Last week, online retail behemoth Amazon received the kind of PR boost that any brand outside the Republican Party would kill for: President Obama visited its massive Chattanooga warehouse and used his media megaphone to promote the company for creating jobs fit for every politician’s favorite fallback character: the “middle class” American.

This is all well and good, but Amazon’s recent reputation management challenges are far more complicated…and less complimentary.

The real purpose of the President’s visit was to propose a bargain between the two political parties in which he would trade a cut in corporate tax rates for increased government investment in “education, training, and public works projects” designed to facilitate the creation of those precious middle class jobs. The event unsurprisingly attracted critiques of both the company and the President that highlight their unique PR struggles.

It’s true that Amazon’s planned hiring wave will create as many as 7,000 American jobs, but Obama’s visit raised several questions that the company would rather not address:

• Are these jobs truly “middle class?”
• Is Amazon the sort of company that will help strengthen the American economy at large?
• Will this PR stunt facilitate any truly meaningful political activity?

That’s easy: no, no, and…no.

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We can all agree on one thing: today’s Supreme Court decision invalidating the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was, is, and will continue to be a big deal. It’s not that the justices’ conclusions were a big surprise as most observers did not expect them to uphold existing gay marriage bans on the state or federal level. But it still inspired strong emotions for many Americans.

Of course, politicians of all stripes were quick to offer their takes on the issue.

RT if you agree: http://t.co/ISp1tO2Eqe pic.twitter.com/pKanRtHJK1

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) June 26, 2013

My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: “Jesus wept.”

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 26, 2013

In other words, the debate will go on. Now for the question of the day: how can brands turn this major cultural and political event into a great PR opportunity?

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Have you been following the latest, dumbest political media scandal? We hope you answered “no”, because this one is a real doozy. It’s a classic case of “hack” vs. “flack” that will feel very familiar to anyone who has spent some time in PR or journalism.

To summarize: Bob Woodward, the veteran reporter who was one-half of the team that exposed the Watergate scandal leading to Richard Nixon’s resignation, had a mildly testy exchange with a White House rep over the pending “sequester” drama. Essentially, if the two parties can’t agree on a mix of new revenue and spending cuts, a big rash of cuts that they set up last year precisely to avoid this sort of showdown will go into effect. It’s basically President Obama versus the House of Representatives, so…politics as usual.

Alright, now what’s the “controversy”–and how does it relate to PR? Glad you asked!

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Today in News That Will Never, Ever Inspire an Argument: Birth control advocacy group Naral Pro-Choice America recently teamed with Washington, DC ad/consultancy firm Gmmb to produce a campaign celebrating the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that established the right of American doctors to perform legal abortion procedures.

Politics aside, this is an unusual campaign that Naral and its new group, Choice Out Loud, see as a branding exercise as well as an advocacy project. National campaign director Amy says “This is not messaging; this is engagement”–and it’s designed to mobilize the next generation of women who support the Choice Out Loud cause.

The spot, which uses a unique stop-motion photography technique, gives Naral a chance to expand its brand to audiences that don’t follow politics as closely as some by featuring a diverse array of women and appealing to a Millennial demographic (supposedly) more interested in shareable multimedia than impassioned op-eds.

Here’s the full video:

What do we think?

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There’s no question that The White House knows its way around social media—President Obama’s “four more years” Instagram tweet quickly became the most liked and shared message in history.

Of course, officials like the President don’t just use Twitter and Facebook to post adorable pictures of themselves and their families—they also use it to drive strategy and influence policy. And yet, as we’ve seen in the past, social media is an unwieldy animal that many political groups struggle to master.

Exactly one year ago, The White House used Twitter to push an effort to extend a “payroll tax cut” that affected millions of Americans. That effort ultimately proved successful, but now Obama faces a new and potentially bigger challenge involving the much-discussed “fiscal cliff” that would result in massive spending cuts and the elimination of George W. Bush-era tax cuts if not addressed by congress before the New Year.

Obama recently debuted the hashtag #My2K, named for the approximately $2000 in yearly tax increases that would theoretically affect millions of middle-class Americans if congress doesn’t act. He tweeted his millions of followers encouraging them to offer personal stories of what that $2K might mean to them and their families—and to direct those messages to their representatives.

Sounds like a well-planned PR strategy—but will it work?

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Well that didn’t take long, did it?

We’re not going to spend too much time analyzing or fact-checking last night’s debate; you’ll already read more than enough of that business today if you so much as glance at any news feed.

We’re more interested in the meme that emerged, with stunning speed, right before 10 last night–call it Big Bird 2.0 if you must (please don’t). Let’s put it this way: Well before the end of the Hofstra rumble, someone created the “Binders Full of Women” tumblr based on this well-meaning but poorly executed Mitt Romney quip:

“I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’” said Romney. “And they brought us whole binders full of women!”

This was Romney’s attempt to boost his standing among female voters by explaining the actions he took back in the day upon realizing that, when he was Governor of Massachusetts, his cabinet didn’t include many women. It was…awkward. Read more

We generally prefer to avoid dipping our toes too deeply into the political arena, but we think we can judge Mitt Romney’s choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate to be a PR win–for the moment, at least. Why? It serves as an irresistible dog whistle to those who make their livings polling and pontificating about politics, and the presumptive Republican nominee’s recent PR stumbles have now been obliterated by a wave of news and opinions about his new, “edgy” veep pick.

Judging by a big surge in related activity throughout the Twitter-verse (ugh), Romney won the weekend by announcing what struck many as a bold choice while making the pundit class look a little silly in the process. Let the “pros and cons” pile-on begin!

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Mark Bittman, inspirational DIY food writer and noted non-vegan, issued a rare apology on his New York Times blog this week for referring to recently deceased Chick-Fil-A spokesman Don Perry as a “pig” in what has become the latest salvo in an unfortunate war of words over a perennial hot topic: same-sex marriage.

We won’t go into detail regarding a story that has by now inspired thousands of nasty Facebook exchanges and exhausted many a pundit, but Bittman admitted to letting his emotions get the best of him in using a word that “did not rise to either my own standards or to The Times’s.” This sordid tale of clashing culture warriors has certainly brought out the less civilized sides of many in media and politics, and we can only hope that all involved will learn from the experience…oh, who are we kidding? It’s a big, unfortunate mess.

In politics — even more than most industries — PR reps strive to maintain control over the media narrative and save the most sensitive stories for release at the best possible times. On that note, the biggest news from Mitt Romney’s campaign in the coming weeks will be its official announcement of the former governor’s running mate.

Third parties and a certain former VP have advised the Romney camp to avoid the media explosion prompted by Sarah Palin’s appearance on the national stage four years ago, and the team has followed suit, aiming to divert the attention of the press by dropping big, unlikely names into the pool and encouraging friendly media outlets to run with the fake stories as they “break.”

NBC’s First Read reports that three candidates remain in the running, yet NPR and TechPresident believe that Romney’s PR camp may have revealed their hand by way of editorial activity on Wikipedia. Given the fact that traffic on any candidate’s page will shoot up in the wake of such an announcement, we find their theory credible: Last-minute edits are needed to make the potential Veep look as good as possible. So which of the frequently-named VP candidates’ pages have seen the most changes of late?

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