Sour Milk and Public Relations

Here is an interesting story out of China. Most readers may recall the tainted baby formula scandal from the past 2 years. It was a public relations nightmare for everyone involved. Well, there is a part 2 to the scandal and this time, it is public relations practitioners taking the hits.

Apparently, a public relations manager at a milk company was under pressure to increase sales. Like most practitioners these days, he decided to hire a pr firm and use social media. The strategy they decided on was, to say the least, very unorthodox. Working with the pr firm, he used social media to spread false rumors that a rival company's baby formula was poisonous.

The result, was of course panic. What was the result of this enterprising strategy:
1. He has been arrested
2. Staff from the public relations firm have been arrested.

The scandal is all over the news:
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Here is the interesting quote from the story:

Police told Chinese media that Mr An and BossePR dubbed the alleged campaign the “731 plan”, which aimed to stir up fear that competitors were adding adulterated fish oil to their milk products for children.

A special hello!

PR at Illinois (part 2)

My favorite students in the Illinois Public Relations Association were featured in today's edition of the Daily Illini (our main student newspaper). Their enthusiasm about public relations is amazing. The future of public relations is indeed bright:

http://www.dailyillini.com/features/2010/10/13/illini-pra-enables-to-students-to-explore-public-relations-field

Public Relations Night at the University of Illinois

This year, I organized the first ever Public Relations Night at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Two of my former pr students who now work in public relations (Liz Sablich at GolinHarris and Stephanie Florence of JSH&A) gave interesting presentations to a packed room.

Public relations is fast growing in the College of Media at the Univ of Illinois (and you thought the Univ. of Illinois was just about Advertising). Yes we do have an excellent advertising program. But the pr side is getting stronger each year. In Spring 2011, students can take:

Advanced Public Relations
PR Writing
Introduction to New Media (my course that will examine social media and pr)

Below are pics from the public relations night. Thanks to Ray and Ms. Bullow for the excellent pics.   All the originals are here














Yours truly giving the opening remarks.




















Students from the PR Club.  Always professional. I am always amazed  and impressed.

Liz and Stephanie giving their keynote address.

It was a packed house.

Ruth

Ruth. In case you are wonder what is Ruth, it is the name of Edelman's new branch. They do "integrated marketing." It will be interesting where this goes and how other firms respond.

In Ad Age, an Edelman representative had the following to say:

"People have talked about integration for the 30 years I have been in the business, and some have said that it's just not possible, but I don't agree with that," Mr. McGuire said. "It's not easy, and you need a resonant idea that can be interpreted across the media mix while moving people to action. But it also has to be cost efficient, and that's part of what's driving marketers to consolidate resources.

This is a must watch because it can help answer a lot of questions about integration that many have asked but few have had a chance to observe.