Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Most of us have suffered from a brain freeze. So what should you do if you’re caught in an interview, debate, or speech, and you forget what you were saying?

Drawing a blank during a debate for an excruciatingly painful 47 seconds. Although that moment became rather infamous (I rated it the worst gaffe of Election 2012), Mr. Perry is far from alone. Arizona governor Jan Brewer suffered a similar fate during a gubernatorial debate in 2010, when she went blank for 13 seconds. It was even worse for Jeanine Pirro, a candidate who briefly ran for Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat in 2005 but who quickly withdrew after misplacing a page of her announcement speech and going silent for 32 seconds. The truth is that most of us have suffered a similar—if less high profile—brain freeze. So what should you do if you’re caught in an interview, debate, or speech, and you lose your place?...

Bob Newhart is one of my favorite comedians, so I was excited to come across this clip from his old show Newhart, on which he played a local television host and innkeeper.

In this clip from 1984, Newhart’s character, Dick Loudon, interviews retired Air Force Colonel Lloyd Menenger about his book, Up The Amazon. The problem? He didn’t read his guest’s book prior to the interview. 

You've probably heard the statistic that words only account for 7% of how the audience perceives you. The problem? It's completely wrong.In dozens of books and hundreds of articles, you’ll find media trainers, presentation coaches, and communications experts offering a startling statistic:

Only 7 percent of the way someone forms an impression of you comes from your words! The remaining portion comes from your voice (38 percent) and your body language (55 percent)!

There’s only one problem: Those statistics are wrong. Completely wrong....

In Washington-speak, a "full Ginsburg" is when one person appears on all five major Sunday news programs in a single day.  The feat was first performed in 1998 by William Ginsburg , the attorney for Monica Lewinsky.  Since then, the trick has been performed about 18 times -- often by Presidential candidates.

If you are not running for office --and you are doing a Ginsburg, chances are you are running for your life. Even if one or two of the interviews is pre-taped, it is hard on a person to keep their energy up and their talking points down.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer logged a full Ginsburg this morning.  We'll leave to others to rate the substance of his answers -- but the way they were delivered was not impressive....

People will forget much of what you say during an interview. So be careful not to do these three things - or your audiences might remember even less.

...The “U” in CUBE A demands that your messages remain unburdened by three things: wordiness, jargon, and abstractions. The more a message tries to say—and the more abstractly it tries to say it—the less likely it is to be memorable. As a general guide, aim for messages that: have no more than two commas; contain no more than 30 words; and evoke concrete images....

What’s the best way to get people—an audience, your staff, a teenager—to do what you want them to do? If you’re like a lot of companies, leaders, or parents, you create a set of rules and policies.

Do not give customers a free upgrade without supervisor approval. Get your reports in by the 15th of each month. Don’t stay out past midnight. But those of us who have issued sets of rules know that lack of compliance is a big problem. Many people don’t like rules, so they ignore them. They lapse back into old habits. Staff members wait until the end of the month to submit their reports. Your teenager stays out until 2 a.m. In many cases, there’s a better way to get people to do what you want them to do....

This was an offensive and inappropriate tweet. But was shaming this student on the front-page of a college newspaper over the top?

I’ve done hundreds of radio interviews throughout my career. They seem simple. After all, you just pick up a phone or visit a studio and have a conversation with the host.

But radio interviews are nothing like normal conversations (unless your friends take listener phone calls and toss to a commercial break every few minutes!). Remember these seven rules for your next radio interview...

In his brilliant pitch for Kodak's slide machine, Mad Men's Don Draper teaches you an important lesson about how to speak about your product, cause or idea.

After one of its planes crash landed into San Francisco, Asiana Airlines issued a press release that didn't even acknowledge the victims.

Paul LePage, the controversial Republican governor of Maine, has a long history of contentious relations with the press. But the negative coverage his top environmental regulator received in a few local newspapers recently sent him over the edge.

According to the Portland Press Herald, LePage announced through a spokesperson on Tuesday that his administration “will no longer comment on stories published by the Portland Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel.”

In other words, he’s blacklisting three of his state’s newspapers. He may think he’s punishing them. But he’s the one who’s likely to pay the price....

The owners of the new pizza place in my neighborhood could use a little media training. I say this a bit tongue in cheek… After all, they’re a brand new small business and will likely have little to no interaction with the media. However, their messaging and communications skills could certainly benefit from some help. So please allow me, pizza place around the corner, to give you and our readers a few pointers gratis. Here's why....

Some radio stations don't want to conduct interviews by telephone anymore. Instead, they may ask you to record it yourself using your smartphone.