Dear Readers, Merry Christmas! Or Seasonal Greetings if you prefer non-religious, holiday wishes. Or Happy Winterval, if you like the full-on, pagan, northern hemisphere, feasting and even dark-side approach (go on, let yourself go). Read on ›

This second installment of a two-parter on Queen Elizabeth I describes how PR acts in support of leadership and authority using rhetoric’s persuasive powers. It tells the story of the emergence of modern PR practice and the modern world it shaped. (It is work in progress for my book: On Message: Propaganda, persuasion and the PR game.) Read on ›

Here is the second in my series profiling important figures in PR. It is the first of a two-parter looking at Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558 – 1603). (I am working my back to the Romans and Greeks who got this whole game going.) Read on ›

I’m sitting lakeside near Zurich after a swim, and I surf on my friend’s handheld electronic thingamajig. It lands me on Paul Holmes’s eponymous Report. There I click on a video by Richard Levick, CEO of Levick Strategic Communications. He’s discussing three common mistakes that companies and countries make when faced with a crisis. Oops, and he then makes four classic PR errors himself. Read on ›

So, the scandal-ridden English FA accuses the scandal-ridden FIFA of corruption. The media are calling for Mr Blatter’s head on a platter. PR Week’s PR “experts” are urging FIFA to cringe and apologize, reform and move on. (What we call ARM PR.) Meanwhile, Mr Blatter asks, crisis, what crisis?

Read on ›

Here is the first in a series of profiles of important figures in the PR realm. It is my intention to examine the likes of Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud, Walter Lippmann and Daniel Boorstin over the next few months. Here’s Marshall McLuhan (1911 – 1980) as a starter. Read on ›

We PRs cannot avoid philosophical matters because, as Martin Sandbu says in his new book Just Business – Arguments in Business Ethics, decisions made by business have consequences for other people. Read on ›

Public relations professionals don’t really do philosophy: we’re in the people business, and sound-bites suit us better than Immanuel Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785). As for our clients, well, we’re bound to note their lust for the latest guru-speak getting lift-off from an airport bookshop. Read on ›

Britain’s David Cameron just spent three days schmoozing the unschmoozable FIFA bigwigs. But did he and Prince William really delude themselves that their assorted PR team, powerpoint presentations and charm could bring the 2018 World Cup to England? Let’s hope not. Read on ›