PR News Post #15

The Entertainment Technology Center has recently began surveying 20-30 college students every week in order to help entertainment companies understand how the next generation of consumers are using "next generation" techniques to view and purchase products. What they found was that many young users on the popular and ever growing network of facebook see advertisements and marketing techniques, and they don't like it. These next generation consumers have grown up with all the marketing and they want the big companies to know they aren't stupid and they know when advertisements are being displayed on their profiles. When they see things like these, they feel it is no longer their profile, and it is upsetting to loyal fans of the Facebook site. I guess these companies just assumed a good place to market their products to young people would be where they are all the time, and that is online. What they didn't think about was that these young people spend so much time on these social networking sites that they have become experts, and they can tell when something changes. They can tell when their favorite place to go online everyday is starting to fill up with more and more ads and marketing junk, and I say I agree with them. Basically, stop, it's annoying!

PR News Post #14

Innovate or Die.  This was something I just read about in PR News.  It caught my interest not only because of the dramatic title, but also because I recently went to a presentation on campus which had the same title.  In the presentation, the President of this bag making company talked all about inovating every product in every company to stay with the customers needs and to overall stay in business.  Now I think it may be a little over dramatic to say "Innovate or Die,"  but I think the points they bring up are still very valid. People want change and innovation because that is what they expect in today's world of growing products and technology.  And it all goes back to an old saying; "Give the customer what they want!"

PR News Post 13

The article I just read talked about communicators in business fields and how they have difficulty with knowing what the CEO's of their companies want.  It went on to say that it is a challenge for them because they know what keeps them up at night.  They know all of this now because of surveys that CEO's completed from major companies such as IBM.  The reason why this can be such a hassle for someone in the company is because knowing what keeps someone up at night brings greater expectations for that individual to fulfill the needs of the CEO.  So it definitely has it's ups and downs.  I still think if I had the option of knowing what keeps my boss up at night or not, I would most definitely want to know.  The advantages for sure outweigh the disadvantages.

PR News Post #12

Wal Mart has recently stated they are still trying to become more energy efficient and they want to expand these efforts into China.  Now I know they aren't doing any harm to anyone or anything, but let me just say all this stuff about going green pisses me off!  Now I realize it's just good PR, but it is all just a huge scam.  Companies don't really care about "going green" or anything about the Earth for that matter.  All they want to to make more money.  If they lie and say they are going green, then people think they are being more responsible and respect them more.  Now this is exactly what great PR is supposed to do, so I realize I will eventually have to become one of these people I hate, but still, while I am not a professional in the field, let me just say that going green is crap!  

PR News Post #11

Wow, I just read a very interesting article in PR News.  It started off by talking about how all the senior executives of a company were on a plane that crashed in the South Pacific and now only one or maybe two people were left to manage the company.  I was thinking wow, this is really bad and I can't believe it happened.  Then when i clicked continue to read more I found out it didn't really even happen!  But it is based off true things.  The companies executives work with PR people to simulate real life crises like this.  This helps other employees see what it would be like and what they would have to actually do in an event like this.  I think this is taking things to a level that is a little extreme, but I guess in the long run it really would help to prepare for a crisis like this.

PR News Post #10

What type of PR could $1 billion buy?  This was the topic of a PR blog that I read.  At first I thought, wow, that would be great to have all that money just for PR, but then as I read on I realized it was a little more complicated.  What would you do with all that money?  Who would you put in charge?  How would you manage it?  Now I know eventually I hope to be at the top of a big PR firm somewhere, and it really scared me to think I might be the person that has to manage everything and answer all these questions.  I just don't know who I could trust and make sure they do a good job as individuals and as a team.  I guess that is exactly why it is so important to hire good employees in PR.

PR News Post #9

On the PR News Blog there was an article about anti-social media.  I thought it was very interesting.  The writer talked about when she went to a church event and the church leader asked everyone to take two minutes to get to know everyone and just introduce themselves.  She noticed, like many, that no one really did this.  Everyone sat staring at their watches waiting for the time to be up.  I know exactly what she is talking about.  This stuff happens all the time and it is funny because people are really not as social as we think!  I like when she called it "forced socialization."  Then she went on to explain she thinks people are become more friendly and social online rather than in real life.  Now if you ask me that is going to become a serious problem really fast!