Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

This week Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stones announced that he's joined First Look Media (FLM). Taibbi is notorious for framing the term "vampire squid" to describe Goldman Sachs and his reporting is known for exposing the corruption in the financial sector. FLM is a new media venture by  eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and already has Glen Greenwald (of Edward Snowden infamy) on its staff. Greenwald heads FLM's "The Intercept" publication.   It use to be that when reporters broke huge stories, such as Greenwald did with Edward Snowden, that they were bumped up the ladder to higher spots in the big leagues (ie. NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and Fox).    However, a new paradigm is clearly unfolding where there seem to be two media camps. The "free" press (where news is reported without regards for consequences) and the "narrative" press (where news is less about the details and more about the overall narrative, a narrative that requires cooperation wi...

You know what the biggest all-consuming concern of the PR industry today should be? It's trust. Americans don't trust anyone (or hardly anyone as it were). In a recent Gallup poll it turns out that across 16 core elements of "civil society", a majority of Americans only trust three things: the military, small business and the police. A majority of American's do not trust (or have confidence in) the President, the news, big businesses, and only 10 per cent have confidence in their elected representatives (ie. Congress). It is very clear that for the next two decades PR's #1 task is going to be about reestablishing (or in some cases maintaining) trust with the general public. The fact that only 25 per cent of the population has confidence in newspapers is staggering. It's not only staggering in terms of what it means for PR professionals (one has to ask, is PR making things worse?) but for society as a whole. When people feel they can no longer ...

I use to think google glasses were kind of dumb. I mean, I really have no desire to have things flashing up in front of me as I walk through the world. That said, this video changed my mind... I now think these would be awesome to have.  If you have a great product, sometimes all it takes is a very basic example of the product in action.

Pew research put out a great infographic about the issues Americans care about. You can view the graphic here if you have issues seeing it below. It's fascinating because as you look at the various items on the list you can see where the PR battles have been won and lost. The economy? Despite Obama saying things have been getting better for the past five years, it's stayed smack dab at the top of Americans' concern list. Clearly they are losing the PR battle on this front. Despite unemployment supposedly now at 6.5 per cent, it remains the #2 concern, yet again clearly losing the PR battle (it should be way down the list if people actually believed the 6.5 per cent figures). Climate Change is all the way at the very bottom of the list. I mean, that is a PR disaster. Given the amount of PR the government did regarding climate change it's pathetic that people really don't care about it. The one item that makes you scratch your head though is how people s...

A Montreal special effects studio mocked up a hilarious commercial for Haynes Baked Beans. If "Heinz" were smart they'd hire these guys and replace the "Haynes" with "Heinz" and use the actual commercial. Either way, I love viral marketing like this. With over eight million views in only three months, I'd say Cinesite has successfully shown that it knows how to capture the public's interest.

While the Canadian government is tackling cigarettes by raising taxes, the Thai government is tackling the issue using advertising. I've got to say I prefer the latter approach.  The following video went viral a couple months ago and as an ex-smoker it's probably the first video I've seen where it didn't so much make me think "Boy, I've got to quit smoking" (most smokers wish they could quit, that's generally not the problem) but it did make me think "Damn, the Thai government seems to actually care about helping people quit." While the video wouldn't have made me quit, I might have actually given the number a call. While most Western-style health advertisements focus on stigmatizing smoking (hence why there is such a widespread view that smokers are bad, not just that smoking is bad, but that the actual smoker is bad), what the Thai gov has done brilliantly is send a message that the smoker is valuable and doesn't deserve to b...

You've probably already seen this (I've got a ton of items I never got around to posting), but for those who haven't, WestJet shows you how to do smart marketing. Instead of just pushing a message, do something to give back. Talk is cheap as they say... but what WestJet did back in December wasn't talk, but take action. 35 million hits on YouTube so far... not bad at all.

So the Canadian budget came out today and the government stuck a knife in the backs of smokers . They are raising the taxes on a carton of cigarettes by four dollars, which will bring in an extra $3.3 billion in revenue. When I heard this I was enraged and I pledge today that my vote will never again go for the Conservative party.... ever! They just lost my vote FOR LIFE. Let me explain why: First let me say that I no longer smoke! That's right, smoke free now for two months. As those who read my blog know, I switched over to e-cigarettes and I now "vape". It took about three months for me to completely drop the cigarettes, but since December I've completely quit (more on this at the end of this blog post). So the cigarette tax doesn't affect me, yet I'm still enraged for the following reasons: Deterence: Increased prices have always been used to deter youth from smoking. I'm fine with that. But at $10 per pack, the price is already a deterr...