Back in September the PR firm came under fire after the LA Times uncovered that Coghlan was affiliated with fake news site, News Hawks Review, and had been shamelessly promoting their client Central Basin Municipal Water District of California on the site. Coghlan has an agreement between Central Basin’s public affairs office which promises promotional stories “written in the image of real news.”

This couldn’t be a more blatant violation of PR ethical standards.

Following the LA Times’ expose, PRSA weighed in condemning Coghlan actions and the industry rags were all a flutter with disapproval. You would think, given the public outcry, Coghlan would amend its ways. Quite the contrary. The LA Times reported Tuesday that the fake site, News Hawks, was publishing stories by “journalists” that didn’t exist. Since being called out on this, they have taken down their staff bios. PR Daily outlined the full details of their actions.

Of course, this is something that shouldn’t be breached and Coghlan did so intentionally, which is an issue. But here are three tips to make sure you’re on the right side of the ethical line, when doing PR for a client:

Don’t Pretend to Be Something You’re Not: You should never misrepresent who you are, or who your client is.

Transparency Is Key: Be honest and forthcoming about all relevant aspects of what you’re doing when personally promoting a client and you’ll avoid potentially hairy situations.

If  Your Stomach Hurts At The Idea, You Probably Shouldn’t Do It: The situation with Coghlan serves as a scary reminder to do a gut check every now and again when you find yourself in a hairy situation.

Now for the big news – I’m excited to say that Affect won a Big Apple in the Integrated Communications: Business-to-Business category!  We won the award for the lead generation campaign that we executed with Regus in Q4 2009.  The campaign was a public relations, marketing and social media campaign designed to raise awareness and drive demand for Regus’ business-ready solutions in Manhattan.  You can see the full list of Big Apple winners here.  Congratulations to all!

And finally, on a personal note, I want to say how proud I am to be a part of the Affect Strategies team.  I’m continuously inspired by the creativity, dedication and passion of my colleagues.  Congrats, guys!

Barneys and Friend, featuring
Proclivity Systems’ founder, inventor and CEO, Sheldon Gilbert
Fast Company, May 2008 issue

Congratulations, Proclivity team! Sheldon — you look fierce!

Today’s Hit of the Week comes from Affect Strategies Account Executive Regina Nisita. Regina recently secured interviews for client IntraOp Medical‘s chief scientist and CEO in the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal. The article, Operating Room a Competitive Space for Radiation Therapy, ran in today’s issue, alongside a photo of IntraOp’s vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

Well done, Regina!

We helped to prep and serve food for a holiday luncheon and distribute gifts to members of the Iris House community.

The people were amazing, and the macaroni and cheese wasn’t bad, either : )

If you are interested in learning more about volunteer opportunities at Iris House, check out their website’s volunteer page or call 646-548-0100.

Happy holidays from all of us at Affect Strategies! Here’s to a great 2008.

Sheldon Gilbert is the founder and CEO of Proclivity Systems, the developers of  the Proclivity platform, and one of our clients. Proclivity is a predictive engine that can anticipate and forecast consumer shopping behaviors online - essentially predicting what people are going to by, when and at what price.  He is profiled in this month’s Men’s Vogue in a section called ‘Life Studies’ in an article entitled The Start-Up CEO (p. 164).

Although the story includes details on the company and it’s flagship product, Proclivity Mail, the outlet is still Vogue. Sheldon participated in a photoshoot with photographer Julian Dufort, and was dressed to the nines by fashion editor Justin Arroyo. The writer, Michael Mraz, explored Sheldon’s personal history from his birth in St. Lucia to his studies at Yale and the career path that led him to write an algorithm that became the foundation of the company’s technology. He also had Sheldon share some of his favorite objects from his past and present to be included in the story.

Although Vogue may not be a direct path to Proclivity’s target audience, it has a broad circulation and reaches are large number of influencers in the fashion industry. (Proclivity is focusing on large online retailers as part of its sales efforts.) In this case, leveraging Sheldon’s dynamic background, personal appeal and fashion sense, made him a great fit for Vogue. Surely, a product-focused pitch would not have gotten the editor’s attention.

Our client, Absolute Software, makes a product called Computrace LoJack for Laptops. The product is installed on a computer, and if it is lost or stolen, Absolute can locate the computer and works with local authorities to recover it. Walter (go Walter!) in our office sent the reporter information within an hour of her initial request and …… yesterday the story was published online and in print.

Although trying to to get a client in the WSJ can take months of work, in this case, we were prepared and ready to take advantage of an immediate opportunity – that’s more than luck. Being able to respond quickly and effectively can increase your chances of getting coverage in any publication – but if hundreds of PR folk could be responding to a request, its best to get your story at the top of the inbox.

In addition to the guidelines that are excerpted from Gillian’s book on how marketers need to treat bloggers, there is a more existential question posed – When should firms wade into the blogosphere themselves? This is the question that many of our clients are starting to ask. And here is a stripped down version of our response:

1. When you have something to say. What can you write about? Blogs that focus on specific subject matter or convey a point of view are valuable when coupled with a knowledgeable expert or a marketer adept at pointing out the work of other knowledgeable experts.

2. When you have people that are interested in hearing about it. If you write it, will they read it? Do you have a loyal customer base, user group, investors or consumers that are interested in your company or the topics that you plan to cover? If not, will you promote the blog to attract readers?

3. When you are committed to blogging for the long-term. It takes time to write and manage a blog. Are you willing to commit to writing entries on a daily basis? Weekly? Are you willing to invest the time in building a readership?  

4. When you need to respond to the public/media/employees/influencers directly. Is the media filtering your message, or not communicating it altogether? Use your blog to respond quickly to critical issues and speak directly to your target audience.

5. When you have something to sell or something of value to offer. It’s the soft sell. Maybe the blog is about technical support or tips and tricks for your products. Maybe its more focused on reviews of the products you sell. Can your blog play the role of the knowledgeable, yet not pushy, salesperson for your organization?

6. When you are willing to open the proverbial Pandora’s Box. Blogs are a dialogue, not a monologue. Although as the host of the show, you can control certain aspects of the communication, ultimately blogging is about engaging your audience and letting them participate in the conversation.

A few conference speakers and attendees have already blogged about their experiences:

• Tony Sapienza, Topaz Partners co-founder and principal and Blogs, Vlogs & iPods panelist
• David Parmet, CEO, Marketing Begins At Home and Blogs, Vlogs & iPods panelist
• Tonja Deegan, Airfoil PR, conference attendee
• Chip Griffin, CEO, CustomScoop and Blogs, Vlogs & iPods panelist
• Simon Heseltine, Director of Search, RedBoots and Boosting PR Results with SEO, SEM & RSS panelist
• Matt McLernon, Bite Communications, conference attendee (and PR Idol winner!)

Updated 6/22:

• Greg Jarboe, co-founder and CEO, SEO-PR, Writer, SearchEngineWatch.com and SEO, SEM & RSS panelist

We also created a T3 PR Conference Set in Flickr. However, most of our pictures pale in comparison to the ones David Parmet took on a Nikon d80 that drew its share of envious looks (at least from me).

Special props to Katie Safrey from the Affect marketing department who truly went above and beyond the call of duty in helping to plan and execute the event. If anyone from Fresh Direct is reading this, how about introducing gift certificates to your product line? I’d like to “gift” Katie a shopping spree. This is a potentially huge untapped market for you guys. Call me!

Affect Strategies president and Tech Affect blogger Sandra Fathi recently appeared on Tech Talk with Craig Peterson. The interview is now available as a podcast:

Sandra Fathi on Tech Talk (May 30, 2007)

Among the topics covered was this recent news story about a provocative MySpace photo that prevented an undergrad from receiving her education degree.

The interview is about 16 minutes long. Have a listen, and let us know what you think!