Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Romney isn't looking so good lately. He's had a number of gaffes in the media, with his 47 per cent comments being the most damaging. Obama's recent ad against Romney hits HARD using the 47 per cent. The ad is well done in that the emotive resonance it achieves is that Romney is an elitist who only cares about those who are on his side and that he will leave average Americans out in the cold. With Romney trailing Obama by as much as five-to-ten per cent in key swing states (those states that will ultimately determine who is president), one has to ask where has everything gone wrong? Disconnect In almost every media show in which talking heads give their opinions the consensus is that Romney is a flawed candidate and that people simply don't know him or connect with him. In addition, he's faulted for not having specifics in terms of his over-arching plan to restore America. Both those things are true, but it's not really why things have gone so wrong...

Obama has come out with his latest ad - a two-minute summary of what he's offering American voters. All-in-all this is a really good ad. What works is that he has a solemn tone to his messaging. Which is a wise strategy as he long ago used up any residual value in his 'hope and change' message of 2008. You'll also notice there's a lot of 'morning' imagery, which is clever because it infers that things are always 'darkest before the dawn' and the imagery suggests the dawn is upon us. I didn't think Obama would get a second term, but Romney is doing such a horrible job that he very well might. I've always said, the only thing that will win Obama this election will be Romney. Given that reality, the best thing Obama can do, which he appears to be doing, is merely to 'appear' presidential. Which is to say appear to be mature, rational, statesman-like and working for the benefit of all Americans. Having said that, I still argue ...

Wow... video of a store owner in Spain telling police they cannot enter after a protester ran in to his shop.  Jump to the 4:20 mark to watch.   Also worth watching, at the 7:20 mark a man clearly trying to protect his disabled kid from the police (or so it seems).

If you haven't seen the news, both Greece and Spain have had large protests the past couple of days, with the crowd getting as close to rioting as you can without actually crossing the line in to a full-blown riot. In Spain it got pretty hairy when protesters actually started attacking police. In Greece protesters threw fire bombs at the police. The conventional wisdom is that the public is reacting to Draconian austerity measures. And while this is true, I think the antecedent source behind this behaviour is not the austerity measures but rather more of a PR issue. People tend to lash out violently when they feel their trust has been broken. For instance, if you went to the doctor and they said that you have cancer, you wouldn't attack the doctor right? Which is a basic example of how people don't necessarily respond violently or aggressively to bad news. However, if you went to the doctor and they told you that during your last check-up when they took your...

Apple released a bunch of new ads for the iPhone 5. I've been a huge advocate of Apple's marketing and have always said that Apple is more of a marketing company than a tech company. Their dominance early on was in part due to great technology, but even more so, it was due to top notch marketing. These new ads are horrible though. They have two deadly flaws with them: 1) They are BORING 2) They talk down to the customer. Their tone is almost as though they are talking to a small child. What we are clearly seeing here is the effects of Steve Jobs no longer being around. The company has reverted to basic feature-based marketing, or speeds-and-feeds marketing. They are no longer appealing to people's emotions, but rather, appealing to various features that will make them say 'That's cool, I should probably get that.' The only problem with features-based marketing is that Samsung/Android devices offer all the same features. So why has Apple g...

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...

I wrote a fairly lengthy commentary on the announcement of QE3 (quantitative easing 3, aka stimulus 3, aka QEInfinity, aka BailoutInfinity, etc.) in which I concluded that the US government was destroying the value of money and that the outcomes from doing so were pretty much all bad. Having said that, I've stepped back from the announcement and my PR brain has had time to chew on the various messages the banking industry, the fed and both Romney and Obama have given over the past six months. With that in mind, I'm appending this post to my previous in terms of my views on QE3 and the economy. I'll keep this post shorter than the last one. Let's first identity REALITY. This is to say, let's first take basic facts that are true and indisputable. Facts: 1) Large sections of the US population have faced chronic unemployment (2-4 years). These folks have almost no chance of getting back in to the workforce, which is not hiring as it is. Almost all the '...

The story of the week, in my opinion, was the Federal Reserve announcing that it will engage in on-going and essentially unlimited quantitative easing (ie. printing of money to stimulate the economy). I figured I'd write a post on this for those that are interested in understand what all this means. It has implications for PR in the sense that he very nature of how our society and monetary system works (not just in the US but anywhere in the world) has changed drastically. But before I begin, I thought I'd precis this with a recent video on Yahoo's Daily Ticker. David Stockman gives a great explanation of why quantitative easing (especially at this point) is bad. Ok, so now my views on Bernanke and QE3+Infinity for those that want to understand what the heck all this money printing really means (and I'll toss in some PR implications at the end). Lenders and Borrowers So basically, the core thing to remember is that the economy has two components to it:...

Things in Greece seem to be getting uglier as the police and fireman are now protesting outside government buildings over proposed cuts to their pay. The interesting element of their protest is how they have a policeman and a fireman with a noose around their neck. This non-verbal messaging tells you a lot. It's their way of saying that they perceive the actions of the government as violent and life threatening. It foreshadows dark days ahead, since it's fairly logical to assume that this a preamble to potentially violent protest in the future. A 'hanging' is not the kind of message / image you send unless you are essentially laying down the gauntlet and letting the other side know that you feel as though your life is being threatened. It's not hard to see the passive threat that lies therein, since anyone whose life is being threatened will engage in extreme behaviour to protect their lives. Not a good sign when your police force, which is your last li...

As a form of protest, and as a PR stunt, Schaefer has been 'chalking' outside banks in the US. And he's done it again... I give this guy big props because from a PR perspective this has a great ROI.  For a couple of bucks (for the chalk) he's making one heck of an impression on YouTube. And setting a great example for kids in my opinion... you can protest effectively while remaining peaceful. This is also a great example of how you attack a brand (so essentially the reverse of what most PR folks engage in, which is building up a brand). Michael Moore is famous for attacking brands also. And while we don't traditionally think of it as a brand attack - we tend to use the word 'protest' - in reality it's an effort to degrade brand equity in the market. How should the banks respond to this attack on their brand? To be honest, there isn't much they can do. Given the activities they are engaged in, any attempts to address the brand attacks of folk...

Just a test please ignore.

So the DNC has had it's final day and so far I've rated the convention a D+ so far. Tonight's two keynotes were Joe Biden and Barack Obama. So without further ado, how did they do? Barack Obama: F Ok, let's get right to the meat and potatoes of the president's speech. The two success points for Obama have been GM and killing Osama, so let's move beyond those two items as we all give him credit on that front (although the bailout of GM, in the long run, may turn out to have been a mistake, but let's forget about that for now). (note: only parts 1 and 2 are available online right now, part 3 probably in the next few hours) Basically Obama re-hashed every talking point from his 2008 campaign. He's for: Clean energy Tax breaks for the middle class not the rich Opportunities for everyone to live the American dream An end to the wars Respect for people's constitutional freedoms Reduction of the deficit / national debt Banks should ...