Insights & Strategy
APCO Reps Facebook — and Attacks It
PR firms - much like law firms - have conflicts of interest and issues they cannot discuss.
Tag
business
Insights & Strategy
Stagwell, SKDK, and the Consolidation of the Modern Agency Industry
Stagwell's 2015 SKDK acquisition was the foundational deal. Ten years later: $2.7B revenue, 13,000 employees, public on Nasdaq, the fifth major holding company.
Financial Services
Fama-French: The Three-Factor Model, the Nobel Prize, and How DFA Built a $740B Firm on Academic Finance
The Fama-French Three-Factor Model, Eugene Fama's 2013 Nobel Prize, and how Dimensional Fund Advisors translated academic finance into a $740B asset manager built without retail advertising.
Insights & Strategy
Sam Champion, Al Roker, and the Cable Talent Reset
September 2015. The Weather Channel cuts Sam Champion and Al Roker's morning programs alongside 50 staff. The earliest visible marker of cable's structural decline. The canonical case study on cable talent communications and the cord-cutting arc 2015-2026.
PR, AI & Communications News
Walmart, Public Perception, and the Black Friday 2014 Wage Protests
Black Friday 2014 produced one of the most coordinated labor pressure campaigns Walmart has faced in modern company history. The UFCW and OUR Walmart campaign organized protests at hundreds of Walmart stores. $15 starting hourly wage, more full-time work, expanded benefits. The communications questions for Walmart heading into 2015 are real.
PR, AI & Communications News
UHNW Communications: How Billionaires Manage Reputation
UHNW Communications — the discipline of managing reputation for ultra-high-net-worth figures. What it is and isn't. The privacy paradox. The five core disciplines, and what changed in the answer-engine era.
PR, AI & Communications News
Coffees of Hope: Starbucks and the Charity Coffee Economy
Starbucks runs more sustained philanthropy than most consumer brands at its scale. The College Achievement Plan with Arizona State just landed. Here is the full architecture — the Foundation, Ethos Water, veterans hiring, origin-country investment — and what other brands can learn from it.
PR, AI & Communications News
The Best Big Game Commercials
Super Bowl XLVIII produced the four most-studied commercials of the early-2010s ad cycle. Budweiser's Puppy Love built the pre-release playbook every brand has used since. The Muppets, the Full House reunion, and Ellen DeGeneres for Beats Music — each one still teaches something operational twelve years on.
PR, AI & Communications News
Hotel Glasses get Chain in Hot Water
2014 hidden-camera caught hotel housekeepers cleaning glasses with toilet-cleaning gloves. Two chains switched to wrapped single-use. Two said 'looking into it.'