New York Public Relations

The Film Society at Lincoln Center recently honored Tom Hanks with their Lifetime Achievement Award. It's really nice to see all these big names come out to celebrate with Tom: What's not to love about Mr. Hanks though? Charming, funny, lovable, handsome, tall, talented - the list goes on. He seems like a normal guy (if he wasn't an A-list movie star). He's been in soo many good movies: Philadelphia, Apollo 13, Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Catch Me If You Can, BIG, The Green Mile, Sleepless in Seattle, A League of Their Own....these are American classics! We will certainly be seeing a bit more of him this summer. Maybe you've caught the trailer for a little movie he's in, called Angels & Demons ??? Here's a clip of Julia Roberts' tribute: What do you think? Offensive, self-indulgent, funny? I like it that Julia doesn't censor herself. Though I'm sure her publicists aren't jumping for joy.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard of Susan Boyle by now. She's a 47-year-old Brit competing on Britain's Got Talent. Here's a pic of her singing her heart out on the show: Her voice amazes, her style does not. Now, after a little cut and color: She's rocking a leather coat and a Burberry scarf. Her eyebrows have been shaped and her hair colored. What effect will this makeover have on the formerly frizzy haired, frumpy nightingale? Her new look has certainly engaged the public across both sides of the pond. Her fans love her for who she is and don't want her to change. Susan Boyle inspires them as someone with everyday looks who is extraordinarily talented. Plus, people love an underdog. Cinematic evidence: Frodo from the Lord of the Rings , Rudy , Babe the sheep-herding pig, Rocky , Miracle (the young US Hockey team that beat the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics), the Jamaican Bobsled team in Cool Runnings , K...

Prince Charles has joined the club of politicians and celebrities aggressively attacking environmental and economical concerns by publishing a book and documentary film called "Harmony" which is set to be published sometime in 2010. The book "Harmony" seems follow on the same path as Al Gore's eco documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" and Leonardo DiCaprio's film "The 11th Hour." The documentary will be produced by Balcony Films while the book is being published by HarperCOllins in collaboration wtih co-others Ian Skelly and Tony Juniper To go even further, the author's fee will be waived and all royalties will be donated to his charity, The Prince's Trust which In a statement the Prince said, "I believe that true 'sustainability' depends fundamentally upon us shifting our perception and widening our focus, so that we understand, again, that we have a sacred duty of stewardship of the natural order of things," ...

The Tribeca Film Festival began yesterday, and runs through May 3rd. This festival seems to bring out the best of lower Manhattan, plus there are a number of free community events related to the festival happening this week. I accidently happened about the Family Festival Street Fair last year. It was packed, there were kids everywhere, music was playing and the food smelled delicious. This event brings visitors, press and movie buzz into the city. At the Kick-Off event, Robert De Niro said, "It’s great to see how much the Film Festival has grown since we began in 2002 and how it has impacted the neighborhood. We invite everyone to come to Tribeca to enjoy all that our Festival has to offer – from great films to industry gatherings to free community events.” If anyone can help New York during a recession-gloomed hour, it's Robert De Niro! Whether it's restaurants, hotels or festivals, De Niro knows how to bring the buzz. Plus, who can't resist escaping in t...

I Don't Advocate Making Little Children Cry, But... At the bottom of this post is an anti-smoking commercial that has been airing in Australia for a bit of time, but finally made it to the states and caused a major hullabaloo. It is a moving, jarring, and effective piece of advertising, so if small children crying isn't your thing, don't watch it. I am not someone that thinks small children should be put in situations where they're tricked into crying for the cameras. Look at myriad child stars whose lives have spiraled because of apparently irreparable harm their childhood has done them. And I think that's where genuine concern for the child in this video comes into play. However, most people are outraged without knowing much, and they're bringing a lot of media attention and negative PR to something that, otherwise, has life-saving value. 1. The child on the set was a 4-year-old actor 2. His mother, who was also on the set, but not filmed, is an actor 3....

This site has previously addressed negative NYC publicity. Here's Mayor Mike Bloomberg attempting to do something to change that: I saw this commercial this morning on NY1. It definitely caught my attention, and it is reassuring that the Mayor is addressing the current economic climate. It shows he knows and recognizes how crappy things are, and that he is actively working to make things better for his constituents. Somehow, it doesn't seem so contrived that the Mayor would be out, listening to the people, as this clips shows. The commercial is promoting his Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan, which calls to create/save 400,000 jobs, provide loans to small businesses, secure infrastructure investments and add new high value jobs in bio-tech and green tech industries. However, this strikes me as too little too late. But maybe I'm wrong. What do you guys think?

Amazon has been criticized for its "de-ranking" policy. The company was under attack after de-ranking adult titles which were mostly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender books. The company had recently implemented a new policy of removing adult-material from search rankings, which would result in their exclusion from best-sellers lists. Amazon came under fire on Twitter after it was reported that the sales rankings of two newly released high-profile gay romance novels had suddenly disappeared from the sales rankings. The twitter community responded immediately and angerly, as tweets flew around and a top-ranked hash-tag ( a hot topic) appeared: #amazonfail. To make matters worse, the next day hundreds of gay-friendly books disappeared from the sales rankings and best-sellers lists! The GLBT community doubted it was a website-glitch and were outraged. Publisher Mark R. Probst, a member of Amazon Advantage sent an email to Amazon about the incident to clarify to followers ...

Who knew Bernie Madoff was a New York Mets Fan ? Well, I'm sure some people knew it. Madoff’s firm had two Delta Club Platinum season tickets, with seats costing as much as $695 per game. Madoff's seats were directly behind home plate. Now that Bernie is awaiting sentencing in prison for all his dirty deeds, all of his Citi Field season tickets are being sold on E- Bay. The two tickets that were for today's first home game of the season and first ever home game of the New York Mets new Citi Field went for $7500 on E Bay.

New York has been taking Public Relations blows over the past few months/year. From the NY Governor Spitzer prostitution scandal to Bernie Madoff to the current investment banking debacle and slumping economy that many are blaming Wall Street and the rest of new York for. The New York housing market has taken huge hits and the general feeling of rich New yorkers is that they may need to move because of the new taxes.

After fighting and winning that fight to be able to run for a 3rd term as New York Mayor, Bloomberg is focusing on top tier public relations strategies to get him elected for a 3rd term. People are already whispering that he, (Bloomberg) might spend his own money to help save our jobs. Maybe he said it, I don't know. But there is no doubt that Bloomberg profits from helping the city. But that's not a bad thing. Bloomberg knows what he's doing and I think that he's ultimately, a good dude. Mayor Bloomberg has basically given all the duties of managing NYC to his Deputy Mayor, Edward Skyler . This guy is a firecracker. His similarities to the fallen steamroller, Elliot Spitzer, are amazing. Skyler has made some douche-bag moves like getting furious over a guy in the Bronx, illegally cleaning someone's windshield. He actually had somewhat of a crusade against illegal windshield wipers for a little while. But, he has also done some stand up things like speaking his mind...

Segway's Electric Vehicle was in New York for a little PR . Segway and GM have teamed up to produce this prototype in the above picture. The vehicle is called the PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility & Accessibility) and is capable of 35 miles an hour and a 35-mile range for urban driving.

Bats are already looked at with a largely negative bias. This bias could stem from Hollywood images of blood sucking and hair tangling. East coast scientists feel that this negative perception many people have of bats could be thwarting an effort to analyze and stop a mysterious illness that is sweeping the bat populations from Vermont to Virginia. The scientists are seeking a Public Relations Bat Man of sorts to deal with the negative PR the bats inspire. They feel that if people understood that most fears of bats are unsubstantiated, then they would feel better about helping scientists fund and solve the deadly situation East Coast bats find themselves in today.

It's an unfortunate public relations problem that the New York Mets, Citi Field is opening at the same time the new Yankee Stadium is opening. Visitors say they like the new field, but they liked both new fields. The problem was with how the two New York City Baseball stadiums made people feel. General consensus was that the new Yankee Stadium located in the Bronx, felt more like the city. People felt that Citi Field didn't have the New York feel to it. I'm sure NY Mets fans will eventually love their stadium, but if you are in the NY Mets Marketing or Public Relations department, you cant be happy with your task of getting new Mets fans.

The other day, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which yes, I absolutely intend on seeing in the theater) was leaked online sans watermark or any of the other typical "Not for general viewing" markers that traditionally grace movies that haven't been released yet. According to Fox, "[they forensically mark [their] content so [they] can identify the source..." To me, that means that it must have been an inside job, someone with access to the movie and with motive to release it to the public (perhaps a recession casualty taking his aggression to the Web?). It would seem that this is a bit of entertainment PR damage control... Now, what makes the release suspect, as far as some rogue (ex?) Fox employee leaking the movie is that Fox further went on to state, "It was without many effects, had missing and unedited scenes, and temporary sound and music." What the leak effectively did was give people a good sense of what the movie would be about, but since it was i...

Most will know the title of this post is Reminiscent of our beloved Mugatu 's immortal words, "Hansel... So Hot right now... Hansel." Barack and Michelle Obama have been welcomed everywhere they've been so far in this European tour. The Public Relations face lift for America that most expected to get when they elected Obama is happening right before our eyes. America 's allie's citizens seem relieved that it looks like the US wants to cooperate with the rest of the world, after 8 long years of destructive and stupid Cowboy talk. Technological advances in telecommunications and travel have made the world a much smaller place. It is essential, now more than ever that the world figures out how to work together proper. That is what Barack Obama seems to be reflecting to us at home and the rest of the world. How much easier will it be to have Russia and China as actual allies instead of Frenemies. They might handle North Korea instead of us and the Russians migh...

Obama is on USA Public Relations Mission. While some rowdy soccer fans were knocking windows out of the Royal Bank of Scotland today, our President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were also in London making the United States look better than we have looked in about 8 years. Barack Obama even gave the UK's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown some good PR, just by standing next to him. Apparently, Barack Obama is much more popular in the UK than the PM right now. Many speculate that PM Brown is on his way out. We'll see if the Public Relations image boost he gets from Obama helps on that front.