I guess Bob Parsons of Go Daddy doesn't read my blog, as I had recently written him an open letter, asking What About Phoenix in reference to his blog post on his Super Bowl ad , and how he did not go with an Arizona agency. Damn you Blogger for not having trackbacks! Well, reading today's O'Dwyer PR Website, I guess that Arizona PR firms are also beneath Bob. According to the article (sub req), Go Daddy, the Internet domain registry generating press with its upcoming Super Bowl ad, has hired Ruder Finn as its first agency of record. Nima Kelly, the Arizona-based company's VP of PR who recently joined from sister company Wild West, told O'Dwyer's GoDaddy considered two or three other firms for the account after a review. Going to go out on a limb on this one, and guess that none of the three or four firms were Arizona-based. As for the Super Bowl ad, come on. So, great, now you have two ads , one in th...

This has been an amazing event, and some of the large PR firms had people out here to learn, to observe, to help their clients. Some of the agencies include: Ketchum , Fleishman Hillard , Bite Communications , Edelman (but, no Richard ). And, some pretty big companies had people out here as well - either thinking of setting up a blog for the corporation, or seeing the blogosphere as a group that needs to be tracked and, well, pitched to keep the dialogue open on new products. It's been a great event, and I'll be posting what I spoke about, what others spoke about, a picture of Andy Lark - and what he said - and an overall overview of the conference. If you're in public relations or corproate communications, this should have been an event you attended .

Well, it looks like outsourcing has hit the public relations industry ... or it will if RPA & Communicate , a Philippines-based public relations firm, has anything to say about it. In today's O'Dwyer's , RPA & Communicate, which is based in Manila , has sent a letter to American PR heads offering outsourcing services. Philip Abadicio, managing director, cited “increasing labor costs in the U.S. ” in offering to write press/broadcast releases and reports, develop strategies and create PR plans. Since “labor costs are much lower in the Philippines , you can dramatically decrease your overhead expenses and lessen your employees,” wrote Abadicio. He noted that Filipinos are “well-versed in both speaking and writing in English because this is the primary medium of instruction in all school levels.” Abadicio believes the rise of the Internet makes it “much more practical for your firm to outsource.” RPA will charge $300 for a press release up t...

Well, after Jay Rosen 's post yesterday on PR Bloggers being MIA , the PR blogosphere went into overdrive mode ... pinning the blame on Ketchum, on the associations for not speaking up, on not being a PR blogger but a blogger that is in PR and writes on other issues ... well, everything but thinking, hey, you know what, we should take a stand. Poytner also picked up the story - it was the top story for Romenesko - and that lead to more action. Plus, Lisa Stone aka Surfette (she sorta does look like Smurfette) wrote another piece on the subject for PressThink , aggregating the views of various PR bloggers. Us nouveau PR professionals - the ones that have embraced the blogosphere, and see the importance of citizen journalists - have more of a responsibility to take a stance. Doesn't our embracing of the grass roots nature of the blogosphere mean we should use the grass roots nature for own our causes? Shouldn't we say, "hey, the buck stops here" (so, be u...

"I have raised points that I thought should be picked up by other PR bloggers, where we would all raise a red flag ... and silence." That was my quote last June for PR Week 's article on PR bloggers push forth the medium . What happened? Nothing has really changed - I blog about issues that I see as wrong in public relations ... and it's not picked up anywhere. Why don't PR bloggers raise the red flag on issues within PR? Why have we stayed silent on the Ketchum debacle , and not raised our voice. While this is a PR issue - and we are all about how blogs are the new communications tools, change the world, blah blah - Ketchum has barely been brought up in the PR blogosphere. And, now, we get to bear the brunt of this. Jay Rosen notes that while PR bloggers are not necessarily blogging about PR - nor is it mandatory that we do - they have been unusually silent on the Ketchum issue . A little bit of a brag, but the blog he notes has blogged the most - a...

The past couple of weeks have seen Ketchum and Armstrong Williams (well, mostly Armstrong Williams ) being condemned for paying/taking money to promote the No Child Left Behind program. I believe that this is a bad situation for public relations , I blogged about it once already ... and will blog about it again this week. So, we have seen Williams thrown to the wolves, Ketchum has brought some level of ruin - yet to fully be determined - to the business of paid consultants by not ensuring that Williams gave full disclosure (but, then again, Ketchum could have ensured that the program was promoted and disclosed, but that might have been too much for them). Hey, it's just like what they did for VNRs! But, what about bloggers that were paid by the Dean campaign as consultants? What's the difference here? This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal wrote about two prominent left bloggers who were paid consultants to the Dean campaign (subreq). Slate then wrote a good d...

PRSA and Council for PR Firms take no stance . With the opportunity to take a stand, and put out a strong statment on the Armstrong Williams issue , and PR's future, both PRSA and Council for PR Firms decided that all the blame lay at the feet of ... Armstrong Williams. From the NYT article: Judith T. Phair, the president and chief executive of the Public Relations Society of America for 2005, condemned the decision by Mr. Williams to, as she put it, promote the law "without revealing that his comments were paid for by a public relations agency under contract to the government." "Any paid endorsement that is not fully disclosed as such and is presented as objective news coverage," Ms. Phair said, is a violation of the group's code of ethics, "which requires that public relations professionals engage in open, honest communications and fully disclose sponsors or financial interests involved in any paid communications activities....

Hot off the O'Dwyer presses (sub required), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington just filed a FOIA request with 22 government agencies regarding their contracts with PR firms. This is the fallout of the recent mini-scandals affecting DC public relations and public affairs. In the past few months, we've seen fallout from: Fleishman and the LA DWP Ketchum and the Karen Ryan VNR for DHHS Ketchum and the Armstrong Williams plugs for NCLB Fleishman and the Drug Control Office Qorvis and Saudi Outreach and radio ads These are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head. This cannot be good for the agencies that have public affair practices in DC. We have yet to hear of any backlash against the other large firms, but maybe they have kept their noses cleaner in DC, or have been lucky. Ketchum, for one, has just begun an internal review of its DC practices, and will begin an external review of all its government contracts. Might be...

Bad Timing Quote Award : Vonage ! "Rising tides lift all boats,'' said Brooke Schulz, vice president of communications for Vonage. I guess Vonage forgot about a little thing called the Southeast Asia Tsunami , and wasn't fast enough to come up with another metaphor. One thing to note: while most companies have dedicated some part of their home page to disaster relief, there's no button or link on the Vonage homepage, nor does it look like they have sent out a release on the company's philanthropic endeavors for the Tsunami victims. Is PR's objective to drive sales or awareness ? Via PR Opinions comes this press release from SHIFT Communications . While, from the press release, it appears that some of the information is expected - marketing believes that PR is to drive sales, sales through PR have more clout - it's probably a study that hasn't actually ever been compiled. It's one of those things that needs to be seen o...

Phoenix is an interesting market. Even after practicing PR here for a couple years, I cannot put my finger on why it's a different market. Many of the boutiques here tend to practice AZ/Phoenix-only publicity, and let the larger fish in this sea go to New York, Los Angeles or other parts. Now, we are a big city - but we are also 300 miles from other metropolitan areas (excluding Tucson). Maybe that affects us: small town mentality because we are so far away from everything else. We are also known as an Old West type city, with a few very powerful families. Now, every year I hear the same thing: as more people move in, the demographics will change. Well, I've lived here for 18 years ... and it's still an old boy's network at times. Cities of similar size and smaller are able to support large agencices, and have vibrant PR and advertising communities. The local paper does not have a marketing or advertising column, but in the past we had some big dogs in Phoenix....

Is CES becoming COMDEX ? Mike Langberg - the CE reporter - writes up about convergence being the word at CES. But, that convergence is likely going to be a long way off, and that right now it's hard to see who is going to do what, and if any of it will be delivered or rest in history as vaporware. My thought is if the show becomes too vapor-heavy, it might be doomed to the same end as COMDEX. Bad fortune cookie fortunes: You will order more Orange Flavored Chicken in the near future. I like Chinese food, and it's always a toss-up when I want fast Chinese food on how much I want to spend: Pei Wei versus Panda Express . Or, if I'm turning left or right out of the house. Part of the Chinese food experience is the fortune cookie. Yes, it's a cliche, but I look forward to what a cookie says is going to happen. But, after my fortune last night, I likely won't be heading back. So, guess they were wrong on that fortune. Texting for a cause...

From the same firm that brought us the Karen Ryan VNR debacle , now comes the Armstrong Williams blow-up . Now, this cannot be much fun for Ketchum DC, but the fact of the matter is that the office somewhat brought it down upon themselves. First, this is the firm that hired Karen Ryan to do some work for the Department of Health & Human Services . She went out their on a video news release - something that everyone in PR does - but signed off as Karen Ryan Reporting. A group of words that will likely haunt Karen and Ketchum till the end of time ... Of course, the Ryan debacle would have likely fallen out of the public's mind if not for ... the Armstrong Williams debacle . Now, I would bet that the Associated Press would not have been so hot on the trail for a story on the push behind "No Child Left Behind" if Ketchum had not worked on both NCLB and DHHS ... see how Ketchum has gotten itself caught in the crosshairs? For his $240+K, Williams lost his Tribun...

Just hot off the PRW presses, Andy Lark is leaving Sun . Besides Lark being the VP of global communications and marketing at Sun , he's also a blogger and he's a keynote speaker at the NewComm Forum . Lark notes that he's "not going to be taking time off to discover myself or spend more time with my dog" which I find sorta sad. His dog is pretty cute . I wonder what the next thing will be, and if he's going to expand his blogging knowledge into a new venture. Only time will see ... or maybe he'll give us some skinny at his keynote at the NewComm Forum . _________________________ update: Lark now has a posting on his moving on from Sun .

PETA is an organization that has taken on the likes of McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken ... but now, it's taken on the Jews. Well, specifically, the laws of shechita and Agriprocessors. Agriprocessors is an Iowa slaughterhouse that is ordained as kosher; the laws of kashrut are not simple, but are quite complex. One of the main tenets is that the animal live a good life, and die a painfree death. Well, PETA decided to go guerilla to film how cows were being slaughtered at Agriprocessors, and then, using their usual grass roots efforts, to spread the word that Agriprocessors wasn't really kosher. The story had widespread interest, and was most recently covered by the LA Times . Now, how does a group of orthodox rabbis, the different groups that ordain food as Kosher, and, well, Agriprocessors take on an organization that is a well-oiled PR and grass roots machine? Well, the rabbis and the kashrut organizations hired Lubicom Marketing Consulting , a firm that has ...

MWW starts blogging service. HA! : Well, actually, this is not a surprise to me that MWW has started a service to help its clients with the blogosphere. A lot of PR firms are going to get into this. But, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding on whether MWW can deliver what it is promising the clients. If this screws up royally, companies will sour on outsourcing blogs or hiring PR to promote them. Do the MWW people understand the blogosphere enough to correctly pitch blogs? As we have seen in the past, covert blogs don't work and people eat alive blogs that are overtly marketing tools. How is MWW going to carry this off? The company itself - admittedly - does not have a blog, and could not name any employees that blog. Plus, the two blogs mentioned for Nikon are the no-brainers - let's name some blogs that might not be mainstream, but are still influencers. Or, do they not know those blogs? Shel Holtz has a great analysis of the situation . My ...