PR Writing class

This class has been extremely helpful in both my degree and my future. It gave me real world experience with a client, deadlines, deliverables, the media, and working as a team. It has been stressful and difficult being in college and having 4 other classes along with this project AND other homework due for the class, but overall I think my group did as well as it could and we have a lot to show for our hard work. The assignments along the way were helpful towards the project as well, and helped give me the background knowledge I needed to write press releases, features, letters to the editor, etc. Overall I feel like I've learned a lot in this class, and I know it will help me in my internship, my last year of school, and my career.

Group Project

This group project has been stressful and exciting at the same time. It's been very difficult to coordinate all 4 people in order to get work done, so some people ended up doing a lot more work than others in the process. I'm one of those "take charge and get it done" type of people so I didn't like waiting around to hear if someone else was going to go ahead and do something. But overall it was a really good experience and helped me learn a lot about what my future career is going to be like. The actual work involved was challenging but I am happy to be able to build my portfolio. It was very exciting to see our work directly in papers/websites. I hope our efforts were enough to raise more awareness for the organization!

How Time Flies...

It's crazy to me that we're already over halfway through this semester. It never fails, every semester and year in school I have ended up saying, "Man this semester/year/marking period flew!" It's almost scary how fast time is going. Before I know it I will be graduating with a degree and hopefully a job and then comes an apartment, a house, a family, and old age. I've been told by many adults to enjoy this part of my life, because everyday is exciting and new and you don't have all the responsibilities that you do as an adult. I just hope it doesn't go too fast, because I'm certainly enjoying being young :)

Opinion Pieces

I enjoy reading opinion pieces in various media outlets, especially my local newspaper. I find it interesting to see what other people think about certain subjects and I like that different from typical news that tries to be objective, opinion pieces are...opinions! I have always loved to write and have thought about doing an opinion piece or two myself. It is always eye-opening to me to read what is going through other individuals' minds about subjects that range from everyday and somewhat mundane, to strange and timely. I like talking to people about what I read as well, to try to start a conversation about the topic.

Group Project

What do you think of your group project so far?

I think it is going fairly well. We had a slight delay in getting our brief completed because the person we needed to contact was on vacation, however this morning we were able to speak to him and received good information. He seemed like a very down-to-earth guy and was very helpful. We have a good idea now about what the company is about and what he wants to achieve with our help. I'm optimistic that the rest of the project is going to go well.

ABC & Cablevision's feud

Yes, I think fear of negative PR influenced ABC’s decision to continue having its programming on Cablevision until they work out their contract. According to an article from The Wall Street Journal, “Walt Disney Co. and Cablevision Systems Corp. struck a last-minute accord late Sunday to restore Disney's blacked-out ABC stations to millions of New York-area homes just minutes into ABC's Academy Awards broadcast.” The blackout had lasted about 21 hours and was the result of financial disagreements over monthly subscription fees. Both Disney and Cablevision drew consumers into their feud. Consumers were well aware of what was going on between them, and I’m sure the blackout caused a major stir. ABC made a good decision to put its programming back on, especially in time for the Academy Awards, a program that reaches millions of viewers. The backlash that they would have gotten had they left ABC blacked-out would have followed them for years, and nobody wants that kind of negative PR. People are very devoted to TV, and would definitely cause a stir had the programming they’re used to seeing gone black forever.

The media

What scares me the most about working with the media is pitching the wrong thing to the wrong person and having them and my supervisor think I'm totally incompetent. I think that I am afraid that as much research as I'll do, I will still end up wasting someone's time and my own. And I know how precious time is, so I do not want to do that. I'm sure this will happen at some point in my life, at least once, but I want to try my best to avoid it. I guess it is something that you get better with over time and after building your media list, you will know exactly who to go to with what. But at this point, I can't imagine being completely comfortable with that.

Something you never knew about March

Happy March 1st everyone! March...the month of the start of spring, of the last bits of snow (hopefully), and Women's History. But I looked up March and I found out something else about the month that few of you probably know about. Apparently, March 14th is Save a Spider Day. Really...I'm not kidding. Now this may just cause some of you to chuckle or go "hmm", but for me, it's horrible. I am literally petrified of spiders. So much so that I have written research papers about my fear, given presentations about it, and can't focus on something when I know there is a spider in the room. If I see one, I need someone to go into the room as I wait outside it, get it off whatever it is clinging to, and dispose of it either outside or altogether. But not just that, I need proof that it is gone so that I can relax. It's nuts, I know and the weird part is, I'm not sure how this started. I don't remember anything happening years ago that caused me to have this...phobia. And that's definitely what I have, a phobia: an IRRATIONAL fear. I want to get over my arachnophobia, but I know that I can't at this point in my life because I have too many other things to focus on. Anyway...just wanted to let you know about my phobia and inform you to save a spider (if you want) on March 14th.

Nestle Crunch Hotline

I think Nestle did a really good job with their Crunch Hotline. It sounds like the kind of place that you'd like to call. It truly does show the company's personality that they chose to make their hotline "fun". The name alone makes it sound more fun. The hotline didn't make the person go out and buy a Nestle candy however they will remember the positive experience they had and the next time they want a chocolate bar they will go out and buy a Nestle. It was definitely well done on Nestle's part.

Bad Pitches

I think the bad pitch blog is very interesting. I don't know who writes the blog but they're pretty sarcastic and harsh in talking about the companies. It's entertaining to read through their rants though, and I found myself spending a lot of time reading through every post. Whoever writes it does give advice for PR people, reporters, and others involved in the media. And that makes me think they're experts in the field in one way or another. Either way, have a read, it is quite addicting: http://badpitch.blogspot.com/

Poor Overweight Kevin Smith

The cnn.com article states: 'The airline said it "could have potentially handled our communication better," but defended "the determination that Mr. Smith needed more than one seat to complete his flight comfortably."' That's their problem right there...that's not a real apology. They should have just taken out "potentially" and left it at that. There's no defending it because obviously there is media attention on this right now, and unless they want more complaints about how they handle customers and their complaints after the fact, they should have just stopped defending themselves. The article states that a government report put Southwest Airlines as having the lowest rate of complaints on any US airline last year...but if they keep this up they won't have another year like this. It's an easy PR fix, but they've dug themselves deeper by not just apologizing, taking the fault, and giving him a free flight to anywhere he wants on them. And because of all this, Kevin Smith is quoted as saying, "I'm never going on Southwest again." Not good news for Southwest.

Balloon Boy Stunt

The publicity stunt that I thought of right away was last year's balloon boy hoax. In case you didn't hear about it, here's a quick summary: The parents of a six-year-old boy in Colorado claimed that their son floated away in a gigantic balloon. Apparently this balloon looked like a UFO. The story got attention worldwide. For hours authorities were searching for the balloon and when it finally landed and the boy wasn't inside, everyone got scared the boy had fallen out. Turns out the boy was never in the balloon-he was hiding in the house the whole time. On a Larry King interview, when the boy was asked why he did it, he said, "We did it for the show". The parents had been trying over and over again to be in a reality series, and so that was why they were trying to attract media attention with the stunt. They faced several felony charges because of it. Pretty crazy...all to be on TV.

Publicity Stunts

I think Taco Bell's Liberty Bell stunt was the most successful on the list, seeing how their revenue increased by $500,000 that day and by $600,000 the next day. I don't think ProShade's offer to put a logo visor on each of the presidents' heads on Mount Rushmore worked. I didn't hear about it and had never heard of the company before reading the stunt. I thought Golden Palace's idea was terrific, and it obviously was a great success. They took someone else's news and directed the attention towards them by buying the half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich for so much money, taking it on tour, and holding events in honor of it. It bought them so much media exposure and went off a story that almost everyone heard about. I had heard about the left-handed whopper but I don't think I ever took it seriously...that's hilarious that people were actually going into the Burger King and getting upset that they couldn't order one! SonicYoga and Maui beverages both put their little-known companies out there by being creative and thinking fast but again I have never heard of them before the article so not sure how successful their end result actually was. It was interesting to read about D.C. Comic's publicity stunt. They're such a well-known company and I had no idea they put out comics about Superman being dead just to gain even MORE money. Del Monte's Meow Mix House and Half.com both had really good, creative, successful ideas, and Snapple's gigantic popsicle melting was a complete disaster that needed more planning. Overall, all of these were really interesting and entertaining to read since I didn't know about most of them!

Driving daze

I commute to school 6 days a week, three of which are from 70 miles away. I take 4 different highways to get there, and lately I've noticed that I'm sort of driving subconsciously. As I drive I think of other things...driving becomes secondary. I take exits and change lanes while checking the time and calculating when I'll reach the next highway and thinking about the classes I'm going to be in and if I'll be late or not. Before I know it, I've reached the school. I sit in my car sometimes and think about how I don't remember taking an exit or driving on one of the highways at all...it's a strange and scary feeling. Has anyone felt this way after driving to and from a certain place time and time again?

Has Twitter Peaked?

I personally have never seen the appeal of Twitter, but I know many people who absolutely love it. And all of these people seem to have had it since around the time it first came out, so I'd have to agree with that aspect of the article. I don't think Twitter peaking is a good thing though, even though the article tries to say that Twitter's original user base are strong and still devoted to the site. They have to gain more of a user base within the next few months because Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore, said there would only be cause for alarm if the site's numbers stayed the same for that amount of time. They need something new, some groundbreaking angle that will make those people, like me, who never saw the appeal in Twitter originally, say "cool" and give it a shot, and cause those devoted members who have been there since the beginning to have more of a reason to love it.

Intro

Hey all, I'm Kim and I created my first blog yesterday for my PR Writing class. I'm taking that class because it's part of my concentration at my college-Montclair State University. I'm majoring in Public Relations and am loving it so far. Hopefully the class will strengthen my writing ability and open my eyes to how specific writing within the PR field is different from writing in business, English, etc. Aside from what we're talking about in class on a given day, I'm not positive what I'll be talking about in this blog yet, this is still new for me, but maybe issues with internships, jobs in the future, salaries, social problems, stress problems, and other things that I deal with from time to time that I think are common things for people my age.