Weber Shandwick Recent Blogs

Pawngo Stunt is an Example of “Vile” Marketing

George F. Snell III — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:41:06 +0000

Today most of New England is still bruised from the Patriots loss in the Super Bowl on Sunday. For the last 48-hours the city that has been spoiled by championships in football, baseball, basketball and hockey in the last decade was numb at the sudden and heart-breaking loss by the Patriots. You can feel it [...]

#CMRetreat 2012 – Key Takeaways and Learnings

Weber Shandwick Seattle Team — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:42:30 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I attended the Content Marketing Retreat (#CMRetreat) hosted by Fusionspark Media along with Chris Sewell, our content director at Weber Shandwick. Having missed the first annual retreat, I was excited to finally head across the sound to beautiful Langley, WA for...

Is it me?

Leslie Gaines-Ross — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:59:00 +0000

Is it me or is there an article every single day about how to manage your online reputation, particularly if you are a job seeker. I know that I get Google Alerts as to when anything surfaces on online reputation but I don’t think I can read any more. For instance, today I got another [...]

Social Amplification an Oversight for Super Bowl Advertisers?

Weber Shandwick Social Media Specialists — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:03:26 +0000

Super Bowl XLVI was supposed to contain the widest swath of social media in history, driving people to Facebook, to Twitter, and to YouTube non-stop. It had a social listening Command Center, staffed by 50+ people helping fans throughout Indianapolis and online with logistical as...

EQ vs IQ

Ian Rumsby — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:56:49 +0000

Earlier in the month I was asked for some belated comments on the GQD (The Great Qantas Debacle) of 2011 – specifically in relation to the timing of its ill-fated Twitter campaign that invited consumers to define a luxury in-flight … Continue reading →

An Opportunity to Bridge the Digital Divide

Social Impact Team — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:02:07 +0000

One of the more important benefits of smart phones is that they are helping to bridge the “digital divide” between people who have access to the internet and those low-income Americans—particularly blacks and Latinos—who do not. For foundations that focus on workforce development, community-based organizations providing job training, and African-American and Hispanic-American advocacy groups this presents a great opportunity to collaborate with businesses to recruit, train and employ tech-savvy applicants.

According to the Pew Center, African Americans and Hispanic Americans are using their smart phones—particularly Android phones—to communicate ideas, access information and create content at greater rates than white Americans. As digital technology becomes increasingly more mobile, this would suggest that these communities are well-positioned to bridge the digital divide in a way that might overcome some of the historical challenges to economic success it has presented.

Take for example the unemployment situation, which is significantly higher amongst blacks and Latinos than whites. Right now, it is incredibly difficult to search for a job without access to the internet and perhaps even harder to apply for that job using a smart phone. Imagine if the “map” function on an Apple or Android phone, in addition to listing nearby restaurants, bars and movie theaters, also displayed those businesses looking to hire. People of color would then have greater awareness of employment opportunities in their neighborhoods. The next step would be to design job applications that are smart phone friendly, something that might not be too difficult given the amount of personal data stored on a typical smart phone.

Any organization looking to follow this path would have a strong partner in the federal government, which under the Federal Communications Commission just this month announced plans to expand broadband access and improve digital literacy for low-income Americans. They would also place themselves on the forefront of the kind of techniques any organization must use if it is looking to engage, educate or organize young Americans, who are also using mobile technology at an ever-increasing rate.

Content Fusion at its best: new U.S. Savings Bond timeline

Barb Iverson — 2012-01-19T09:29:00.009-06:00

The new year rang in a new way to purchase U.S. Savings Bonds – online. As of January 1, 2012, savings bonds have gone only electronic. No more paper savings bonds. To mark the occasion and invite news media to help tell the story, Weber Shandwick...

What does the Occupy movement really mean?

Colin Byrne — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:42:48 +0000

I am in LA for the first time in twenty years. Last time I was looking at how community groups, local government and businesses helped heal the wounds of the LA riots. Only a few months ago American colleagues and friends were asking what the hell was going on in the UK with the looting [...]

Advocacy Feels Good

Sun, 22 May 2011 17:27:06 +0000

I guess you are sucessful when you see others doing similar surveys on advocacy. This one is definitely more fun than most because of its cool infographics. The study on brand advocacy was done with Dr. Kathleen Ferris-Costa at the University of Rhode Island, College of Business Administration. Some of the findings are similar to [...]

Photoshop on the Go? There’s An App For That.

Wally Sabria — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:44:59 +0000

(Image courtesy of Gizmodo) With the advent of creative and design applications, like Brushes, that take full advantage of the multi or capacitative touch of mobile devices, it’s about time that Adobe finally takes the plunge. Gizmodo, hot on the technological, grapevine trail, most recently authored a feature article on this piece of app-breaking news. [...]