Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny – all brand promises gone awry.  But our parents had it right. These major disappointments were merely preparation for the big stage; preparation for our move into the real world where companies and their brand promises often disappoint. Broken promises, whether expressed or implied, can destroy confidence and loyalty. Worse, it can create general apathy. Take the current Washington debacle...

In a recent interview with Politico, Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who authored a book examining ExxonMobil, might have said it best about the oil and gas industry and its growing public relations problem with hydraulic fracking. He said, “I think they are in denial about how hard the politics of this is going to prove to be over time.” Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its first set of...

In the race to Facebook’s IPO, all the news seemed focused on guessing just how high the valuation would be as well as the litany of reasons that it would achieve dizzying success. And then General Motors dropped what seemed like a bombshell: it would no longer advertise on Facebook. Seldom has a shift of only $10 million in ad budgets (less than half a percent of GM’s $1.8 billion total ad budget) brought such attention....

This week, I have been thinking about thinking. New thinking, to be exact. In the inevitable way that the calendar shift to December makes “It’s almost the new year!” roll off the tongue, this week has been filled with planning, planning and more planning. I may be unusual, but one of things that I like most about planning for a new year is the opportunity to look at what we’re doing and ask “If I was starting all over with...

PR is more than just media relations. Community relations provides valuable partnerships to strengthen the relationships between local businesses and their communities. Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to work with the community relations folks at Cobb EMC. In a nutshell, I’ve spent quite a bit of time trekking around, camera in-hand to various community events and Partners in Education field trips. I planned on taking...