Quick Hits

Posted At : November 23, 2009 8:33 AM | Posted By : name
Related Categories: QUICK HITS

The FT has an interesting examination of the evolution of corporate responsibility in Brazil. "Today, however, the most enlightened companies engage in extensive dialogue and planning and are forming partnerships with government, NGOs, community groups and others to push forward an ever wider and deeper agenda."

The New York Times reports that Hollywood movie studios are cutting back on advertising and investing more heavily in earned media, which is encouraging. Less so it the fact that studios are measuring PR efforts in ad equivalency terms: "Disney recently went so far as to develop a computer program to help it determine how much monetary value was coming from such publicity efforts. It can quickly plug in data--Access Hollywood" had a 30-second interview with a star of The Middle, a new ABC comedy--and the program spits out what that same 30 seconds would cost to buy." But hey, one step at a time.

It would be nice to believe that the national media might take a once-bitten-twice-shy approach to real estate stories, but USA Today still apparently thinks it's news when the real estate industry predicts growth, although it was making similar predictions right up to--and for a few months beyond--the start of the recent real estate crash. It might be helpful to at least note that the National Association of Realtors has a vested interest in a more bullish market.

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog rightly notes that companies should probably hold off filing suit "when the public-relations blowback does more damage than the behavior complained about in the lawsuit," and points to a clearly counter-productive claim by AT&T against Verizon to prove its point. The article quotes MarketWatch asking the question I would have asked: "Did AT&T's top public-relations people have any input before the go-ahead was given to a highly-paid law firm to file this muddled request for a temporary restraining order?"

AT&T is also taking some heat over an internal memo asking its employees to register their displeasure with Net Neutrality legislation without disclosing that they are AT&T employees. As BtoB magazine notes: "It wasn't so long ago that a company could reasonably expect internal memos to remain internal and that even disgruntled employees could do little damage. But today an executive indiscretion can turn into an embarrassing publicity mistake. Corporate communication barriers are too porous and employees too eager to share evidence of wrongdoing to make deception viable. The vast majority of employees may toe the corporate line, but all it takes is one malcontent to leak the offending document to a critical outsider. Every management memo is, in effect, a public document."