The PR Tortoise (and Other PR Blog Jots)

Most Companies Still Behind the Times

PR Squared

After a successful presentation to Fortune 500 marketers at the Corporate Image and Branding conference in New York, Todd Defren realizes that while PR and marketing bloggers are already heavily invested in the 2.0 universe, most in the corporate world are still playing catch up to all the new communications possibilities. He argues for the possibility of taking a step back and waiting for the rest of the PR world to catch up. “Good news: these marketeers are intrigued, engaged, even cautiously experimental.  The top-down, command-and-control mentality about “brands” is starting to crumble.  Yay! Bad news: if you’re into all this 2.0 stuff, you are still way, way, way ahead of the curve.”

"Brand Imus" Still Marketable?

The Flack

Now that Imus has been officially fired from both his MSNBC television show and his CBS radio broadcast, Peter Himler wonders if his brand is perhaps even more marketable now that he’s achieved infamy.  Noting the myriad examples (Michael Richards, Paris Hilton, the ubiquitous Britney Spears) of celebrities whose fame only grew after winding up with media scandals, Himler speculates that Imus as a brand may still be profitable, despite his poor reputation. “Consumers of popular culture simply make little distinction between the famous and the infamous. We live in an age where headline-making notoriety too often translates into greater marketability. The egregiousness of the crime seems to matter less in the equation than the volume of media coverage it spawns.”

Personality Theft can Leave a Reputation in Ruins

Canuckflack

Some refer to it as your “digital fingerprint.” The information tied to you online can come to define who you are and affect your life in many ways: personally, financially, and in the eyes of your employer (or future employers).  Colin McKay examines the world of “personality theft,” the trashing of a person’s online reputation through false MySpace or Facebook pages, blogs and other forms of social media.  The effects, according to McKay, can be every bit as hazardous as the more widely-known identity theft. “The impact of this type of identity theft, though, can be a long-lasting as when your bank details are stolen. For a generation that lives its life online, your online record is your portable biography. If the information becomes corrupted, it not only casts doubt on the social network but on your real-life personality.”