Here is what lies ahead for you — Ten years ago you might have read most of the publications relevant to your business. If you were committed to public relations, you’d spend time cultivating relationships with various relevant reporters. When you had a story you wanted to tell, you’d work on it with your agency until it achieved…

The key to public perception, public affairs, and public relations — A lot of effort in public relations and marketing communications goes into influencing what people think, but influencing what people think about is equally, if not more important. This is called Agenda-Setting theory and it is critical to understand and embrace. In 1963 political scientist Bernard Cohen put forth the…

Corporate communications trends you ought to know — As we enter 2021, the world at large and corporate communications teams, in particular, find themselves at a significant turning point. What will be the new normal? Whether corporate communications is an opportunity area for your company — or you are a Public Relations (PR) practitioner — there are several…

COVID-19 Media Analysis — There are a lot of talking heads out there when it comes to the novel coronavirus, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York stands head and shoulders above the others. Using Onclusive’s media monitoring system, I analyzed the digital media coverage of various prominent figures related to the COVID-19 epidemic…

Cost-Effective Influence Tactics for Your Organization — Much ado is made about how much political candidates spend on advertising. Why? I suspect there are many reasons we analyze this ad spend, but from my perspective, the important lesson is that correlation is not always causation. …

5 Key Marketing Strategies to Leverage Your Efforts In my musings about marketing ventriloquism, the art and science of speaking through voices other than your own, I’ve covered a lot of ground. Why it is so gosh darn effective? How do you control the uncontrollable? …

Give up control to gain influence and sales — In my last article, I laid out the three steps to introduce marketing ventriloquism into your organization: focus on what you can control; install control systems; amplify earned media. …

My favorite 20 minutes of the year — Every year we give out our company Values Awards. It is probably my favorite 20 minutes of the year. I ripped this idea off from Dave Calhoun, currently the CEO of Boeing. When I worked for him at Nielsen, Dave called them the Chairman’s Awards. After the gala dinner every…

Improve your PR and advertising performance simultaneously — In my first article on marketing ventriloquism, I made the case for marketers talking through voices other than their own and explained that most marketers tend to rely on advertising because of a need for perceived control. Content marketing is a positive step toward truly effective marketing communications in that…