Posts by: Jordan Hubert

2013 Mid-Year Report: The Year’s 5 Buzziest Stories & Trends So Far

On May 15, 2013 By

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already nearing the halfway point of 2013! As such, let’s take a look back at five topics that have caught our attention so far this year….

 

1.  Security breaches

Hacks and breaches are an unfortunate and all-too-common occurrence these days. While data security is critical [...]

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Roger Ebert and the Power of the People

On April 4, 2013 By

With Roger Ebert’s passing today, we’ve lost not only a legendary movie critic, but also a man who recognized that the power of the people, as much as his own reviews, could decide the fate of a movie – and even a product, company or person.

Many may not know, but Ebert [...]

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Is Social Media the New Fortune-Teller? Predicting Oscar Winners Based on Social Media Sentiment

On February 26, 2013 By

Look no further than social media to predict the winners of award shows – not to mention box office grosses, outcomes of sporting events, and more. For every uninformed social media user, there are many more experts weighing in on events and topics in social media, coming together to offer sound insights [...]

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Lessons Learned from the Super Bowl: Knowing the WHY Behind a Campaign’s Success

On February 5, 2013 By

Anyone who watched Sunday’s Super Bowl doesn’t have to look much further than the power outage to find the WHY behind the Niners’ much-needed-but-not-quite-enough momentum. Yet, finding the WHY behind the advertising campaigns that worked requires a deeper look.

In Twitter We Trust

Sorry, O’Doyle, but Twitter rules! [...]

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How Social Media Became THE Destination for Election 2012 Predictions and PR Lessons

On November 7, 2012 By

The 2008 US Presidential Election may have been referred to as the “social media election” but that was then, and this year’s election campaign season was unlike any before it.

Four years ago, 1.8 million tweets were sent on Election Day. But now, in 2012, there [...]

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Living Up to Minority Report’s Technology 10 Years Later

On August 23, 2012 By

“We thought 2000 was gonna be like ‘The Jetsons’ – It ain’t even ‘The Jeffersons.’”

While comedian Chris Rock –who told that joke over a decade ago– is still right today with flying cars and living in space not realities yet, one movie’s future technology that seemed largely impossible [...]

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Transparency in Social Media: Google’s Elimination of Anonymity on YouTube

On August 14, 2012 By

“Horror is the removal of masks.”

This quote from Robert Bloch, famed author of Psycho, particularly rings true with Google’s recent decision to prevent YouTube users from being able to hide behind aliases and instead have them disclose their full names when making comments on the [...]

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Dark Knight Terror: When Automated Tweets #Fail

On July 24, 2012 By

Context is king.

It’s one thing to provide enough context when explaining yourself, but it’s quite another to ensure that what you say won’t potentially be taken out of context. The latter is something that both the NRA and CelebBoutique learned the hard way last Friday.

The American Rifleman, the [...]

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Second Screen Trend: Using New Media to Revive Old Habits

On May 31, 2012 By

“The world changed dramatically with all the smartphones and tablets. People are multi-tasking while they are watching TV.”

Adam Cahan, vice president of Yahoo!’s “Into Now” smartphone and tablet application, faced the challenge addressed in his above statement and saw an opportunity to connect that community and encourage more people to watch [...]

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A Day in the Life of an Account Executive

On April 17, 2012 By

Woke up, fell out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

 

Like the Beatles song suggests, there’s a certain level of monotony to our workdays. Mine start no differently, except substitute watching “Boy Meets World” for [...]

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Can the King of Twitter Play the King of Apple?: Social Media Sentiment on Ashton Kutcher Portraying Steve Jobs

On April 5, 2012 By

Ashton Kutcher Cast as Steve Jobs. 

That’s like casting Adam Sandler as the Pope. Or John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Or even Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan. Oh wait…those last two actually happened!

What initially seemed like an April Fools’ Day prank, or part of the return of [...]

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SXSW: The Witnessing of a Brand Growing Up

On March 19, 2012 By

They grow up so fast.

These words frequently spoken by my mom when looking at old pictures of my brother and me (yes, there’s one to the left!) aren’t so different from the ones being spoken at this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) by faithful devotees that have been following [...]

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Online Identities: Branding Yourself in Social Media

On March 6, 2012 By

Given there’s seemingly a new social media site to join every week now, choosing the right handle and picture for your profile is becoming increasingly important.

First off, to get the handle or profile name you want, it’s best to strike while the iron is hot. With the plethora of [...]

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A Flag on Leaked Super Bowl Ads

On February 7, 2012 By

2012 was the year of the Super Bowl advertising commercial pre-game release. Never before have more companies debuted or teased their ads online in the weeks leading up to their official game day appearance. So, what accounts for this new trend?

Simply put, this strategy of leaking commercials in advance gives advertisers [...]

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Fight the Power: Customers Force Verizon to Abandon Fee Increase

On January 4, 2012 By

I recently issued a retrospective on the Sterling blog on the most provocative and head-scratching events of 2011, but one managed to sneak in during the very last days of the year.

During the late afternoon on December 30, Verizon stated that it was scrapping a controversial $2 [...]

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12 Provocative Events in 2011 from a PR and Tech Perspective

On December 29, 2011 By

Here on the Sterling Communications blog, we’ve never been shy about expressing our opinions on current events. From the events that made us want to stand and clap, to those that left us scratching our heads in confusion, here is a recap of the Sterling response to a dozen of the year’s most intriguing issues [...]

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Social Media: The New Destination for Endorsements

On November 8, 2011 By

Elizabeth Olsen reminds you what film acting can be….

What movie critic said this? Wait, this endorsement actually comes from actor Alec Baldwin – in a tweet! And, the first time I saw this wasn’t even on Twitter, but in a print ad for the new movie, Martha [...]

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Bringing It All Back Home: The Ultimate Decision of Re-rebranding

On November 1, 2011 By

Like the Bob Dylan album title suggests, often the best move to make when all else fails is to go back to basics and return “home” to what made you great to begin with. Stemming from a recent blog entry of mine highlighting Twinings Tea Company’s abrupt revamping and then [...]

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Halloween Goes Social

On October 18, 2011 By

With the proliferation of social media, gone are the days of thumbing through a newspaper to find out about Halloween events, or browsing through a store to come up with ideas for a costume. People are flocking to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites more than ever to decide not only [...]

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The “Big Yellow Taxi” of Marketing

On September 6, 2011 By

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?

These immortal lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s classic song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” must be on the minds of Twinings Tea Company Ltd executives and customers alike. Following a revamping of its original 1831 Earl Grey tea [...]

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Public Relations Onscreen: When PR Gets the Hollywood Treatment

On August 23, 2011 By

What does a cop do? Common answer: Watch Serpico or “NYPD Blue.” How about a lawyer? Turn on A Few Good Men or “Law & Order.” The nearly universal mass entertainment mediums of film and television arguably offer the primary source [...]

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Take Me Out to the Ball Game … With Caution

On July 21, 2011 By

With the recent death of baseball fan Shannon Stone, followed only four days later by another fan, Keith Carmickle, dangling over the railing at Chase Field and nearly falling himself, baseball is becoming the most dangerous [...]

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A Wounded Tiger: Repairing a Tainted Spokesperson and Brand

On June 14, 2011 By

With the 111th annual US Open starting this week, the biggest story remains Tiger Woods dropping out of the golf tournament due to lingering issues with his left leg. After his [...]

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Six Key Elements to Successful, Effective Pitching

On May 17, 2011 By

Having gone directly from DreamWorks Animation to Sterling Communications, I have found there’s a common element to getting both client news and movie ideas noticed that they don’t teach you in school: You have to be able to sell. In [...]

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A Super Company Makes a Super Blunder: Was Groupon a Victim of Groupthink?

On February 8, 2011 By

I last blogged at the end of the year about product placement being shamelessly integrated into television programming. I’d like to shift gears now and focus on the actual TV commercials themselves. [...]

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A Still-Tarnished Peacock in an Over-Advertised World

On December 30, 2010 By

I blogged in April about NBC and its shameless use of product placement in its programming. As I write this now, it seems that things haven’t changed much at the “Peacock Station.” This comes at [...]

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Product Placement on a Once-Proud Peacock

On April 23, 2010 By

As if NBC hasn't had enough problems this year, with its Continue Reading →