PR Resource

Political campaigns have room for dirty tricks but this one is dumb.  Why photoshop the heads of Obama and Rubio on a stock photo?  Didn’t anyone in the Cruz campaign think it would be caught?  Now, Cruz has to defend himself from charges of lying rather than making his points about why he should win the primary.  One benefit of the internet age is that such chicanery is discovered far more quickly to the detriment of the candidate who uses it.  When found out, it backfires on the candidate — as it should.  If Cruz survives this, and there is a good chance he will, maybe he will think twice before using such a stupid approach again.

Apple is facing a tough challenge with a court order mandating that it help open the mobile phone of a San Bernardino terrorist.  On the one hand, it doesn’t want to be seen as spying on its users anywhere in the world.  On the other, government needs a way to find out what a person was planning and with whom he might have been in contact.  There is no easy outcome for this situation.  If Apple gives in to the US on this occasion, what is there to say when the Chinese government orders the same thing in order to track activists?  The issue will wend its way through the courts and could end up at the Supreme Court’s bench.  That will determine once and for all the limits of privacy in the online world.

This article raises a PR challenge for all online stores.  What does one do with all the cardboard from shipping goods directly to the home?  It is a mountain of recycling and the more that online takes over shopping, the taller the crag.  There is no good way to handle the issue.  Goods need to be shipped and cardboard is the medium for doing that.  No other shipping material makes much sense, such as foam or plastic.  About all that Amazon.com and other online shippers can do is to make sure that the right-sized box is used for the item being sent.  Amazon, particularly, is not very good at that.  Often it will send small items in a large box that leaves one shaking his head.  It is an issue that online shippers will need to confront sooner or later.  Meanwhile the Everest keeps growing.

The moment Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was announced, the spin began pro and con over what the vacancy on the court meant.  All sides are furiously engaged in a battle of words.  The president has vowed to move ahead with naming a replacement.  The senate Republicans have pledged to block a new Justice until after the November elections.  Each side is engaged in speculation as to what the absence of a conservative voice means for the future of the court.  Activists are out in force.  Common citizens have been forgotten in all of this.  They are bystanders watching the farce play out.  Given the importance of the Court to the law of the land, it is to be expected that vital interests tangle over its direction, but the intensity of the fight is almost unseemly.  Chances are no one will win given the face-off between the Senate and the White House.  President Obama would need to propose a middle-of-the-road candidate and Senate Republicans would need to be satisfied that the candidate is conservative enough.  Chances of either of these things happening are slim.  So, the political parties continue to spin, spin, spin.

Say what you want about Pope Francis but he is dedicated to publicizing the plight of the poor and scolding nations for failing to care for them.  He has made poverty a central theme in his reign and he rarely misses a chance to highlight the miseries of the masses who have little shelter, food or water.  One can dismiss these critiques or pay attention and act.  Obviously, the pope hopes to spur movement but words only go so far.  He has no way of compelling people and governments to work at raising the standard of living for the forgotten, but he can scold, persuade and highlight the right path.  The pope has been an equal opportunity prod — pushing his own bishops at the same time he talks to countries.  The question is who is listening and whether those who take note are in a position to act.  The wealthy might dismiss him as a gadfly while the poor look upon him as a savior.  No matter the opinion of the people, he continues because he sees it as his ministry.  That is good enough for many.

The detection of gravity waves — a first for mankind — has also produced some great science publicity such as this.  The producer of the video has taken a complex topic and boiled it to its essentials to facilitate understanding.  The complexity lies in the building of the two machines in the first place. Every source of extraneous vibration had to be neutralized for the two interferometers to work.  It took years of effort to get that done.  Rather than go into the story of building the laser systems, the video explains the why and what in clear terms that a school child could understand.  Now that we know that gravity waves exist and we have observatories to listen for them, a new branch of science has opened that will take generations to explore and understand.  Look for a Nobel prize to go to the developers of the machines.  They deserve it.

Why does China continue to support North Korea when it is widely known that the country is one of the most corrupt and repressive nations on earth?  The answer that China wishes to preserve communism hardly suffices because even Chinese communists learned that repression doesn’t work well and ultimately, ruins a country.  North Korea is a nightmare.  It doesn’t listen to its people whom it starves and imprisons on whims.  It deifies its rulers and forces the public to celebrate them.  It uses the propaganda techniques that George Orwell satirized 70 years ago.  Surely the Chinese understand this.  Yet they persist in upholding the country’s leadership.  It wouldn’t be long for North Korea to survive if China closed its border and stopped all trading.  China could be looked upon as a hero to North Koreans if it took over the country and opened its economy as it has done at home.  Yet, it doesn’t.  There is political inertia at work that makes no sense and North Koreans are left to suffer.

Sometimes a public will suffer from inertia and will not act when it is clearly in its interest to do so.  Venezuela is a basket case of hyper inflation and lack of goods, but the people have not rebelled yet against the current leader, Nicolas Maduro.  They have put in a parliament of opposition legislators whom Maduro has said he will ignore.  As for Maduro himself, he has no understanding of the mechanics of governance and his intransigence has ruined the country.  Why does the public not rise up as one and depose him?  That’s an unanswerable question.  To an outsider, it would seem obvious a regime change is what is needed.  To an insider and Maduro loyalist, the havoc is the result of conspiracy.  As long as Maduro maintains some kind of political base and the backing of the army, he can remain in power, but as the economy continues to plummet, he has to worry about erosion and revolt. Inertia can last for a long time as it did in the Soviet Union and still continues today in North Korea, but once the public acts, matters can change swiftly as they did at the teardown of the Berlin wall.

Some technologies don’t sit well with consumers.  They are always the next “big” thing in the marketplace but they never quite take off.  Consider 3D television or, for that matter 3D movies.  Some producers and directors have used it but most don’t.  There doesn’t appear to be a good reason why except the public apparently doesn’t like wearing glasses.  3D has been the next technology since the 1950s and it still isn’t here.  When major TV makers abandon work on them, it is clear it won’t be for some time yet.  There is little in the way of publicity one can do to stimulate demand.  The content isn’t there and because of the lack of content, the public demand to view programs in 3D isn’t there either.  A similar technology that has taken decades and has never established itself is the video phone.  Yes, the public uses mobile phones to video chat but the home phone application never took off.  That didn’t prevent AT&T from featuring video phones since the early 1960s as the next “big” thing.  The lesson here is that one cannot lead the public where it doesn’t want to go.  Technologists face limits to their inventions.

It is bad enough that one sponsors a race in which contestants stop and gorge on a dozen sugary donuts half-way through, but to have a runner drop dead in the middle of the challenge is unwanted publicity.  This is what happened at the annual Krispy Kreme challenge in North Carolina, a race that benefits the North Carolina Children’s Hospital.  It is odd enough that runners have to ingest high-calorie donuts then run again but a Krispy Kreme donut is the antithesis of a healthy snack, which might be the reason race organizers originally chose it.  The gimmick backfired this time even though the runner apparently did not reach the point where he was forced to eat before continuing. There is a lesson here, which is to be careful of how you set up fund raising events.  They might seem worthwhile and fun at the beginning but as they carry on year after year, there is a chance the event can turn on one, much like it did with this race.