You must be familiar with the argument by now. It’s the one about media fragmentation, message bombardment, cost and waste. In short, it’s about the failure of mass marketing. If you’ve missed it, where have you been? You’ve not been listening to the likes of Seth Godin, the Cluetrain authors or Al and Laura Ries. Even marketing academics such as Philips Kotler and Kitchen have been joining the chorus.

Add to this Punk Marketing, written by Richard Laermer (author of Full Frontal PR) and Mark Simmons (a British marketing consultant who lives in Los Angeles and who is - disclosure - my brother-in-law and the source of my review copy).

This manifesto for revolutionary marketing is an assault on the large and the predictable and a plea to replace it with the smart and the tailored. So punk marketing is defined as ‘a new form of marketing that rejects the status quo and recognizes the shift in power from corporations to consumers.’

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The 19th Forward Podcast focuses on one of the most important areas for PR pros: reading.

This episode is an interview Paull Young recorded at the AlwaysOn conference in New York with leading Canadian blogger and Thornley-Fallis Vice President Michael O’Connor Clarke. Michael talks about his reading habit and why wide reading is an essential activity for young PR pros and students.

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Listen Now:

 Forward #19 - The Importance of Reading: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2264)

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For those of you interested in fashion PR — or even if you’re still trying to settle on your “specialty” — I have a blog I’ve been meaning to point you to that’s definitely worth a read.

Crosby Noricks authors PR Couture, a blog that focuses primarily on the news and happenings in the world of fashion PR. Crosby and I first corresponded about a year ago regarding our common interest in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, so I was delighted to hear from her again and see that she’s blogging now.

She’s done a great job of networking and is already immersed in the fashion blogosphere — definitely keeping her finger on the pulse of all that’s happening there. Fashion is certainly not my forte, so I will leave all that to her. Enjoy!

(Unilever (Dove) is an Edelman client.)

Technorati Tags: fashion pr, pr couture, pr students

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The whole point of this site is to act as a springboard for young PR professionals and students. So we think that when major issues come up in the field of public relations, this should be the first place you want to come to get the issue spelled out in plain terms. So, here goes for a major topic of interest in the PR blogosphere right now. But first a little background for those who might want it:

Background on Uses of Social Media

One thing that may be hard to understand until someone really spells it out like this is how exactly companies are trying to use blogs and other social media. One trend we are seeing, is a movement away from advertisements which some companies feel consumers can see right through and are not effective, to a more consumer-engaging way of communicating positive ideas about your company. That’s where blogs come in.

Granted, this idea is not catching on at lightening speed and is having a kind of slow adoption rate, but many people feel that it is the way of reaching consumers in the future, or any target audience for that matter.
(For some, this might be old hat, but who knows, this might be helping others…)

So some companies are looking to have conversations with their publics instead of sending one-way messages through advertisements that they can only hope the consumer will respond to positively. Some companies are responding to new media by having a customer service function which goes out and responds to complaints or queries about products posted on various consumers’ blogs. I have had that happen to me personally. Orvis did a remarkable job of finding where I had complimented a program of theirs and the company wrote me personally saying they were glad I enjoyed a particular program they were doing. I was impressed, heck I am sitting here still talking about it on this site, and that’s what other companies are trying to do: reinforce positive images or get rid of negative opinions of their company that are showing up in blogs for the rest of the world to see on the Internet.

Other than customer service, word-of-mouth campaigns are being started through blogs to reach audiences, and Wal-Mart is one company who has begun similar efforts.

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I meant to write about this yesterday and missed my mark. (Eek!) But I still wanted to give our readers a heads-up to the BlogOrlando event this weekend. I’m personally bummed that I couldn’t attend, but my mom is visiting me in DC this weekend (and that also contributed to me being late in posting this — I need to get ON it!).

At any rate, Josh Hallett, who seems to be an expert (if not THE expert) on live-blogging conferences, has pulled together this first ever BlogOrlando. The event — which is officially an unconference — brought in a great list of attendees, mostly from Florida, but several from elsewhere in the U.S. I imagine many of the attendees will be writing about the event’s happenings at their own blogs, so check the list of who’s there.

You can also follow the event via the BlogOrlando site, which is naturally complete with a blog. Read away and enjoy!

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Leo Bottary has just completed a ‘must read’ series of posts on client service- and in doing so has highlighted the dazzling learning opportunities the blogosphere provides for young PR pros.

The series focuses on advice for entry level professionals just learning how to deal with clients. This can be a difficult adjustment to make from Uni - instead of doing an assignment for a professor, you’re doing real work for real clients. It’s tough to know how you should act and there are few rules of engagement, you’ll learn most by observation.

Kami Huyse provides a review of the series at the Marcom Blog. Take a look at that, check out Leo’s wrap up post, and read the entire series. It’s truly invaluable information; Kami is right on when she says “This stuff is pure gold.”

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One of the most interesting e-mails I get comes in the form of the Crisis Manager Newsletter from Jonathan Bernstein at his firm, Bernstein Crisis Management. I stumbled upon his site while researching the PR industry after changing majors in college. So, for roughly two years now, I’ve been getting my twice-monthly Crisis Manager Newsletter. It is full of interesting tips, commentary and analysis about crisis and issues management. Jonathan is incredibly insightful, informative and has a great sense of humor that he infuses into each issue. In fact, it was his newsletters that actually got me interested in crisis management in the first place!

This week, Jonathan announced that he has started a blog! This is something I - and I’m sure his thousands of his other subscribers - had been hoping would happen for quite some time. If you are interested in public relations, the Crisis Manager Newsletter and companion blog should be on your must-read list.

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At Forward, we’re enthusiasts for good public relations. We’re unusal; the world is full of people who seem to think that no good can come of it. This article comes from my twenty year journey to answer these critics.

Attending the annual general meeting of the then Institute of Public Relations some years ago was a sobering experience for me. It was held at the Royal College of Physicians alongside Regents Park in London. As I climbed the steps to this modernist building, I recalled the last time I’d been there. It was as a guest of my father, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; I was an unemployed history graduate at the time and he was probably trying to make me feel involved in his professional world.

Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians to Member of the Institute of Public Relations in one generation. What a come down! But what about the AGM? Professor Anne Gregory led a debate on ethics, a prelude to the Institute’s own bid for a Royal Charter, since achieved.

There you have it: the crux of this discussion about my pride to be involved in public relations. For me, it’s the end of a long journey to make myself employable (I’m still glad I studied history but I’d advise today’s students to follow a vocational route like public relations; I’d do so myself if I had my chance all over again.) For PR practitioners, it’s a question of professionalism - and usefulness to society. Doctors relieve pain; they save lives. In doing so they earn good salaries and merit a high social status. They are members of an ancient and noble profession.

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Josh Hallett, who some of you may be familiar with from the esteemed Marcom Blog or from his own blog (Hyku), gave me a heads up about something I thought I’d point our readers to.

Josh is live-blogging from the Florida Public Relations Association Annual Conference at FPRAblog.com. So rather than having to spend the cash to fly down to sunny Florida, you can pick up interesting tidbits from reading and interacting with posts detailing the event happenings.

Some are even complete with quick audio interviews with speakers and members (available as mp3s).

I encourage you to head over and take a look / have a listen.

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Recently, as written by Justin Estes on this blog, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola got into a little bit of a corporate espionage fun.

But, there is even more to the story. Because of the corporate theft, many companies are now re-evaluating how they are handling confidential corporate information - such as new products. The Associated Press went into it a bit more in this article - read it, as it is a good primer for this post.

Here’s the lesson to think about. As you begin your public relations career, you are going to be privy to a lot of confidential client information. While you will occasionally be reminded during brainstorm meetings that what you are about to talk about is under extreme confidentiality, and to not talk about such issues outside the office.

As entry-level PR persons, you get information that is not for public knowledge. It’s not just at brainstorms, but it is during morning meetings, during conversations in the hallway, etc. You do not necessarily get told “hey, this is confidential information,” but you have to be careful about what you are doing wth the information, where you talk about clients, and who you speak to (at times).

It goes back to the old WWII adage: loose lips sink ships. Be careful what you are talking about, as you might inadvertently be talking about confidential information. That includes talking to family, even.

So, it is not about paranoia … but about good work practices. Be careful out there, as it’s a war.

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