I am blessed, honored and grateful to work with such an amazing team. Nearly five months ago I told my colleagues that I was pregnant, and from that moment they have been incredibly supportive and excited for me. To better understand, look no further than our take on Starrkeisha’s Baby Momma Dance.
While we won’t find out the baby’s gender until he or she arrives, one thing is certain – the Clairemont team likes to celebrate and dance. Have you seen our “Good to Be Alive” video?”
Anyone who knows me knows that I love pageantry. In college, I was privileged to take top honors in five pageants, but I walked away with a lot more than a crown and a title. The wins also meant a substantial amount of money for scholarships and trips around the world. Pageantry has helped cultivate and culminate my skills and talents. I believe that pageants are more than just the tiara – they teach young women about volunteerism, kind deeds and love for all mankind.
In recent news, The Miss USA system has been under copious amounts of scrutiny in relation to the presidential election. There have been fresh changes in the ownership of the organization and a lot of confusion over the brand’s identity. Last year the pageant was dropped from NBC and Univision and it aired on the independent channel REELZ instead. Sponsorships from Macy’s were also pulled from the pageant along with a lot of commercials that would have aired on NBC. Put it all together and you get a PR crisis, but it doesn’t stop there.
Normally, most of the criticism spinning around the Miss USA system takes place during the swimsuit round. Viewers often find it demeaning – claiming that it shows too much skin and promotes “perfect” bodies to viewers of all shapes and sizes in the United States.
If you watched the pageant this week, you learned that the Q&A round may be even worse. It’s meant to be a chance for the contestants to showcase their intelligence and public speaking skills. In most instances this is the only time we get a chance to hear their perspective on issues that should prove they are the pristine candidate. As a previous contender, I know that this is the opportunity to either shine or shatter and lose the crown.
Questions are selected at random so the contestants have no idea what they will be asked. The tricky questions in the mix seem increasingly concocted to trip contestants up (from a production standpoint). Viewers can expect 30 seconds of utter terror assessing questions surrounding issues like the bathroom bill and the migrant crisis, as well as other social and political issues.
Although all five questions were tricky, one question took the cake. Miss Hawaii was asked point blank who she would be voting for in the presidential election. A question that was not exactly expected and the audience responded with loud screams and boos.
In the PR industry, we are constantly preparing our clients for a crisis. On the stage at that very moment, Miss Hawaii needed a crisis communications plan. Of course, she can be accused of the fallacy of fence-sitting after not answering the question, but it was also a wise choice for her to keep away from political associations.
Sometimes our clients will be thrown curve balls. We as PR professionals know to expect and anticipate thorny questions from a reporter or media contact from time to time, and that’s why preparation and key messages are invaluable. Although I am sure Miss Hawaii did not think she would be asked who she would vote for, there is no question after hearing her response that she has knowledge about the controversial issues that are currently in the news surrounding the election.
My tip – the next time your client steps into the spotlight make sure that they are well prepared for their close up on camera no matter what direction the interview takes.
Want to learn how to perfect your crisis communications plan? Watch our On The Record series here.
Shrinking newsrooms. It’s something PR professionals have been battling for years, and news opportunities only seem to be getting slimmer. Two and a half years ago, Chris Schroder, president of SPR in Atlanta, started the 100 Companies and the Atlanta 100 as a way to help spread the word about PR and content marketing in a model appropriate for shrinking newsrooms.
Chuck Norman, owner and principal of S&A Communications, launched the North Carolina 100 in April. Let’s go On the Record to learn more about the project and how it works.
Click here to subscribe to the North Carolina 100. Connect with us on Facebook and let us know how you are navigating the shrinking newsroom.
I was recently introduced to Beautycounter, a line of all-natural skin care products ranging from makeup, cleaners and moisturizers to baby soothing oil and sunscreen for kids. The company is part of a growing movement to keep toxic chemicals out of our bodies.
There is some debate surrounding the topic of health safety and skincare, especially when it comes to certain ingredients: parabens and phthalates. I tend to be a bit of a nervous Nellie and err on the side of caution. In my opinion, there’s no harm in keeping chemicals off my skin and out of my body, right?
So I ordered the Nourishing Day Cream. I was excited to add it to my daily skincare regime, but when I took the cream out the box I found another surprise. Take a look at the fine print at the bottom that lists what it’s missing. (Click on the image for a closer view.)
Do you see it? It lists ingredients the cream does NOT contain and the final one is “secrets.” Brilliant! I already felt good about the product I was about to put on my face neck and décolleté (More great copy found on the bottle. Doesn’t décolleté sound much more sophisticated than chest?), but the fact that the company calls out its transparency really drove them message home for me.
Beautycounter understands that more and more consumers appreciate knowing exactly what they are putting into their bodies, whether they are ingesting it in a meal or slathering it on their skin.
As PR professionals we love critiquing copy. The good, the bad and the ugly. Check out some of our other favorites here.
Can you believe texting has been around for more than 20 years? From pressing numbers on the dialpad to form a word (that was guessed by your phone) to the qwerty keyboard and now the smartphone, texting has come a long way over the decades, and it’s no wonder that it is now more popular than ever.
In fact, according to Pew Internet, texting is the most widely and frequently used app on a smartphone with 97 percent of Americans using it at least once a day. And check out these figures: 8.3 trillion text messages were sent last year alone. That’s 23 billion texts a day or nearly 16 million messages a minute!
Text messaging is now being viewed as a powerful way for businesses to connect with their customers, but it’s not without its drawbacks. Let’s go On the Record to explore how to make sure your text message isn’t lost in translation.
