Reputation

There’s much to celebrate today, which is International Women’s Day, or IWD as it’s known on social media. While many brands are taking the day to tout the strides women have made, others are selfishly co-opting the moment in pursuit of profits. Meanwhile the PR community should have mixed emotions today too. PR has had plenty of success in recognizing women, yet sexism remains, as does a wage gap and a dearth of women in leadership roles.

On Tues., March 5, investment bank and financial services company Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced that it would loosen up its stringent employee dress code. Announced via internal memo signed by Goldman executives including chief executive David Solomon, this new “firm wide flexible dress code” has been instituted due to “the changing nature of workplaces generally in favor of a more casual environment.” The memo also urged employees to dress in a manner consistent with their client’s expectations.

A brand’s culture and values are crucial components of its identity—a reminder to your customers that you’re in business for the right reasons. As Simon Sinek famously said, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” But sharing the why around your culture and values can sometimes be difficult. Communicators face the challenge of doing so in an authentic way. That’s where video is an often-underutilized tool for sharing the intangibles that make up the very core of your brand’s DNA.

Executives from APCO Worldwide studied the campaign against Nike and Colin Kaepernick on Twitter and found it wasn’t as widespread or authentic as it seemed at first glance. They conclude that brands should avoid rushing to respond to what appears to be negative social sentiment. Instead, they urge brands to study the elements behind anti-brand content before responding.

On the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 12, Recode editor-at-large Kara Swisher began a long conversation with Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey on his own platform. Swisher, the self-described “grumpy lady of tech,” set a precedent early on that she wouldn’t go easy on Dorsey, and she stayed true to her word.

The conversation that followed was not just full of news around where Twitter sees its priorities in 2019, but included several best practices for communicators about everything from automation to media relations and beyond. Here are some of our key learnings.

What a difference a year makes. After a 2018 Grammys ceremony that gave only one major award to a woman and prompted The Recording Academy president Neil Portnow to say that women should “step up” to advance their careers, the 2019 show was made deliberate moves to promote diversity. The 61st Annual Grammy Awards offered lessons on what diversity and inclusion currently mean to The Recording Academy, most for better and some for worse. Here’s what we learned.

The game in Atlanta was supposed to be about football. That product, though, was a bit dull. Instead the real action occurred before the game started, between plays and after final gun sounded. The image game was all about PR, words (even when they were censored) and commercials.

It’s that time of year again when your belly yearns for wings, nachos and beer—Super Bowl LIII is almost upon us. Millions will tune in to watch the Patriots and the Rams square off on Sunday, but many more will also be watching for the Super Bowl ads, the priciest block of advertising time in broadcast history that are sure to inspire brand wins and losses of their own. Between the ads, the politics that the sport has found itself engulfed in over the past year, and the huge amounts of money being spent, let’s look at some of the biggest PR touchdowns and fumbles ahead of Super Bowl LIII.

Despite the difficulties CEOs and brands experienced in 2018, they emerged victorious in the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, released late last month. The public trusts businesses and CEOs most to right the ills of society. “My employer” was the most-trusted entity.

It’s great when you’re so famous, your name is just one word. Cher is wonderful, so are Messi and Madonna. But what about not even needing words? Everyone knows it’s Nike by the swoosh. A piece of fruit with a bite taken out of it shows who made your laptop. Now Mastercard joins the small fraternity of iconic brands with wordless logos.