BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

Early on the morning of June 24, thousands of people across the country lined up to be among the first to purchase Apple’s iPhone 4. Having generated a level of mania usually associated with top rock concerts, the power of the brand built on iMacs, iPods, and iPads was on full display. But when those eager consumers took to their computers that same day to voice rampant displeasure with the iPhone 4’s now well-documented antenna reception ... READ MORE

Earlier this month, PepsiCo launched a new blog that created considerable online buzz, but for all the wrong reasons.  When it first came online, Food Frontiers, which covered developments in nutrition science and health policy, while making frequent mention of “healthy” PepsiCo products, was roundly criticized for failing to adequately inform readers that PepsiCo was the blog’s sole sponsor and content provider. Other bloggers on the ScienceBlogs network, which hosted Food Frontiers, were up in ... READ MORE

There’s good news and bad news for Facebook this week. While the world’s most popular social networking platform is expected to surpass 500 million users by Friday, the results of the 2010 American Consumer Survey Index show that consumer satisfaction with the site ranks below that of airlines, cable television providers, and even the Internal Revenue Service. There’s no denying that Facebook’s explosive expansion has generated more than a few growing pains. With near-constant changes to ... READ MORE

A story in The Economist last week detailed a now-famous 2008 protest that took place at the London headquarters of Unilever. Greenpeace activists outraged with the company’s use of palm oil in its products dressed as orangutans and scaled its corporate office building, disrupted business, and displayed banners condemning Unilever for damaging the ecosystem. The publicity stunt won widespread media attention and it wasn’t long before the company was forced to commit to obtaining palm oil ... READ MORE

Do toys make kids fat? That’s what a public health watchdog group would have you believe. This week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sent a letter to McDonald’s calling on the fast food giant to remove toys from all packaged meals or face the prospect of litigation. According to the CSPI, the toys included in McDonald’s Happy Meals encourage kids to eat fast food and, thus, are a contributing factor to what ... READ MORE

Once again, allegations of poor working conditions overseas are creating major reputation problems for big brand names based in the United States. Ten years ago, it was Nike, The Gap and other high-profile apparel manufacturers that found themselves confronting charges of “sweatshop” labor practices in developing countries. Today, the claims have gone high-tech. A Chinese contractor producing iPhones and iPads for Apple, computers for Dell, and other products for major electronics companies is grappling with the ... READ MORE

As labor and employment issues shed light on the recovering job market, Bulletproof Blog™ presents the next in a series of video interviews with leading legal and reputational strategists on the topic of diversity in 2010 and beyond. In today’s installment, Charles Volkert, Esq., Executive Director of Robert Half Legal, a leading staffing firm specializing in the placement of attorneys, paralegals, legal administrators and other legal professionals with law firms and corporate legal departments, discusses the ... READ MORE

During the 1984 presidential campaign, veteran broadcast reporter Leslie Stahl ran a piece on the CBS Evening News that attempted to highlight perceived contradictions between President Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric and actions. The five-minute segment showed President Reagan giving speeches at the Special Olympics and a nursing home, making note of the fact that he had cut funding for children with disabilities and stood against increased budgets for public health. After the piece aired, Stahl got ... READ MORE

According to the results of a year-long examination released earlier this week by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), social and digital media differ vastly in terms of the issues they cover and the news they report. Of the 49 weeks tracked during the study, the same story topped both the blogosphere and traditional media only 13 times. On YouTube, that ratio dropped to eight in 49. On Twitter, it plummeted ... READ MORE

On Monday morning, millions of e-mail inboxes around the world received a news release announcing that Shell, the global energy giant that produces 3.1 million barrels of oil and gas each day, will be implementing a “visionary new remediation plan” to “clean up all areas of the Niger Delta where they operate, compensate local communities for past injuries, and institute a local stakeholders program that will contribute to lifting the region out of poverty.” At first ... READ MORE