didn't grow up in the same culture as the aging and/or insensitive writer. My coward's solution: Use hyperlinks liberally. Not only does it forgive our literati indulgences (sort of), but it also dares to educate the uninitiated.
• Writing. As Suck shows, links adds a dimension of communication that is impossible to achieve in a book, newspaper, magazine, or other static medium, at least with such economy. (Like this.) Here, it is the equivalent of a visual but unspoken action, like the stand-up comic who feigns modesty by begging the audience to stop their applause while discreetly gesturing to keep it up.

Now for the bad news. Depending on how important posterity is to your work, you may want to be especially circumspect in your choice of linking destinations. Because Suck's archives are the equivalent of stone tablets in Internet years, most of their best links are dead.

And that, appropriately enough, really does suck.

Just to be clear. Brody PR screwed up and deserved to be outed. But I believe humor could have saved them.

As blunders go it was a doozy, but did anyone get offended or hurt? No. Other than irritating a few influential social media folks during their busy day, it was harmless. In other words, here’s a situation where a bit of self-deprecating humor would have been helpful without further fanning the flames.

Sadly, Brody PR opted for a weak apology which they posted verbatim in the comment sections of several blogs. All it did was further demonstrate their ineptitude.

Soon after the situation surfaced, I started working on a couple of cartoon concepts. I finally settled on this toon. Naturally, I intended it as a criticism, but what if Brody PR had posted this image on their website with the title: “Meet Beth Brody”? It could have been followed by a one sentence apology like: “We screwed up and we’re sorry.” Do you think it would have changed public opinion?

Too often in minor crisis situations like these we tend to focus our energies on what we are “expected to do” (e.g., issue a formal apology, blame others, make excuses) rather than what is “unexpected” (e.g., take responsibility in a humorous or heartfelt way). As a case in point, see how this minor crisis was masterfully handled.

Call me naive, but I think it’s doing the “unexpected” that ultimately saves the day.

What do you think?

You may not know it, but there are some close parallels between PR and the real estate business these days. A blog on PowerSites, an online real estate listing company, offers an observation to this point that is admittedly self-serving but no less true:

"Over the last few years I have spoken to many Realtors who refuse to cut newspaper ads from their marketing plans. The reason is normally, 'Sellers expect to see their homes in the newspaper.' I respond with one of two questions; 'How do sellers find you?' or 'Where are sellers looking for their next home?' The answer is invariably, 'Online.' "

If you're in the business of public relations, chances are that more than a few clients have said their first choice for story placement is the front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

And chances are you tried to explain that very few companies get front-page play in these newspapers, let alone any coverage in them at all.

Yet rather than spending your valuable time with such defensive discussions, we suggest taking a different tack: Tell your clients why newspapers are not the best places to promote their businesses.

This will sound like heresy to mainstream journalists and old-line PR types. But unless your client is a Fortune 100 company that simply wants exposure just for the sake of it, there are more effective (and realistic) ways to generate new business leads.

The most glaring reason to steer clear of newspapers, of course, is their death spiral in circulation. But there is an obvious corollary that's more important to underscore for clients: If the medium is dying, then new generations of consumers won't be reading it. As the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle said in a 2005 interview, "I hate to read the obits because half of those people are our subscribers."

A major reason that metro dailies are in decline is their long-standing goal of trying to be all things to all people. In the Information Age, with its infinite long tails, specifically targeted relationships between buyers and sellers are far more valuable. Think of eBay.

So rather than letting clients waste time and money on this exercise in futility, we should all be doing our level best to teach them that many alternatives can be infinitely more effective. By taking control of their own information, for example--through vehicles ranging from a simple blog to a full-scale corporate newsroom--there is far more chance of perpetuating a current stream of content about their products and services that will likely reach the right people if designed properly.

Let's say, for example, that your client runs a mid-sized company that provides a new type of eco-friendly dry-cleaning equipment. Unless it's a Nobel Prize-winning invention that will revolutionize the industry, it's not likely to find its way into the Times or the Journal. So it would make more sense to focus on targeted venues and channels such as trade sites, green blogs, small-business networks, and, yes, even Twitter. And be sure to build a Vetted Newsroom where potential customers can learn everything about the new products.

In the miraculous event that the newspapers did cover your client, they probably wouldn't produce more than a few column inches--hardly the kind of glowing article that would instantly propel an anonymous business to international stardom. And after your client has spent thousands of dollars to browbeat reporters into writing something just to stop the incessant phone calls, all that would be left is a scrap of yellowed paper and a corresponding online version that would likely get buried within minutes of posting.

We usually agree with Seth Godin's musings but must take exception with his recent contention that "everyone else" reads the New York Times. Besides, even if it were true, how long will it last?