By Gini Dietrich A couple of weeks ago, we received a phone call from the editor of one of our client’s biggest trade publications. She wanted to write a feature cover story about the client’s organization and pull in interviews from the executives and people on the manufacturing floor. The catch? The client had to buy a year’s worth of advertising. While an interesting tact – [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich It’s always fun when a media outlet – such as the New York Times - takes a swat at the PR industry. That’s exactly what they did a couple of weeks ago when David Segal, the writer of The Haggler column, wrote “Swatting at a Swarm of Public Relations Spam.” The good news is he took a bigger swipe at the media list compilation companies [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich I hope everyone in the U.S. had a really good Thanksgiving! If you follow me on Facebook, you already know that we made bracelets on the Rainbow Loom, took a cycling “class” in my basement, cooked and ate Thanksgiving dinner, saw Frozen, went ice skating, made our own pizzas, and visited The Bean at Millennium Park. All-in-all a very successful holiday weekend (and [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich I was trolling through Google+ the other day, when I saw an interesting update from Kaarina Dillabough. It was a link from Judy Dunn’s blog post called, “Can You Name 99 Things You Love in 10 Minutes?” Because this is my last post before Thanksgiving (we have our normal guest bloggers tomorrow and then we’re taking the rest of the week off), I [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich About six years ago – almost to the date – I attended an event where the leader of one of the largest global holding companies for PR and advertising firms spoke. An attorney by trade, this man was hand picked to run the organization because of his expertise, not in one of the marketing disciplines, but because of his business skills. Of course, [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich During junior high, I somehow became obsessed with the JFK assassination. I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything there is about the theories, the science, the news, and more. In fact, I think the reason I loved 11/22/63 as much as I did is because of Stephen King’s fictional portrayal of the months and weeks leading up to it and its humanization of Lee [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich The best Christmas gift I could receive (well, other than a Cervelo) is being told I no longer have to turn off my phone or iPad during takeoff and landing on the plane. Merry Christmas early to me! So, while we were preparing for takeoff yesterday, I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed and came across an interesting article on Samantha Collier’s page. [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich I remember the review I had when I was up for a promotion from account supervisor to managing supervisor. I was ready for the promotion, I knew I’d been working in that capacity for a good six months, and I had my business reasons outlined and rehearsed to present to my boss. The review went swimmingly. Everything was perfect until the very last [&hellip... Read More

By Gini Dietrich In 2001, I made the big move to Chicago (from Kansas City) to work for an advertising agency. My directive? To help build a PR department within the organization. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. All we had to do was go to the agency’s existing clients and offer our services. We generated $6 million and hired 20 people in less [&hellip... Read More