Stories by KATIE PAINE

The term PR may be obsolete by the end of 2017. The concept of PR meaning ”building relationships with one’s publics” remains valid. But the common vernacular meaning of PR as being mostly about media relations is rapidly going the way of the landline and the floppy disk. Look at titles today. My database used to be filled with titles like “PR manager.” Now it includes one or more of the following words in an astonishing variety of combinations: social, digital, content marketing, PESO, public relations, public affairs, communications, advertising, marketing, development, events, etc.

In terms of the rules of crisis communications, Wells Fargo and Samsung have been following all of them, although sometimes they’ve moved slowly. Still, both brands issued apologies, took action, offered compensation—and nothing has worked. The problem in these cases is that no amount of abject apologies can make up for a lack of ethics and an overabundance of bad choices. In other words, both brands primarily are facing crises of culture, not communications.

The Olympics is not for the faint of heart. Never mind the athletes. Being a spectator or a sponsor requires as much grit and fortitude. I know. I just got back from watching my cousin, Caleb Paine, compete on the U.S. Sailing Team. For years, I observed the Olympics from the comfort of my living room, watching the celebration of human spirit and athleticism play out against what I assumed was a perfectly orchestrated spectacle, replete with major brands and a lot of media coverage. It’s not like that at all.

I decided to fill out the AMEC Framework using a PR campaign I recently helped a client measure. I used the responses that members of its PR team gave me at our first meeting. After a long day of checking the taxonomy and making sure I put everything in the right boxes. I have the following tips for you.

The root cause of most scandals is institutional belief in infallibility. For the Catholic Church, papal decree established it in 1870, and as the award-winning movie Spotlight so clearly illustrated, it is still a part of the Church’s culture. For politicians, winning elections seems to convince them that they can get away with anything (think John Edwards and Mark “hiking the Appalachian trail” Sanford). In corporations it generally comes from a narcissistic CEO. We’ve noted this corollary in numerous columns: the more ego-driven the leader, the more likely the corporation is to suffer a PR crisis.

It’s a toss-up. Who was suffering more from delusional thinking last month: UK Prime Minister David Cameron or UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi? You’ll have to judge for yourself.

Starbucks and SeaWorld kicked off integrated messaging campaigns in the last month that were based on the most fundamental premise of good PR: Symmetrical (two-way) conversations are preferable to one-way. Both tightly integrated paid media with earned and owned. And both—judging from media and consumer reaction—failed spectacularly.

  Anyone who aspires to sports star status should be required to successfully complete a course in public relations prior to signing any contract. Anyone who has any knowledge of PR knows that the bigger… Continued

While the media cranks out content that it prefers to be long remembered by readers, the BBS and News Corporation would prefer that their major crises would just go away. Here’s how each have fared.

The social networking giant learned quickly that, in a bad situation, pointing the finger is not the message you want to send to the media.