Posted on PR Motion

Edward Bernays and the College of Communication Management

Reporting the death of Eddie Bernays at the age of 103 on 9 March 1995, The New York Times presented a largely favourable obituary. Over the past two decades, Bernays’ legacy has been mixed as his work has been praised as pioneering and also derided as deceptive manipulation. These opposing, simplistic interpretations, are combined in Cutlip’s overview: Bernays was a brilliant person who had a spectacular career, but to use an old-fashioned word, he was...

Posted on PR Sphere

The growing global market for the Art of PR

The global art market going East and West bipolar introduces an opportunity to establish and reinforce a dialogue related to a contemporary paradigm of public relations By Jiamin Ren A hybrid model of communication and new field of PR practice related to the global art market Things are changing quite rapidly with the present-day global art market—rebounding to near pre-Great Recession highs—reaching €47.42 (or $65.9 billion US) in sales in 2013. Two factors drove the...

Posted on PRoust Questionnaire

PRoust Questionnaire: Helen Slater

The PRoust Questionnaire provides a quick insight into a public relations practitioner’s interests and point of view, as well as his or her professional beliefs and values. If you are not familiar with the original 19th-century Proust Questionnaire, please see details at the end of this post. PRoust Questionnaire answers Helen Slater: 1. What are your most striking characteristics as a PR practitioner? Honesty (or integrity) and a good sense of humour–each of these are...

Posted on PR Motion

Presenting the shadows of public relations

Public relations is frequently presented in a dim light; “entering the dark side” is how journalists refer to working in/with PR. And a theme of presentation, representation and re-presentation of some shadowy corners was evident at the 5th annual International History of Public Relations Conference (#IHRPC) held at Bournemouth University A dominant trend in the papers I heard seemed to be the representation of activism as public relations, alongside presentations examining social movements through a...

Posted on PR Sense

Public Relations Practitioners, Artists formerly known as Invisibles

A practitioner’s musing about balancing the visible and invisible work in 21st-century PR By Bob Geller I read a review in the Wall Street Journal of what looks to be an interesting book, The Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion, by David Zweig. His book chronicles the work of those who toil quietly in the trenches. The results of their work are all that matters, and while we might...

Posted on PR Axis

How to use the Public Relations department of an advertising agency

N.W Ayer & Son, Inc. claimed to be the first US advertising agency (having bought a firm established in 1841 by Volney Palmer). As a leader and innovator in advertising, it is not surprising that Glenn and Denny Griswold asked the firm’s vice president, Marvin Murphy, to author chapter VII in their 1948 US book, Your Public Relations (being serialised here with monthly posts – to read other chapters in our series of posts, use this...

Posted on PR Sense

Should sisters PR it for themselves?

The winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction has just been announced. The proud boast of this prize is that it is the “UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman” and it is judged by a panel of women, so luminary that they need an apostrophe when their names are listed. The award was previously known as the Orange Prize for Fiction – but now is titled after an cream...

Posted on Classic PR Conversations PR Nexus

Buzzwords: Much sound and fury, but signifying little

A two-nation blended cocktail chat dissecting buzzwords in the current vernacular By Toni Muzi Falconi and Helen Slater Our global professional community has tried to change its public relations nomenclature at least since the fifties of the last century, under the notion that a name change can help. As Shakespeare’s Juliet Capulet says of Romeo Montagu, “Tis but thy name that is my enemy … be some other name! What’s in a name? That which...

Posted on PR Sphere

An abundant public relations era or its utilitarian autumn?

Flourishing PR Conversations about peaks and valleys, truths and opinions plus the plateau in between One of my goals for the last few years was to travel west to Toronto’s High Park in time for the “peak” of the city’s blossoming Sakura cherry trees. Not only is the window of this optimum viewing time always small, but for most of this year’s April and May blooming days the weather was unseasonably cool and often overcast...

Posted on PR Sense

Honestly, PR is dishonest

Symmetry and storytelling are fine but only if they improve competitive advantage Op-Ed by Alan Kelly, MA Bored of the alchemy of reputation metrics, the insincerity of authenticity and other communication terms du jour, I am often entertained at public relations conferences by counting the utterances of words like compete, rival or opposition. Never have I needed more than the fingers on one hand. And so I’ve come to the conclusion that the field we...