Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Repeat as necessary... and  it's always necessary.

During my eight years in the Obama administration, there was an offhand comment uttered from time to time in the hallway after something went off the rails, "It's a communications problem."

The reality is that is the case sometimes, but most of the time the problem is much larger.

Some of the major fumbles of the first few weeks of the Trump administration have been due to the communications team: whether it was the sloppy rollout of the executive order on immigration or the series of television interviews with senior officials who were either unprepared, out of the loop or pompous enough to think they could wing it with a network anchor.

But not all the problems are communications issues....

Just moments after President Donald Trump's surreal, whirlwind press conference came to a close Thursday, the Trump campaign sent out a very strange email.

The email posits that the media is an enemy that must be deflected, inviting recipients to take a survey about how much they hate CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and all mainstream media. "Instead, you — the American people — are our last line of defense against the media’s hit jobs."

But there's more. As if to drive the point home with the hammer of Thor, the 25 questions are branded "the Mainstream Media Accountability Survey."...

Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a deep disdain for your trade.

Here are some tips from Russia.Vladimir Putin’s annual pressers are supposed to be the media event of the year. They are normally held in late December, around Western Christmas time (we Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas two weeks later and it’s not a big deal, unlike New Year’s Eve). Which probably explains why Putin’s pressers don’t get much coverage outside of Russia, except in a relatively narrow niche of Russia-watchers. Putin’s pressers are televised live across all Russian TV channels, attended by all kinds of media — federal news agencies, small local publications and foreign reporters based in Moscow — and are supposed to overshadow every other event in Russia or abroad.

These things are carefully choreographed, typically last no less than four hours, and Putin always comes off as an omniscient and benevolent leader tending to a flock of unruly but adoring children. Given that Putin is probably a role model for Trump, it’s no surprise that he’s apparently taking a page from Putin’s playbook.

I have some observations to share with my American colleagues. You’re in this for at least another four years, and you’ll be dealing with things Russian journalists have endured for almost two decades now. I’m talking about Putin here, but see if you can apply any of the below to your own leader....

Does anyone really believe that story?” Donald Trump said, at his first press conference in more than five months. He was referring to a dossier that BuzzFeed had published the night before, which contained unproved allegations of material that the Russians had supposedly gathered to blackmail Trump. The press conference might not have gone half as well for Trump if that story hadn’t been out. Trump looked angry, in a way that, as anger sometimes does, left him more rhetorically focussed. The rambling defensiveness that criticisms often provoke in him was not so visible. His grandiosity, his resentments, and, at moments, his crudity were all on full display, but not in a way that is likely to alienate his supporters.

The first question asked of Trump was whether he had been briefed by American intelligence about the alleged Russian efforts to compromise him, as CNN had reported. He said that he couldn’t talk about classified intelligence, but he did have something to say about what had been publicly reported. “It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” he said. “And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know, because you reported it and so did many of the other people. It was a group of opponents that got together—sick people—and they put that crap together.”...

We've seen a lot of intentionally silly press releases over the years. But this one, sent out by Colle+McVoy for client Cub Cadet, is not kidding around.

The Minneapolis agency recently helped the industrial brand launch a new line of Cub Cadet PRO Z commercial riding mowers. These are seriously badass machines. They have the only Triple 7-gauge steel deck on the market—the thickest, strongest steel deck in the industry. Landscapers apparently love the stuff, as it lets them clear rugged ground without worrying about destroying the mower.

So, what kind of press release does such a Terminator-style mower deserve? One that's also made out of Triple 7-gauge steel, of course.

You can see more photos of the thing below, which was sent to consumer and trade media. It weighs 14 pounds, 13 ounces, the agency tells us. It's the standard 8.5-by-11 inches, but its 0.625-inch thickness is impressive. 

Oh, and this "press release on steroids" was also shipped in a custom crate with a crowbar. Because you can always use an extra crowbar....

Behind the scenes, as law enforcement officials tried to stem protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, alumni from the George W. Bush White House were leading a crisis communications effort to discredit pipeline protesters. This revelation comes from documents obtained via an open records request from the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department in Wyoming.

Emails show that the firms Delve and Off the Record Strategies, apparently on contract with the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA), worked in secret on talking points, media outreach, and communications training for law enforcement dealing with Dakota Access opponents mobilized at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

As previously reported by DeSmog Blog, the GOP-connected firm DCI Group led the forward-facing public relations efforts for Dakota Access via a front group called Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN). Today MAIN has morphed into a national effort known as Grow America’s Infrastructure Now (GAIN).

Delve is an opposition research firm run by Jeff Berkowitz, former Republican National Committee research director and official in the George W. Bush White House. His company led research efforts on behalf of the sheriffs’ association. Off the Record Strategies, meanwhile, guided the sheriffs’ behind-the-scenes communications strategy. Mark Pfeifle runs the secretive firm, and also served as communications advisor in the Bush administration, leading PR efforts for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....

This week, enigmatic former Donald Trump campaign advisor Carter Page appeared on a PBS News Hour interview to defend himself from the revelation that he was caught on a phone wiretap colluding with Russian intel agents during the election. This came as a surprise because Page’s last publicly known location was Moscow, suggesting he had already fled the country.

He told PBS this week he’s Arizona – but he was standing in front of what appears to be a fake background that has been used before by other political figures.Here’s a screen grab of Carter Page’s interview on PBS News Hour this week.

If your first thought was “Why is he standing outdoors in front of a mountain during a remote television interview,” we asked the same question. And if your second thought was “Does he look like he’s poorly superimposed on that fake looking background,” we asked that question as well. So we went digging, using a Google image reverse-search, and we uncovered this strangely familiar image of Arizona Congressman Trent Franks giving an MSNBC interview in 2016 in front of the exact same scene:...

When Donald Trump gathered the press at Trump Tower 20 months ago to announce his unlikely candidacy for president, he reportedly paid actors to fill the marble lobby and cheer.

Not much — and everything — has changed since.

On Wednesday morning, when the president-elect once again faced hundreds of reporters from around the globe gathered in his lobby -- this time for his first press conference in seven months — Trump filled the room with paid staffers who clapped and cheered as he blasted members of the media as purveyors of “fake news.”

It was Trump’s method of battling back an extraordinary report that U.S. intelligence officials have presented both Trump and President Barack Obama with unverified allegations that Russia has compromising information about the incoming 45th president, including about a reported salacious encounter in a Moscow hotel room....