OWS: 84-year-old woman gets peppers sprayed; Amazing marketing; A lesson from a Dog; Cops arrest Cops?

Occupy Wall Street continues on. The politicians must be getting worried at this point, two months in and people are not letting up. I'm sure no one expected the 'ADD-Twitter-Post-MTV' generation to have this kind of staying power.

OWS has gone from being branded a 'bunch of communists' and being told to 'get a job' to now being seen as a bunch of people 'determined to change the system' - ironically, this is why people voted for Obama (he was suppose to be changing the system). OWS is quickly becoming a vehicle for those disappointed that Obama did not bring hope or change to the country (at least I think it is).

Anyway, some interesting videos associated with OWS that caught my attention this week:

Pepper spray makes a return. Student protesters get doused by the cops.

84 year old protester gets pepper sprayed by the police.
(Really? spraying old ladies might go down as one of the dumbest PR moves of the police yet.)

Ok, now this is amazing. I don't know how they did this, but this is top-notch marketing tactics right here. OWS used a projector of some kind - very Batman-esque - to project a message on the Verizon Building in New York while protesters were marching towards the Brooklyn Bridge.

A protester's dog and a police officer's horse play around at OWS (if only humans got along so well).

And perhaps one of the most telling videos that sums up what is going on with OWS is the video of a Retired Police Chief who joined OWS and who the police actually arrested.

You know things are upside down when you have police arresting police. If that's not a warning to politicians that over the long run using the police to squash the protesters will be a failed strategy, I don't know what is.

As this PR war for the hearts and minds of Americans plays out, right now I'd say OWS is winning the war. Not decisively just yet, there's still plenty of folks that don't support or like them, but those numbers are less today than they were two months ago.

Comments

Morgan Freeman Botches Reddit IAmA - Black Eye on PR

For those not familiar with Reddit it's basically a forum where people post interesting things on a wide variety of subjects. Postings gain popularity when people 'up vote' them and become more visible in their particular subreddit (a subreddit is simply a subject category, like politics or videos). One of Reddit's most popular subreddits is the IAmA subreddit - which allows reddit users to ask questions of various people. Over three million people subscribe to IAmA, which is also widely used by celebrities. An IAmA can last a couple hours during which Redditors (the term Reddit users call themselves) can ask the person doing the IAmA questions. The term "IAmA" comes from the concept of "I Am A doctor, ask me anything", "I Am A movie star, ask me anything" - you get the drift. IAmA's are not just for celebrities, lots of common folks do them as well. Recently Morgan Freeman did an IAmA and it turned into a PR mess. To make a lo...

Mainstream versus Alternate Media - Where is the news now-a-days?

It's well known that CNN has been suffering an exodus of viewers, losing over half their viewership over the past couple of years. Yet Fox News has not lost viewers, but has increased its viewership slightly. It's an odd phenomena given that Fox news is clearly biased in their coverage. Mind you, so is CNN according to many. But I'd suggest it comes down to something much more simple. While Fox may be holding its ground, the rise of alternative media is taking off where CNN left off - a focus on hard news. For those of the under 40 crowd, that's what they are looking for, NEWS. The simplest way to highlight the difference between mainstream media and alternative media is to take a look at their homepages and the stories they highlight. It becomes very clear why people are turning away from CNN and turning to alternative media. Let's look at five media sites and their homepage (click on pictures to enlarge): CNN Feature stories: CNN heroes Top t...

E-cigarettes: A PR battle Health Canada cannot win?

So I've now been using an e-cigarette (e-cig) for two months and thought I'd talk a bit about how I see the upcoming battle between Health Canada and e-cigs going. First though, let's do a quick overview of what exactly an e-cig is. Basically an e-cig vaporizes liquid that contains nicotine. The vapor is then inhaled. People who use e-cigs are called vapers (not smokers). Because the liquid is atomized (ie. vaporized), not burned the way tobacco is, vapers do not consider themselves 'smokers' in anyway. An e-cig is comprised of basically three components: The tank - this is the component that holds the juice (sometimes referred to as e-juice or e-liquid). The atomizer - this a coil and wick unit that atomizes the juice. When the coil is heated (from the battery) it atomizes the juice that has soaked into the wick. The battery - batteries for e-cigs come in various capacities (some last 8 hours, others 40+ hours, depending on their size). The ba...

Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Search This Blog