For Immediate Release

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In a lot of companies, the PR and communications functions live under Marketing. For a variety of reasons, that is not the best approach. Marketing, after all, has a distinct role to play in short-to-mid-term lead generation and other outcomes based mostly on paid outreach. PR, on the other hand, is all about earned media designed to build reputation and promote thought leadership. Someone needs to sit at a senior level to ensure these efforts and other communication functions, like advertising, investor relations, and community relations, are coordinated and consistent. Call that person the Chief Communications Officer. Is it time every company anoints one? Neville and Shel explore the issue in this short midweek FIR episode.
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Are written and spoken recommendations received equally? Contrary to what may seem logical, they are not, according to new research. In this short midweek FIR episode, Shel and Neville explore what the study’s findings could mean for how marketers and communicators wield influence over the decisions people make.
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There’s a perception that people in their 20’s, raised with digital technology and accustomed to more effective messaging technologies, simply don’t use email. Could that spell the beginning of the end of this clunky, 50-plus-year-old business tool? Neville and Shel consider the possibility in this short, midweek FIR episode.
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Everything old is new again, the saying goes. Despite touting the idea of a press release as a destination being a new idea, it actually dates back about 15 years — and retains all of its value. Neville and Shel explore the idea of defeating paywalls with destination press releases in this monthly long-form episode of “For Immediate Release.” Also in this episode:

• Follow-ups to stories about Artificial Intelligence (AI) interns and facial recognition used for nefarious purposes.
• The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer — and whether Edelman can claim to be trust experts
• A roundup of news and commentary about ChatGPT
• A decline in Mastodon users
• Dan York’s Tech Report, which looks at some Twitter changes, good news for Mastodon users, a Mastodon instance for Medium users, Getty’s lawsuit targeting the generative AI image tool Stable Diffusion, Wikipedia’s new look-and-feel, and WordPress’s upcoming 20th birthday.

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Library TikTok is growing — organically. Librarians are meeting teenagers where they are, on TikTok, with videos that attract their attention and lead to library visits and more reading. Can this unorganized, grass-roots approach translate to marketing and communications? Is it looking at the idea of “influence” through a different lens? Neville and Shel explore the idea in this short mid-week episode.
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Working from home has become more commonplace in the wake of the pandemic, with executives who once believed productivity would plummet now reconciled to the fact that remote work, for the most part, has little impact on productivity (unless, as is the case in some organizations, it actually boosts employee outputs). And a lot of employees are thrilled to be working from home. That doesn’t mean that things aren’t getting a little stale. A Harvard Business Review article suggests remote workers might want to consider making some changes to their routines. The article even inspired Neville to take action he has been considering for a while. It’s all part of this short mid-week FIR episode.
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In this short midweek episode, Neville and Shel tackle a question from listener Kris Hansen about developing a metrics dashboard for her organization’s leadership.
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The virtual worker industry is booming in China. For about $14,000 a year — 80 percent less than it cost just a year earlier — you can get a three-dimensional virtual person to handle everything from tours to customer support. With expectations that the industry will grow by 50 percent annually for the next three years, the arrival of virtual persons in the West is inevitable. Neville and Shel dive into the industry in this short midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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Keurig Dr. Pepper has stirred up a controversy by issuing an RFP that included payment terms of 360 days. While some big PR and advertising agencies may be able to wait a year to be paid for their work, it’s most likely a non-starter for small and minority-owned agencies. (If most big clients turned to one-year payment terms, even the big agencies might have difficulty accommodating the requirement.) The agency world has united in its condemnation of the move, and Keurig Doctor Pepper’s response is tepid, to say the least. Neville and Shel discuss the situation in this short midweek episode of “For Immediate Release.”
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It’s not unlikely that you have been mispronouncing some well-known company and brand names like IKEA, Hyundai, Porsche, Bayer, and Adidas. Some brands use common mispronunciations as the foundation for a marketing campaign, as Hyundai has undertaken in the UK.  Neville and Shel explore some of these campaigns and examine the broader issue of hard-to-pronounce brand names in this short midweek episode of the “For Immediate Release” podcast.
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