Author Archives: Michael Whitlow

Loyalty is Not a Fallacy…?

With national Loyalty Day arriving tomorrow in the U.S., I’m going to fly my flag and reaffirm my loyalty to my country. Reuters got the timing right yesterday as they released the results of a national survey showing just where Americans place their loyalty.
Not surprising to most of us in public relations who labor daily [...]

Bring Back Storytelling. Just the facts = #epicfail

One of the evolving trends post-apocolypse is a renewed interest in storytelling, and it’s with good reason. The facts don’t suffice — never did.
Executives are on the hook for a lot these days, having to stand up for all that happens in their organizations and certifying that everything adds up to those numbers you see [...]

Big Companies: Good Agencies Are Horizontal

by Michael Whitlow
Sean Corcoran’s post this week for Forrester was interesting, as always. His research has companies sitting on the fence between giving social media work to their traditional ad agencies and putting it in the hands of generally smaller shops that specialize.
So (surprise) many big marketers are treating the digital pursuit of marketing in the [...]

Time for (More) Social Media Support of Green Power

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Green Power Network may not yet be a network in the social networking sense, but the groundswell in the green energy corner of the electric utility business holds promise of reaching a tipping point as word is passed about the consumer’s ability to buy green power through the use of [...]

Can Social Media Help Blunt “Mean” Greens Influence?

So, in the latest turn of events in the pell-mell race to “sustainable” and “green” and “post-consumer” products, we hear  from researchers that green people are mean people? C’mon!? The Guardian pulls this one out from the journal Psychological Science, quoting psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo-Zhong, who say that those who wear their green consumerism on their [...]

PR has Social Media “Buffet” Problem

I heard a great analogy this weekend in a discussion about the online theft of music versus the continuing propensity of Boomers and Gen-Xers (almost alone in this) to still pay for their music in the form of CDs or iTunes purchases. The remark went something like this: “Just because you’re able to observe my behavior at [...]

The Trust Veneer Problem in Social Media

Yet another trip. Yet another lost bag.
I am increasingly aware of the challenges businesses face in earning real trust, and this week I was left (without a change of clothes) to ponder yet again just what is going wrong in this regard. My airline can’t get me and my luggage to the same place at the same time. My car has [...]

PGA Shanks Tiger Woods Decision

Eventually, it had to happen. Tiger Woods had to speak in “public” about his, uh, situation.
But, did official golfdom have to provide the venue?
Enough has been said about Tiger to fill several PR crisis communications classes, and the true, sad fact of this matter is that too many of us still care too much about [...]

Sharing Awe

I’m often asked by clients just what it takes to “go viral” or “get a million views.” It’s really quite simple, it appears. All you need is awe.

There is nothing more interesting than human relationships and responses, even in the virtual world, and humans use relationships to spread happiness. The British Medical Journal said that social networks may spread [...]

Toyota Took Risks. Did PR Know?

The recent massive recall at Toyota, aside from breathing new life into a moribund General Motors (an Obama conspiracy?), raises an interesting question for public relations folks. If your management makes a conscious decision to take more risks in manufacturing, is it also obligated to communicate this strategy’s potential impact to stakeholders, particularly customers and investors?
The Lean [...]