For five years Wendy’s has taken a more aggressive comedic approach, ‘Why should we just laugh at ourselves, when we can laugh at you?’

After years of experience doing crisis management, something I’ve learned is that at its heart is common sense.

Is your ad featuring an East Asian man as a nerd actually reinforcing dangerous stereotypes? When and how should you use “Black American” in your copy or scripts? Should there be a hyphen in “Filipino American”?

Nobody likes to be the bearer of bad news. That being said, it should be a requirement for anyone that finds themselves in a leadership role to finely hone the art of communicating such news.

In the wake of unprecedented upheaval, today’s leaders are looking for communicators who are strategic advisors — not order takers.

We’ve all seen the wave of layoffs in big tech over the past few months, many impacting the marketing and communications functions. Having been in the business since before the Great Recession in 2008, I’ve seen the economy on the downswing before.

Instead of getting exercised about these four age-old obstacles to effective internal communications, let’s do something about them in 2023.

The communications function is at an inflection point, as an endless deluge of social and political issues along with increasing employee comms concerns have illuminated the value of communications to the C-suite.

Walmart made global headlines a few days ago when it launched two new virtual games on Roblox, marking the entry of one of the leading consumer brands into the Metaverse. 

As a former head of communications for blue-chip companies, founder of agencies, and CEO of CommunicationsMatch™, I’ve been involved in the new business process for more than two decades.

Two and a half years and one global pandemic after an ownership transition, Columbus, Ohio-based communications and marketing agency, FrazierHeiby, has a new brand. As of today, the firm will be known as Slide Nine Agency, a name reflective of the company’s culture and inspired by direct client feedback.

Ragan CEO Diane Schwartz breaks down how communications is one of the most powerful — and unacknowledged — revenue drivers for a company.

It’s true. I once gave a lecture at my alma mater titled “B2B: The Hidden World of Public Relations.” At that time business-to-business communications was, indeed, hidden away — invisible to the average consumer. Practical and transactional in tone and purpose, these comms were tucked away and separate from the other internal and external communications streams. 

In any managerial position, employee performance is something that is closely looked at as a metric for the success of the company.

While the world is still a long way from being at peace, today, September 21, we recognize United Nations International Day of Peace. This carries even deeper significance after what we’ve been through with the COVID-19 pandemic; and true to this, the theme this year is “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world.”