Every weekday, PR Daily associate editor Alan Pearcy highlights the day’s most compelling stories and amusing marginalia on the Web in this, #TheDailySpin.
Not sure if it’s the grotesque number of Shamrock Shakes I’ll devour free of judgment or the leniency on public drunkenness, but there’s something magical about St. Patrick’s Day that leaves us a wee more tolerant of our social taboos than the rest of the year. In fact, our standards fall to such abysmal lows that some of us even voluntarily eat corned beef and cabbage, a dish ordinarily only acceptable when rebranded as a Reuben sandwich.
Shooting for its own low-hanging star, a town in New York state is rebranding itself after the sandwich. The town, Coeymans, N.Y., is the first to accept
Arby’s challenge, which asked cities to rename themselves "Reubenville" for the month of March in exchange for 5,000 free-sandwich coupons. The fast food chain tweeted its congratulations to the town, but maybe it could spare two or three thousand extra Reubens.
Brand Eating reports the city’s population is 7,418.
With a population of more than 1 billion, China is playing host to a KFC chicken-themed poetry contest—an attempt by the fast feeder to deflect a recent food safety crisis. According to
Advertising Age, consumers were horrified after Chinese media learned that KFC suppliers were pumping its chickens full of hormones and antibiotics. To combat the public outcry, the company asked fans on social media to pen poems that include the phrase, "The chickens are innocent," helping (it hopes) to shift blame to the farms. I wonder if
Google will write a poem.
RELATED: Labeling GMOs a savvy PR move by Whole Foods
Meanwhile, H&M is causing a stir in Sweden, where the retailer installed full-figured mannequins draped in lingerie that nowhere near resemble
Kim Cattrall or
Kristy Swanson. Yahoo’s
Shine blog has the story.
The story at South by Southwest is also a polarizing one. Whereas
SocialTimes reports on author and SXSW speaker B.J. Mendelson labeling almost everyone at the festival “a douche,”
Adrants contends the annual event is “still awesome.”
RELATED: The best swag at this year’s South by Southwest festival
The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman may have brewed a different battle while in Austin. Interviewed at SXSW, the online comic artist suggested it might be time to put
Lolcats to sleep. Explains
TechCrunch, Inman doesn’t want to see humor turned into a formula of “cat photo + impact font.”
Generally a source of humor when not
attacking nine-year-olds, satirical site
The Onion shared a video in which a recent college grad is immediately hired when a potential employer learns he earned a B.A. in communications:
RELATED: 9 ways to land a PR job after graduation
It seems industry professionals are increasingly turning to LinkedIn in their search for employment, but do “endorsements” on the social network serve any valid purpose? While some have likened the feature to a “
popularity contest,”
Search Engine Watch compares it to the annoyance that is/was the Facebook “poke.”
Some PR pros might share an equal annoyance for the blatant use of
emoticons in the workplace, but it shouldn’t discredit research that reveals new contenders for the first emoticons ever created—and in a time before computers, reports
The Huffington Post:
Sad-face emoticon for Taylor Swift : ( If the country starlet didn’t think she needed to
rethink her PR strategy before, maybe she will after even “Jeopardy!” took the singer to town. Reports
Salon, T-Swift and her love life were the subject of a clue on the ordinarily deadpan game show.
Burn!
Miss Swift neglected to return any of my calls on the matter.
Kidding—I didn’t make any. However, if I had, I’d certainly be thankful that
BuzzFeed shared this 1951 instructional guide from Bell Telephone System on how to use the otherwise mind-baffling contraption.
RELATED: 8 ways to deliver a better phone interview
I would require a tutorial on using the new Google Glass, although
Gizmodo is already treating us to a guide of what St. Paddy’s would look like through the new eyewear: (
NSFW)
RELATED: 3 ways Google Glass could influence PR
Is there something you think we should include in our next edition of #TheDailySpin? Tweet me @iquotesometimes with your suggestions. Thanks in advance.