Proofreading

Public relations is all about communicating with customers, prospective customers, community and the public at large. So it is very important to proof read work before it is published across different media platforms.

There are many common grammar mistakes made which must be avoided. The mistakes of i.e. vs. e.g., who vs. whom, and that vs. which are common. For instance, i.e. is an abbreviation for "that is." The good trick is to think of "in essence" when you see i.e. Also e.g. is abbreviation for "for example." Similarly "Who" refers to the subject of clause and "Whom" refers to the object of the clause. To check whether you have used it correctly, replace it with "him/her" or "he/she." If "him/her" makes sense, use "whom" and if "he/she" makes sense use "who."

Likewise “your” is the second person possessive adjective and is used to describe something as belonging to you. While “You're” is a contraction of "you are." A trick to remember this is to replace you're with you are while reading the sentence. Another common mistake is done between "That" and "Who." That refers to objects or groups. For example, Blogs that focus on Facebook marketing strategy are plentiful. While "Who" refers to people. For example, Page admins who went to increase fan involvement should create Status Updates that include calls to actions (Piombino, K. 2014).

Grammar skills showcase positive workplace traits. They include attention to detail, critical thinking, and intellectual aptitude. People who care about their writing demonstrate credibility, professionalism, and accuracy of their work. A critical thinker is someone who can structure a grammatical correct sentence typically a signal that you are able to analyze and explain other complex problems.  While not knowing the different between "it's" and "its" or "there" and "their" may make the employer wonder that the person is distracted or even lazy to bother to learn (Conner, C. 2013).   

Hence correct use of grammar, sentence construction and use of punctuations is a key to successful communication. 

Reference list

Conner, C. (2013). Report: How Grammar Influences Your Income. Forbes. Retrieved from website link

Piombino, K. (2014). Simple writing mistakes you should never make. PR Daily.com. Retrieved from website link

Is Corporate Social Responsibility heartfelt?

"Corporate Social Responsibility is a company's sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship through their waste and pollution reduction processes, by contributing to educational and social programs, and by earning adequate returns on the employed resources," (Business Dictionary.com).

Experts says that good corporate citizenship is not just something that differentiates a company from its competitors but today it is something that is a requirement to remain competitive in almost any industry. In spite of this requirement many companies do not have a budget for their CSR missions (Greene, B. 2014).

If a company does not have large funds to spend on giving back to society with big events, it can at least empower its employees to be CSR ambassadors. This helps employees give back to their communities and make a difference.

For example big companies like Walmart and McDonalds are doing their business by making sure that their production is not harming the environment. Microsoft has committed itself to helping nonprofits by doing work with communities. These are great examples of real CSR initiatives.

But the question is, are CSR initiatives become another way to gain publicity? The main purpose for any company to take up a CSR initiative must be to bring about social change. So when a company brags about its CSR initiatives, should we believe it for bringing about change in the community or is it simply a publicity stunt. Experts say that when employers engage their employees in their CSR initiatives, they genuinely want to make a difference (Mahesha, N. 2013).

Therefore to really believe a company when it launches its CSR initiative, we need to understand whether it wants to make any social change and whether it involves its employees with that initiative. If there is no ambition to bring a social change, we can blindly assume that the company is merely looking for publicity.

Dr. Bradley Googins, Executive Director of Corporate Citizenship at Boston College says Corporate Social Responsibility is no longer used as a publicity generator or as a tax exemption technique by organizations. CSR initiatives taken up by organizations are actually making a big difference. It is helping societies all over the world (CB Bureau, 2010).

Reference list

CB Bureau (2010). Corporate social responsibility no more a publicity generator. Cause Because. Retrieved from website link

Corporate Social Responsibility. BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved from website link

Greene, B. (2014). 10 Steps to Launching a Successful CSR Program. PR News. Retrieved from website link

Mahesha, N. (2013). Does CSR come from a good place or just another way to gain publicity? Retrieved from website link

To-Do list of PR professionals

Sure Public Relations has changed over the years, and more so during the social media boom. Traditional media seems to be getting busted by new media. The importance of blogs and social media is getting bigger. So there is a new to-do list that PR professionals ought to do today.

The traditional skills and attributes that PR professionals needed to have were writing, good communication skills, media relations, proactiveness, and good work ethic. But in the new age of digital media, there are a few more attributes and skills that is added to that list, including blogging, microblogging, social networking tools, SEO, Coding, RSS, RSS readers, blogger relations, and social media ethics (Fleet, D., 2009).

Arik Hanson writes on the PR Daily site that by 2020 PR professionals will have to add a few more skills to be competitive and survive in the ever growing public relations world. The few skills that they would need are (Hanson, A. 2012).

1.      Advertising copywriting

2.      Video editing/ production

3.      Mobile

4.      Social content creation/ curation

5.      Analytics

6.      Search Engine Optimization

7.      Speed to information

8.      Programming skills

9.      Managing virtual teams

10.  Blogger outreach

PRO's today have to monitor content on Twitter, Facebook and online communities, and at the same time update these sites on a continuous basis to stay abreast with the new media world. Online communications and social media are the real growth areas at the moment. But overall this is an opportunity for PR professionals. They have more channels through which they can speak with the customers in a short period of time.

So a PR professional, a job seeker, a business should welcome social media in their lives and stay up-to-date with the online medium. Being well versed with social media is very important for people looking for a career as a PR professional. A business owner needs to hire a PR company and/or hire staff to take care of their social media and make sure they stay updated with the online world. PR professionals already know that they got to do social media but they need to innovate and attend social media workshops to make sure that they stay up-to-date (Krautstrunk, M. 2011).

Reference List

Fleet, D. (2009). 14 Key Skills & Attributes For New Public Relations Professionals. Dave Fleet.com website. Retrieved from website link

Hanson, A. (2012). 10 skills PR professionals will need in 2020. PR Daily. Retrieved from website link

Krautstrunk, M. (2011). PR Job Descriptions: Professional Social Media Experience Now Necessary? PR breakfast club. Retrieved from website link

Another crisis management

So is it the end of General Motors or only the end of the 2004 manufactured Chevrolet Cobalt car that was responsible for taking the lives of so many innocent General Motors customers. Everything seemed faulty in this car model. There were power steering failures, locks inexplicably opening and closing, doors jammed and shut in the rain, ignition defect and much more. The worst to this crisis is that even after knowing about the defects, General Motors did nothing to fix the problems on the grounds that it was too expensive to recall all cars and rectify the problem.

It's one thing when you didn't know of the major problem and hence didn't do anything to rectify it. General Motors knew about the car defects way back in 2001. The problems were again highlighted in 2004, but nothing was done by the GM management to rectify the situation. Thirteen people have died in accidents as a result of faulty ignition and about 140 died in accidents involving the Cobalt in which the cause is unknown (Nocera, J. 2014).

Surely this is a big crisis and from the public relations point-of-view. The General Motors management is doing everything it can do to protect its public image. The company has hired a crisis management advisor Jeff Eller to help it come out of this crisis situation. Now Eller is the same man who had represented the Clinton administration. But will the public pardon such lethal mistakes? Even if G.M. has the best person roped in to reverse the damage, can the damage really be reduced? (Vlasic, B. 2014).

At the center of this crisis is General Motors CEO Mary Barra. In a letter to employees, Barra assures employees that the company's reputation won't be affected by the ongoing recall of 1.6 million vehicles with potentially fatal ignition problems, but rather on how it addresses the problem. Only time will tell whether GM will be able to keep its reputation like it was before or whether it is all over for this huge company. However reputation experts say that the first rules of reputation management is to be proactive and not reactive. And that GM should have acted way back in 2001 when the first faulty complaint was brought to its notice (McCarthy, M. 2014).

 

Reference List

McCarthy, M. (2014). How GM Can Steer Through Crisis of Ignition-Switch Recall. Ad Age. Retrieved from website link

Nocera, J. (2014). G.M.’s Cobalt Crisis. New York Times. Retrieved from website link

Vlasic, B. (2014). G.M. Turns to Experienced Crisis Experts. New York Times. Retrieved from website link

Marketing or Public Relations?

It was not Public Relations that broke the story about David Letterman's retirement from Late Night. All it took was a 140-character tweet on social media to break the story to the world. There was no press release, there was no speech, and there was no reportage. A tweet is all it took.

 So with the new trend of breaking news from social media, is there a need for public relations? Are Public relation officers today doing the jobs of marketing professionals? And how is public relations different from marketing?

Public relations, marketing and advertising are all about communicating a story to the public. All three areas are involved with getting customers, moving products and driving revenue (Chima, C. 2013). So then what sets them apart?

Wikipedia defines Public Relations as a practice that manages the spread of information between an individual or an organization and the public. The main objective of public relations it says is for a company to be able to persuade the public, investor, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a point of view about it, its leadership, products, or of political decisions.

So with all the interchangeable roles of marketing, public relations and advertising, experts say that the future is of integrated marketing and public relations. Everyone should be able to do a little of everything. For instance marketing teams should be able to buy advertisements and pitch stories to reporters and advertising agencies should be able to whip some compelling content.

Besides a good press release can grow brand awareness by getting a company's name out in the market. But to get the name out, we need to have the distribution channel that will reach out to the target audience. And hence Marketing and PR go hand-in-hand. PR Newswire's research shows that there's a lot of potential for PR opportunities when content marketing is used effectively. Bylines can lead to blog posts, blog posts to bylines, and press releases can lead to bylines and blog posts (Cohen, H., 2012).

Both marketing and public relations went through an evolution in the twentieth century. Some business historians called this period the teenage years for public relations and marketing. As marketing and public relations expanded, their activities became more aggressive, sometimes considered to be interchangeable. In his book Public Relations: Concepts and Practices, Ray Simon wrote:

"Marketing and public relations ... both are major external functions of the firm and both share a common ground in regard to product publicity and consumer relations. At the same time, however, they operate on different levels and from different perspectives and perceptions.

The traditional view ... is that marketing exists to sense, serve, and satisfy customer needs at a profit.

Public relations exists to produce goodwill in the company's various publics so that the publics do not interfere in the firm's profit-making ability."

In fact majority of public relations practitioners and marketers think alike. They say that marketing's measure of success is the number of sales and/or the revenue it generates, whereas public relations' measure of success is expressed public opinion or other evidence of public support (Turney, M., 2001)

Reference List

Chima, C. (2013). What Is The Difference Between Public Relations And Marketing? PR Tips for Startups. Retrieved from website link

Cohen, H. (2012). 11 Communications Experts On Marketing, PR & MarCom. Heidi Cohen website. Retrieved from website link

Turney, M. (2001). Public relations and marketing were initially distinct. On-line Readings in Public Relations website. Retrieved from website link

What’s in the business slogan?

Experts say that a good business slogan evokes emotions and ideas and associates it with the brand, even without naming the product. For instance look at the brand Nike. The company doesn't have to write the name of the brand in its advertising. The brand slogan "Just do it" used with the logo in itself tells everyone whose brand it is.

But at the same time, the brand should be able to deliver the slogan. Brands that are not honest with the slogan will lose its customers who will notice it immediately. Inc.com suggests five tips for writing an effective slogan. First give the slogan a rhythm, rhyme, and ring. For example County's slogan "The quilted quicker picker upper" has the rhythm, rhyme and ring to it. The second tip is highlighting a key benefit of the product or service. The slogan should help differentiate your product from competitors and that's what we need to focus on. For example Miller Lite's brand slogan "Great taste, less filling" highlights the key factor of the product. The third tip is to explain the company's commitment. Here we need to say what differentiates the company from competitors. For example Avis brand slogan "We're number two, so we try harder" makes use of this tip. The fourth and the most important tip is to stay honest. The slogan should accurately reflect the business. For example Visa's slogan "It's everywhere you want to be" very honestly conveys its business. And the last tip for effective slogan is to keep it short. Experts say that a slogan should not go beyond one sentence and would be best if it is between six to eight words long. For example Apple's brand slogan "Think different" may be a simple two word slogan but it can create a strong impact (Smith, D.).  

  However critics say that a brand slogan is really not required to market a product or service. For example brands like Starbucks, Whole Foods, Lululemon, Nordstrom do not have a brand slogan (Lee Yohn, D. 2013).

Critics say that 100 of the most influential brand slogans were written before 1948 and two-thirds ran before 1980. Even half of Forbes' best loved brand slogans ran before 1975. This clearly shows that brand slogans were a thing of the past when advertisers were needed to summarize their product in a tagline. Also brand slogans help differentiate a product or service from the competitors’ products and services. But in today's world most brands are distinguished less by their products and features and more by their values and personality. So if this is the case do we really need to wreck our brains finding the right brand slogan for our product or service?

Reference list

Lee Yohn, D. (2013). The Death of the Tagline Flexible branding is the new name of the game. Adweek. Retrieved from website link

Smith, D. 5 Tips for Writing an Effective Slogan. Inc.com. Retrieved from website link

Advertising versus Public Relations

Many folks confuse advertising with public relations and vice-versa. In fact advertising is completely different from public relations and shouldn't be mixed with each other. While Public relations (PR) is a more subtle and disciplined approach with the aim to influence public opinion and behavior, advertising is a paid space designed to lure consumers to buy the products (McLuhan, M.).

Advertising is losing its effectiveness because of its low credibility. And because of this companies are now spending more in public relations than advertising. The public is becoming smart and exactly knows that advertising is over-the-top and simply not true (Ries, A. & Ries, L. 2002).

Al and Laura Ries, in their book The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, says that companies which are launching new brands should focus on its PR strategy. This is because during product launch, the company will want to create a buzz, and the buzz can only be created through PR tools. Over and above PR is cheaper than advertising.

Besides advertising will need organizations to hire designers, content writers and creative directors, while public relations is more affordable. PR requires a smaller staff which focus that revolves around engaging the media. However having said that, PR is not always the best way to market business. There are some products and services that still depend on advertising to be successful (Rick, 2012).

So as it is seen, it is wiser to start with PR if the business is small and is entering the realm of marketing and publicity. PR in this scenario would involve contacting local media and informing them about the existence of the business. Many events can also be planned to showcase the business. These small tactics help to draw media attention to the business. When the company grows and expands, it can move toward advertising spending.

Besides PR can reach out to a larger audience as compared to advertising. For example inserting an ad in a print magazine with 5000 subscribers can find you 5000 viewers, many of who will ignore them. But if you write one press release, you can send the press release to magazines, newspapers, radio, TV stations, networks and shows, online news, sites and blogs, all at one time.

So to put it in a nutshell, PR is certainly a better investment than advertising because it is cheaper, it is credible, it has a bigger reach, it is more personal, and is active (Mudd, J.).

Ukraine crisis affects everything Russian

The crisis in Ukraine seems to be getting bloodier as each day goes by. The invasion of Russian military into southeastern Ukrainian territory has left the whole world in a tizzy. This is no longer only a problem between Russia and Ukraine, but has become a global problem. The United States jumped in by imposing sanctions over Russia. The European Union seems to be silent but only gives testimony to what the United States think about the situation. The United Kingdom seems to be silent. The United Nations carries out meetings and discusses the situation in Ukraine. While people like you are me who don't want war or a war-like-situation, are expressing our thoughts on Twitter and other social media sites. It feels horrible when you can’t do anything to be able to combat a situation. But at least writing what you think on social media eases out that tense nerve a little, with a hope that someone out there who can make a difference is reading what we have to say.

In the midst of all the hullabaloo, one of Russia's public relations firm in the United States is facing the heat. The PR firm Ketchum Inc. is said to be lobbying for the Russian government to promote Russia in the United States. Reportedly the Russian government is said to spend millions in building the image of Russia in the west. To achieve this goal the Russian government and state-owned companies have even partnered with Western public relation firms.  (Kupchinsky, R. 2009).

Although the PR firm is dragged into the Ukraine controversy, the company seems to have distanced itself from anything that can tarnish its image. Responding to scrutiny, official from the PR firm said in a statement: "We are not advising the Russian Federation on foreign policy, including the current situation in Ukraine" (Sullivan, A. 2014).

Ketchum Inc. continues to stress its objective to support economic development and investments in the country and to facilitate relationship between representatives of the Russian federation and western media. But will the PR firm be able to survive after the Ukraine crisis. The US-Russia relationship has always been a shaky boat and using PR firms like these, Russia is trying really hard to make this relationship steady. Post Ukraine, will Russia’s PR machinery in the U.S. still be able to do their job and rebuild trust. That’s something we’ll have to wait to see.

Reference list

Kupchinsky, R. (2009). Russia's Hired Lobbies in the West. The Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved from website

Sullivan, A. (2014). Russia's U.S. PR firm distances itself from Ukraine dispute. Reuters. Retrieved from website

Brand promise can make you or break you

A corporation's brand promise is the commitment to deliver made between the brand and its audience. A brand promise motivates the audience to buy. So ultimately what is important is to live by the brand promise. If the brand doesn't deliver the promise, it will die. In a Gallup survey involving four-million customers, it was found that one in five unhappy customers feel that the brands they patronized were not keeping up with promises (Timmerman, J. 2013).

The brand message, the customer expectation, and execution have to be aligned with one another. The minute there is disengagement, people will begin to be disinterested in the brand. It's like making a promise to your friend and then not keeping it. But a friend might give you a second chance, a customer will never give a second chance.

I believe that as a brand it is important to be able to touch the heart of customers and prospective customers. Doing that will help us emotionally connect to our audience. For instance, I am not brand conscious at all. But when it comes to my shoes, it has to be "Adidas." Over and above, if anyone asks me to recommend some good pair of shoes, I recommend Adidas. So without actually paying me, I have become a brand ambassador. If a customer is emotionally engaged with a brand, they become fully engaged brand ambassadors. Gallup finds that an effective brand promise is compelling, connecting and credible.

A lot of thinking goes into setting up a brand promise. And more efforts go into keeping the brand promise. A brand promise must be able to convey a compelling benefit, it must be authentic and credible, and it must be kept every time (Hinge Marketing). A few examples of brands that have kept their promise are FedEx's "Your package will get there overnight. Guaranteed," Apple's "You can own the coolest, easiest-to-use cutting-edge computers and electronics," McKinsey & Company's "You can hire the best minds in management consulting," and The Nature Conservancy's "Empowering you to save the wilderness."

Before developing a brand promise, the company should ask itself a few questions, What is the value of the company and its brand?; How is the brand different from competition?; What are the attributes of the company’s brand?; Then, what is the company’s brand promise? Companies that manage to answer these questions honestly, create a livable brand promise.

Reference list

Elements of a Successful Brand 4: Brand Promise. Hinge Marketing. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Timmerman, J. (2013). Your Brand Is Your Company's Engine. Gallup Business Journal. Retrieved March 7, 2014 from website

Content is King, but distribution is queen

I've been a big fan of Gerry McGovern who is a leading international content expert and consultant for knowledge management on the web. He has written many books and in one of his book titled 'Content Critical,' McGovern stresses on the importance of content. McGovern states that readers come to the website to gather or review content, rather than specifically to search or find content (McGovern, G 2001). In an interview to Dr. Ing. Artur P. Schmidt of Wissens Navigator, Gerry McGovern says that the web is a giant container for content and that it is a place where we go and get our content. He says that information flows like milk on the web today and that it has to be distributed before it becomes worthless.

In his article Great Content is Not Enough, Jonathan Perelman of BuzzFeed says, "Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants." How true, there is no point having great content, if you do not know whether this content is reaching the desired audience. Today there is so much of content online and there is a possibility that your content will get lost in the web. In Jun 2000, there were less than eight million websites. By Dec 2013 that number is more than 750-million and that number only seems to be increasing (Pollitt, C. 2013). This only goes to show how difficult it is for marketers to get their content read. There is so much of good content that goes unread on the internet.

Rather than producing more and more content, marketers should focus on content distribution plans. On his blog Ryan Skinner writes that today marketers invest large sums to create quality content. But he says although quality content is good, the content is not being discovered (Skinner, R. 2013). In his report on distribution of branded content, Skinner suggests the following,

• 1.      Brands can actually step down content production and step up distribution to get better results.
• 2.      An ecosystem of vendors have cropped up to help marketers drive distribution of branded content.
• 3.      The most effective promotions often come from doubling-down on past successes.
• 4.      Better distribution improves content’s quality, as the feedback cycle accelerates.

 So the bottom-line is its better to have a balance between content and content distribution. It’s like having a great resume but if you don't send that power-packed resume to potential employers, no one really will know what you are capable of doing.

Handling Crisis

Managing company crisis is like managing threats. And hence before plotting the communication plan, it is very important to do the SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats - analysis. The threats are things that we fear could happen or may resurface. And hence we need to have an infrastructure in place to be able to handle it.

Dallas Lawrence, Chief Global Digital Strategist for Burson-Marsteller suggested 13-lessons for crisis preparation and management (Miltenberg, B. 2013). The steps that Lawrence suggests are:

• 1.      Know and engage key conversations drivers early and often.
• 2.      Actively monitor not just your reputation, but also the activities of your protagonists.
• 3.      Develop clear, effective and platform appropriate messaging.
• 4.      Own your brand in social before someone else does.
• 5.      Leverage the power of Twitter.
• 6.      People want to hear from people, not logos.
• 7.      Integration is key
• 8.      Be sure you know what you're talking about during a crisis.
• 9.      When you blow it, own up to it.
• 10.  Consider humor.
• 11.  Integrate paid and earned.
• 12.  Have clear employee rules and train for social engagement.
• 13.  Don't forget your secret weapon.

And then there are those old crisis that resurface. For example recently the 20-year-old allegations against Woody Allen resurfaced. The Monica Lewinsky scandals have resurfaced and even Paula Deen's racist remarks made years back, brought down her brand value.  Tony Silber from PR News Blog says that we should stop being defensive about old crisis. As corporate we need to take responsibility and inform the public about how we are trying to resolve the issue and promise never to repeat it again (Silber, T. 2014).

BP faced a lot of criticism from the world. The task of BP was to communicate the crisis with the people in America and the world over. An organization's reputation is the most important asset and the oil spill cost BP its reputation.

The oil spill happened in 2010 but BP till today stresses on the efforts of recovery in the Gulf of Mexico. It's advertisement stressed on its commitment to Gulf of Mexico, its commitment to America and about still being America's largest energy investor. It stresses on safety, providing employment to Americans and generating revenue for America.

The main purpose of BP's communication is on crisis management. Its theme is commitment and safety. Expressions such as "BP has two goals, help the Gulf recover and learn from what happened," "Safety is a part of everything we do," "produce energy safely," "We invest more in the US than anywhere else in the world," "America's largest energy investor," "Commitment to America," is continuously played out in its advertisements and marketing efforts. This only reiterates how BP is honestly trying to rebuild trust.

These many real examples only go to show that it is not bad to make a mistake, but not learning from it and not informing the public and your stakeholders about the mistake made and about actions taken to recover from it can do you more harm. 

Why media relations is important in public relations

A non-profit or profit organization may have the best strategies, goals, ideas in place, but if these ambitions and goals are not conveyed to the public, it serves half-the purpose. Hence as PR professionals, it is very important to build a rapport with media to communicate the organization's goals and ambitions (Epperly, J). As the name suggests, public relations is about building relationship with the public, but it is equally important to build relationships with the media to be able to reach out to the public.

Dennis Rutzou from PR Blog says that just building media contacts and relation is not enough. It is more important to churn out newsworthy and convincing stories that your media contacts will be ready to publish (Rutzou, D. 2011). According to Rutzou, media is always on the lookout of news content that is competitive with their competition and there is no way that they will publish your story because they have a good relation with you.

Media relations have many benefits. It can help with raising funds for research, help get offers of consultancy and helps promote brand name (E.S.R.C.). Media attention can also raise the public profile of the organizations discipline and in turn increase public discussions.

A study Examining Modern Media Relations: An Exploratory Study of the Effect of Twitter on the Public Relations – Journalist Relationship, author Drew Wilson says that Twitter has changed the traditional relationship between PR and media professionals. It has changed the way practitioners and journalists interact. The traditional forms of writing a press release and sending it to journalists is becoming outdated. Social media has opened public platforms for public relations professionally to reach out to the public. And the need to the media is slowly dying. Public Relations don’t really need the media anymore to reach out to the public (Wilson, D. 2013).

Thus looking at all the studies and expert opinion on the relationship between PR and journalist practitioners, it can be seen that public relations is slowly weaning off from being dependent on journalists to get their stories out to the public. Thanks to the internet and new technology like Twitter and Facebook, public relations practitioners can reach out to the public themselves.  

2014 Super Bowl grabbed the most eyeballs

Thanks to digital media the Super Bowl XLVIII broke all records of viewership. This year the Super Bowl set a record of a whopping 111.5 million viewers. Digital media has changed the rule of the game today. New York Times Author David Carr says the mass has gone out of media in modern life. He says that each one is building our own little campfire on our phone, tablet and big screen at a time and place of our choosing (Carr, D. 2014). Carr is so right. You really don’t need to reach your apartment or bar to watch the NFL game live. Digital media has made life so easy today that you can watch it anywhere you wish. All you need is your basic communication gadget with internet connection.

I don't have a television set in my apartment, but that didn't deter me from watching the N.F.L. final. I watched it with my roommate on my laptop. We streamed the game live on Fox Sports Live and enjoyed every bit of it. It’s another thing that the game was one-sided with the Seahawks dominating the game till the end. Many viewers called the game a ‘puppy bowl’ or a ‘zombie bowl.’ I liked the halftime of the Super Bowl the best. Bruno Mars delivered a red-hot performance at the game. I was also thrilled to watch Red Hot Chili Pepper gyrate on their 1991 hit ‘Give it away.’

At the Super Bowl even the advertisements made a lot of noise.  Each and every commercial on the game night had a human element in it. There was a feel-good feeling in each of the advertisements. Take for example the Heinz ketchup commercial by Cramer-Krasselt. The commercial encouraged consumers to hum "If you're happy and you know it." (Elliott, S. 2014).

And then there is the Coca Cola America Is Beautiful commercial that has angered many people. Coca Cola used different foreign languages in the little-more-than one-minute commercial. And many critics cribbed about the advertisement saying that America is a country that speaks English and hence everything should be in English and not be in a foreign language. How stupid is that. There were some people on Twitter who used the hashtag #speakamerican to express their anger to the Coke commercial. Wonder what was going on in their minds to make such foolish comments. 

Super Bowl XLVIII generated a lot of interest not in the game in itself, but rather the commercials and the halftime performances. A tweet from Ogilvy said that 58% of national advertisements have a hashtag and the 2014 Super Bowl generated 24.9 million tweets. And these facts certainly are a boon to public relations which can use this as a great tactic to make big bucks.