Happy 37th birthday, Breakout. You’ve come a long way. You helped develop the first generation of kids with the best hand-eye coordination the world had seen (up until that point). You were the biggest deal in childhood until Star Wars was released a year later and changed the world forever. You were the son of Pong, the father of Pac-Man and the future DNA of Halo. You were technology at its most innocent, before it became associated with porn and violence. You, Breakout, helped millions of children break out of their realities at a time when divorce was skyrocketing and our parents began cooking our meals in microwaves.

Once again, Google makes an excellent PR move by celebrating a milestone in our culture that everyone else would have overlooked. And to recognize Atari Breakout’s birthday with a coveted Google Easter Egg is just perfect considering it’s a gesture from one storied technology entity to another. (To see it yourself visit Google Images and type in “Atari Breakout.”)

Happy Birthday Breakout!

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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Clearly, the promoters of the soon-to-be-revived cult classic “Arrested Development” did not “make a huge mistake” when they organized yesterday’s NYC giveaway of “Bluth’s Bananas”, a frozen treat featured on the show.

Diehard fans waited as long as 30 minutes in lines that stretched nearly two blocks for a chance to get their own chocolate-dipped frozen bananas from the authentic-looking replica of the Bluth family’s stand.

“I am such a major fan,” 21-year-old Sharah Stanley told the New York Daily News as she waited in line. “When I found out it was going to be here, I raced up. I hope the line doesn’t take too long because I’m on my lunch break.”

Stanley is not alone in waiting on bated breath for new episodes of her beloved show. Arrested Development, which originally ran from 2003 to 2006, will be reborn with a new season scheduled to be released by Netflix on May 26.

Coke has long associated its brand with happiness — even dedicating entire websites to the philosophical meaning of the word, and calling the contents of a can of cola “140 happy calories.”

Now, the company is taking advantage of a happy coincidence — the fact that part of its logo happens to look like the Danish flag — to welcome people to Denmark, recently voted the “happiest country in the world” by the United Nations.

In honor of the Danish tradition of greeting arriving visitors by waving flags, Coke’s local agency, McCann Copenhagen, created an interactive airport ad that dispenses flags. Coke says it’s purpose is to “let Coca-Cola and Denmark spread happiness together.” The below video of a case study shows people’s reactions to the machine.

Little kids and elderly people jubilantly waving flags as loved ones rush to greet them, all made possible by Coke. We’d categorize this as a highly creative branding win.

Adweek: Oreos Releases Colorful New Advertising Campaign

Advertising Age: J.C. Penney Boldly Thanks Customers for Returning

Los Angeles Times: Bloomberg CEO Confronts Ugly Snooping Scandal

PR Daily: Astronaut Uses Bowie Song to Bring Space Down to Earth

CNNMoney: Tesla Scores Big with Public, Passes Rivals

Anyone who has attended a business meeting in the past decade has witnessed the word synergy being passed around the conference table like a collection basket at church. People just throw money at it. It’s one of those buzzwords that professionals rely on to sound informed, enlightened and compelling. It is also a word that represents a lucrative business strategy.

The savvy public is familiar with product placements and the idea of bundling multiple business resources and advertising assets to achieve a collective gravitational pull that people can’t resist. And that is exactly what Walgreens, the “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice,” Penn Jillet, Trace Adkins, Donald Trump and other business partners and celebrities are relying on to promote their causes: synergy.

And, if one is to go by social media chatter, it appears to be working. The collective sum of these disparate parts has the public going to Walgreens and testing which flavor they prefer, Jillet’s “Magic Swurtle” or Adkins’ “Maple Macadamia Mash Up.” Though the public may grow weary of contrived “reality” TV shows and stars such as Gary Busey (seriously though, how can you not watch that guy), it never seems to tire of charity and the way helping others makes people feel. And that’s a good thing.

Anyone out there try one of these ice cream flavors? Which do you prefer?

This week, Forbes Media is hiring a senior manager of editorial publicity, while Lipman Hearne needs a media supervisor. Putman Media is seeking a director of live events, and Rubenstein Associates is on the hunt for a public relations/real estate account executive. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• Senior Manager, Editorial Publicity Forbes Media (New York, NY)
• Media Supervisor Lipman Hearne (Chicago, IL)
• Director of Live Events Putman Media (Itasca, IL)
• Public Relations/Real Estate AE Rubenstein Associates (New York, NY)
• Communications Manager Equal Justice Works (Washington, DC)

Find more great PR jobs on the PRNewser job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented PRNewser pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

The public is evolving faster now than ever, and the public relations industry needs to keep pace. With the direct and instantaneous impact of digital technology and social media, the public receives information sooner, faster and in greater volume than it did mere years ago.

The public no longer religiously consumes the evening news, deposits checks during banking hours or eats according to the same routines. We’re simply different people than we used to be. These cultural shifts impact our behavior in many important ways, especially in regard to our eating habits and schedules. Breakfast isn’t just for breakfast anymore, thanks in part to the Egg McMuffin.

If you have ever heard a friend or family member say “McDonald’s should really serve breakfast all day” it is because the Egg McMuffin owns a space in our collective idea of breakfast that no other fast food product parallels. It’s the hamburger and fries of breakfast, and now it’s going to compete with those very products during afternoons and evenings.

Regardless of your personal opinions on the Egg McMuffin’s dietary limitations or the business practices of the McDonald’s empire, the brand’s recent decision to serve breakfast all day long makes sense. It’s been a customer favorite for 40 years.

Today’s public is dynamic, fluid and open to a new, 24/7-world that is no longer defined by the regiments of time zones. Global communications have erased the psychological boundaries and physical borders that once dictated our lives, so if you can hold a conference call via Skype with your Japanese clients at 2 AM, the idea of an Egg McMuffin at 4 PM doesn’t seem odd at all. Read more

Well, we’re happy to report that our ears are working just fine today. How do we know? Because we couldn’t make it through a few seconds of the below ad without scrambling for the “mute” button.

The clever spot, created by Draftfcb Toronto for the Union Hearing Aid Centre, actually appears to be a vision test, displaying letters in ever-shrinking fonts. When viewers reach the end of the commercial, they are informed that if they can read the final tiny line of print, then their “eyesight is fine”, but that (surprise!) they may want to invest in a hearing test at Union, as a “really annoying, really loud high-frequency sound” has been playing throughout the ad; those with good hearing would have likely found the sound too intolerable to make it through to the end.

Like we said — clever. We just wouldn’t recommend playing it at full volume at work…or a dog park.

Photo via Imgur

Fans dressing up as their favorite movie characters while attending opening weekend film showings is nothing new. However, costumed moviegoers who partnered with Capital 8 Theatres in Missouri to promote the premiere of Iron Man 3 recently caused a panic, for which the theater is now apologizing.

Had the cosplayers been dressed as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, we imagine no one would have been particularly alarmed, but some group members donned S.H.I.E.L.D agent costumes — complete with fake firearms — which, given last year’s tragic shooting at an Aurora, CO movie theater (and the current high-alert mentality when it comes to guns), might not have been the best idea.

Moviegoers, understandably frightened by the sight of people dressed in what appeared to be body armor and carrying assault rifles, called the local police. Once the dust settled, the complaints began rolling in and the theater was skewered on social media, some even accusing Capital 8 of intentionally causing the kerfuffle as a publicity stunt. In response, the company issued the following apology:

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