Katie Owens, Account Manager “Stay out of the kitchen!,” “let’s just dink,” and “zero-zero-two,” are some phrases you might hear if you pass a pickleball court. Pickleball’s explosion, with over 14% of Americans playing the sport in 2023, was no accident. Behind the scenes, a flexible, adept team was hard at work embracing cultural changes, […]
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Avoiding Return-to-Office Blunders
Written by Peter Kadushin, Vice President Make internal communication your priority Employees at companies nationwide, surprised by return-to-office (RTO) policy announcements imposed from the top down, have launched petitions against their companies’ new policies that they say could negatively impact post-COVID growth, employee well-being, staff retention, and productivity. To maximize employee support, companies should prioritize […]
How to Successfully Use Influencers in Your Next PR Campaign
Written by Claire Rosenwinkel, Trident Intern Today, one cannot go on the internet without seeing influencers at the center of countless campaigns. Influencers are valuable for public relations campaigns and advertising, and they deliver results. Sixty percent of marketers shared that influencer-generated content performs better and drives more engagement compared to branded posts.Unfortunately, as the […]
Southwest Airlines: Cancel or #Canceled?
Written by Emma Novak, Account Manager Southwest Airlines prides itself on three values – efficiency, discipline, and excellence – to fulfill its purpose: connecting people to what’s important in their lives through friendly, reliable, and affordable air travel. During the 2022 holiday season, Southwest compromised its values and purpose of reliability, tarnishing the brand after […]
How to Tell Customers Bad News
When managing a crisis, communication skills are often contradicted by the human instinct to put the best light on bad news. Specifically, there are three natural, human reactions that frequently guide how companies and organizations deliver bad news to customers. The first is that, instead of speaking in plain language, they will try to sugarcoat […]
Trader Joe’s Calm Rebuttal
In July, Trader Joe’s found itself in a position familiar to corporate America in recent months – a viral social media campaign leveled serious accusations against the brand and demanded immediate action. In Trader Joe’s case, a viral petition called for the grocery chain to “remove racist branding and packaging from its stores,” referencing Trader […]
What Companies Can Learn From Nike
In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others at the hands of police, many companies that previously shied away from incorporating social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement into their branding and marketing have embraced them to make their positions on these seismic matters clear to consumers. However, […]
Biden’s Non-Apology
Earlier this year, Joe Biden reached out to Anita Hill, the young law professor who famously testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her. Biden presided over Thomas’s confirmation hearings, during which Hill was mocked, degraded, and humiliated. During the phone call, Biden expressed “regret for what she endured” and “admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country.” Biden, however, failed to directly apologize for his role in how she was treated, leaving Hill “deeply unsatisfied.”
Just How Important Are CSR Activities for Companies in Crisis?
One things clients experiencing negative media attention often ask us is, what kind of CSR should we be doing to mitigate this bad publicity? Before answering that question, it is worthwhile to explore whether or not CSR actually does help limit public blowback. Corporate social responsibility, also known as CSR, while difficult to define, can be described as a form of private business self-regulation that allows a company to take responsibility for the social and/or environmental impacts of its business.
Looking for a Public Relations Firm? Hire an Advocate, Not a Publicist
One valuable asset public relations consultants can bring is their own credibility with reporters. Credibility with journalists is not easily gained, and it’s earned through honesty and transparency with reporters over sustained periods of time. But, credibility doesn’t necessarily equate to the media reporting what you want. That’s why you always want to make sure […]
Crisis Management: Revisiting Rolling Stone’s Failures
It’s been three years since Rolling Stone published its infamous and defamatory report about rape allegations at the University of Virginia, but it’s important to revisit the most piercing analysis of what the magazine did wrong. Rolling Stone’s investigation: ‘a failure that was avoidable,’ a report co-authored by the dean of the Columbia School of […]
Tech Public Relations 101: BLOCKING AND TACKLING
Tech public relations requires executing at the foundational levels. While there are many steps to take beyond the basics, you need to get the basics right. If you can’t block and tackle, you’ll never gain a yard.