Euro RSCG - Blog

Entries in Connecticut (17)

Friday

Jul022010

The Intern Diaries, Part II

It’s going on one month since the start of my internship, and already I’ve learned so much. I haven’t been seeing too much of my soul mate, Cision Point, because I’ve been too busy helping with SMTs, RMTs, OMTs…O-M-G!

I’m learning the ins of working for an external agency, several of which allow room for so many creative ideas to flow, as we have a diverse range of clients. Before coming to ERWW PR, I felt somewhat of a creative restraint. Working for an agency such as Euro RSCG, however, allows the mind to wander freely in hopes that once it returns, it will bring back a variety of perspectives from the mental yellow brick road. From an agency’s point of view, the land of Oz would be the final product, with the client being the Wizard. ERWW PR challenges its employees and interns by providing a venue to exercise our creativity and allowing our ideas to come into fruition by any means necessary. The opportunity affords us just the right amount of eustress.

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July 2, 2010 | by

DeAnne Bradley | | tagged

Connecticut,

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR,

internships |

Tuesday

Jun012010

Getting Surreal

creativecommons.org/by howies collectiveOriginally posted on huffingtonpost.com.

“You can’t make this stuff up” has become a clichéd refrain in our reality-TV-obsessed, out-to-shock world, but sometimes life is so outrageous that there’s really no other response.

I had one of those moments when I picked up my morning paper on Saturday. The Stamford Advocate’s cover story was about a Stamford city police officer who had been suspended and was facing possible criminal charges for supposedly showing a picture of his genitals to a woman he had pulled over. It’s the kind of (unfunny) story line that might belong in an old Police Academy movie or an episode of the Comedy Central show “Reno 911!”—but as the lead article in the local newspaper of record, it made me do a double take.

It’s deeply skeevy, but (as another cliché goes) wait, there’s more. The woman had her 21-month-old baby in the backseat. And the officer was married. And a 14-year veteran of the police force. Who had been named Officer of the Year in 2006.

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June 1, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Facebook |

Monday

May242010

The Analogies of Elections

When I attended the Connecticut Democratic State Convention last week, two major things struck me. The first is the degree to which politicians and political organizers are using the same analogies as marketers—everyone is going grassroots. Just as those of us in the communications business are striving to create homegrown movements and viral videos, our would-be leaders are increasingly spinning their campaigns as homespun. The convention was for one of the most politically important states in the country, yet it was a mixture of national stage setting and high school pep rally.

Second, political candidates are using fighting words to a much more literal extent than ever before. Still on the hot seat after claiming to have served in the Vietnam War, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal accepted the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate. My biggest takeaway from his speech is that fighters are nobler than terrorists. Even as he told the audience that “I have made mistakes” and “I regret them,” he made it clear that he’s putting that behind him and battling ahead.

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May 24, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

brands,

viral campaign |

Thursday

May202010

Power from the People

Originally posted on huffingtonpost.com.

Look at the American political landscape today and you might begin to get the sinking feeling that the red state/blue state dichotomy is, on the one hand, just a bit of political show and, on the other, a pitiable piece of naiveté. We have to admit that if we want to paint the nation with an election-time metaphor, its color wouldn’t be blue, red or even my recently identified purple. It’s green—and not the green of environmental concerns, but the green of cold, hard cash.*

On Jan. 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court virtually endorsed this green-tinted view of American politics in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that corporations (and nonprofits and unions) can donate any amount of money to a political campaign—and at any time, including the previously banned “electioneering” period of 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.

The court essentially opened the floodgates to corporate domination of campaign finance, staking the decision, which reverses six decades of both federal election law and First Amendment jurisprudence, on the notion that corporations are people, too.

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May 20, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Connecticut,

Marketing,

Obama,

PR,

change |

Sunday

Apr252010

Fear of Free

New York Times tech columnist David Pogue just wrote a compelling column about a “convenient, mysterious service from cable companies”: free Wi-Fi hot spots for subscribers.

Companies including Cablevision, Comcast and Time Warner have been creating free hot spots for their customers—and each other’s customers—in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Cablevision customers, including Pogue, can now use free Wi-Fi from Cablevision, Comcast or Time Warner. And it’s seamless: They can introduce their laptop or smart phone to the network once, then get online anywhere without logging in.

It struck Pogue as too good to be true. “Now, I think this development is fantastic. It hits me where I live. It’s free. It’s fast and reliable. I love it,” he wrote. “But I’ll be frank: I can’t understand why they’re doing this.”

Pogue is a journalist, so he’s trained to ask questions and paid to be skeptical. But he’s not the only one wondering—and worrying—about why cable providers would be giving away something they could be profiting from.

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April 25, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Facebook |