Holtz Communications + Technology

I was right there with John Durham from Carat Fusion as he berated his colleagues in the advertising business for their dislike of advertising. Durham, Joe Jaffe’s guest co-host on the most recent installment of the Across the Sound podcast, chided advertising execs who don’t listen to radio commercials and fast-forward through TV commercials. Right on, I thought; it would be like PR…

For years you’ve been dreaming of a luxury cruise. Exotic locales, balmy sea breezes, tropical drinks with umbrellas in them. You’ve read about some of the problems with Carnival and other cruise lines, so you opt to go first class. You book a cruise on the Queen Mary 2, a Cunard ship. A top-shelf experience awaits, and for what it costs, you have…

Defenders of Wildlife wants your money. There are several ways to give your money to the Washington, D.C. based organization that is dedicated to “the protection of all native wild animals and plants in their natural communities.” Problem is, if you give them your money, they could become one of the major annoyances in your life.

At least, that’s my wife’s experience. Three…

There are scads of approaches we can take to rehabilitate the image of the public relations profession. One of them is self-policing. This can be handled by the associations that represent the profession (should they ever decide to put teeth in their ethics policies) or by individual practitioners. I like the idea of speaking up—I’ve done some of it myself on this blog…

The Lincoln Group, exposed by The New York Times for paying Iraqi newspapers to print US government propaganda, has been caught in a pay-for-play controversy again. This morning, UPI, the International Herald Tribune, and others are reporting that the Washington DC-based PR agency has allegedly paid Iraqi Sunni religious scholars to deliver messages that would influence Sunnis in Anbar Province…

Many moons ago, before I transitioned into the business communications world that would be my career for the rest of my life, I was a newspaper reporter. My degree is in journalism and, at the time, I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything other than writing hard news and in-depth analyses for a daily newspaper. The transition to corporate communications wasn’t easy. It took a…