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Opinion

Davos: The Fight For A New Form Of Capitalism

Nick Giles
30 Jan 2012

Many of those gathered at Davos were mindful of the groundswell of dissatisfaction from those outside the elite enclave.

How Social Media Is Changing News And Crisis: The Crisis Curve Framework

Gaurav Mishra
29 Jan 2012

Social media is playing an important role in shaping news stories in general and crisis situations in particular.

Corporate Brand Influences Consumer Choice

Holmes Report
22 Jan 2012

The company behind the brand can be critical to consumer purchasing decisions, according to a new global study commissioned by Weber Shandwick.

Marketing To Latinos: Clues For A National Healthcare Conversation

Roberto Ramos
08 Jan 2012

Hispanics as a group, the fastest-growing demographic in the country, provide insight into issues that may affect the general population.

Kodak Demise In Stark Contrast To Its PR Heyday

Robert McEwen
08 Jan 2012

Not so long ago, Kodak’s corporate communications division set the global standard for respect commanded by the PR function.

When Welby Meets House; Or, The Frozen Communications Conflict In PR Today

David Krejci
06 Dec 2011

Visual media, never entirely in the wings, now occupy center-stage in the Age of Mobile Communications.

Five Things Research Tells Us About Communications

Frank Ovaitt
28 Nov 2011

Employee alignment with corporate strategy evokes success. That’s not just happy talk among corporate communications practitioners.

PR Industry Must Take Initiative After 'Radia-Gate'

Senjam Raj Sekhar
22 Nov 2011

Is Vaishnavi’s fall a wakeup call for the Indian PR industry?

Lobbyists Must Take Hard Line On Transparency

Iain Anderson
18 Oct 2011

Those who pose as lobbyists and do not declare their aims do no good to the interests they represent, nor to the real lobbying industry.

UBS: Unbelievable Banking Stupidity

Jason Nisse
17 Sep 2011

The investment banks have to realise they have a job to do to show the “social good” of what they do.

Media Relations: The Five New Rules Of Engagement

Bob Brody
05 Sep 2011

Just what exactly do we have to do to draw the right sort of attention for clients from top-tier media these days?

PR Leads to Trust, Leads to Sales

Gary Freemantle
05 Sep 2011

PR should be considered as a key sales generator by brand owners.

Social Media In China: Tigers In A Cage

Jeremy Li
10 Aug 2011

China’s 460 million Internet users have enthusiastically embraced social media, especially the many locally developed platforms.

Healthcare Communications In Russia: Beyond Advertorials

Inna Semenyuk
31 Jul 2011

Healthcare companies working in Russia need high quality communication support more than ever.

The Cost Of Poor Communications

David Grossman
17 Jul 2011

By not recognizing the importance of good communications, leaders can incur significant costs to their organizations.

Public Affairs’ Sleeping Giant

Tom Parker
15 Jul 2011

The importance of internal communication has long been recognized in reputation management but remains the “sleeping giant” of public affairs.

The Changing MO of the CMO

MaryLee Sachs
15 Jul 2011

Enlightened CMOs understand the growing effect that reputation is having on brand.

TV Brand Integration Floodgates Are Open In Britain, But How Best To Swim?

Ann Wool
12 Jul 2011

Following long-awaited change in guidelines, consumers in the UK are getting a taste of the full range of product integrations in British TV productions.

The World May Be Round But Global PR Likes It Flat

Jonas Bodin
10 Jul 2011

In a world where reputation is never stronger than the weakest web-link and every action of a corporation can be potentially brand-shaping, public relations must be able to adapt quickly to conversation flows.

China Brands Outpace MNCs In CSR Stakes

Sunny Chen
07 Jul 2011

When it comes to CSR, multinationals can learn a thing or two from Chinese brands.

The Next Frontier In Healthcare Innovation: Sustainability

Jeff Chertack & Monique da Silva
26 Jun 2011

Faced with rising R&D costs and pricing pressures, many healthcare companies have rightly focused their communications on the topic of innovation.

One Office, Four Generations

Lindsay Hutter
22 Jun 2011

Despite the tremendous changes in technology and information delivery systems, the typical company continues to use a one-size fits-all communications model in employee communications.

Taking a Stand on Illegal PR in China

David Wolf
07 Jun 2011

For global agencies, we must tell our leadership that we would rather miss our numbers than accept revenues unethically earned.

Lib Dems Must Not Ditch Commitment To Political Reform

Mark Pack
23 May 2011

It would be a mistake for Liberal Democrats to conclude from the referendum result that all political reform should now be side-lined.

All News Is Not Good News

Senjam Raj Sekhar
17 May 2011

As people guiding corporate reputations, the PR industry has done a poor job as far as its own reputation is concerned.

Is Facebook's Vietnam Deal A Real Opportunity For Communicators?

Son Nguyen
28 Apr 2011

There are expectations that Facebook will gain additional momentum as the social media tool of choice in Vietnam.

European Investors Expect Recovery To Continue

Holmes Report
21 Apr 2011

Only 14 percent of European investor relations professionals expect a decline in corporate earnings to halt the stock market rally over the next 12 months.

With The World Looking On, Japan Needs To Speak Out

Kumi Sato and Michael J Alfant
19 Apr 2011

The lack of preparedness and the lack of a holistic strategy to disseminate accurate information to outside audiences quickly resulted in a chaotic blur of misinformation.

Corporate Integrity: Delivering On The Brand Promise

Michael Bayer
15 Apr 2011

One of the most common misconceptions I’ve encountered in corporate communications is the use of brand and reputation interchangeably.

Buzzwords Need Not Apply: Defining The Experience Effect

Jim Joseph
14 Apr 2011

How consumers feel about brands is completely shaped by the interactons they have with them. Think of your own experiences with brands you have incorporated into your life.

US Government Shutdown: Who Won The PR Battle?

Mark Irion
13 Apr 2011

Partisans can disagree about which side “won” the public relations contest in last week’s budget showdown.

Trust Is The Key To Building And Defending Your Reputation

Katie Delahaye Paine
03 Apr 2011

Even though recent cases make it clear that trust is important, few companies actually measure the trust that their constituencies have in them, says Katie Paine in an excerpt from her new book.

The Impact of the Mediator Crisis on the French Pharma Sector

Isabelle Genin
30 Mar 2011

As a result of the Mediator crisis, the reliability of the French drug system is immensely challenged.

From The 4 Ps To The 4 As

Bob Pearson
30 Mar 2011

In his new book, Pre-Commerce, Bob Pearson argues that marketers need to abandon the traditional 4 Ps and focus instead on awareness, assessment, action, and ambassadors.

Lost In Magnitudes And Millisieverts, A Message

Shin Tanaka
25 Mar 2011

The earthquake that struck northeastern Japan on Friday, March 11, was the worst natural disaster this country has ever experienced.

Indian PR Ethics Are Under The Spotlight

Nandita Lakshmanan
24 Mar 2011

The PR industry in India has to button up and think hard about how they will upscale their ethics framework and live it.

Why PR Evaluation Needs to be Less Dickensian

Michael Hayman
10 Mar 2011

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

A Leg Up for Corporations in the WikiLeaks Wars

Richard Levick
09 Mar 2011

For Bank of America, the WikiLeaks ordeal must by now seem interminable as the world awaits the threatened disclosures. Meanwhile, other major companies are being identified as targets.

Interest and Activity in Social Media Intensifying Across All Health Care Sectors

28 Feb 2011

With few exceptions, group members said their health care clients are expecting more from social media—and more from their public relations agencies in terms of new and creative ways to engage, measure and prove the value of these strategies.

Social Networks Brining People Closer Together

18 Jan 2011

Leading CEOs Are Not Social Online

Paul Holmes
18 Jan 2011

The majority of CEOs from the world’s largest companies (64 percent) are not social, on that they are not engaging online with external stakeholders, according to “Socializing Your CEO: From (Un)Social to Social,” a new study from Weber Shandwick.

Corporate Leaders Need Substantive Sustainability Strategies

Paul Holmes
18 Jan 2011

Corporate leaders need to step up to greater commitments on sustainability and ensure they have performance measures for behavior directly linked to responsibility and trust if they are to succeed, according to global reputation auditing firm Echo Research.

Americans "Seriously Disappointed" with Business Behavior

Paul Holmes
10 Jan 2011

Looking back on 2010, most Americans were seriously disappointed by how the nation's businesses conducted themselves, with 61 percent saying corporate America failed to meet their expectations, and only 5 percent saying that businesses exceeded their expectations.

U.S. Losing Global Leadership in IPO Market

Paul Holmes
10 Jan 2011

The United States is losing its position as the global leader for IPOs, according to a new survey of American transaction attorneys conducted by KCSA Strategic Communications.

Companies Not Using Social Media for Customer Feedback

Paul Holmes
10 Jan 2011

The vast majority (94 percent) of companies do not yet use social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter to gather customer feedback, despite consumers’ growing engagement with these media, according to a new study.

Asian Companies Neglecting Social Media

01 Nov 2010

Fewer than half of Asian companies listed on the Wall Street Journal’s Asia 200 Index have a corporate social media presence, according to a new study by Burson-Marsteller. Among corporate brands that do have a presence, more than 55 percent of social media profiles are inactive. Only 18 percent of surveyed companies integrate their social media profiles into their corporate websites. By contrast, Burson-Marsteller’s Fortune Global 100 Social Media Check-Up study, conducted in February this year, showed that seventy-nine percent of major global companies use branded social media sites as part of their corporate communications mix. “Asian companies need to take bolder steps to leverage the exploding use of social media channels in the region,” says Bob Pickard, president and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific. “Few companies are approaching this area strategically; most appear largely driven by short-term marketing considerations, or are hampered by concerns about resourcing, cost or lack of control over message and content.” Corporate use of social media in Asia tends to focus on pushing information rather than engaging stakeholders Burson says. Only 12 percent of companies surveyed maintained a corporate blog, compared to 33 percent of global companies. Social channels are most frequently used to communicate corporate responsibility initiatives. “True engagement involving two-way dialogue, as measured by the average number of third-party posts and the average number of corporate responses to their followers, remains limited,” says Charlie Pownall, Burson-Marsteller’s lead digital strategist for Asia-Pacific. “Instead, companies are using social media to portray a ‘softer’ corporate image in a way that is less likely to invoke interaction or negative commentary.” The companies that do take a more assertive approach to social media are predominantly those most focused on international expansion. Nevertheless, the extent of this engagement is in stark contrast to global companies, particularly in the use of video and multimedia to support digital storytelling.Only 8 percent of leading companies in Asia have set up dedicated channels on top video sharing channels such as YouTube, Youku in China or Nico Nico Douga in Japan. This compares to 50 percent of global companies using such channels.