PRobecast 132: Blackberry Offering Free Apps, Dr. Pepper Ten’s Controversy, Lindsay Lohan
October 20th, 2011 by Alison Raymond
In this episode of PRobecast, Renatta Siewert and Caitlin Smith join me in talking about free blackberry apps, Dr. Pepper Ten and Lindsay Lohan’s trouble with the law.
Blackberry to give free apps to compensate for outages– Last week we discussed the Blackberry outages that effected users worldwide. Now, the company is offering users select premium applications free of charge that are supposedly worth over $100, along with one month free technical support to the company’s enterprise users. Is this enough for users to forget about the outage that was heard across the world?
Dr. Pepper’s ‘Manly’ Drink – So a new advertising campaign for Dr. Pepper Ten is causing quite the stir over the internet. Many are saying the campaign is sexist. The ad starts out with a man in fight/war gear running through a jungle shooting laser guns, saying that the new beverage is “10 manly calories” and is not for women. This ad was developed after research found not many men opted for diet beverages. Do you think the way Dr. Pepper went about advertising this was wrong?”
Lindsay Lohan might be going to jail – Lindsay Lohan is, once again, in trouble with the law. This time her probation is being revoked and she will be forced to complete 16 hours of community service at the morgue. Apparently, this spawned from her being kicked out of the Women’s Center for not showing up 9 times. The judge also said that she doubted Lindsay had visited her shrink once a week – something she was required to do. If you were Lindsay’s PR rep, what would you have her do. Can she save her image?
Now it’s time for the PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which is when we go around the room and pick the story that we think ranks the highest PR-wise – meaning any aspects of PR could be the reasoning behind the pick. Is it the story itself, good data that was used, what’s getting the most pickup, was it a good PR move the company made, etc.
This week Blackberry won. I mean, they tried. We don’t necessarily think their peace offering was effective, but they did try putting themselves in a better light by offering a few premium applications to users.
Who do you think should have won this week?
Category: Marketing, Messaging & Positioning, Mobile, News & Commentary, PR, PRobecast, video, Web | No Comments »
PRobecast 131: Misleading Advertising, the Recent Blackberry Outage & BoA’s new charges
October 14th, 2011 by Alison Raymond
In this episode of PRobecast, Tony Sapienza, Renatta Siewert, Sam Friedman and Justin Martell join me in talking about Ford’s and Chrysler’s misleading advertising, the Blackberry outage and Bank of American’s new charges.
Ford’s and Chrysler’s Misleading Advertising Campaigns – Ford Motor Co. and Chysler Group are have had complaints to the FTC over misleading advertising that lead some of the general public to think their vehicles are made in the USA – particularly the Chrysler 300 and the Ford Edge. Apparently, these models are assembled in Canada and often have Mexican-made parts, which go against Chysler’s “Imported from Detroit” tagline and Ford’s radio spot that advertised it being an American car. What do you think of the companies’ advertising their cars as American?
BlackBerry outages spread to North America – Across the world, Blackberry users noticed an outage in their services – one of the biggest outages yet. Since the European infrastructure failed, emails and messages sent were so backed up in the RIM systems, it caused outages in the US and in Asia. With outages happening a couple times a year, people are rethinking keeping their Blackberries, opting to upgrade to a DROID or iPhone. Can Blackberry keep up?
Bank of America sharpens messaging about new fees – Last week Bank of America announced a $5 monthly fee for debit card users – causing public outrage. They now have repositioned their messaging, explaining who will be charged with this fee and how it can be avoided. According to this PR Week article, a recent survey found 36% of Americans have “very little” or “no” confidence in US banks. While BoA is saying this new fee is to recover lost revenue, do you think consumers will look to bank elsewhere?
Now it’s time for the PRobecast PR Power Ranking – which is when we go around the room and pick the story that we think ranks the highest PR-wise – meaning any aspects of PR could be the reasoning behind the pick. Is it the story itself, good data that was used, what’s getting the most pickup, was it a good PR move the company made, etc.
This week it was a 4:1 vote – Blackberry. With the general population being so dependent on technology, especially mobile, Blackberry needs to make sure outages like this don’t happen again. This one on of the biggest stories of the week and had people questioning whether or not they should still be used, and that is why this story won as the Power Ranker.
Who do you think should have won?
Category: Marketing, Media Relations, Messaging & Positioning, Mobile, News & Commentary, PR, PRobecast, Security, Tech | No Comments »
Which is better: Text or E-mail?
October 12th, 2011 by sfriedman
USA Today recently had an article on whether Americans preferred to text or use e-mail as a form of communication. The article cites unnamed surveys, and conducted their own study, that say younger people (those under 30) prefer texting, while older people prefer e-mail as their method of communication.
The similarities: both involve typing letters, numbers, and symbols from a keyboard onto an electronic screen to be sent to the screen of someone else. Both require very little energy use or cost to the server in terms of data transfer. Both can be done quickly, but only if you don’t lose the connection (which happens a lot, especially with T-mobile).
So what makes them different? E-mail is considered more formal, because one is taking the time to actually write out a message (when was the last time someone send out an e-mail that just said ‘k’ or ‘lol’ or ‘cool’?), whereas texting can be done very quickly and on the go. Also, e-mail requires one to be logged into an internet server somewhere. So even if you’re travelling and you can get internet service through your phone, you’ll have to log-in to do it-making the process slower, and potentially putting yourself at risk for phishers to hack in if your phone’s internet connection is unsecure for any reason.
That said, e-mail allows individuals to send more information than texts usually can, such as links to Youtube videos and better quality photos. It’s much easier to send word documents, excel spreadsheets, and power points to yourself or others via e-mail, (texting it is impossible at this point unless you have an iPad, and even then). Plus, if I have to wait to be on the internet to use e-mail, that’s one less opportunity to send a message while I drive (promoting safe driving).
Finally, I often am in contact with people on a professional level. I feel very uncomfortable sending out texts to those people, especially if I don’t know the person well. I’ve never been uncomfortable sending out an e-mail, even to unfamiliar people. For that reason, even more-so than the other two, I personally prefer e-mailing people as to texting.
What do you think? Do you prefer texting to e-mail? Share your thoughts on this subject.
Category: Mobile, Surveys, Tech | No Comments »
