A Target shopper recently noticed that the color of a grey plus-size dress was listed on the store’s website as “Manatee Grey” (and the image of a manatee may not be the most flattering one to conjure up when trying to sell clothing). To be fair, manatees are, in fact, grey — so while this incident certainly doesn’t demonstrate marketing genius, it’s not necessarily a major issue. The thing is, said shopper also noticed that same dress in regular sizes was listed as “Dark Heather Grey.” Aaaaand now we’ve got a problem.

Would-be Target customer Susan Clemens voiced her disgust on Twitter:

What the. Plus sized women get “Manatee Grey” while standard sizes are “Dark Heather Grey.” @target #notbuyingit twitter.com/suZen/status/3…

— Susan Clemens (@suZen) April 3, 2013

To Target’s credit, the retailer’s response was swift and appropriate:

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Here’s a basic fact: Mexico is America’s number one tourist destination (and its formal name is The United Mexican States). At the same time, the country’s tourism board believes that many Americans don’t see the whole picture when it comes to our southern neighbor. In short, Mexico isn’t just about stereotypical Spring Break trips to Cancun and the requisite tanning sessions and tequila shots.

The country’s representatives want to change all that with an extensive rebranding campaign designed to focus on the more exclusive and luxurious elements of the Mexican tourism experience with the tagline “Mexico: the place you thought you knew.”

The campaign and tagline aren’t new, but we recently had the opportunity to speak to Gerado Llanes, CMO of the Mexico Tourism Board, about the latest elements of this countrywide shift in marketing and public relations strategies.

What is the primary goal of this campaign?

We want to convey the fact that Mexico is a lot more than beaches, margaritas and mariachis. Of course we are a spring break destination, but we want to more aggressively push the message about our luxury offerings.

For example: if you put all the hotels in North and South America together, you still wouldn’t have as many five-diamond locations as Mexico. We also have three of the world’s top 100 golf courses and the number one and two ranked spas in the world. Mexico also has many four-star restaurants that some people may not know about.

From business standpoint, we want to increase the average US spend in Mexico. We’re aiming for high-level consumers by saying “look and see what Mexico has to offer.”

How have you changed your marketing and PR strategies?

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Yesterday our friend and PR veteran Peter Himler wrote a Forbes article with an intriguing headline: “The Journalist and the PR Pro: A Broken Marriage?” Given the chatter over Monday’s guest post by a former journalist turned PR master, we thought we’d explore the idea a little further.

Himler’s main point: a significant number of the students in the journalism program where he spoke last week don’t want to write for The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal–they want to go into PR and advertising. They want to write sponsored content, not investigative journalism. Of course this makes sense, because journalism can be a very tough and often underpaid pursuit.

Himler, like many in the industry, believes that the always-challenging relationship between hacks like us and pitchmen/women has taken a turn for the worse. Yet we agree with his conclusion: this marriage may be strained, but it’s hardly broken.

On Monday Lindsay Goldwert called on her journalist friends to make a list of “do’s and dont’s” for PR pros. Himler’s piece includes both sides of the equation, so we’d like to flip the script: how should journalists and bloggers interact with PR folks? Himler’s suggestions and our comments after the jump:

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It’s a Bird! It’s a plane! It’s…Super CEO!

We’re pretty sure The Justice League didn’t advertise an open position, but no matter. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, can stand on his own (and so, apparently, can his comic book).

From the same state that brought you the very first Starbucks comes the inaugural edition of  “Howard Schultz: The Man Behind Starbucks”, written by C.W. Cooke, drawn by Angel Bernuy with cover art by Conan Momchilov and released by Washington-based Bluewater Productions.

Don’t expect any high-flying hi-jinx or otherworldly bad guys in this comic. The ink-and-paper version of Schultz does much of what the flesh-and-blood version does–i.e. serving as the visionary ruler of a coffee empire.

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Paid content–it’s not just for blogs anymore! The Washington Post, currently known as the sad husk of one of our nation’s most influential and respected newspapers, just launched “Brand Connect“, which its editorial team describes as “a platform that connects marketers with the Washington Post audience in a trusted environment”. In other words, paid content. Sponsored posts. Native advertising. Brand journalism. And it’s not in a special advertorial section–it’s on the paper’s home page.

We could all see this coming, of course: print ad revenue at the Post has reached record lows. Sure, we still encounter the occasional impressive Game of Thrones promo printed with ink on honest-to-God paper–but print advertising should probably consider intensive therapy at this point.

You may ask why this is news, because lots of other publications do the very same thing.

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Finally, tangible proof that there is indeed life after death—as long as you are, or were, a famous celebrity.

The Forbes 2012 Top-Earning Dead Celebrities report is out, and many will be surprised to learn that both Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley have been relegated to the #2 and #3 spots, respectively. That’s right, Elizabeth Taylor snuck into the 2012 lead by virtue of an estate auction which earned a cool $210 million last year. Taylor’s collection of jewelry was legendary, but she also owned works by both Picasso and Van Gogh, and her perfume line White Diamonds remains a top-seller.

The public wants its celebrities to be both exceptional and human, and nothing reminds us of the humanity of the ridiculously talented and fortunate more than death. We all die, after all–and death doesn’t care who we are.

Death can visit us in the shower, on a highway or during a beachside stroll. It has neither remorse nor regret. It simply does what it does when it wants, and dying turns out to be a defining career move for many celebrities thanks to the misplaced nostalgia of an eager public.

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Our friends at the excellent Spin Sucks blog asked a pointed question earlier this week:

“Will a lack of creativity be the demise of the PR industry?”

Given the fact that our business continues to grow while so many others struggle, we see the “demise” aspect of this headline as a rhetorical glimpse into the distant future. But it’s very interesting. Stated another way: Are PR and marketing professionals so scared of offending someone, anyone that they avoid all things colorful, interesting and remotely creative? And will dull, run-of-the-mill PR efforts grow so common as to negate the value of the service itself? Most companies can write their own press releases, right?

The post primarily concerned Pizza Hut’s recent PR controversy. To recap: The company offered a lifetime’s supply of pizza to anyone who would use last week’s “town hall” debate to ask the presidential candidates whether they prefer sausage or pepperoni. Quite a few feathers got ruffled, and Pizza Hut’s marketing reps quickly backed down, announcing that the campaign would move online as part of a “natural progression.”

Yet Forbes contributor Aaron Perlut called the campaign “brilliant” and claimed that its demise in the face of public outrage was a perfect example of the PR industry’s biggest flaw:

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This week Forbes released the 30^th anniversary edition of its “Forbes 400: The Richest People in America” issue, and the list’s top ten is only surprising for being so boring. Bill Gates? Check? Warren Buffett, The Koch brothers, and the Waltons? Check, check, check.

The only change to the top ten is the addition of Michael Bloomberg, who somehow made lots of money last year while giving New Yorkers an extended “this is why you’re fat” lecture. We are not shocked.

In fact, there’s only one real “richest people” development that interests us: a big decline in the rankings for social media executives. The biggest individual drop, of course, belongs to Mark Zuckerberg, who has probably been grinding the hell out of his teeth every night for the past six months despite his public displays of confidence.

But does this development signal the beginning of the end of the “social media mogul?”

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Media personalities have made a bit of hay this week over the fact that the White House requested and received the right to review and approve of all the quotes that appeared in Michael Lewis’s upcoming Vanity Fair article on the president and his team.

Sounds like a media scandal, right? Well, not really. According to The New York Times columnist David Carr, quote approval is nothing but standard operating procedure–and it’s hardly limited to the world of politics. Subjects ranging from Wall Street super-bank CEOs to Silicon Valley tech pioneers and even startup managers have grown used to getting their way when it comes to press coverage. According to Carr and his colleagues, key contacts now expect “the kind of consideration that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.”

In other words, journalists may have trouble accessing important figures unless they agree to this new kind of relationship, quotation approval rights and all. The practice may clash with classic journalistic ethics, but it’s part of the media landscape now. The Times claims that it will begin pushing back harder against this sort of behavior among its reporters, but from where we sit it looks a whole lot like everyday SOP.

We can only assume that this practice occurs at all levels of the PR industry. When does it become an ethical problem?

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Throughout its more than three-decade history, MTV has gone from showcasing the latest and greatest meetings of pop music and short film to being a platform in which the stars of reality TV find new ways to behave badly–again and again.

The question has been asked repeatedly over the past few years, but after a somewhat lackluster Video Music Awards and the cancellation of the network’s most valuable property, “Jersey Shore“, we have to repeat it: is MTV still relevant? And where does the brand go from here?

With all the talk of Snooki and “Teen Mom”, it’s easy to forget that last year’s VMAs, starring Alicia Keys and a pregnant Beyonce, earned the highest ratings in MTV history. Still, an awards show that only involves six actual awards is very different from the VMAs we knew as kids. And the fact that the biggest moment of last night’s ceremony was a hug exchanged between Rihanna and Chris Brown reveals something about its relevance.

In a telling interview with Forbes, MTV’s executive vice president of music and talent Amy Doyle emphasizes the network’s continued focus on, well, music.

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