D S Simon Vlog Views

Ken Makovsky, Founder and President of Makovsky and Co., discusses the changing landscape of public relations and how agencies should respond to those changes.

Some of Ken’s VlogViews:

“The word ‘spin’ is going to disappear from the vocabulary of Americans in the near future… I have always hated that word because it has an implication of falsehoods, it’s misleading, it’s slick. We’re in an era coming out of this economic crisis where trust needs to be rebuilt with out financial institutions, with our government, with many businesses, with our banks.”

“[After this election] we are going to have [environmental] federal regulations. And I don’t think these companies are going to have a choice; so at a minimum, one thing they could be doing at this time is educating their employees about what is going to come and that doesn’t take a lot of money.”

“Everybody’s going green. I think that all client programs or nearly all client programs in some way are going to need to communicate that.”

Click Here for More Insights From PR Thought Leader Ken Makovsky

Check out Ken’s Blog My Three Cents
Makovsky and Co

Stuart Elliott, Advertising Columnist for The New York Times, discusses the role of PR and advertising in the marketing mix and how to market in a recession.

Some of Stuart’s VlogViews:

“Several times I’ve written about campaigns…and it turns out there’s no advertising agency on record involved. The PR agency is the lead agency; and they’re the ones who are doing the quote-unquote advertising.”

“It’s sort of hard to tell where advertising starts and PR ends, or where the new media come in and where the old media step back. It’s being thought of in a much different way now. A lot of those lines are blurring or being erased completely; and as a result, a lot of agencies, a lot of marketers are scrambling to try to adjust to these realities.”

The shift to an opt-in culture “is a challenge for everybody, because you have people saying, ‘I’m not going to have this commercial wash over me; I’m going to choose when and where I want to be interrupted’…It’s the consumer who decides if he/she wants to engage.”

On the current economic crisis: “The question is whether these particular tough [economic] times are so unique and unusual that some of the traditional rules are not going to be effective in this climate.”

Stuart’s New York Times Page 

Stuart’s Blog
Sign Up for Stuart Elliott’s Email Newsletter, In Advertising

Search Terms: Stuart Elliott, The New York Times, social media, In Advertising, marketing, Advertising 

Richard Laermer, Owner of RLM PR and author of “Bad Pitch Blog” and 2011:Trendspotting For The Next Decade, gives his three predictions for future trends in public relations.

Richard’s three predictions about the future of PR:

1. “I think in the next few years our ‘email-centric-ness,’ the idea of always being emailed and always getting information, that’s going to die out when people realize that it’s not helping us, we’re not getting anywhere.”

2. “Flexibility. The way that we deal with ourselves and each other will be less about waiting for things to happen, because other people are finishing the product and more about getting it done ourselves…The idea that all flexibility lies with us.”

3. “Less of a reliance on technology and more face-to-face because studies have proven, and it might be more so in the next decade, that connecting is what is going to keep us going, as opposed to all this ‘hey, how ya doing?’ Twitter and email and all that SMS stuff is great; but it’s also really time consuming, and at the end of the day, maybe around 7:45, makes us feel kind of useless.”

RLM PR
Bad Pitch Blog
2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade

Search Terms: Richard Laermer, RLM PR, Bad PR Pitches, PR News, PR News’ Digital PR Next Practices Summit, Public Relations

Mark Hass, World Wide CEO of MS&L, discusses his views on paid media, the distinction between buying commercial time and product placement and the role of PR agencies in social media.

Some of Mark’s VlogViews:

“The whole issue of paying for play, paying for editorial coverage as opposed to earning that media coverage which is what the public relations industry does, it [the issue] is really at the core of our media relations function.”

“Product placement is fine as long as there is transparency around it. When you try to sneak something in, I think it’s a little more troubling, than if there is disclosure on what’s going on.”

“The one important area that has emerged over the last year or two and I think is going to get more and more important is the management of social media. The way companies and brands interact inside the space of social media …I think PR agencies play an important role in managing those relationships.”

Manning Selvage & Lee

Search Terms: Manning Selvage & Lee, Mark Hass, product placement, MS&L