What’s The Buzz All About? Public Relations In The News

by admin ~ July 27, 2010

Each week, Mediashop PR gathers interesting and newsworthy public relations articles in the news.  We decided to share news from Brandweek, New York Times and Weber Shandwick.  We hope you enjoy! 

In a recent article in Brandweek, it was reported that Dawn, the Proctor & Gamble-owned dish washing soap, is executing a new marketing campaign that is not as squeaky clean as its other campaigns in the past. Instead of focusing their marketing on highlighting new products, it compares Dawn’s as being a more powerful type of soap then the other two competitors. In the TV, print, and in- store, one of the competitors looks very similar to Colgate-Palmolive’s lower-priced Ajax brand, whose sales have been faster than Dawn’s sales. In these hard economic times, dish washing soap sales have been up because more people are staying home more and cooking and therefore cleaning, but Dawn who is currently rated number one, wants to make sure that their dollar sales are growing just as fast or faster than competitors such as, Ajax. How do you think the public will respond to this new campaign? Do you think it will hurt Proctor & Gamble’s reputation?

Are you ever bored during the pre-show experience, watching banner ads and trivia questions before a cinema production? According to this New York Times article, Screenvison, a company that sells and programs in-cinema advertising, has a new campaign to spice up their advertisements. This company plans to start using the “advertisement” block of 20-minutes in a private showing to various marketers in New York. Many sponsors like Nascar and Timothy Mosley, otherwise known as Timbaland, will release exclusive footage that marketers can sponsor. Screenvision’s goal is to make the movie-going experience more interactive by using cell phones to download coupons that are only accessible to movie-goers. This new “advertisement” block will be shown in September. Do you think this marketing tactic will entice movie-goers to pay more attention to the advertisements before the show?

Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading public relations firms, announced yesterday in a press release that they have endorsed the ‘Barcelona Principles’ which are seven principles that were put in place to help effectively measure public relations on a more common ground. These principles were adopted by the annual European Summit on Measurement last month, where representatives from 33 countries attended. To view the ‘Barcelona Principles’ please download here.