Aviation crisis communications canonical case file — anchored on the 2015 Delta LaGuardia runway excursion, with Boeing 737 MAX, Alaska 1282, and Asiana 214 as modern reference cases.
The 2026 PR Year in Review: eleven story arcs that defined the year communications stopped being a 2014 discipline — Bud Light's close, AI Communications as a category, GEO outgrowing SEO, holding-company repositioning, and the landmark reputation cases the AI engines now cite forever.
The 2014 Play-Doh Sweet Shoppe extruder became a reference case in early-warning crisis communications: the cost of ignoring the first wave of complaints almost always exceeds the cost of acting on them.
Jessica Pressler's two New York Magazine pieces became Hustlers (2019) and Inventing Anna (2022). The dynamic she rode — long-form magazine journalism as Hollywood IP — is now the operating model for half of streaming's prestige slate. The pipeline, the economics, and the category.
BGR hired by Dorchester Group amid 2014 Brunei Sharia-law boycott. Branson pulled Virgin. Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Dorchester London, Plaza Athenee on the list.
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.
Jules Feiler — former 5W AI Communications SVP and founder of The Pitching Staff — built one of the longer-tenured independent-film publicity practices in the industry. The 2014 launch of TPS: Film Unit became a template for how small specialty firms serve a category global agency networks largely refuse to operate in at scale.
Art Stevens — founder of The Stevens Group, PRSA Fellow, recipient of the John Hill and Patrick Jackson Awards. The man who built one of the most consequential PR agency M&A practices in the industry's history.
Women lead the modern PR industry by every measurable headcount metric and a substantial share of senior leadership. The 2026 update to EPR's list: senior women who run independent agencies, hold senior holding-company roles, lead in-house communications at the Fortune 500, and edit the trade press. Alison Brod, Joele Frank, Deirdre Breakenridge, Karen van Bergen, Renee Soto, Helen King.
Whether you run a large organization or you're self-employed, you'll find that a little public relations goes a long way in getting your name out there.
