My first job with a public relations firm was with Earle Associates, what today would be called a boutique agency. Because it was a small political agency, with a limited staff, I was immediately given the opportunity to show what I can do. There were important...
The Paris Olympics Games (July 26-August 11) are almost here, and account staffers on brand Olympics programs have a problem—how to gain earned media for their clients. It’s a perennial problem because most journalists I know believe that Olympics programs resemble...
NBCUniversal has been touting its coverage of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games for more than a year. But until very recently, readers of sports pages in the United States wouldn’t know that there was an Olympics beginning in Paris on July 26. That’s because despite the...
Many of the world’s best warm-weather athletes will soon compete for the gold in the Paris 2024 Olympics, which will begin on July 26. So will sports marketing sponsors that are spending millions of dollars to become official Olympic sponsors of “this and that” or...
If history repeats itself, and it certainly will during the Summer Olympic Games in Paris (from July 26 to August 11), some athletes will not only take home gold medals, but will win another type of gold—lucrative endorsement deals with brands. Also if history repeats...
There were important lessons that PR practitioners should learn and remember from the trial of former President Donald J. Trump, some of which relate to my almost 25 years at Burson-Marsteller (now BCW), 10 years at Arthur Cantor/Advance Public Relations, at that time...
It’s almost Olympics time again, and soon the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will again pull out its crying towel and complain about ambush marketing campaigns aimed at sponsors of the Paris Summer Olympics, which will be staged in the City of Lights from July...
Crisis experts salivate whenever a PR crisis occurs. These self-proclaimed know-it-alls, like most PR people, say that they have all the answers. Currently, crisis specialists in sports PR are providing unasked-for advice regarding how Major League Baseball, the Los...
In addition to being a football game, the 2024 Super Bowl became a political hot potato when MAGA supporters attacked pop star Taylor Swift for being a Democratic operative. This is not the first time that a sport has become embroiled in matters political. In fact,...
A PR person assigned to gain major earned media publicity for a sponsors’ Super Bowl tie-in during the early years of the Big Game was the equivalent of being given an ice cream sundae by agency management. Reporters were anxious to interview football players that PR...
Early in July 2023, I wrote an article on this website regarding news events that provided free important PR lessons in the first half of the year. Here are my choices for the second half of last year. From the international scene Israel was widely condemned by a...
With only a few weeks left in the year, one thing is a certainty: 2023 has not been a very good year for old-timers, especially on the political and sports scenes. But in our business, some old-time tenets that date back to the Founding Fathers of public relations are...