Barbie Continues to Be Relevant After 50 Years

Recently, Pierce Maddie Public Relations wrote an article about how Mattel continues to successfully brand Barbie in order to make her relevant for young girls and the fashion industry. Barbie has had many jobs over the years as a doctor, teacher, veterinarian and so many more. Mattel has found a way to create brand awareness and an iconic status for Barbie for over 50 years by creating an approachable image and positive message to girls all over the world.

It's important to make brands relevant to consumers, especially with today's economy making consumers question what's truly important when it comes to shopping. I think some of the most important ways to keep brands relevant would be to keep the brand image simple and clear to the targeted audience, align the brand with the overall PR strategy and find the interests of the targeted audience that are parallel with the brand.

Mattel has mastered brand relevance with the creation of Barbie and I'm sure the beloved doll will continue to have a powerful impact on young girls and the fashion industry.

Pulic Television Inspires Teachers to Ignite the Love of Learning

PR NEWSWIRE- Governor David A. Paterson, Google's CEO Eric Schmidt, Bill Gates, Sr., Alan Alda, Danica McKellar and the new cast of Sesame Workshop's The Electric Company Join THIRTEEN and WLIW21 to Invigorate Educators NEW YORK, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- During these tough economic times when education budgets are being slashed across the country, it is more important than ever to recognize the value of teachers and the vital role they play in preparing America's next generation to successfully compete in a global economy. THIRTEEN, the nation's flagship PBS station, and WLIW21 will provide a forum for the world's best thinkers and practitioners to come together and join in the conversation to improve the education of our nation's students at the fourth annual Celebration of Teaching & Learning conference, which kicked off today in New York City at the Hilton New York. The Celebration, a premier professional development conference, is where over 8,000 teachers, school administrators, business leaders, and policymakers come together to play a role in shaping the future of schools by participating in two days worth of panel discussions, over 100 workshops, and keynote addresses from international and national experts. Speaking directly to the needs of educators and parents, this year's conference will focus on literacy, math, science, global awareness, Autism, English Language Learners, technology, and whole school policy. "Teachers are facing increased demands to raise student achievement with fewer resources and less dollars. When the pressures on teachers are the greatest; that's when we need to ensure that they have the best resources and support to educate our students to new levels," said Ron Thorpe, Vice President and Director of Education of THIRTEEN. "Public television believes that by exposing teachers to leading experts, showcasing the latest in technology and trends in education and providing a platform for educators to join in the conversation to improve education, the Celebration will be a place where knowledge meets inspiration." Keeping with its tradition, the Celebration will host an incredible array of noted speakers including Governor David A. Paterson, who will give special remarks, Google Chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, who will be interviewed by Charlie Rose on the future of technology; the award-winning actor, director, best-selling author, and host of the new PBS production "The Human Spark," Alan Alda; and the world's most recognized autistic scholar and New York Times bestselling author, Temple Grandin. Other keynote speakers include actress and math enthusiast, Danica McKellar; internationally-recognized author in the development of creativity, Sir Kenneth Robinson; chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Sr.; and the new cast of Sesame Workshop's The Electric Company, which will focus on early childhood literacy. The Celebration will also feature prominent education leaders including Dennis Van Roekel, Randi Weingarten, John Wilson, Richard C. Iannuzzi, Joel I. Klein, Geoffrey Canada, Lucille Davy and Pedro Noguera. "Public television's mission is to provide educational content to inspire our viewers to seek knowledge," said Neal Shapiro, President and Chief Executive Officer of WNET.ORG. "By delivering a world-class conference that meets the needs of our nation's K-12 educators, attendees of this year's Celebration will leave with a renewed passion for teaching and with lessons that will resonate for years to come." I'm not sure how I feel about pushing yet more television on our youth. Does it not seem wrong that we are encouraging more TV time instead of the out-door time that kids really seem to be lacking.

Even the Pope Needs PR

After Benedict XVI's recent lift on the excommunication of four bishops, one being a Holocaust denier, he created quite a row in the Jewish and Catholic communities around the world. 

In his efforts to try to reach out to the outlier groups who supported these bishops he caused a blunder of a PR problem.

Had he been advised about the impact of the releasal of this information and had the facts and decisions been constructed clearly with concise reasoning behind them there might not have been such an uproar. The miscommunication came when the information was thrown out into the public haphazardly without reviewal or critique.

Now the Vatican is on high alert to try to douse the flames.

I guess this goes to show us that even when the economy is down and it doesn't seem like there is much going for us new job seekers, we can still take some consolation in the fact that everyone in the public eye still needs to look good, and we are usually the ones behind that.

Social mastermind

Social media and the methods of information dissemination have grown tremendously over the past decade. With the growing importance of social media and the world quickly becoming application hungry, JellyBarn has decided to kick off a $100,000 contest calling for innovative ideas at social media related applications. JellyBarn is a leading provider of applications, widgets, and games. The contest calls for contestants to submit their ideas at http://www.jellybarn.com/mastermind/ for the chance to have their application idea implemented. The contest is judged by Google, Yahoo!, and Razorfish, among others. The contest is meant to drive social media and show its importance. The social applications hold tremendous potential for marketers. I think the contest is a very clever and practical way at providing everyday people the ability to help shape the methods of social media that will only continue to be an important facet of our culture.

At the Texas Public Relations Association 2008 conference everyone seemed to want to know about one thing...Social Media. What I learned was that a lot of the more traditional PR practitioners saw tools such as Twitter as a big waste of time. Apparently, they were using it wrong. B.L. Ochman writes for BusinessWeek.

Here are 6 Social Media Myths that some people fall for.

1. "Social media is cheap, not free." In a effort to combine it with a marketing scheme you must invest in time and money.
2. "Anyone can do it." This is true, but it refers to how many people can actually use it effectively to meet their client's goals. Not many.
3. "Big splash, short time." You have to be patient, you can't expect success in a short period.
4. "It's all done in-house." You need to develop relationships outside of just in-house. A combination of efforts will help you succeed.
5. "If it's good people will find it." Driving your traffic toward your content is how you can take the initiative to begin a route for success.
6. "You can't measure social media success." There are several tools that you can use in different social media channels that can help evaluate your success.

Make sure that you follow these guidelines to ensure that you usage of social media is worth your time.

Catching a Break

By: Jody Volet

PR and Communications professionals are somewhat in luck this year. PR people are finally getting some respect. Their jobs are something that are not being dismissed so easily this time around. With the economy how it is has to start making some changes, such as getting going bankrupted, firing people and just losing money in general.

Well, with everything that is going people who can communicate are needed very much. When something is going bad with a company they need someone to talk about it and tell the public what is going on. When you are changing your image or have something big going on with your company, you have to have someone communicate that to the public. PR and communicating is very key. We are the middle man to getting the public to know information. We are very important people and companies need us.

PR and Communication jobs are not taking such a hard hit as other corporate businesses because they are the people who need us. They are the people that are helping companies get their message across and help people understand what is going on. There could be a chance that communicators could lose their jobs later on, for now they are just fine. PR and Communicators are some of the professions that have the least amount of layoffs and hopefully getting the respect they have deserved and wanted for years.

Reality shows as new branding tool?

Marie Claire magazine and the Style network have joined forces to create better brand recognition and attract new advertisers through the production of a reality TV series.

The new show, “Running in Heels,” documents the lives of editors, writers and interns at Marie Claire and gives a truthful, behind-the-scenes look at what it is like to work in the fashion business.

With ad and newstand sales becoming more inconsistent, Susan Plagemann, publisher of Marie Claire hopes the show will be a strong brand building tool to expand their audience, also attract advertisers due to its great perspective on working women.

The first docu-series the magazine industry has ever done was a perfect fit for the Stlye Network, which also wanted to expand its women audience base, bring in new advertisers and keep the current ones happy.

PR firms for both companies are collaborating for the promotion of the series, which is expected to launch in March 2009.

It is not surprising that the majority of the promotional efforts will be found online. The interactive strategy will use Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter to promote the show. Some of their other tactics include exclusive video content, weekly quizzes, newsletters and blog commentary.