Read a news item that Ellen DeGeneres ousted Oprah Winfrey as favorite TV personality. Who were the respondents, dog owners?

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If on a regular basis a blogger only provides their readers with links as a blog post, is he/she lazy and really blogging?

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In its most important decision on securities litigation in more than a decade, the Supreme Court ruled that investors who have been defrauded by a company could not sue third parties, such as IR firms, banks and suppliers, unless they had relied directly on the parties’ advice when making their investment. The court said that such lawsuits allowed “plaintiffs with weak claims to extort settlements from innocent companies.”

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Back in October, when PRWeek drooled over Burson Marsteller for instituting a new PR campaign for Countrywide Financial to help them out of the financial trouble they were in, we asked whether the campaign was a waste of time and money.

Well, turns out we were right. Our prediction (10/13/07) that Bank of America would take over Countrywide Financial was spot on. Granted we were slightly off on the date, we said it would happen within the year.

Now what I want to know is this: How could PRWeek have run such a glowing story without taking the economy into account? Your head would have had to be buried deeply in the sand to not comprehend what effect the economy was having on the mortgage industry and homeowners.

Instead of acting as a cheerleader, I would expect the reporter and his or her editor to take a step back during the reporting process and ask themselves a simple question. What happens if? Surely any battle worthy reporter/editor would have raised this question. Or am I being too naïve?

Either way, I’m not surprised we made the right call. Effective PR practitioners can always tie their client’s stories into local, national and world events no matter what industry the client represents. But I also can’t help but feel sorry for PRWeek. After all, it’s a lot harder for a publication to ask tough questions of interviewees when they’re leading the cheers and the interviewee is one of your largest advertisers.

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When confronted with a brand new calendar, everyone’s natural inclination is to ponder what the next year will bring. This has resulted in the festive tradition of making predictions about what changes will occur over the next 12 months in whatever field you have some expertise.

Lest I be accused of being a Grinch if I don’t participate in the mass prognostications that the season demands, here are my predications for the public relations industry in 2008.

1. The buzzwords of the year—the ones the industry will overuse and be heartily sick of 364 days from now will be: engage, educate and entertain. These three words are becoming the essential descriptors to use when touting mobile marketing, widgets and other Web 2.0 applications, and all three will be bludgeoned to death by sheer repetition by 2009.

2. The PR industry will continue to abuse and overuse the words “viral,” “enable” and “solution.”

3. Somewhere in the world, right this minute, someone is making the daring prediction that Social Media and Web 2.0 are going to change PR forever. That said, the purported wonders of Web 3.0 will begin to creep into client pitches in 2008.

4. Throughout 2008 and into the foreseeable future, press releases will continue to be written in the same format, since we all know that the PR Gods will strike you dead if “XXX company, a leading provider of XXX,” does not appear in the first two sentences of the release.

5. Agencies will continue to send out self-promoting press releases that no one wants to read in 2008, regurgitating the same reasons why their newest client hired them. BTW, has anyone ever seen an agency send out a press release saying why they have been fired by a client? Isn’t that newsworthy? Inquiring minds want to know!

6. In 2008 you won’t read a single release quoting a company spokesperson as saying that they hired this particular PR agency because “our VC firm told us to” or “my CEO told me I had to.”

7. People will continue to go on the record as being very excited about working with other people/partners/companies, all of whom are the leading providers of whatever it is they provide.

8. PR industry seminars in 2008 will not look much different then those that took place in 2007.

9. PR people will spend much of 2008 quietly worried about an impending recession that will slow their business, while simultaneously loudly complaining about being “crazy busy.”

10. Clients will continue to judge agencies by the number of clips they generated instead of against the original submitted proposal that outlined objectives, goals, team and deliverables.

11. At least one reporter in America is lying in wait, happily finalizing his or her plans to insult the PR industry again.

12. Reporters covering the PR industry will finally report about the ongoing civil suit against the fastest growing PR agency in America.

13. The number of PR Bloggers will shrink in 2008 because PR people really don’t want to read blogs about PR. Right?

Have a great 2008.

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entry deadline: Friday, January 18, 2008, 6pm PST

fees: The entry fee for each ad or campaign is $255.00/category.
Special Note: No incomplete or unpaid entries will be accepted.

qualifying period: February 2007 - January 2008

How to Submit:
• Entrants can submit the same creative to multiple categories using a single form if the categories fall within the same group. A new form must be completed for each unique piece of creative.
• All submissions must be made online and include detailed descriptions, 800 character max (including spaces).
• Supporting materials should be submitted as electronic files hosted on your web site. Please be sure to include the URL where the creative can be found. This URL must remain active for no less than 18 months – if selected as a finalist, the entry will be archived on the ad:tech awards website for a full year.

notification: Finalists will be notified mid-March 2008. Finalists will receive an invitation and a request to RSVP with the representative who will attend the awards ceremony.

Please note: ad:tech reserves the right to publish submitted materials on the night of the ceremony. Any concerns regarding publicizing creative materials should be directed to Caroline Giovando Lindley at caroline@ad-tech.com or at 415.464.8527.

Entry Form Prep Tips: Please answer 3 questions about each entry you are submitting. Please provide as much detail as possible (without exceeding the 800 character limit).

It is important to include as much results-oriented information as possible, in order for judges to fairly consider your entry. No results you provide will be made public.

Note: Please provide any log in/password information that may be necessary for judges to access your entry.

Interactive Ads:
1. Please describe the item you are submitting and tell us about your creative strategy, including audience, purpose and projected outcome.
2. Please describe how this element contributed to the overall campaign.
3. Please describe the results of this ad and how it enhanced the campaign. You may express results in percentages, but be sure to define the metrics used.

Note: Only ONE ad/piece of creative can be submitted per entry. If more than one element of a campaign appears on the URL you have submitted, only the first will be reviewed and scored.

Interactive Campaigns:
1. Please describe the campaign you are submitting, including your creative strategy (e.g., target audience, purpose and projected outcome).
2. Please describe the business objectives of this campaign.
3. Describe the results of this campaign to date and how they met your business objectives. You may express results in percentages and be sure to describe the metrics used.

Note: You may submit up to three creative elements of a campaign in these categories for the judges to review and consider.

Optimization/Search Strategy:
1. Please describe the objective of this campaign.
2. Please describe the strategies and creative technologies used in this campaign.
3. Please describe the success of this campaign as it relates to the objectives. Be sure to define the metrics used.

Note: You must post a case study online and submit the URL for the judges’ review.

Web Sites:
1. Please describe the objectives of the web site.
2. Please describe the strategy behind the web site design (creative and navigation).
3. Please describe the results the site has achieved. You may express results as percentages but be sure to clearly define the metrics used.

Note: Please submit the live URL of the web site you wish to enter.

Refund/Cancellation policy:
Cancellations must be submitted in writing no later than January 18, 2008. Send to:

Caroline Giovando Lindley
ad:tech expositions LLC
1100 Larkspur Landing Circle
Suite 255 Larkspur
CA 94939 USA

Please note: Cancellations are subject to a $150.00 processing fee. No refund will be issued if a cancellation notice has not been received/confirmed on or before January 18, 2008.

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