By: Paige Strott
There is always a lot of news for PR professionals to keep up with and little time to read it. While you may be busy pitching stories or crafting that tricky press release, it is essential to stay informed about current events, especially what is going on in PR news.
Here are five pieces of PR news from this week that you may have missed:
1. GM sent recall letters to families of crash victims.
A story all PR professionals can get a lesson from sprang up today. General Motors mistakenly sent recall notices to families who have lost loved ones in car accidents due to faulty ignition switches.
This oversight is likely to damage GM’s image even further; the upset relatives are still speaking to the press and now have more to say after being reminded of the accident by these recall notices.
This story is a lesson to PR professionals on how important it is to foresee potential crises and rectify them before they become a reality. Read more on the story and GM’s apology.
2. Possible merger between Vocus and Cision.
There was also big news in media relations this week with the likely merger between Vocus and its current competitor, Cision. This will likely help many PR professionals synchronize their tools on one system.
Vocus’ CEO, Peter Granat, says the merger will create a “global PR cloud company”. Although others argue this new company will have a monopoly over PR software and the merger will give professionals fewer options. Read more about the merger on PR Daily.
3. Serious growth for Domino’s.
A marketing success story also emerged this week. Many PR professionals may remember the crisis Domino’s Pizza went through when employees posted a YouTube video of disturbing lack of kitchen cleanliness and it went viral. To rectify this, Dominos broke all the rules of crisis communications and told the public how the pizza was seriously lacking but now it was significantly improved.
This strategy was an enormous success. Domino’s has increased growth by 14 percent in one quarter and customers have regained a lot of trust in the brand. While this strategy worked for them it is not universally effective because some crises are bigger than bad tasting pizza. For instance in the story above, no one would tolerate GM writing jokes about how their ignitions used to be faulty. Ragan.com gives more details on Domino’s success here.
4. Apple unveiled iOS 8.
The new iPhone system will come with features that will make users’ lives much easier and many are especially helpful for PR professionals.
Through Apple’s “Continuity” concept you will be able to start something on one device and finish it on another; perfect for when you are on the go. The iPhone will now allow you to reply to text messages without leaving the app that you are on. There is also a large update on the Safari app, allowing for the desktop version of any site. For a full list of features see this article on Mashable.
5. McDonalds supports $10.10 minimum wage.
Last month there were hundreds of employees protesting McDonald’s low wages on their corporate campus in Chicago. This week McDonalds CEO, Don Thompson, threw his support behind President Obama’s initiative to raise the national minimum wage from $7.75 to $10.10.
This is progress for the employees, and his decision was likely part of a PR strategy, but this solution will not fix the bad press overnight. Reporters are not backing down from this issue either. Mark Gongloff of the Huffington Post noted that even if the employees were given a raise to $9 an hour they would still have to work for two months to make the amount Thompson does in an hour.
Few people feel that McDonalds’ profits would struggle if employees were given the $15 an hour that the protestors demanded but the solution to find some middle ground may not work either.
What was the most interesting PR news that you heard this week?
Photo via Mashable