The public relations world moves at an extremely fast pace. In this monthly PR roundup, we will be summarizing some of the notable public relations incidents that occurred in the past month.
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are the co-founders of Instagram. After Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, Facebook made many changes to the platform. These include the integration of targeted advertisements and in-app purchases. They shifted Instagram away from a creative photo-sharing platform to a heavily commerce-centered monetary platform. Although Systrom and Krieger did not explicitly state the reasoning behind their leave, they plan on taking on a more creative venture moving forward.
Elon Musk
How could we do a public relations roundup without mentioning Elon Musk? Whether it’s his “pot”cast with Joe Rogan or his numerous controversial tweets, there’s always something buzzing in the world of Elon. Recently, Elon Musk announced that the first underground tunnel in LA will be available on December 10. Elon was bored in traffic one day and came up with the idea for this boring company to dig tunnels underground to allow for faster traffic.
Although Elon’s tweets are mostly unsupported, we are excited to see whether the tunnel will be open for service by the end of this year.
Campaign of the Month
Subject to the recent and increasingly common “Retail-pocalypse”, Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, this didn’t stop Sears from coming back with a large holiday campaign. Sears wants to use the opportunity of the holiday season to bring back their name in households. Emotional appeal is most effective in this case. Sears plays a great role in the history of retail in the US. They compete with e-commerce giants such as Amazon. Sears will have to use a combination of public relations strategy and effective marketing tactics to make a comeback.
