Reputation
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 12th, 2010
I recently read an article in drovers.com that I found very interesting. It seems that Yellow Tail wine, based in Australia, was set to support the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). However, according to this article, many U.S. wine drinkers and food producers were unhappy with this decision.
At first glance, I wondered why…isn’t helping animals a good thing? It turns out that there are reports that very little of the money that runs through HSUS actually goes to the care and help of animals. The groups that were against Yellow Tail supporting HSUS used social media as a part…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 21st, 2010
There is an interesting article in AdAge.com about the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s decision to continue to make a scheduled stop at a private resort in Labadee, Haiti. It’s a pretty strong article with a great deal of criticism from PR pros. As I was reading it, I was wondering where the other side was…there are no quotes from PR pros saying that they “get” why Royal Caribbean made the decision to continue to make stops in Labadee.
As I read the piece, I was thinking that I must not be reading this article right because I would have advised this cruise…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 14th, 2010
Webworkerdaily.com has a good post focusing on whether it is possible to be personal and professional in social media. It is a topic that we, at AHA, discuss on a regular basis.
We are a boutique agency by choice. We started that way and it works for us. Now, we happen to believe that you can be small and still deliver the results of a much larger agency. Small doesn’t mean less to us, it means lean, focused and it gives us the opportunity to be a real team. It also allows us to make choices about the clients that we take…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 10th, 2009
Susan Young has an amusing and somewhat realistic blog post on the 10 things that clients say that scare PR professionals. It’s worth a read. For those of us in PR, it will make you nod your head and chuckle. For clients, have a read with your sense of humour turned on, you may find yourself nodding and laughing too.
The post raises a good point and one that we, at AHA, discuss quite often. We have a range of clients from senior communicators in large corporations to CEOs and business owners to start up entrepreneurs. And believe me when I…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 03rd, 2009
I think communicators follow scandals like the one that is dogging golf great Tiger Woods with a different mindset. Our focus is on what needs to be done to minimize the damage and what the person in the spotlight could do to save or rebuild their image or personal brand.
Tiger Woods is an international icon and this news, however private, was the lead on most newscasts last night and will be in the spotlight for days to come and online forever. We had a very lively discussion in the AHA office about this situation and what we would advise Tiger.
Now,…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on November 30th, 2009
I have to admit, when I heard about the accident over U.S. Thanksgiving weekend involving Tiger Woods, I thought “hmmmm.” There seemed to be something missing from the story when I first heard it – what was Tiger doing leaving his house at 2:30 am on Thanksgiving, distracted enough to hit a fire hydrant and a tree?
There are lots of rumours out there right now. The thing is, Tiger isn’t talking, so the rumour mill is growing. During an issue, if you don’t give people solid information, they will speculate, discuss and even gossip.
Twitter, Facebook, blogs and mainstream media are…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on October 19th, 2009
This blog post might not seem to have a great deal to do with PR or communication, but the reality is, it is at the foundation of what we do professional and personally. It touches everything.
It was inspired by a post by one of my favourite people in the whole world (even though we have never met in person) – Chris Brogan. His post is short and definitely worth a read. In fact, everything he writes is worth a read. I might not always agree with Chris, but I always respect his opinion and he makes me see the world from…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on September 25th, 2009
The Idea Grove, a Dallas-based PR agency has released an assessment quiz designed to help corporate communicators determine whether their PR agency is doing a good job for them. It’s worth a read – for both clients and those of us in agencies.
We circulated the link here at AHA and I think I might frame it and put it up over my desk. This quiz has great questions that anyone working with an agency should ask themselves and that agencies should review to make sure that they are excelling.
We have a mix of clients that we have had for years along…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on September 15th, 2009
There has been much talk (online and off) about how Kayne West created a scene at the Video Music Awards recently. Apparently, Kayne stormed the stage when Taylor Swift was accepting her award for video of the year, grabbed the microphone and announced that he thought Beyonce should have won the award. You can read more about the incident on Rolling Stone.
Then, ABC news reporter Terry Moran tweeted that, during an interview with his network, President Obama called Kayne a “jackass” for his outburst. Turns out, the part where (allegedly) Obama called Kayne a “jackass” was off the record. ABC…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on August 31st, 2009
There is a very thought-provoking blog post by Lauren Fernandez that created some interesting discussion here at the AHA office. At the heart of it is the question – do we conform to social media standards or should they conform to us?
The challenge that Whole Foods is facing is an example; social media became a big part of this issue. Thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other tools, more people learned about the letter and could weigh in, making their opinions known.
Should the CEO of Whole Foods NOT have written the letter to the editor because it could create a backlash,…
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