Premium Content

One of the big data security stories last week was the $17 million sum insurer AETNA will pay to some customers as a result of compromising their personal data. Ironically with all the hype surrounding cybersecurity, this one was totally analogue. On the other hand, are PR firms secure from cybersecurity threats? A Gould + Partners quick poll reveals the disturbing answer.

President Trump’s pounding of the media has hurt trust in journalism tremendously. A new poll shows Americans trust their media even less than citizens in Turkey and Russia, whose lack of press freedoms is well known. It’s enough to make brands want to re-think the idea of creating a newsroom.

The growth curve for Instagram will creep up steadily, powered by growth in developing nations as governments invest in bandwidth and better mobile phone plans are offered, a new report from eMarketer says.

CEOs need to adapt to the times, a new report from Ruder Finn says. The modern CEO needs to be engaged and open to authentic communication, it says, and that includes social media. What the report calls high-performing CEOs are active across social media platforms, but are avoiding posting about current events, progressive issues and politics.

In our review last week of most-engaged B2C brands for 2017 ( PRN , January 9, 2017), we saw a tremendous surge of consumer engagement, or actions, with video. This week, we’ll see that consumer engagement with social posts from B2B brands were somewhat similar.

What did English-language users of Wikipedia search for in 2017? Were they seeking to escape reality with lots of searches for films and television? Or perhaps there was another explanation? Certainly this list of popular searches is open for interpretation, but winter is coming.

There are few topics in PR and communications that have generated more buzz than AI; of course, there’s been plenty of hype and false claims, too. Deloitte decided to try to separate the steak from the sizzle by talking to several hundred business executives who’ve already adopted AI and cognitive technologies.

Katie Paine takes a look at what’s ahead in 2018 and sees a sobering return to reality, with more realistic measurement leading the charge. She also sees more bots in our future as well as fewer choices for those companies seeking help with measurement.

Our weekly roundup of news, trends and personnel moves in the world of communications, marketing and PR. This week we have stories about President Trump’s awards for the awful media, and journalism’s response, France’s attempt to legislate away fake news, Facebook’s algorithm changes and Univision’s Jennifer Ball has a new job.

Communicators wonder if their messages resonate. You hope great content will impress, but human memory can be fickle. Memory also is far from infinite, the 16th Annual Most Memorable New Product Launch survey shows. What propelled the new iPhone to be the most memorable product launch of 2017?