It’s hard to prove that something hasn’t happened because of your efforts. But a lot of high-powered Wall Street types are quick to thank George Sard and his PR firm Sard Verbinnen for all the stories  that don’t get written about them.

Both Sard and Verbinnen (Paul is his first name) declined to comment, but Bloomberg Businessweek wrote a profile that names the following clients: SAC Capital Advisors, Dell and Air Products and Chemicals (both involved in multi-billion-dollar deals), and Goldman Sachs’ Fabrice Tourre. The quote in the headline comes from the story, which says “the man with the gray wavy hair” was virtually the only person in the courtroom during Tourre’s trial not to get any media attention.

For its efforts, the article notes that the firm is the number one M&A firm by deal count, according to Mergermarket, “lending its expertise to 45 transactions worth $71 billion in the first half of 2013.”

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Here’s a great video to show your grandmother the next time she asks “What does a PR company do, anyway?”

Last night, Cleveland-based crisis management/media training firm Hennes-Paynter posted this short YouTube video featuring each of the three young women who spent more than a decade in captivity after being abducted by a neighbor in their Ohio suburb. Their dramatic rescue moved millions of Americans, and this clip marks the beginning of the next chapter in their very public saga.

Why did Hennes-Paynter decide to release the video at this point in time?

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Given their recent cringe-worthy non-apologies, perhaps Serena Williams and Paula Deen can learn something about handling public scandals from Pat O’Brien, co-host of Fox Sports Primetime.

O’Brien suffered his share of embarrassment back in 2005, when the drunken voice-mail messages he left a woman were leaked onto the Internet. Now, he’s more than willing to dish out some advice on how to rebound.

“I say this all the time: the best way to handle if you did something is to admit it. Cover-ups always worsen the crime. And we’re talking about low-level scandals here, obviously, not murder or anything. I always say the three A’s: admit, apologize, advance,” he told Mediabistro for its So What Do You Do? interview. “I talk to a lot of people in trouble — politicians, celebrities — they will call me and ask what to do. And that’s what I tell them. Get in front of the first camera you can find and admit it if you did it. And apologize to somebody and move on.”

For the full interview, read So What Do You Do, Pat O’Brien, Co-Host of Fox Sports Primetime?

The entire country watched in horror this month as Paula Deen’s deep-fried, butter-soaked career came crashing down in a mess of outrageous statements and one of the most painful non-apologies we’ve ever had the misfortune to witness.

Mrs. Deen’s fall was so epic, in fact, that it distracted us from another perfectly served case study in poor media relations. This one came courtesy of clay court champ Serena Williams, who ruined what should have been a complimentary Rolling Stone profile with a few ill-advised comments and a passive-aggressive “apology.”

While visiting a nail salon with reporter Stephen Rodrick, Williams saw a news report about the Steubenville, Ohio rape case that sent two high school football stars to jail and led to a PR fail for CNN when anchors Poppy Harlow and Candy Crowley appeared to express more sympathy for the rapists than their victim.

Serena said of the perpetrators: “Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know.” Beyond classifying the rape of a 16-year-old girl as “something stupid” and wondering whether the offenders were punished too harshly, Williams also had some less-than-flattering words for the victim:

“I’m not blaming the girl, but…why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember? She’s lucky… she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”

Did she really need to throw a “but” in there?

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Oh boy. That was painful. As you know Paula Deen appeared on the Today Show recently after abruptly cancelling an interview with Matt Lauer last Friday.

By now everyone in our industry has formed their opinions regarding Paula Deen’s rapid demise and her subsequent barrage of awkward apologies and wayward explanations. This entire situation is sad. There are no winners here. So we’re hesitant to jump in the media melee and add energy to this sadness, but as PR experts it’s our job to deconstruct this ugly mess.

These are emotional times for the Paula Deen empire, and emotional PR situations must be handled with logic, sincerity and intelligence. That means showing up and treating the public like adults. For Paula Deen the folksy, southern “aw shucks” shtick may sell Virginia ham, but it doesn’t sell the truth. Read more

The factory collapse that killed more than 1,100 people in Bangladesh this April is by no means the first tragedy to strike the garment industry in recent years—but it does look like the culmination of an ongoing PR challenge that could reshape the way major clothing brands market their products. The earliest evidence of this change comes on social media, where companies that had operations in the factory have already begun responding to the demands of consumers and labor activists.

The New York Times reports that many businesses and industry groups now plan to follow the food industry’s example by offering the public more detailed information about how and where their clothes are made. H&M and Zara have agreed to sign a new “factory safety accord,” and major names like Disney, Nike, and Walmart may follow with campaigns designed to appropriate the “green,” “organic,” and “fair trade” themes favored by food and household goods marketers in recent years. The purpose of this material, of course, will be to highlight the brands’ corporate social responsibility efforts and distance them from horrific accidents like the one in Bangladesh.

It’s nothing new for fashion: upstarts like American Apparel began using their own “fair trade” practices as key selling points some time ago. Yet, despite AA’s success, retailers like Maggie’s Organics and Everlane (tagline “Luxury Basics. Radical Transparency.”) remain few and far between.

Not for long.

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We talked last week about a company’s major PR failure in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. Now, we’d like to share an epic PR win inspired by the same tragedy.

Shortly after the attack that killed three and wounded over 180 at last Monday’s Boston Marathon, Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Governor Deval Patrick contacted Jim Gallagher, executive VP of John Hancock (which has title-sponsored the race for years) in an effort to brainstorm ways to provide assistance to the victims.

At 10 a.m. the next morning, Mr. Gallagher got on a conference call with Mike Sheehan and Karen Kaplan, CEO and president of Boston ad agency Hill Holiday. Within hours of that call, the agency created One Fund Boston, a foundation designed to help victims.

During the 10 a.m conference call in which Mr. Gallagher promised John Hancock would donate $1 million to get the ball rolling, the Mayor’s office requested it be able to announce the creation of the fund at a 5 p.m. press conference. That left Holiday Hill seven hours to create a charity from scratch.

Communicating mostly via text message, the agency got to work. Read more

We almost hate to pile on Carnival Cruise Lines at this point, but 2013 is turning out to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for one of the biggest names in leisure travel. Almost exactly a month after the Carnival Triumph disaster, a second ship lost power while docked in the Caribbean yesterday and left passengers stuck on board with no electricity, no working toilets and no ability to leave despite the fact that the boat was resting next to land.

To its credit, Carnival is getting creative with its problem-solving strategy this time around: the team plans to fly all passengers back to Florida after keeping them on the boat in order to ensure that no one gets left behind. A sensible move, but passengers aren’t happy, and more email quotes about “human waste all over the floor in some of the bathrooms” and elevators turning “on and off, on and off” obviously amount to very, very bad PR.

A commenter on a previous story made a great point: companies like Carnival often hire “party planner” PR teams that excel at event promotion but aren’t quite as experienced when it comes to dealing with disasters like this one. We’re not sure who’s handling crisis communications for the company right now, but they are about to earn their pay.

Oh, and Carnival might want to move ahead with that “comprehensive review” of the entire fleet. Just a friendly suggestion.

Last night Yahoo issued a belated response to The New York Times on the totally unnecessary “no telecommuting, ever” controversy by releasing a statement that effectively read “Mind your own business; this doesn’t apply to you.”

The brand spokesperson’s words:

“This isn’t a broad industry view on working from home. This is about what is right for Yahoo right now.”

That’s it. No further elaboration, because “We don’t discuss internal matters”. A little translation via inside sources: Marissa Mayer “is in crisis mode” trying to fix the malfunctioning culture of a company that until recently sponsored “work from home” policies loose enough to allow employees to launch startups while still technically working for Yahoo full time.

Yahoo clearly doesn’t want to take part in the larger debate about telecommuting, internal cohesion and working mothers. One thing is clear, though: anyone who doubted that the company’s culture is in serious trouble can now rest assured that the rumors are true.

Also: Here’s an interesting post on the subject from KMSPR CEO Kathleen Schmidt. She argues that, while the “blanket memo” was not a great idea, this “controversy” is really all about the fact that Mayer happens to be a woman–and many in the corporate world would applaud a similar decision coming from a male executive.

What do we think?

In CNN‘s creatively chosen words, the troubled Carnival Triumph is expected “to finally limp into port later today”–but the PR emergency has just begun!

Cruise line executives breathed a sigh of relief last month during the industry’s peak season. This January got off to a much smoother start for them than last year, when the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast, impacting the industry’s reputation and bottom line. They were so focused on (successfully) selling their products they didn’t even have time to speak at travel industry marketing conferences.

However, cruise companies’ sense of calm has been shattered again as a result of the Carnival Triumph’s engine fire on Sunday. The vessel drifted off the Yucatan coast of Mexico for more than three days–and despite the fact that no casualties have occurred, the 3,142 stranded passengers have reported deteriorating and deplorable sanitary conditions.

The crisis is still unfolding and it’s too soon to know the full outcome. However, all signs (most prominently falling stock prices) bode badly for Carnival. So far the company hasn’t followed an effective course of action for service recovery during a crisis. Below are our takeaways from the ongoing saga.

1. Don’t keep screwing up:

Hey, accidents happen! And customers can forgive a company experiencing its first crisis. But Carnival ships have repeatedly suffered other performance and safety-related incidents. Carnival is also the parent company of Costa Concordia, so they were already on a short leash in terms of public perception. They should have taken extra precautions to avert another disaster.

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