1
pr
pr
'Top Chef-Inspired' Frozen Meals Sort Of Means Something
By Laura Northrup on November 29, 2011 10:30 AM
55 Comments
As a single person with a small appetite and an odd schedule, I eat a lot of frozen meals. I'm fond of the Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers line with the built-in colander basket thingies. A few weeks ago, I noticed that some of these meals had been branded as "Top Chef-inspired" and some hadn't, even though the dishes were the same exact ones I remembered from before. Or were they? More »
(shlala)
PETA Sends Case Of Soy Milk To PR CEO Who Threatened To Fire Next Person Who Doesn't Replace The Milk
By Ben Popken on October 3, 2011 2:00 PM
114 Comments
Today PETA sent a case of soy milk to Beckerman Public Relations CEO Keith Zakheim, who last week generated buzz for sending around an email that threatened to fire the next person in the office who finishes the milk in the staff refrigerator without replacing it. I don't care what kind of milk people choose to drink, but tweaking aggro CEOs is funny. More »
PR Firm CEO Threatens To Fire Next Person Who Doesn't Replace The Milk
By Ben Popken on September 30, 2011 4:00 PM
158 Comments
In a company email that reads like a rejected new column for the Onion, the CEO of a PR company threatened this week to fire the next person who neglects to replace the empty milk carton in the refrigerator. More »
(P.E.N.)
Co-Eds Say It's Sexier If You Have Health Insurance
By Ben Popken on July 19, 2011 4:00 PM
68 Comments
According to a new survey, 90% of college students say that they were attracted to someone and then found out they had health insurance, they would be more likely to be more attracted to him or her. So forget shopping for sexy lingerie, or perfecting your conversational skills, if you really want to attract the ladies or the fellas, you should call a health insurance broker or get a job with health benefits. More »
Via Full-Page Ad, Taco Bell Asks "Meat Filling" Lawyers For Apology
By Ben Popken on April 22, 2011 10:00 AM
120 Comments
Taking a victory lap around the tactical retreat by the lawyers who had sued it for its beef not being beefy enough, Taco Bell took out a full-page ad asking the firm to say "sorry." More »
(lagohsep)
Transocean Apologizes For Calling 2010 "Best Year" Ever In Safety
By Ben Popken on April 4, 2011 5:00 PM
69 Comments
The owner of the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf issued an apology after calling 2010 its "best year" ever in safety. Transocean did not comment on the safety bonuses it awarded top execs for meeting and exceeding internal safety goals, even considering the disaster at the rig run by BP resulting in 11 workers dead and 200 million gallons of oil spilled. More »
What Has Changed Since 146 Workers Died In Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 100 Years Ago?
By Ben Popken on March 24, 2011 3:00 PM
100 Comments
The government proposes new regulation to make an industry safer. The industry shouts back that the new measures are "cumbersome and costly,‟ tantamount to "a confiscation of property." A newspaper opines, "Excited persons rarely accomplish anything...No new laws are needed." Trade groups issue dire warnings about how the new laws will wipe out entire industries and sacrifice jobs. Are these the latest response to new Consumer Product Safety Commission guidelines? Banking giants balking at financial reform? Nope, those were quotes from when fire protection guidelines were proposed after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, in which 146 garment workers died. Friday marks the 100th anniversary of this tragedy. More »
Sony's "Kevin Butler" Retweets PS3 Jailbreak Code
By Ben Popken on February 9, 2011 11:00 AM
27 Comments
"Kevin Butler" is the fictional Sony VP who is the face of its recent PlayStation ads, so of course he has a Twitter account. It looks like whoever is running the account hasn't been reading the news much. When a Twitter user tweeted at him the code used to jailbreak PS3's, the entity misinterpreted the series of letters and numbers and made a Battleship joke, retweeting the code in the process, reports Engadget. This is ironic because Sony has been cracking down with legal threats and attacks on anyone they can find disseminating the jailbreak information. I wonder if Kevin Butler will be getting one of these C&D's... More »
(Fox23)
Coffee Shop Owner Uses Twitter To Ban Breastfeeding In His Store, Seems Surprised By Reaction
By Chris Walters on August 3, 2010 9:06 AM
359 Comments
Yesterday, a coffee shop called The DoubleShot in Tulsa, OK sent out a tweet announcing that breastfeeding was now banned on the premises: "Notice: No breastfeeding at the DoubleShot. Thank you." (The tweet has since been removed, but a tipster saved it for us.) This set off a torrent of angry reactions on Twitter, partly because everyone loves to fight about breastfeeding and partly because it's World Breastfeeding Week. More »
PepsiCo Buys Its Way Onto Science Blog Network As A Food Nutrition Expert
By Chris Walters on July 7, 2010 10:45 AM
25 Comments
Update #2: On Thursday morning, July 8th, ScienceBlogs contributor PZ Myers posted that the founder and CEO of Seed Media (which owns the blog network) has announced that the PepsiCo sponsored blog has been removed—although as of this update (10:44 am EST July 8th) it's still online. More »
Abercrombie & Fitch To Resurrect Soft Core Catalog
By Carey Alexander on June 26, 2010 8:45 AM
44 Comments
With sales down and consumer interest flagging, Abercrombie & Fitch has decided it's time to bring back its provocative catalog. The return of A&F Quarterly, which will go on sale July 17 for $10, is a blatant grab for the attention of America's recession-wracked teen spenders. Will it succeed? More »
Consumers Have More Trust In Companies That Tweet
By Chris Walters on June 23, 2010 12:30 PM
17 Comments
A new survey shows that 75% of consumers think companies that tweet or post Facebook updates are more deserving of their trust than companies that don't. The CEO of Fleishman-Hillard, which conducted the survey with Harris Interactive, says he thinks it shows that companies need to respond to crises much more openly and quickly than in years past: "Not in a 24-hours news cycle, but in minute-to-minute monitoring." More »
(dsb nola)
BP's Internal Mag Discovers Oil Spill Helped Gulf Coast Economy
By Ben Popken on June 22, 2010 2:06 PM
43 Comments
According to BP's in-house online magazine, Planet BP, there is a silver lining in the giant puddle of oil they caused to spew all over the Gulf of Mexico. That's right, the spill, far from devastating the local economy, is causing it to prosper! More »
Kraft's Amusing Capri Sun Mold FAQ
By Ben Popken on June 16, 2010 1:14 PM
71 Comments
Last week we told you how Melissa found a giant scary mold in her Capri Sun juice pouch. After she posted pictures on her Facebook, sections of the internet went totally apesh*t. This is probably because the mold looked like a giant horse eyeball and Kraft's initially slow response only fueled the flames of hysteria. As part of getting up to speed, Kraft even put up a whole FAQ devoted specifically to this one issue. Between its lines, though, you can read their frustration with the blowup. Their answer to the last question "What kind of mold is it?" is both honest and funny: More »
2009 Second Safest Year For Western-Built Jets In Aviation History
By Chris Walters on February 22, 2010 4:39 PM
30 Comments
According to a new report by the trade group International Air Transport Association, 2009 comes in just behind 2006 as the safest year on record (kept since 1964), with an average of 1 accident for every 1.4 million flights on a Western-built jet. CNN notes, "If you were to take a flight every day, odds are you could go 3,859 years without an accident." With delays and cancellations it would actually take nearly 6,000 years to complete all those flights, but it's still a good statistic to tell yourself the next time you get nervous about flying. More »
Learn To Love Your Messed Up Toyota With This Parody
By Chris Walters on February 11, 2010 1:16 PM
18 Comments
Funny or Die wants to help Toyota out of this awkward situation it's found itself in, so the site has posted a helpful video of a cheerfully steely spokeswoman who likes to point with both hands. It's like she's shooting good news in your face! Pow pow! And really, it's true that you can have an awesome garage party without ever needing to take your Toyota on the road, so maybe you should stop being so pessimistic. Video below. More »
(njt4148)
Greyhound Kicks Passenger Out Of Bus Station For Complaining To Reporter
By Chris Walters on February 3, 2010 5:24 PM
46 Comments
A Greyhound security guard threatened a stranded passenger in Memphis that if she spoke with a reporter from the local news, he'd kick her out of the bus station. The reporter was there to look at why a group of passengers had been left stranded for 2 to 4 days without any communication from Greyhound, and without any sort of meal or lodging help. More »
(Photo: sïanaïs)
Chicagoist Catches Walmart Astroturfing As Populist Local Group
By Chris Walters on January 26, 2010 6:55 PM
96 Comments
Kevin Robinson at the blog Chicagoist was curious about a commenter who sounded suspiciously on-message on some recent Walmart posts. Walmart wants to come into Chicago, and Walmart's opponents are fighting the retailer at the community level to prevent that. In return, a pro-Walmart community group has formed called "Our Community, Your Choice" that argues, "Everyone else but Chatham and the South Side are making the decisions - It’s OUR CHOICE, NOT THEIRS." More »
(Photo: William Hook)
AT&T Network Blame Game Takes Weird "It's Apple's Fault" Twist
By Chris Walters on December 14, 2009 12:19 PM
68 Comments
Last week AT&T, in yet another of a string of PR failures about the health of its network, made things even worse by publicly blaming its customers for, you know, being customers. Over the weekend, though, a new thread was introduced into the narrative: it's the iPhone's fault. Not because it's too popular, which has been the old complaint, but because the hardware doesn't work right, and AT&T can't say anything about it for fear that Steve Jobs will reach down through the clouds and smite them. That sounds pretty tragic and sad for AT&T, but the problem is nobody knows if it's true, or if this is yet another strategy to shift the responsibility from AT&T. More »
Televised Sports Battle: Who Is Astroturfing Whom?
By Laura Northrup on October 24, 2009 5:00 PM
19 Comments
—>Front groups for cable and satellite companies pretending to represent the interest of sports fans? Mysterious "sources" and leaks? This is nothing new to Consumerist readers, but our estranged siblings at Deadspin have some great information on a lobbying and PR war between thinly disguised groups working on behalf of DirectTV and the big cable companies, and their battle over fans and fees. Or is it? More »
