I Don't BeLIEve!!/Week 9/PR

Some people give PR a bad name. On Friday Criss Angel revealed his finished product of his collaboration with Cirque du Soleil called "Believe", at the Luxor in Las Vegas. After a 5 week preview period, the reviews are in. One review from Doug Elfman said "Creatively, 'Believe' is a possibly unsalvageable 'waste of time' and a 'dead end' that literally bored some audience members to sleep." That was one of the nicer reviews. Instead of responding to the reviews in a professional way, Angel's PR spokesman said the critics were being "unfair" and "the fans are the ones Criss cares about." Way to handle the situation professionally. On Friday, October 31st the Luxor hosted a black carpet gala in which several celebrities were interviewed prior to the show. The reporters were told they were not allowed to interview them after the show. I was able to see the show when in I was in Vegas on October 18th and I can see why they did not want the reporters to interview the celebs after the show. I literally fell asleep during the performance. This is one of the worst pieces of crap I have ever witnessed. Unfortunately Criss Angel's PR practitioner has tried to "spin" the situation to make it favorable to him. You can't sprinkle sugar on crap and that is what's happening. In PR sometimes it's just a lose-lose situation and Criss Angel's Believe is a LOSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beautiful ONU/Week 9/ONU

We really do have a beautiful school. I may have been brainwashed by the unbelievable weather that we had on Friday, but I took a walk around campus (a.k.a I drove around campus) and was in awe by how beautiful the grounds were. The leaves on the trees have turned colors and I do not know why, but I just felt at ease. There cannot be too many schools prettier than ours. We do pay top dollar to attend this university and it seems the school has finally put our money to use. The grounds keepers are doing their jobs. Visually our school is top notch, now if we could only do something about the wind.

Gotta do Research/Week 8/Reading

Each week in this class I feel like I get a little bit smarter. Not a lot, but a little. This week's reading, Chapter 10 in New Rules of Marketing and PR, really hit home to me as I go into the workforce. I learned through the reading that for an effective web PR campaign to work you have to first and foremost think of your audience. While reading this I thought about one of my all time favorite classes here at ONU, public speaking. In public speaking before you write a word of your speech you need to assess your target audience and try to figure out what would work best in that particular situation and what would not work. Same goes for PR campaigns, they need to take the time to see who they are trying to reach and evaluate what the best ways to reach those people are. After that, then they can send the message. By no means should a PR practitioner just send a message without doing research. I'm taking public relations research this quarter and one thing I have found out is that research is key to having a productive anything.

Rainier For President/Week 8/PR

Recent speculations have been made about Sarah Palin's wardrobe costs. Reports say that the campaign has spent $150,000 dollars on her clothes in September alone, along with thousands of other dollars spent on her hair and make up. This might be one of the most sexist things I have ever seen. Being a PR major a practitioners job is supposed to highlight the positive attributes in the client. I see no difference in this situation. This is money that has been donated to the campaign to help Senator McCain and Governor Palin win. It should not matter what they are spending it on if it is helping the cause. Governor Palin I am sure was not the one who said let me go out and drop a hundred and fifty grand on clothes. She does what the highly paid advisors think are best. If it takes that much money to make the American people perceive her as a potential Vice President, so be it. I do wonder though, if Barack Obama spent ten grand on a suit would there be this much commotion. By the way I have no bias in either side of the campaign I'm going to be voting for myself lol. RAINIER FOR PRESIDENT!!!!

Don't Call It A Comeback!/Week 8/ONU

Looks like the football team has turned things around. I don't want to brag or anything, but I guess the football team read my last blog about them. Since my post about the bears terrible start they have rattled off three straight wins. Granted they weren't against the likes of Mount Union but none the less I say a win is a win. Everyone knew the team had potential I just don't understand why it took so long for it to come to fruition. They are playing like they have nothing to lose which they don't. With four loses on the season they are out of playoff contention. Overall they have turned things around and look like a team instead of strangers playing a pick up game. If they win their final three games the polar bears could have another winning season. Hopefully some coaching changes take place next year because this team should have gone far in the playoffs. Good luck the rest of the season to the bears and way to pull it together guys.

Viral Marketing!/week 7/readings

This week's reading talked about viral marketing. Before the reading I knew very little about viral marketing, but after reading "The New Influencers" I think I know too much. With the new era of technology it is easy to see why viral marketing has become mainstream. Once YouTube became known to the masses companies started learning how to benefit from it. One of the most famous viral marketing campaigns was the coke and mentos campaign. Although coke never endorsed the campaign it sparked a world wide phenomenon, selling a lot of each product. Viral campaigns have become the 21st centuries word-of-mouth. One person puts a video up and then shows a friend and so on. Viral marketing is a genius idea; it appeals to the masses for little or no money. A recent effort was Leonardo Dicaprio's YouTube video that encouraged people to vote. In the video he instructs you to tell five people to vote and then those five people tell another five people and so on. All facets of commerce, as well as the political world, have accepted viral marketing as a viable tool.

HD Audiobook!/week 7/PR

Audio books in high definition? This week a company released its first form of an AudioMovie. The AudioMovie is the next generation of audio books. Instead of listening to a monotone ninety-year-old man who does womens voices, you can now listen to a whole cast of actors that portray each character in the book. Is this what our society is coming to? Although I am pretty stoked about this invention I feel that it may discourage students from doing, what's that thing called? Oh yeah, reading! I do not want to sound preachy but I had to suffer through reading all those books in high school, why can't future high schoolers do the same? Only time will tell if this new form of audio book will take off, but it does sound intriguing.