drugs - PRNewser

Drug Makers Turn Doping Scandals into Good PR

Patrick Coffee — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:43:09 +0000

Here’s an interesting way for controversial brands to maintain or improve their reputations: take an industry’s biggest scandal and turn it into a PR win through effective advocacy and counter-messaging efforts.

We’ve heard a good bit about EPO and other performance-enhancing drugs in the past few months thanks in large part to athletes like Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorious, the Olympian double-amputee and accused murderer who apparently liked to mix his alcohol with illegal steroids. Lest we forget, these drugs primarily serve as useful medicines that can help lengthen and improve the lives of those affected by chronic conditions like anemia.

In a determined PR move, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline–two of the world’s largest drug makers–have joined the World Anti-Doping Agency in an attempt to prevent the abuse of their products and protect their names from the inevitable backlash.

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Will the World Grow Weary of Starbucks’s Unstoppable Growth?

James F. Thompson — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 17:37:03 +0000

Ok, now this is just surreal. We’ve all heard the jokes about how there is a Starbucks on every street corner, and we know that statement is funny because it is (almost) true.

Everywhere you turn, no matter where you are, you’ll see that green and white logo—beside the gas station, across from your florist, atop the dog groomer’s studio. Starbucks simply appears out of nowhere, like Michael Meyers in Halloween.

But the world is, apparently, not enough: The Seattle-based coffee chain and global caffeine kingpin just announced plans to open 3,000 new stores in the Americas region by 2017, with half of those stores slotted for somewhere in the United States. That is staggering. Where in America is Starbucks going to build 1,500 new shops? And where are all of those customers coming from? Does the US have secret plans to colonize Antarctica? And why weren’t we told?

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Seattle PD Has a Sense of Humor About Marijuana

Patrick Coffee — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 17:27:28 +0000

We recently reported on the Seattle Police Department’s attempts to endear itself to the public via helpful block-by-block crime tweets. Now we find that the PD’s communications team might just be perfect for social media—they certainly have a sense of humor.

In case you missed the memo, earlier this month the states of Washington and Colorado became the first in our nation to legalize the possession and use of marijuana “for recreational purposes”–no prescription required, man. We mention this because the Seattle PD just unveiled a page on its crime blotter blog titled “Marijwhatnow? A Guide to Legal Marijuana Use In Seattle.”

The page, quite obviously tailored to Seattle residents with certain…habits, includes the answers to such probing questions as “Will police officers be able to smoke marijuana?” and “What happens if I get pulled over and I’m sober, but an officer or his K9 buddy smells the ounce of Super Skunk I’ve got in my trunk?” The page’s author, veteran crime reporter Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, advises those caught with marijuana before the law goes into effect on Dec. 6 to “hold your breath.”

So, like, we find this all endlessly amusing and stuff, but it’s also a great example of good PR on the department’s behalf.

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Lance Armstrong Doping Gambit: Blame Big Tobacco

Jason Chupick — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:57:30 +0000

Bonked. Cooked. Whatever bike racing term you use, it now applies to the reputation of Lance Armstrong and, more sadly, to the reputation of his 15-year-old cancer advocacy organization, The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF, or Livestrong).

Today the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a statement and a collection of documents detailing the extent of its conspiracy investigation against Armstrong, the entirety of which is to be sent to the Union Cycliste International (UCI), the governing body that oversees the Tour de France.

That’s not to say Armstrong isn’t attempting to fight back: Just this morning, USA Today reported that lawyer Tim Herman sent a letter to the USADA as an obvious “see what sticks” damage control tactic, writing: “This reasoned decision will be a farce, written by USADA with the significant assistance of lawyers from one of Big Tobacco’s favorite law firms at a time when Lance Armstrong is one of America’s leading anti-tobacco advocates. While USADA can put lipstick on a pig, it still remains a pig.”

That’s a bit of a wild conspiracy theory there, no?

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