By Ruth Brown
Ever abreast of the big issues facing a war-torn country like Syria, the US State Department has delivered a stern rebuke against President Bashar al-Assad’s Instagram account , labeling it “nothing more than a despicable PR stunt,” ABC News reports. In a press briefing, a department spokesperson told reporters: “It’s repulsive… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By Jonathan Salem Baskin, Contributor
I get daily pitches from PR people. Most of them are dumb, and I should know, since I started out in the PR world pretty dumb myself. Granted, those were the days when a word processor was the guy sitting at a Wang with a three-day input backlog, but I figured out over time what constituted a smart pitch, and I think those qualities are as true today as they were back in the Dark Ages. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
I meet with startups from around the world. There are several reasons that more big tech startups come from here than from any other place. Access to role models. One CEO, as we drove by Apple’s headquarters, told me how he watched Apple growing up from a startup, like I did (I lived a mile or two away and got a tour when it was smaller than Y Combinator back in 1977). He said “if Apple can do it, anyone can.” More on why role models are so important later. Access to funding. Apple needed funding to get started. So does every startup. Only a few can go it on their own with just friends and family money. But here even friends and family money is easier to get because of the role models. We all know that if we give you $10,000 (what GoPro started up with, by the way, less than two hundred yards from my house) that it could become a billion-dollar company someday. How many people around the world know that’s possible? Not many, in my experiences. Access to business infrastructure. Need a lawyer that understands how to help startups? They are here. Need an office with good startup help? Go see something like Plug-n-Play that houses 300 startups. Need a PR firm? They are here. Need a mentor who has built a company before? They are here. Need a launch vehicle, like a conference? They are here. Need a CFO who understands how to get a company ready for an IPO? They are here. Etc., etc. Yeah, they might also exist elsewhere, but not in high concentrations like in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, Los Angeles. Access to distribution. How will you get your new service into the hands of people? How about app stores? Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have them. Who else? No one with serious ones. How about search engines? How about partnership possibilities (want OpenTable to distribute your stuff, for instance?)? Those distribution and partnership opportunities are probably in San Francisco or New York. Rarely other places. Not to mention that most of the world’s tech press is located in San Francisco or New York. Access to monetization capabilities. You want ads? New York has them. Who else will deliver you the USA market, which is still the richest in the world (at least for a few years until China totally takes over). There are other markets that can monetize, but they are not as profitable and harder to kick off a worldwide brand with. Access to Talent. The modern company will probably need a big data expert. Someone who knows how to push around a big Hadoop cluster, for instance. Do you have one in your local community? Probably not, but they exist like flies in the San Francisco area. Google, and many Silicon Valley tech companies (HP, Cisco, Sun, Yahoo) started at Stanford University, which continues to pour out a lot of top-rate engineering and business talent. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
If you (or your talented PR person) secured your very first TV interview, you probably got through half a victory lap before the pre-appearance jitters set in. What will you wear? What will you say? How much time will you have? …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Jeff Bercovici, Forbes Staff
It didn’t always feel that way, but Marissa Mayer had a pretty blessedly smooth first year as CEO of Yahoo. There were some PR hiccups, yes, notably when the former Google executive rescinded work-from-home privileges for Yahoo employees. But on matters of substance, Mayer was able to operate with a free hand, backed by a supportive board and investors willing to give her time to let her strategy play out. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
There are three main reasons that automakers craft special editions: to celebrate a new launch, to boost a model’s flagging sales, or to garner some PR for an older vehicle. We’ll let you figure out which of these apply to the five-year-old Nissan GT-R, 624 of which have been sold this year. A limited-production version of the Nissan supercar was already announced for 2014—that’d be the Track Edition—but now buyers will have the option of a second such model, in the form of the factory-customized (and imaginatively named) 2014 Nissan GT-R Special Edition.
If there can be an elegant purple paint, this GT-R wears it. The color is called Midnight Opal, and it straddles the line between deep blue and eggplant. Nissan claims that the hand-applied finish changes color based on light and angle, but in a totally classy way. The SE is one step up from the base GT-R Premium, and is kitted out with specially finished Rays wheels and a carbon-fiber rear spoiler similar to the one fitted to Track and Black Edition GT-Rs. Owners can flash a serial-numbered gold plaque as a certificate of authenticity at track days. (Or at their climate-controlled, carefully dusted private collections. Either way.)
No changes are made to the GT-R’s formidable 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-6, which has received constant tweaking since launch and now makes 545 horsepower and 463 lb-ft. (The original 2009 model made do with 480 hp and 340 lb-ft.) Unlike the GT-R Track, which sacrificed its second row on the altar of weight saving, the SE keeps the vestigial rear seats; in any event, both special models are equally well-suited to accommodating four real people.
The SE adds $6000 to the GT-R’s bottom line, coming in at $106,590. Put another way, the cost increase roughly equals one soon-to-be-launched Datsun Go. Just 100 Special Editions will be assembled for worldwide consumption, and half of them will come here. So if you want your Godzilla to be purple, we suggest you get to steppin’ to your local dealer.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Car & Driver
By J. Maureen Henderson, Contributor
Recently, I sat down with a young startup founder whose company was aiming at the Millennial market. One of the questions he had was about whether or not he should be hiring a PR pro to get his company some early media coverage. I convinced him to keep his company’s limited cash and instead think about what he was actually hoping to gain from media exposure and whether his startup was in a position to be able to take advantage of it at their current stage of growth. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Jonathan Salem Baskin, Contributor
Financial services firms are suffering a “reputation crisis” according to one PR firm poll. Another global survey of public opinion says that 86% of comments shared on social media about banks was negative. A former chairperson of the FDIC sees “a sea change” of attitude toward banks going against them. A somewhat incessant stream of scandals, lawsuits, and the lingering detritus from the economic collapse late last decade qualifies financial services and banking as “the least trusted industries” (according to another poll), and one insider says Wall Street’s reputation is all but doomed to stay “in the doghouse.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Having spent some time with the BB10 powered Z10 and Q10 handsets from BlackBerry, I can see a lot of promise, but there’s a lot of work for the Canadian smartphone company to get through to bring BB10 up to the standards on show from Android, Windows Phone, and iOS. If BlackBerry is to reclaim the title of ‘the third ecosystem’ back from Windows Phone, there are a few areas I think they need to address. Developers, Developers, Developers The smartphone in 2013 is all about the apps. That’s where the extra functionality comes in, that’s where third parties can get their services into the handsets, and that’s what people go looking for in the stores. BlackBerry’s initial approach of bolstering their numbers with the ability to side-load Android apps is a nice touch, but it’s a stop-gap solution at best. Apps designed for BB10 are needed, and BlackBerry need to invest to build up the developer ecosystem. Make Sure There Are Lots Of Trial Versions This is one of the few areas where everyone can learn from Windows Phone – which has a trial version available for the vast majority of the applications in the store. For BlackBerry, where many functions are provided by second tier apps (such as ebook reading – where’s the Kindle or Nook readers?) there’s no way to try before you buy. Building up the confidence of users in third party apps is just as important as evangelising the developer community towards the platform. Stop Relying On Gestures Yes, I get it, the swiping gestures are the big marketing push – but it’s nothing more than a different implementation of a home button in your user interface. At least it’s not as gimmicky as the air gestures on the Samsung Galaxy S4, but relying on this upward move (with a twist to the left or right to open the hub) is not going to drive the PR message through the rest of 2013 and into 2014. Send In A Ninja Across The UI While I’m talking about the user interface, BlackBerry needs to get someone who’s entire job is to make sure every single part of the user interface works in the same way – in some menus you have to keep your finger on the screen as you slide through options, while others need you to lift from the screen. BB10 needs to mature and work in the same way in every area. Physical Keyboards Mean Too Much Scrolling While we’re at it, is there a way that BB10 can reduce the need for scrolling? It’s not that noticeable on the Z10, but on the physical keyboard devices such as the Q5 and Q10 there’s a huge amount of vertical scrolling, from the menu ribbons and setting screens to flicking through the Hub and reading emails. The scrolling is tiresome, and it’s very easy to trigger a gesture when you don’t want it. Some more thoughts and tweaks around the UI design might mitigate …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor
Yesterday’s post Putin Declares Himself Dictator With The Navalny Verdict stirred up a hornet’s nest of protest from Putin’s PR machine. According to Putin’s claquers, the Navalny verdict was just. He is a crook. He commands support from only one percent of Russians (All reasonable Russians love Putin). And what can you expect from a hack writer paid generously by Forbes do to do their bidding. Besides, this fool knows nothing about Russia, despite his pretensions. One critic took umbrage at my mention of Alexandra Dukhanina, the teenage girl held under house arrest for more than a year. After all, this vicious masked (wrong, she wore a stocking cap) girl hurled a bit of asphalt at heavily armed riot police. She deserved to be hauled off in a choke hold. (See picture) Despite my unmasking by Putin supporters, I continue my commentary on the Putin-Navalny shootout. The news of the day: The prosecutor has freed Navalny on bail pending his appeal. The American press has interpreted this either as a concession to Navalny supporters (wrong), as a split within the Kremlin, or as a clever maneuver to allow Navalny to campaign unsuccessfully in the September Moscow mayoral election against the Russian KGB state’s candidate, Sobyanin. Sobyanin was appointed when Putin fired his predecessor and needs the legitimacy of being elected to office. Navalny is Putin’s first victim to have charisma, an unblemished record, and a following of millions on his blog. Khodorkovsky was an evil oligarch, and the Pussy Riot girls offended traditional Russian values. Navalny represents virgin territory for Putin’s repression machine. Perhaps the Kremlin really does not know what to do. If Putin puts Navalny in jail for five years (which means he needs another sentence at the end of the term), the Navalny legend grows. But a free Navalny will be a constant thorn in Putin’s side as he exposes the theft of billions by Putin and his associates. Allowing Navalny to contest the mayoral race may be too clever by a half. Navalny will be running against a non-Muscovite (from Siberia, no less). To keep Navalny’s vote count down, there will have to be massive fraud, and it was electoral fraud that sent hundreds of thousands to the streets in December of 2011. Instead of giving Sobyanin his electoral mandate, he will go down in history as the one who stole the September 2013 election and set off the massive street demonstrations of September and October of 2013. What is a poor Putin to do? I see that Europe has responded to the Navalny sentence with harsh condemnation. President Obama is said to be concerned and following the situation. He may even cancel his visit to Moscow, but this may have more to do with fugitive Snowden than Navalny. Believe it or not, the United States has tremendous leverage over Putin at this point. Putin has staked his reputation on the success of the winter Olympics in Sochi. The treat of a U.S. boycott could …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
It’s been three years since Obamacare became the law of the land and the law is losing its luster
Source: My Christian Daily
After a disastrous Xbox One launch, Microsoft has worked hard to recover from the PR nightmare. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Are you trying to build buzz, but don’t have the cash to launch a full-fledged PR campaign? Hack it. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Political movements come. Political movements go. Which ones will last? Which ones will fail? How do we identify the principles that will shape our future?
The answer: follow the youth.
Now that might lead us to believe that Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign was the real deal, the game-changer for the future of the American political landscape. Not so fast. A massive PR con job that lasts one election cycle isn’t quite the same as an organic, lasting, growing youth movement. Young people might be impressionable, but they’re quick to learn. A younger, multi-ethnic frontman with a minimal political record can only hide the same tired old policies for so long. Soon enough, the youth will abandon a false prophet of hope and change and get behind someone who is truly on their side. Someone who sincerely fights for their future.
And that’s exactly what happened. Take another, opposite, unlikely youth leader: Ron Paul.
The political career or Dr. Ron Paul can easily be viewed as a failure. During his generation-long service in Congress, only one out of the 620 pieces of legislation he sponsored ever became law, hardly an encouraging sign of success. Paul ran three times for President of the United States, and all three times fell far short of victory. Earlier this year he retired from Congress, quietly slipping out of the public sphere.
But Dr. Paul didn’t fall short where it really mattered: inspiring future generations with hope. The firey youth-based movement he rallied refused to die long after his political campaigns came to an end. Organizations like the Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty continue to carry out the work of his movement. And they’re not going anywhere. They’re only getting stronger.
While time will be the ultimate judge as to the lasting impact of Ron Paul’s youth movement, the signs are already there. I witnessed one of these signs firsthand this past weekend at a Young Americans for Liberty conference in Fullerton, California. Dr. Paul addressed a room full of youth activists via Skype, some of whom had driven all day to be able to attend. An old man in his office bent over a computer received a standing ovation from a packed auditorium thousands of miles away, full of young people of every ethnicity, gender and background, most of whom were younger than his own grandchildren. This happened in California, a state known for adopting policies opposite of what Paul spent his life advocating. Proof be damned, this one powerful piece of evidence spoke with the force of a thousand statistics. Make no mistake: Ron Paul has won the youth of America.
The youth are the future. Those who control the youth, therefore, control the future. It really doesn’t get any simpler than that. And, judging from the lasting impact of the movement Dr. Ron Paul inspired, the future has been won for liberty.
Joël Valenzuela is the editor of The Desert Lynx
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore
By Sean Williams, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
It’s often been said that innovation is everything when it comes to operating a business. From technology to health care and even food service, fresh ideas and constantly adaptable product and service profiles are needed if a business has any hope of growing and staying profitable.
Constantly innovating, though, is always the tricky part, as it’s not as easy as it may sound. Trial and error can often weigh more heavily to the error side, and a business may be written off for dead if it fails to produce a new hit after a couple years. However, occasionally a dying or stagnant brand can be resurrected from the dead because of a hit product, or series of products. Here are three brands that have used innovation as a shot of adrenaline to get their business jump-started once again.
1. Taco Bell
It’s been a rough couple of years for Mexican fast-food retail chain Taco Bell, which is operated by Yum! Brands . In early 2011 a scandal erupted over the meat content in Taco Bell‘s seasoned beef. According to a lawsuit filed in Alabama, research of Taco Bell‘s seasoned beef indicated less than 35% beef content, which is well below the minimum requirements set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to label a product as beef. Taco Bell fired back with a scathing assessment of its own, but the PR damage had been done.
But rather than sitting on its laurels, Taco Bell took to the taste buds of millions of Americans and innovated its way out of certain disaster. On March 8, 2012, Taco Bell combined its fast-service Mexican-food brand with PepsiCo‘s Doritos brand to create the Doritos Locos taco. Sales of Doritos Locos tacos have been phenomenal, with the company selling about 1 million of the delectable morsels every day and accounting for approximately one-quarter of all taco sales. The love for Doritos flavored chips even spawned a second collaboration, with the companies introducing the Cool Ranch Taco last month.
These tacos come with about a 40% pricing premium to standard tacos, providing the margin boost needed to help Taco Bell rise from the doldrums — not to mention another nice plug for the Frito Lay-branded Doritos owned by PepsiCo.
2. Volkswagen
After powering many people through the 1960s with the small but popular Volkswagen Beetle, the company found its demand waning in the 1980s and 1990s. According to The Wall Street Journal, by 1992, Volkswagen had sold just 49,000 cars in the U.S., total, and had been thinking about pulling out of the region altogether.
However, things changed in drastic fashion in 1998, when Volkswagen reintroduced the Beetle with new, sleek styling and a fresh look aimed at hitting a younger market. The design didn’t just fit the bill based on its relatively inexpensive price — it touched a nerve with consumers who loved the car’s style.
Source: IFCAR, commons.wikimedia.
So far in 2013, with the Beetle getting
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/14/3-big-brands-that-innovated-their-way-back-from-th/
In what may be the year’s most unusual PR stunt, Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen claimed Friday that a flirtatious tweet on Cyndi Lauper was merely meant to drum up publicity for a PBS program on his city’s music scene.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/Re5-ISb6Amg/
I recently started writing for Ev and Biz’s new site Medium to complement my seven-year-old PR/media/tech-focused blog The Flack and musings on Forbes.com and Bulldog Reporter. But I wanted to do something a little different for Medium. I wanted to explore a topic in which I had first-hand experience, and that had many iterations that would resonate with other potential contributors. Medium’s model encourages others with shared experiences to contribute to your “category.”
From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterhimler/2013/04/12/the-startup-hype-cycle/
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Around the Autoblog office, we know Dick Kelley from his days on the public relations teams for Toyota and Mitsubishi, but more recently, he’s been showing us a little of his past. Before working the PR machine, Kelley had a photography career that spanned three decades from the early ’70s to the late ’90s – the first half of which was spent documenting Formula One races on film.
Other than a display at the 2012 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, Kelley says his images are “never-before seen,” but that has all changed with a new website showing a vast number of timeless, emotional shots mostly of drivers. Motorsports photography is hard enough just when you’re trying capture the cars, but catching the drivers and/or teams in candid images is an art form – and almost unseen these days.
Head over to his website or Facebook page to check out a selection of images including the 1978 shot of Gilles Villeneuve winning in Canada shown above as well as other shots of racing greats like Emerson Fittipaldi, Bobby Rahal, Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell.
Emotional photography captures the essence of classic F1 racing originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog
By John Divine, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Still gathering momentum in anticipation of corporate earnings, the markets rallied again today. Wall Street got some help from the Federal Reserve, which released the minutes of its latest meeting earlier than expected today. Bulls cheered the release, which suggested the central bank will only slow quantitative easing efforts when the job market improves markedly. Ending at an all-time record close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 128 points, or 0.88%, to finish at 14,802.
Health care was one of the strongest sectors today, and Merck shares didn’t disappoint, adding 2.9% to lead the Dow. A Jefferies analyst raised his price target on the shares to $48, citing his bullish view on pharmaceuticals, because of compelling valuation. The company also announced that the FDA will review Merck’s application to market an antifungal drug it’s trying to hawk in Europe as well.
It’s no surprise that the FDA also played a role in Pfizer‘s 2.8% climb today; drug manufacturers often live and die by the rulings of the regulator. Shares soared after the FDA labeled an experimental breast cancer treatment as a breakthrough medicine, meaning the agency will give priority review to the drug, speeding up the process it requires to get to market.
With tech stocks also flying high today, Cisco Systems advanced 2.4% Wednesday. Trading a little over 10 times forward earnings and paying a 3.3% dividend, Cisco shares offer compelling value in a Dow that’s risen 13% this year alone. The company’s new offerings with Microsoft to boost data-center productivity may also help send the stock higher if they catch on quickly.
But not everyone can be winners. Wal-Mart Stores , for instance, was one of only four decliners in the Dow, slipping 1% on PR-related negativity. The executive who called the retailer’s sales “a total disaster” in February, sparking investor fear, is leaving the company. A Facebook group of Wal-Mart critics, “Making Change,” derided the departure as “more of the same failure to address the real issues.”
Once a high-flying tech darling, Cisco is now on the radar of value-oriented dividend lovers. Get the low down on the routing juggernaut in The Motley Fool’s premium report. Click here now to get started.
var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “TickerReportPitch”,
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Provectus Presents Data on PV-10 Combination Therapy at American Association of Cancer Research Annual Meeting
KNOXVILLE, Tenn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Provectus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: PVCT, http://www.pvct.com), a development-stage oncology and dermatology biopharmaceutical company, presented data on PV-10 combination therapy today at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.
The presentation, based upon Abstract #4755 entitled, “Combination of PV-10 Immuno-chemoablation and Systemic Anti-CTLA-4 Antibody Therapy in Murine Models of Melanoma,” was authored by Eric Wachter, Savannah Blair, Jamie Singer and Craig Dees, all of Provectus Pharmaceuticals. The poster was presented by Dr. Wachter, Chief Technology Officer.
PV-10 is Provectus Pharmaceuticals‘s novel oncology drug designed to selectively target and destroy cancer cells without harming surrounding healthy tissue, significantly reducing potential for systemic side effects. Previous preclinical and clinical studies have established that upon intralesional (IL) administration, PV-10 localizes to injected tumor tissues while rapidly clearing from healthy tissue. Intralesional injection with PV-10 focuses the ablative impact on injected tumors and minimizes the potential for systemic side effects, making it an attractive candidate for both monotherapy and for combination therapy with other agents.
In Phase 2 testing PV-10 elicited an objective response rate of 51% in melanoma patients (CR: 25%; PR: 26%) after 1-4 treatment cycles, with a third of patients experiencing an objective response in their monitored untreated tumors (CR: 26%; PR: 7% in 42 patients with monitored untreated lesions). This apparent immune-mediated bystander response was highly correlated with successful ablation of injected tumors. Recent mechanism studies in B16 murine melanoma tumor lines have confirmed that PV-10 ablation induces T-cell mediated tumor-specific immunity, resulting in marked suppression of untreated metastases and tumor-specific IFN-ˠ production.
The data presented today at AACR utilized systemic immune stimulation by the anti-CTLA-4 antibody 9H10 to explore the potential benefit of combination therapy with PV-10 immuno-chemoablation in murine melanoma. Because advanced melanoma patients, particularly those with stage IV disease, have substantial tumor burden in areas that are often non-accessible to injection with PV-10, combination of PV-10 with systemic therapy may afford advantage in control of uninjected disease while the immunologic effects of PV-10 reach full potential. By combining PV-10 with the anti-CTLA-4 antibody 9H10 in very aggressive murine models of metastatic disease, researchers at Provectus aimed to ensure that any systemic treatment was potentially safe in combination with PV-10, and that efficacy signals from the combination therapy could be differentiated from those of PV-10 alone.
In order to discriminate the systemic effect of PV-10 alone from that in
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
