Three coffee chains, three completely different PR playbooks. A Q&A on how Starbucks, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Caribou Coffee approach public relations, marketing, and reputation.
The New York Times's post-election "apology" from publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. — a rededication to fair reporting practices with no named coverage decisions, no structural editorial process changes, and no measurable standard for readers to hold the paper to. Why the format is the problem, and what a substantive apology would have looked like.
Industrial designer and branding expert Ravi Sawhney of RKS Design frames the 2016 outcome as a branding lesson: emotional connection with the core customer beats broad appeal. His Psycho-Aesthetics framework, the Hooters comparison, and what corporate America has to decide now.
Joel Manby came to SeaWorld in April 2015 to fix what Blackfish broke. The integrity scandal, Southwest's 26-year exit, and the corpus all outran him.
PR news in 2026 is broader, faster, and more retrieval-aware than the trade press has yet adapted to cover. The five categories every practitioner, journalist, and operator should now be tracking — including the ones most agencies still don't know exist.
Since Trump announced his presidential run, Trump-branded hotels, golf courses, and casinos have posted a 14 percent national decline in foot traffic — 20 percent in blue states. The geographic and demographic concentration confirms this is not a market correction. The brand-cost dynamics of taking a personal brand political, as they look at August 2016.
SeaWorld is the canonical reputation-collapse case study of the last fifteen years. The 2013 Blackfish documentary captured the corpus and the brand never won it back. Five-phase teardown, AI Communications lens, full cluster index.
BerlinRosen is a strategic communications firm co-founded 2005 by Valerie Berlin and Jonathan Rosen. Built to operate with the speed of a political campaign. Flagship of Orchestra (10-agency network, 600+ employees, O2 Investment Partners-backed). Rebranded from BerlinRosen Holdings March 2024.
Chris Burch has spent four decades identifying founders, funding growth, and building consumer brands. From Eagle Eye Apparel and Tory Burch to Burch Creative Capital and NIHI Sumba — the operator profile and the case study in cross-category operating range.
Saudi Arabia spends more on U.S. influence operations than any other Gulf state and more than most American allies. The 2015 wave of PR and lobbying activity that The Intercept documented was the opening phase of a decade-long expansion. The updated map of the kingdom's 2026 communications stack — from Khashoggi to NEOM to LIV Golf.