Another totally unsupported assumption: President Obama‘s inauguration won’t inspire quite as big a party in 2013 as it did in 2009. But there will be an event and a parade–and fans were supposed to be able to buy tickets through Ticketmaster yesterday. Unfortunately, the company screwed the whole thing up big time.

Tix were supposed to go on sale on Monday the 8th, but somebody within the Ticketmaster organization (whose name happens to be “Technical Error”) accidentally sent an email on Sunday announcing the availability of the tickets–which promptly sold out. So the mistake was twofold, really: Not only did the message go out early, but the tickets were available early as well. Oh, and the seller’s site was predictably “overwhelmed” by traffic, “slowing the purchasing process.’’

Ticketmaster’s response? Yeah, that kinda sucks–but get over it, people.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Many citizens (most prominently President Obama) spoke of taking every available step to prevent similar shootings in the future while others warned against politicizing the tragedy. Quite a few Americans also had energetic debates about gun control, both online and off. Even West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who built a campaign around disagreeing with his party’s leaders on gun rights, suggested that the nation must now have a “sensible” dialogue on gun control.

Nearly every business and organization in the country, from The National School Board to a group representing the families of Virginia Tech shooting victims, made some sort of official statement. Yet the nonprofit at the center of America’s relationship with guns was conspicuously silent: The National Rifle Association has not released an official statement or tweet since the tragedy, and its Facebook page is no longer visible today. While officials at both the NRA and Facebook have not responded to requests for comment, bloggers at TechCrunch speculated that the group took its page offline in order to “avoid hosting flame wars” between commentors on opposing sides of the gun control issue. Knowing the nature of online debates as well as we do, we think that was a very good idea.

We sympathize with the NRA’s position from a PR perspective:

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As Jason Zengerle’s essay in New York Magazine demonstrates, research and tech tools played an outsized role in ensuring that the president’s campaign apparatus raised more money and recruited more volunteers in ‘12 than in ’08—despite the fact that most supporters weren’t quite as enthusiastic as they had been four years ago. Since election day, the press team has worked hard to push this story by staying positive and emphasizing the importance of app makers and number crunchers in the re-election campaign.

So how did these nerds do it?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As cynics, we see this move as a blatant attempt to counter all the bad PR that Apple received over the Foxconn outsourcing/slave labor/suicide scandal (though we would note that this awful story didn’t really prevent anyone, least of all ourselves, from buying Apple products).

The fact that late CEO Steve Jobs supposedly denied a request for more domestic production from none other than President Obama strengthens this theory. As much as we’ve accepted outsourcing as a part of the modern business landscape, everyone loves to hear about good new jobs for Americans. So this is great PR, right?

Maybe–but investors hated it, and we have a feeling certain Apple advisers did too.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Their outrage may have something to do with the fact that chain restaurants, despite employing millions of Americans, very often do not provide health insurance for their workers. While these men have every right to voice their outrage, a recent YouGov BrandIndex report implies that their opinions may be hurting their brands.

Examples from the past month:

• An owner of several Applebee’s branches claimed that “…we won’t build more restaurants. We won’t hire more people” due to the additional costs of insuring employees via “Obamacare.”
• A south Florida man who runs several Denny’s and Dairy Queen locations discussed his plans to add a 5% surcharge to all orders in order to cover the anticipated cost of the legislation, telling customers that “if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is the primary beneficiary of Obamacare.”
• After reports led some to believe that Obamacare would force him to close stores, fire workers and raise prices, Papa John’s CEO (and major Mitt Romney fundraiser) John Schnatter recently took to The Huffington Post to clarify his statements on the matter, writing that everybody just needs to calm down because all of his restaurants plan to “honor the law.”

There’s little doubt that these statements paint the men who made them as jackasses, yet the YouGov brand report hints that the damage runs deeper: these execs’ anti-Obamacare rants have led the public to lose respect for their brands.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Speaking of which, we haven’t seen many genuinely funny anti-Obama spots this year. Anybody?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

His state was hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, and we’d say it’s safe to assume he hasn’t gotten much sleep over the past three or four days: You may have watched him berate the mayor of Atlantic City for encouraging residents to stay at city shelters despite an earlier evacuation order; you may have heard him uncharacteristically praise President Obama’s storm response as “outstanding”; you may have seen footage of him together with the President this afternoon as the two surveyed the storm’s damage by helicopter.

This was all well and good, but today marks a far greater achievement for the Governor: he was won the week’s “best PR stunt posing as a government order” contest by officially postponing Halloween.

Its just not safe yet to be out trick-or- treating tonight, so Halloween has officially been postponed until Monday.

— Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 31, 2012

What does this mean, exactly? Let’s read the end of the official release, complete with charmingly arcane language:

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hillary Clinton

The Secretary of State is one of the most popular politicians in the country and the overwhelming favorite for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination. She knows how valuable her brand is, and she’s not afraid to dangle a big carrot in front of reporters’ noses.

She’s long insisted that she plans to step down after the election and repeatedly claimed to have no interest in running for the country’s highest office again (we can hardly blame her). But a recent Wall Street Journal interview (subscribers only, sorry) has the political classes chattering about the possibility of big future moves from a woman with more political capital than anyone else around.

Some choice takeaways from the interview:

• Hillary calls herself a representative of the “American brand” engaging in “public diplomacy”
• She loves the fact that her job doesn’t require her to blow dry her hair
• Regarding a 2016 run, she has officially “ruled it out.”
• She plans to step down if President Obama wins re-election, but says “A lot of people have talked to me about staying.”

And—here’s the big one—she calls the prospect of her staying with the administration “unlikely.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Beast somehow recruited several anonymous stock characters to say very bad things about Mrs. Dunn. Some key quotes:

“It smells.”

“You don’t hear stories about [lobbyists] so obviously exploiting their access.”

“I think she is well over the line.”

Obama himself was “…not aware…of the extent of her firm’s work. I bet he won’t be happy.”

Despite these redundant quips, official White House spokesmen defend Dunn’s dual roles, stating that all involved parties followed—and continue to follow–relevant ethics rules. Dunn’s own nameless colleague at SKDKnickerbocker, which has doubled in size since she left her communications director position in 2009, told Beast reporters that the firm nurtures no conflicts of interest, saying “We’re a public relations not a lobbying firm”, though she did note that the firm gives suggested statements, or “talking points,” to lobbyists for use on behalf of their clients.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

At any rate, today The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office let the world’s richest entertainment power couple know that they are not the only people in the world legally allowed to repeat their own child’s name–and that the Massachusetts firm Blue Ivy may continue to operate under the title it has used since 2009.

OK, here’s the backstory: In February the couple sought to trademark their daughter’s name after “fashion designer Joseph Mbeh submitted an application [for] “Blue Ivy Carter NYC” on January 11th, only four days after the child was born”. Shameless!

Mbeh claimed (unconvincingly) that he didn’t plan to use the name himself–he just wanted to pitch his “Blue Ivy” fashion line to Hova and bride while owning the rights to said brand. Hmm…that sounds a little bit like blackmail, no? It’s almost as bad as the toy company that released a pair of dolls named “Sasha and Malia” back in 2009, claiming that the fact that the dolls shared the names of the new President’s daughters was just an incredible coincidence.

Glad that’s all settled, but for the record we’re still a little weirded out by the fact that the pair has “plans to reserve their child’s name for possible use as a brand name for a line of baby-related products, including carriages, diaper bags and baby cosmetics”. Would that plan really work?

Most importantly, we hope Blue Ivy’s delicate ego will survive this unfortunate branding fail.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The ad lists a few notorious financial criminals (Ken Lay, Bernie Madoff, etc.) and implies that Mitt Romney’s adversity to financial regulation would reward the bigwigs who brought our economy down while punishing innocents like everyone’s favorite fluffy yellow…thing.

We don’t really want to get into a debate about whether Obama himself has gone far enough to rein in financial abuses, but it is nice to know that political hacks can make a decent joke from time to time.

UPDATE: Sesame Workshop just released an official response to the ad, noting that it is a non-profit, non-partisan entity and requesting that the Obama campaign stop airing the ad. Score one for consistency!

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

We never really understood where Fred Armisen wanted to take his Obama impressions. He was almost always stiff and uncomfortable in the role, playing the part of straight man while others set up halfhearted jokes around him. We’re glad that media personalities got over their initial aversion to making fun of Obama, but writers and comedians obviously still face a big challenge in trying to make the man funny.

New guy Jay Pharoah has a history of impersonating the president in his stand-up acts, so we’re not surprised to see that he is better when it comes to reproducing Obama’s tics, but on watching his debut we didn’t detect much in the way of, you know, jokes–and Jason Sudeikis’s moronic Mitt Romney is even worse.

Our verdict? It’s still a long way from funny. If Obama does manage to get re-elected, we look forward to four more years of avoiding SNL’s consistently lame impersonations. Agreed?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Well, some jealous ninnies just can’t deal with the President concealing what should obviously be the intellectual property of the American people—they’re demanding that the White House release the recipe for this executive brew, and they’re doing it via online petition! It’s democracy 2.0 at work!

Created in 2011, White House Honey Ale (sounds a little light to us) was the first beer brewed at the request of our current President, who purchased the kit with his own money after embarrassing himself by drinking a Bud Light at the infamous beer summit for some unknown reason that we choose to find offensive.

By the way, Obama isn’t the first significant American to brew at home: continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Despite all this, the Romney campaign made a bit of a PR miscalculation yesterday by holding an event at a juice shop owned by a convicted drug trafficker.

We certainly understand why local businessman and Romney supporter Reinaldo Bermudez would not be a big fan of government regulations: He received a three-year federal prison sentence in 1999 for his admitted role in a 12-man smuggling ring caught attempting to sneak a ton of cocaine into three south Florida ports. Romney’s people apparently thought this was all good: Bermudez told the Miami New Times blog that the campaign and the Secret Service “absolutely knew about my record.” He even took a moment to wax philosophical, noting that “…there are a lot people with money who have had problems with the law,” but “Everybody deserves a second chance.”

Can’t disagree there, but we have to wonder whether Romney’s team truly thought local and national media outlets would ignore this tawdry detail. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.