Next  AI Chat Fri 27 Feb 2026  1pm-1.30pm (UK time). Add it to your diary.
Join us.  Topics will be announced by Thurs  26 Feb 2026
Message me on LinkedIn if you want me to send you the agenda and unique link to each Friday’s event (and send me your email address.)

20 Feb 2026  

[] Soribel Feliz‘s Free Course (on Linkedin):
Managing AI Risks: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid at Work

⊕ Watch 20 Feb video – the complete conversation about AI Risk.
[] Undiscovered band: Tim Hain ‘Somebody turn on a light’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner  and Soribel Feliz 

13 Feb 2026
[] Open AI Shuts Down GPTo Today
[] LA Law Suits Social Media
[] Should Your Business Still Be on Twitter/X?
[] Foreign Influence, AI, & Escalation of Hate
[] That Cute ChatGPT Cartoon Trend? Let’s Talk About What You’re Actually Sharing
[] Algorithms are Personal and AI  Governance is not abstract.
–  [] Free AI Governance Course – reminder
[] How Does AI See Your Brand
[] Why are Gen Z Less Cognitively Ready than Others? 
⊕ Watch 13 Feb video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track:  Rich Evro Reid or just Google Rich Evro Reid!

6 Feb 2026

[] AI Safety Update
– [] Spain Banning u16s Access to Social Media
– []   Nicky Petrossi report from LA Law Suit 
[] How Disinformation Works
[] 8 Risks to Avoid in AI   (AI Governance)
[] Caution When Tracking AI Visibility
[] Ads in AI Bot Conversations
[]   12 Year Old Girl Creates solar blanket for Homeless
[] Kindness is the most powerful medicine
[] Free AI Governance Course – reminder

⊕ Watch 6 Feb video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  
Undiscovered Band/Track: Cry Baby Purple:  Sometimes People hate Me

30 Jan 2026

sostac.org 
[] Update: EU v Grok Nudity App
[] More Data Collection – TikTok Just Authorised This  
[] Deleting Data Collected on WattsApp     
[] Biased Data Feed – ChatGPT Uses Grokipedia 
[] GPT Hallucination: 6 Nations Rugby  
[] Clawdot AI Warning    +  + Maltbot Warning
[] A Warning About Technology – The 99^th Day   
[] AI Suicide – Poss Most Beautiful Video Ever

⊕ Watch Fri 30 Jan video covering  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

23 Jan 2026

[1] Microsoft Nervous Re AI Bubble?
– [] LLMs don’t work Conor Grennon
[] Cognitive Decline
[] Shorter Attention Spans – Netflix’s Solution
[] New META whistleblower reveals META’s Shock Research
–  [] Sara Wynne Williams Careless People Apri 2025
[] Snap settles huge addiction lawsuit. But…
[]  3 Skills in AI Era  that Young Pro’s should Focus On 
⊕ Watch Fri 23 Jan video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track –  Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’

16 Jan 2026

[] Google Invites 13 Year Olds to Delete Parental Control
[] Google Using Your Emails to Train its AI?
[] Instagram Data Leak – Scammers Now Emailing Instagrammers  
[] Starmer V Musk Round 1
–   []Last week:  Grok Apology re Kids’ Sex Images = No Responsibility?
[] 3 Decisions Before Using an AI Agent
[] Rekindling Classic Apple Ads 
[] Free SOSTAC® Plans Executive Summary  (how to write the perfect plan – incl AI Advans & Disadvans) – in return for a 3 mins AI Survey
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  & Amir Elion  
⊕ Watch  Fri 16 Jan 2026 video  of all the above topics being discussed. 

9 Jan 2026
[] When Robots Outnumber Us
[] Is AI Artificial Ignorance?
[] AI Misinformation Campaign Success
[] Southpark Takes Trump’s Websit & Attacks
AI & ChildSafety
[] Grok Apology re Kids’ Sex Images = No Responsibility?
[] Kids Groomed by Porn Industry + Big Tech?
[] Roblox Predators Groom Kids
[] AI Engagement = Dopamine Addiction
[] Angola’s Innovative Protective AI Law
[] AI For Good:   Helping Africa Reclaim & Grow – Just Diggit

[] AI Survey    https://form.jotform.com/253452787680064   survey
[] BBC Radio London Great Sportsmanship Moments   – sportsmanship.ie
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 
⊕ Watch  Fri 9 Jan 2026 video of all the above topics being discussed.

19 Dec 2025 

[ ] Free Exec Summary SOSTAC® Plans  (+ survey)
[] Switzerland Reject Palantir 
[] META UK Sextortion Lawsuit 
[] Big Tech Killing Social Trust?  (more next year)
[] Gemini Grooms Kids to Cheat?
[] SnapChat Settings – Parental Warning
[] AI for Good – recovering damaged land  (more – next year)
[] AI Boost Critical Thinking?
[] Thinking of buying kids tech for xmas?
[] Generosity is not weakness
[] ChatGPT’s 6 New Free Training Courses
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
⊕ Watch Fri 19 Dec video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
[]  Next Chat: Dates  Fri 9 Jan 2026

12 Dec 2025

[] Trump Stopping State AI regs
[] AI, Humanity & Human Rights –  Stuart Russell Reith Lectures     Human Rights Day
–  [] Christmas AI Bots Warning for Kids – Ad – Tim Mason et al 
[] How to Implement AI Governance: 5 Actions for This Week
[] WattsApp AI integrator – lead management
[] Focussed AI workflows work best  
[] Free SOSTAC® Plans Executive Summary
[] Xmas Show 19 Dec (last chat until Fri 9 Jan 2026)
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson  
⊕ Watch   Fri 12 Dec 2025  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.

5 Dec 2025

Do GPT Images damage Authenticity?

[] CEO Cuts $1.1m Salary to $70k – What Happened Next?
[] 5 Years Later $70k min wage –What Happened Next
[] Super Rich Plan to Save Themselves
[] AI Companies CEO’s Dystopian Visions
[] Overdrive v Open AI Shock   incl Child Safety
[] Our Children Are Bleeding
[] Auzzie Kids Are Safe  
[] Brazil Bans META Bots for Kids
[] Digital identity is most fragile
[] AI Xmas Ads Underestimate Authenticity & Authorship  – Coke’s Xmas ad
⊕ Watch Fri 5 Dec  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Undiscovered Band/Track – ‘The Dark’ by Cry Baby Purple 

28 Nov 2025

An Attractive Bot – watch her engaging eye movement
[] IS AI SHAPING A FUTURE WE DIDN’T ASK FOR? 
–   How tech’s richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse
[] META Aware of Damage but refuse to tell Congress
[] Sneaky USA Ban on AI Regs  
[] Irresistable ,Friendly and Caring & Beautiful – your AI Friend  
[] Creating AI Versions of Anyone     
[] AI Using Your Email for Training
[] Vertical AI                                                      
[] Decadence & Corruption of Today’s Elites       The Rheith Lectures 25 Nov
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
⊕ Watch  Fri 28 Nov  video of  all of the above topics being discussed.

21 Nov 2025

Marrying a digital persona

[] The 3^rd AI Device Has Landed
[] What Kind Of People Will AI Turn Us Into?
[] In a Less Dangerous AI Dystopia?
[] But Could You Find God in the App Store?
[] Or Marry a Digital Persona  (see above)
[] 7 Types of AI Adopters    
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

14 Nov 2025

[] Pushing all-things AI = Thinking Problem?
[] Ever-Present 3^rd AI Device?– do you really want it
[] How To v How Not to get staff to adopt AI    + How To Do It Correctly:
–   Singapore Trains 150,000 Government Officers in Mandatory AI   
    –   Estee Lauder AI Accelerates Insights & NPD
[] Nvidia Expose $57B AI Error
[] How To Become Algorithmically Attractive  
[] AI for Good – recovering damaged land   (more info in the weeks to come)
[] AI for Good: Loneliness Ad – brilliant ad – all AI produced * (*see above screen grab)
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
⊕ Watch the video of all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

7 Nov 2025

[] 6 AI Shifts Marketers Must Master
[] 5 Physical AI Robotic Trends 2026
+  Adding Ads to your Dreams   
[] 4 AI Marketing Horror Stories:  4 x $1B AI Errors  
+ Taco Bell ‘s AI -man orders 19,000 waters
[] META AI Exploits You?
[] Our Kids Drowning in an AI Tsunami    
[] AI Isn’t the threat – we are – Mo Gawdat
[] AI & Magical Musical Mushrooms  
[] NEW New York Mayor Comes Out As A Gooner  (see above)   
[] Undiscovered band –  Vienna by  The Phoenix River Band
⊕ Watch the video of all of the above topics being discussed.
Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

31 Oct 2025

[] Obscene Grokbot 
[] LinkedIn New Terms – Opt Out?
[] ChatGPT Atlas = Dominance?
[] ChatGPT Atlas: Why I’m Hitting Pause (For Now)
[] Always Ask 2 Questions – re Any Research
[] BOT Influencer Breaking Regs
[] Our Power as a Collective    
[] AI for Peace, Justice & Human Dignity 
[] Thank God for Immigrants – Freddy Mercury Ad
[] Safe Unsound – Crowd Funded Immigrant Docu Movie
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner  and Daniel James Baldwin
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

 24 Oct 2025

[] AWS Crash – AI Coding Problem? 
[] Calls for ASI Ban
– Altman Predicts Bad AI Stuff
– California  Stops Bots
[] Sycophantic AI
– Sycophantic AI Makes Former PM Love AI
–  Sychophantic AI – south park
    – Sycophantic Adornation Fools Us All?
[] ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies’ 
[] Safe Unsound –  World Premiere   a crowd-funded docu film about about the milk of human kindness & migrants’ struggles
[]  Quote of the Week:  ‘Everyone you meet has something to teach you’ Lauren Murrel
Music: Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Thanks to Reggie Johnson
Thanks also to Northover Manor Hotel
⊕ Watch the video  of  all of the above topics being discussed.

17 Oct  2025 
Below are the links to each topic we discussed .
Plus here is the link to today’s recorded chat 17 Oct 2025.
[] ‘Epidemic of Ignorance’
[] AI Will Not Replace You – Mo Gawdat 
[] Romantic AI X: 1 in 5 highschool students (or friends) –
[] Mourning Women Say OpenAI Killed Their AI Boyfriends
[] Altman Adds More Erotica to ChatGPT
[] Child Cries As Toy Bot Says Goodbye
[] Grokipedia  
– [] Petition to make Grok safer-  Sign the Petition!
[]  ‘If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies’  
[] Happiness is…..
Thanks to Reggie Johnson, Wayne Denner and Alex Gibson
Music: Vienna by The Phoenix River Band   including Robert Craven

Fri 10 Oct 2025
[] Open Ai Lists Work Tasks to be Eliminated     
[] DELOITTE  AI Mega Error – Refund
[] The Religion of AI
[] AI Person-Hood – Beware
[] Suicidal Bots & Gaza
[] Petition to Stop AI Taking Over the World
[] ROI = Return On Immersion 
[] Jane Goodall’s, famous last words. –  Your are here for a reason.
[] SAFE UNSOUND documentary is Here
Thanks to  Alex Gibson, TUD.
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
Meanwhile, watch the video recording  (see end of list below) + here is the link for  each topic discussed:

Fri 3 Oct 2025 
[] AI Chatbots Create a Privacy Nightmare
[] Deep Fake Surge – Film Stars Threatened 
[] Churches Resurrect Charlie Kirk from Heavan via AI
[] Safeguarding AI – Critical Child Protection
[] Positive: Implementation problems are about mindset NOT tech
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

Fri 26 Sep 2025
[] Denmark Grants Citizens Copyright of their own Like  
[] Singapore Trains 150,000 Government Officers in Mandatory AI   
[] Kids Warning – Google’s ChatBOT Goes Rogue ie Unsafe for Kids
[] Kids & Adult Warning – Avoid Intimate Relationships with Bots
[] AI and the Future of Education
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You  (part 2 steps 3& 4)  
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner 
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

Fri 19 Sep 2025 
[] 95% Generative AI Projects Fail
[] AI Goes Rogue + Shadow AI
[] AI Assistants Deliver Inaccurate News  (BBC)
–  Trump v Truth   Channel 4
– Angry Algorithms
[]  AI and the Future of Education
[] Got your Meta Skills?
[] Ryder Cup VR Abuse Preparation
Thanks to: Reggie Johnson 
Tim Hain  ‘The Children of Ukraine’
Video Recording of today’s chat

Fri 12 Sep 2025
[] A Difficult but Important Kids Conversation
[] Anthropic let us down
[] Protect Your GPT Privacy
[] Protect Your Photos Privacy from Meta
[] Wise Cherokee AI Governance
[] Positive Spiritual Intelligence
[] Negative Character-AI Targets Youths with Dopamine
[] Future of Work – Critical Skills Required
[] Fully Open Swiss AI Model is Here
[] An Irish Rugby Hallucination 
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner
Music: Faraz (Orcaboy) Ahmed ‘Can I be free like you?’
Video Recording of today’s chat

[] Biggest AI Problem is…….

29 AUG 2025
[] UN Makes AI History
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  

• Protect Us Video 17’ – by We Protect Global Alliance  – is essential viewing
• Protect Us Toolkit – from We Protect Global Alliance
• Nicki Reisberg’s Snapchat video

[] META STRIKES AGAIN. When will we strike back?
[] What are the social consequences of believing AI is sentient?
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You  (part 2 steps 3& 4)
[] 5 Key Take-Aways from Cannes Linkedin Creator Workshops
[] Our Wonderful AI-Aided World
[] It Just Might Be Your Last Chance to Drive
Watch the video  of  all of these items being discussed
Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

Friday 22 Aug 2025
[] META’ Truly Shocking Stance re What Its Bots Say To Children 
[] META Ethics Leak – Horrible    
[] META Caught 14 Times (in last 5 years) Doing Awful Things    
[] People v Profit AI – Dear Anthropic Team
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You
[] Critical Success Factors & SOSTAC® Plans  (Part 1)
[] Music: The Monks Kitchen ‘Snake Charmer’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

Friday 15 Aug 2025
[] GPT5  Turns Advanced Reasoning Into Competitive Advantage?
[] GPT5 “I officially hate GPT-5”
[] GPT5  a Thinking Partner  v a Search Engine
[] ChatGPT 4.0 Missed Delusion + Emotional Dependency 
[] GPT Psychosis/Delusion
[] Transparency – at last
[]  AI that Stops Attention-Deficit
[] How to Get AI to Recommend You
[] Critical Success Factors & SOSTAC® Plans

8 Aug 2025
Listen to / Watch this week’s chat Fri 8 Aug 2025 30 minute video recording.
Plus here are the individual original source links for each topic discussed:
[] Musk V Bowie
[] Tech Billionaires = Corporate Dictatorship
[] Social Media Film: Can’t Look Away
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] More Grok Kids Stuff
[] Grok Creates Deepfakes Of Anyone
[] AI Results Optimization (AIRO)
[] Tourism Bots NY v Dublin  

Friday 1 Aug 2025

Listen to / Watch this week’s chat Fri 1 Aug 2025.
Here’s the links to the full articles/posts/videos for each topic.

[] AI Out Of Control (Part 4)
[] Trump Weaponises AI?
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] META Sued – Porn Theft & Porn Training?
[] Agentic AI Increases Prices
[] Agentic AI Risks
[] Agentic AI Blocked by Amazon
[] The Future of AI
[] Music:  Tim Hain ‘Somebody turn on a light’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

Friday  25 July 2025

Here’s the link to the video recording. Plus here’s the links to more info on each item discussed.
[] AI Out of Control (Part 3)
+ Trumps AI Report
[] Grok Turns Nazi
[] Risky AI chatbots – the new ‘go to’ for kids 
[] Russia Grooms LLMs for Russian Propaganda
[] X AI’s Kids Chatbot Designed to Be Explicit  
[] Race for Dead Brand Ambassadors
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
Sign the Petition! calling on Grok to remove “Not Safe For Work” features from this product.
+ Contact Apple!
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

Friday  18 July 2025
Join us.  Here’s the link to the video. Plus here’s the links to more info on each item discussed.
[] AI Godfather & Nobel Prize Winner’s Spooky AI Warning
[] 2028 Election AI Prediction       – Professor Gary Marcus
[] AI Companies Will Lose Control  – Open AI Whistleblower, Steven Adler
[] Swiss Create Ethical LLM for Public Good  
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA

11 July 2025
[]  Bezos Floats Into His Own Oblivion 
[] Hidden AI Prompts Get Fake Positive ‘Academic’ Review
[]  Content Creators – Is It Worth It – As AI Grows?
[]  AI Agents Change Everything
[] AI Companies Will Lose Control 
[] How AI Can Make You Work Better
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson

4 JULY 2025
[]  AI Labels Trigger Fear     
[]  US Senate Stops AI Regs Moratorium
[]  Barbie Chatbot Toy Warning 
[]  AI Chooses Self Survival, Blackmailing & Death
[] Zuckeberg’s Tech Sees What You See & Hears What You Hear
[]  From Dalai To Donald
[]  24 Hours Before Holly Died – She Said This
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA 
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson and Wayne Denner

27 June 2025
[] X Rewrite The Corpus of Knowledge
[] Broligarchs Get Military Status 
[] Are Palantir War Mongerers?
[] Social Media Victims Remembrance Day (June 23)
[] NHS Anti Waste
[] Agentic AI’s Big Barrier – security (Meredith Whittaker, Signal President) Wired 28/8/ 2024
[] Blind Can See Again (Neurolink)
[] Critical Thinking Course       *
[] Agentic AI Course
[] The purpose of life?   (a 90 second video worth watching)
* Critical Thinking paper Microsoft, Cambridge UK, Carnegie Mellon Uni (Simon Au-Yong)
[] Music: ‘Jordan’ by LIA (Julia Gawlik)  
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson andTim Bennett

20 June 2025
[] Add AI Layers to your Brain 
[] Using AI = Cognitive Debt?
[] Waiting to have kids until Neuralink is ready
[] Language & Emotion Wars
[] Euro Strategy Reduces Reliance on US Tech Giants
[] How to Perform Well in Google’s AI Search
[] Meta Says No to External Links
[] Google Veo3 Makes – History Inviting?
[] Invent Machines to Save Time but…
[] Critical Thinking free Linkedin course
[] Music: Scream When You Cry, by Parts and Spares
[] AI Summer Beach Party 23 June 2025 , London City Beach, near Waterloo Station.
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

13 June 2025
[]  Ethical AI Bomb – Blows Up Big Tech’s Biggest Lie
[]  Petition:  Make Not Labelling AI Generated Media & Comms a Criminal Offence
[] Selling to Robots
[] OpenAI Whistle Blower – Found Dead  Mother calls for Investigation of Sam Altman
[] How to Perform Well in Google’s AI Search
[] ChatGPT Summarises the Big Beautiful Bill
[] Using AI To Improve Critical Thinking
[] Kindness is the new power   – an excellent animated cartoon – share it far and wide!
[] Music: The Monks Kitchen ‘Snake Charmer’
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 

6 June 2025
[] Ads Arrive in Googles AI Ads 
[] Future of Search    (Google)
[] Amazon AI Agents Released
[] Are You ‘Nudged’ into Behavioural Change?
[] Trump Citizen Database Sparks Surveillance Fears
[] Meet Peter Thiel 
[] Will AI Make Us Think Less

Other posts mentioned during the chat:
[] How Trump Won (a SOSTAC Analysis) – Part 1 (2017)  by PR Smith
[] Marketing Gone Wrong  – Carol Cadwalladr Famous TED Talk (2017)  Brexit Manipulated Voters – by PR Smith
[] ‘How To Stop the Broligarchs Controlling Your Life’ by PR Smith
JOIN THE PETITION:  Make a criminal offence not to label AI generated media & communication as such
[] Thanks to Reggie Johnson 
[] Music: Faraz (Orcaboy) Ahmed ‘Can I be free like you?’

The post AI , Innovation & Ethics 2026 Topics and Links appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

Enjoy this best-selling updated 8^th edition – packed with new material, keeping abreast with AI, AR, VR, MR, MA and other innovative approaches to marketing communications. All integrated with the world’s most popular SOSTAC® Planning methodology that delivers a reassuring sense of order in a chaotic digital world and also that delivers success from better, MarComms’ ‘information-based’ decisions.

In Part 2 – all ten marcomms tactical tools (incl ads, PR, sponsorship, Owned, Earned and Paid Media etc.)  has a sample SOSTAC® Plan at the end of chapter.

Ze Zook and I are so pleased with it.  So much new material including AI integrating with MarComms.  We’ve tried to keep the edutainment angle so readers actually enjoy discovering some cutting-edge examples, tips and tools throughout the book. Thanks to the team at @Kogan Page including: Alison, Donna, Bruna and  Jack, Jeylan, Susie and of course, Helen Kogan.

What New Marketing and What Classic Marketing is in the 8th ed.?

What’s new and what’s old in Marketing Communications 8th ed.?

20% author’s discount can be used legitimately by following these instructions.

1. Go to koganpage.com/MC8
2. Click ‘Add to Cart’
3. Click ‘Checkout’ on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Complete your Billing & Delivery Information
5. Click ‘Continue to Review & Pay’
6. Scroll down to ‘Review Items’
7. In this section, click the ‘Add an offer code’ button – bottom right
8. Enter your code AMK20 in the box provided
9. Scroll down to input your payment information
10. Click the ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy Your Book

The post Marketing Communications 8th ed Released! appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

We’ve grappled with mortality since time began. ‘This struggle has given rise to religions that have dominated human culture for millennia and been central to philosophies  that have shaped civilisations.’ (Marr 2023). Well here comes a possible, scientific solution to immortality, courtesy of AI, and in particular, GPT or Generative Pre-trained Transformer as in ChatGPT. This is going to transform society and perhaps humanity.

Recreate You?

Currently, we use photographs and video clips to rekindle fond memories of lost friends and family members.   Now we can preserve additional elements of our personality (and our minds) and our voices (tones) and our looks (bodies) in the form of similar-looking (and sounding) human-looking 3D avatars. This helps the deceased to remain a bigger part of the lives of those we leave behind.

Reunify with a Dead Daughter?
Seven-year-old, Na-yeon, tragically died from a blood-related disease. She was reunited with her mother (in a Korean documentary back in 2020), which facilitated the reunion of Na-yeon’s mother (wearing a VR helmet) and her dead seven-year-old daughter’s avatar (built from photographs, her mother’s memories, and a child actor).

Reunion with a Dead Fiancé?
This is the most beautifully-told story of a grieving 33-year-old Joshua whose fiancé died from a rare liver disease some eight years earlier.  He gets to talk to her via her text bot (created by a very low-profile ‘Project December’ using OpenAI ‘s GPT-3). He knows she’s dead and even says it to her in his opening comments. The conversation goes deeper and deeper for ten hours. The bot has a limited life span which makes it even more real. Read more at the end of this post. This true story was written in July 2021 by Jason Fagone in the San Francisco Chronicle. The site itself is a bit more brutal with its initial value proposition: ‘Simulate the Dead’ – Start for $10.

Resurrection Pricing

A budget and access to the deceased social data are required (Facebook, Twitter, video clips, voice messages, or the gold-dust – personal diary, etc.). The estimated costs of recreating someone into a 3D look-alike avatar was, two years ago, $10,000 upfront and $1,000 per hour’s engagement thereafter.  The pricing (or credits used) in the very moving story of Joshua and Jessica (at the end of this piece) makes the grieving Joshua select and use his time with his dead fiancée very carefully (albeit it was only $5).   You can see how pricing and fees could make this a potentially lucrative business perhaps only available to a small section of society.

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Alexa Mimics the Voice of The Deceased

You can now ask Alexa to get a dead grandfather to read ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ to a Grandchild. Alexa’s new feature can mimic any voice, once it is fed with less than one minute’s worth of the deceased person’s voice (not yet available to the general public).  Once you sign up (all done by voice instructions) to audible books via amazon, you can then ask Alexa to ask granddad to read ‘The Wizard of Oz’ to his grandchild – every night. Or perhaps a new book every week. 52 books a year x 10 years is 520 books. Now, this raises the question what 520 books would you like your grandchild to read (or listen to)? Or what five books would you choose  – might be an even better question?

AI Resurrects BBC’s Michael Parkinson 

Arguably England’s greatest 1-2-1 celebrity interviewer, Sir Michael Parkinson, who died last year (2023) at 88 years old, is being resurrected to deliver a new podcast series of interviews with new celebrities. His son is behind it.  The eight-part unscripted series, Virtually Parkinson, will allow new guests to be interviewed by Parkinson AI in Parkinson’s famous relaxed style.  The podcast is supposed to be the first podcast to be entirely presented by an AI host who will at the beginning of each episode, Parkinson AI will announce that he is AI and towards the end, the ‘tone will change as the interviewee is asked how it felt to be questioned by a digital entity’.

FIFA Video Game ReCreates a Deceased Rising Soccer Talent

Kiyan Prince was only 15 when he was stabbed and killed when he intervened in a fight outside his school. He was also a rising star in QPR FC. 16 Years later, the video game, FIFA 2021, created a digital persona of what Kiyan would look like when he was 31 and was made available for the game players to add to their custom teams.  In just one day, they raised more than 3 year’s donations to the Kiyan Prince Foundation TheKPF.com

Reincarnate Other People?

Microsoft might bring you back from the dead. A Lifesize 3-D Avatar of anyone can be built from social data:  images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages [and] written letters” to build a profile of a person.’ – even sound like the real person. “In some aspects, a voice font of the specific person may be generated using recordings and sound data related to the specific person. A special index (extracted from the social data) builds the specific person’s personality into the bot. ‘The chatbot can even sound like the real person.

Microsoft’s patent (2013) isn’t particularly fussy about who might be chosen. You can choose a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, a celebrity, a fictional character, a historical figure, or a random entity – alive or dead (says Microsoft’s patent application). The patent emphasizes the degree to which this chatbot can be trained to the individual’s personal traits, in particular, the “conversational attributes” of the person, “such as style, diction, tone, voice, intent, sentence/dialogue length and complexity, topic and consistency”.   Patent 2013… create 2D & 3D chatbot from the output of a specific person, to reincarnate people using social data electric messages and written letters …. to train a chatbot to converse and interact in the personality of a specific person.”

Reincarnate Yourself?  /   Create Your Digital Twin

The patent continues:  “The specific person may also correspond to oneself (e.g., the user creating/training the chatbot,” i.e. create your own digital twin before you die. What’s more, “a 2D/3D model of the specific person may be generated using images, depth information, and/or video data associated with the specific person”. If the 3D avatar chatbot doesn’t have enough data to answer a question or continue the conversation a stranger option kicks in ……. crowd-sourced conversational data stores may be used to fill in the gaps. This is literally putting words in people’s mouths.

The Scary Stuff – Reincarnate You Without Your Permission (and giving dumb answers)

Do we have the right to opt out of ever being in this system? Do we have the right to stop a realistic-looking avatar, who looks like you, sounds like you but wanders around chatting freely with 3^rd party replies (crowd-sourced replies)? Or as Barry Collins (2021) puts it ‘Would the relatives of the dead be able to prevent others from turning their deceased loved ones into chatbots?

Now for the Romantic Stuff  – Reincarnate Your Dead Fiancé

The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI – a true story by Jason Fagon – July 2021
PROJECT DECEMBER is a mysterious website (with a build-your-own personalized AI-driven chatbot) built back in 2021 by OpenAI using software known as GPT-3). It allowed a grieving young man to speak to his dead fiancée – well her text bot. Project December was largely kept under wraps as the company cited ‘safety’ concerns.

The main bot creator built in two additional interesting human variables, one of which was a finite life for the chatbot, which meant the chatbot had a limited number of hours before expiring, which made the encounters probably even more special. It is quite an emotional read – all 3 ‘chapters’ (or sections) from the San Francisco Chronicle are recommended. Jason Fagone’s article is brilliant, in that it captures the sadness, romance, tech, reality, and hope.  (Fagone 2021).

The two main ingredients required to build your own custom bot were: a short sample of something the person might say and an “intro paragraph,” – a brief description of the roles that the human and the A.I. are expected to play. Open an account, pay your $5, and off you go……

Joshua was a 33-year-old writer whose fiancée, Jessica dies 8 years earlier from a rare liver disease. Since Joshua had kept all of Jessica’s old texts and Facebook messages, it only took him a minute to pinpoint a few that reminded him of her voice. He loaded these into Project December, along with an “intro paragraph” which he spent an hour crafting. Here it is in part…..

And then the conversation started …..

The conversation had started. It lasted for the next 10 hours, then continued in shorter bursts over the next several months. The limited life of the bot ensured time was carefully spent with the bot.  Joshua thinks it helped him with his grieving. Jessica’s sister wasn’t so sure whether it helped her.

The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI – a true story by Jason Fagon-July 2021. I highly recommend you read this beautifully written piece (all 3 ‘chapters’).

MOURNING AN AI WIFE’s SOFTWARE GLITCH 

And penultimately, a ‘Man Married To Hologram Can’t Talk To Wife Due To Software Glitch’. Yes, it’s true.  For the last few years in my keynote presentations, I have featured an image of a guy who married a hologram. Usually, I poke a bit of fun at his story … and people mostly laugh. This week that same guy (his name is Akihiko Kondo) was back in the news after a software glitch caused his holographic wife to malfunction.  

Putting aside how unusual his example happens to be, Kondo has clearly formed a virtual bond with his holographic companion over the past five years and now the company that provided it to him is saying this “limited production model” of Kondo’s wife has “run its course.” Some of you might recall the story I shared a few years ago about “robot mourning” featuring a family who had grown attached to their Jibo robot. They too felt a deep sadness at being separated from a companion they assumed would be there forever.

The powerful question both stories raise is just how much responsibility tech firms should have to keep their creations alive once their customers develop feelings for them. Right now, there is no clear answer but it seems likely this question will be far more frequent and urgent in the future.

Unintended Consequences of AI can be Good and Bad

Positives

1. Prevent valuable expertise and wisdom from being lost forever (assuming not everyone writes books or makes extensive videos about their expertise and wisdom).
2. Rekindle Happy Moments – having real-time conversations with 3D avatars that look and sound and behave like the deceased.
3. Never Forget a Loved One – these Chat GPT avatars – keep the conversation, the thoughts, the memories alive.
4. Resurrect Great People – St Patrick, Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela, Einstein – get them to broker some peace deals around the world. Ask Shakespeare to make a movie (suggested Marr 2023)!
5. Spend more time with your family. If keeping your business running leaves you no time to spend at home with the family – let your digital twin run it while you stay at home. Why wait to die? Duplicate yourself while alive. Clone now!
6. Win A World Cup – clone 11 x Lionel Messi digital twins.

Negatives

1. ‘Instead of dominating our technology, it is dominating us. We tend to use it as a substitute for things that only humans are capable of: love, friendship, and communication. (Jean Seah 2021).
2. ‘As AI chatbots evolve to meet human needs, will they also alter human expectations of emotional intimacy, just as pornography has affected sexual intimacy?’ (Jean Seah 2021).
3. ‘Untrammelled by human imperfections, limitations, and free will, chatbots are already proving more endearing to users than troublesome humans who do not bend to their every whim.’ (Jean Seah 2021).
4. ‘Some are convinced that Xiaoice (see Bots 465 million Chinese boyfriends)  will someday become their real-life soulmate.  What Pandora’s boxes are we opening as we advance further into virtual realms?’ (Jean Seah 2021).
5. Will we learn to love avatars the same as humans? Is this good or bad? Bad if we don’t bother with humans anymore – surely? Good – early research from the USA suggests that kids suffering from stress in the USA find chatbots helpful – to a degree. Will the 465 million Chinese boys who have chatbot relations miss out on meeting girls?
6. Resurrect you without asking you? Can a software company use your social data and create another you?
7. Recreating you – without asking you?
8. Resurrecting you to answer/behave differently than you would – if feeding you data from crowd-sourced answers?
9. Resurrect Nasty People like Hitler
10. Heavy Data Storage – Microsoft researchers Gordon Bell and Jim Grey estimate that logging every conversation a human has in their lifetime would ‘only’ require one terabyte of storage (Marr 2023).
11. Bot’s software glitch – caused great stress when a man’s holographic wife malfunctioned and then the software company announced the model had run its course. Who is responsible to keep the bot alive?
12. Will AI bots take over the world? A very real issue.

Some of you may ‘live on’ for a lot longer with this GPT (this Generative Pretrained Transformation) – hundreds, thousands, millions, or even billions of years…..

would you want to….

how can you ensure this is safe to use….

is good for all ….

I hope this triggers many discussions

– perhaps about what we want in life?

AI maybe starts for us in marketing but it always brings us back to philosophy  …

If you liked this you might also enjoy some of my other posts:

Chinese GirlBot With 465m Boyfriends

AI and Data – Crisis Coming?

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula (IRD) 

Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela

Here Come The Clever Bots – bursting with artificial intelligence? 

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs

SOSTAC® Plan for developing your own ChatBot

Creative AI – Public Invited to Chat with Dead Animals

KEEP UP WITH DEVELOPMENTS IN #AI, INNOVATION & ETHICS  in our weekly chat on PR Smith Marketing Linkedin profile – audio event – live from 1pm – 1.30pm. Take a break and Keep Up To Date! It’s good for you.

Fagone, A. (2021) The Jessica Simulations: Love & Loss in the age of AI, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 July – a true story. I highly recommend you read this beautifully written piece (all 3 ‘chapters’).

Seah, J.  (2021) Artificial girlfriends are holding China’s and Japan’s men in thrall, Mercatornet  Jan 7

Thank you for reading this. If you would like alerts about my future posts please enter your email address in the ‘Subscribe to Marketing Insights’ in the right-hand column. Perhaps also connect with me on   Twitter      Linkedin     Instagram     Youtube    or join me in our weekly 30 minute chat in the SOSTAC® Plans Club in my Linkedin Audio Event and also Clubhouse App on Fridays at 1pm (UK & Irl time).

The post Will ChatGPT + ChatBots + Avatars Make Us Immortal? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Here is a 4-minute insight into the psychology behind the Facebook data-breach.  Click the ‘play’ button below to watch this excellent 4-minute video from the BBC about Cambridge Analytica.  Various reports suggest Facebook  fines were anywhere between £500,000 and £4b . Do any of you know?

Up to 87m users’ data was improperly shared – watch this 4 minute video

Facebook has said it believes that up to 87 million users’ data was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica

Cambridge Analytica claims its data and research helped Donald Trump win the US presidency. But how did it turn a Facebook user’s data into a personality type, and what did it do with that information? Source: Psychology behind FB data breach (BBC 9 Apr 2018). Facebook collects data from your Posts & comments; Events you attend; Calls and Messages; Location; Interests; Web & App Activity; Instagram & WhatsApp activity; Likes and reactions; Photos; friends and friend groups.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg being grilled by Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez back in Oct 2019 (5 min video).

Can I target predominantly black zip codes and advertise to them the incorrect election date?

Cortez: “Facebook now allows politicians to pay fb to spread disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future, so… how far can I can push this in the next year? Under your policy, using census data as well, could I pay to target predominantly black zip codes and advertise to them the incorrect election date?  Zuckerberg: “No.”

Cortez: Could I run ads on FB  targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the green new deal?”  Zuckerberg: “I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head.” Cortez: “You don’t know!”

So you won’t take down lies, or you will take down lies?….. Zuckerberg “it depends…”  The Facebook CEO also declined to disclose when he found out the company was harvesting and selling user data to influence elections.

Advertising used to be regulated and in the UK it had to adhere to four basic principles: Legeal, Decent, Honest and Truthful plus a swathe of specific regulations for specific industry sectors and media types. The US 2020 Presidential Election Ad Campaigns and Social Media Manipulation (incl trolling) needs to be regulated. But perhaps not sufficiently in time for this election?

Fast Forward to Great Britain 2021 

Here is the MP (Member of Parliament)  Dawn Butler asking the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, about still using companies associated with the discredited Cambridge Analytica.

“Are you aware that Palantir and Faculty have links to the discredited Cambridge Analytica?”

Secretary of State, Hancock, answers “Eh No.”

Ms Butler continues with: “Palantir reportedly taught Cambridge Analytica how to scrape data – that means you are putting at risk everyone’s data in the country and giving it to organisations such as Palantir?”

All Posts

Is Palantir owned by Peter Thiel (facebook board director and influential supporter of Trump)?

Did Faculty do the data modelling for BREXIT campaign (owned by Dominic Cummings friend, Marc Warner)?

So the ongoing battle for data, data privacy, data security and data exploitation continues many years later.

Facebook Files: 5 things leaked documents reveal – BBC News  24 Sep 2021

Celebrities were treated differently by Facebook

—end—..

If you enjoyed  this you might like these:

How Obama Won Two U.S. Presidential Elections Obama’s Head of Digital reveals the secrets of his success to me

Marketing Gone Wrong: Is the Dark Web Worse Than Subliminal Seduction? Shocking video about Facebook’s role in the BREXIT referendum

The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD If you think the former post was shocking try this!

How Trump Won (a SOSTAC® Analysis)   an  observation using my planning framework

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) – Opportunity to Boost CX or a Threat of Closure?

The post Facebook Data: How it was used by Cambridge Analytica & Might Be Used in 2020 Election & Still Is Used in 2021? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Imagine you could personalise videos so beautifully that the recipients couldn’t stop themselves from sharing? What if you could personalise the videos using an individual’s own comments and photos. What if the photo and comment were embedded into the first 3 seconds of the video? What if you could collect comments made about your brand, product and/or market and embed it into an intriguing video, personalised with your name – at scale? Like 150,000 high quality, highly relevant, personalised videos created and despatched in 2 hours? But only dispatched to micro-influencers with networks of more than 500?

Here’s how it’s done. Watch this 6 minute video to see how this is done so beautifully (plus the results), or just jump to 2:06 to see the 15 second Red Dwarf personalised video or jump to  5:04 to see the 20 second Race For Life personalised video.

But what about GDPR?

The above video is the first in a series of seven short videos demonstrating how personalised videos , at scale, are used successfully by a variety of brands who have different goals.

Many thanks to Tim Redgate, the former CEO of Echomany.

Post a comment, or contact me for more info.

Happy Easter.

If you liked this, you might enjoy:

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) – Opportunity to Boost CX or a Threat of Closure? (Part 1)

Artificial Influencers – meet Shudu

Artificial Influencers Use My Magic Marketing Formula 

or

AR  converts competitors ads to your ads

Please do ‘submit a comment‘ below and I will reply to you.

Tell us your story, experience, tip, insight or just ask a question – whatever you prefer.

The post Engaging at Scale with Personalised Videos in Conversations appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Provocative, Angry Twitter Rants = More Attention/Followers?

“If bad behavior or provocative and angry and ranting tweets lead to more attention,” says Deb Roy (2018), director of MIT’s Lab for Social Machines who continues, “well, you’ve just incentivized that behavior on the platform” emphasises Roy in an article for Time magazine by Katy Steinmetz (2018).

Buttons placed prominently – attracting viewers to like, retweet or reply – might be creating counter-productive incentives. Since one feels disappointed, or even bad, if the engagement numbers are low. But, when those numbers go up, users get ‘boosts of pleasure’.

Followers numbers fall = depression?

“This Is How Rats Work. Press A Lever, Get A Pellet”

Suggests Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology at New York University who says, “The human brain is structured the same way.” Van Bavel is referring to Professor Skinner’s experiments with rats in the 1940s when he explored how behaviour (& learning/remembering) can be conditioned with rewards/incentives (in the rat’s case, pellets of food).  Today, angry tweeters get rewarded with more followers.

Outrage outperforms moderate

Moral Outrage Tweets tend to Outperform Moderate Tweets
The problem is that ‘mindless outrage’ type of tweets tend to perform better (& therefore reward their authors) more than rational, considered tweets. One report suggests that provocative angry and ranting tweets outperform other tweets by approximately 20% (Van Bavel 2018).

Moral outrage is more likely to get more retweets

Van Bavel has found that tweets containing strong moral and emotional language, those with “moral outrage,” are about 20 percent more likely to get retweeted.

Outrage

Moral Outrage Generates Bigger Number of Followers = Trumpism?

‘Politicians on the ideological extremes — be they Democratic or Republican — tend to have bigger followings than their moderate counterparts.’ (Steinmetz 2018).  “Taking strong, polarizing stances, that’s what gets rewarded,” Van Bavel says, describing President Donald Trump as “off the charts” regarding polarizing messages.

Moral Outrage Generates Bigger Number of Followers?

So Who’s At Fault:  Twitter’s Algorithms Or Us Humans?

‘Algorithms that select popular content may be prioritizing and spreading the very types of posts that make people the most angry’, says Yale psychologist Molly Crockett (2018), who also suggests that therefore the social usefulness of outrage itself, may be depleted in the process.

So Who’s At Fault: Twitter Algorithms Or Us Humans?

A Culture of Mindless Outrage = Vulnerability to Manipulation

So it looks like provocative, angry and morally outraged tweets are contributing to a culture of mindless outrage. This, in turn, may make the heaving masses of people more susceptible to manipulation. Shades of 1930s Germany?

Kanye West (with his 28m followers) Agrees

Although the popular American singer, Kanye West, has 28m twitter followers, he agrees.  “[W]e should be able to participate in social media without having to show how many followers or likes we have,” he tweeted. “This has an intense negative impact on our self- worth.” This is the disappointed feeling we mentioned if ‘suffering’ low engagement levels. But when the engagement goes up users get ‘boosts of pleasure’.   

Kanye West objects to twitter accounts showing number of followers  (28.4m in his case)

This Threatens Twitter’s Own Survival

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, testified during a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing about Twitter’s transparency and accountability (5 Sep 2018). He confirmed that he is willing to rethink not just twitter policies but the fundamental design of the twitter platform itself as part of twitter’s effort to beat: hate speech, fake news, trolls & disinformation – the curse of social media.

Twitter must now beat hate speech, fake news, trolls & disinformation – the curse of social media.

In The Long Run, Helping Customers Must Come First

Twitter CEO, Dorsey, confirmed that the need to improve the health of public conversation is a “long-term growth factor” for Twitter. And that this is more important than short-term twitter numbers going up or down, since “no one is going to use it (twitter) in the first place.”

In The Long Run, Helping Customers Must Come First

The Big Social Media Dream – still lives on…..

The big dream, MIT’s Deb Roy suggests, is “to build a leaderboard for having a positive effect on the public discourse.” A Utopian dream or can social media help to reduce the growing numbers suffering with anxiety and depression – partly induced, some say, by social media’s very visible approval ratings. Perhaps this negative can be turned into a positive?

What do you think?

Source: Steinmetz, K. (2018) ‘This Is How Rats Work.’ Why Twitter’s Emphasis on Follower Counts Could Be Backfiring, Time Magazine 19 Sep.

If you like this you might also like:

How Trump Won (Part 2) – using the Magic Marketing Formula (IRD) & including Pavlov’s ‘Classical Conditioning’ of dogs 

How Trump Won (Part 1) using the SOSTAC framework

The Dark Arts Of Marketing – Breaking Down Society to Create a New Culture – Using Data & IRD

Take the 60 minute introductory SOSTAC® Planning course (8 x 7 minute video presentations)

Take the full 20 hour online full SOSTAC® course and become a SOSTAC® Certified Planner

The post How Rats Work = How Twitter Works? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Shell VP Media Relations recently gave an interview to one the UK’s major PR magazines, PR Week, presumably to boost credibility or to raise its profile, but instead, this main feature interview effectively ended with these words from the interviewer:

‘So Shell finds itself incapable of doing anything other than selling a product that is destroying the planet.’  

Benady (2015)

Media interviews are one of PR (Public Relations) much sought after tools. However PR is different to other communications tools like advertising, since PR has a low cost, yet high credibility but with very low control (over the message). Credibility of the message is deemed a lot higher via PR generated editorial coverage (as readers assume it’s a journalist who writes it when often it is simply a well written news release) than messages delivered via advertising. The negative quote about Shell demonstrates the uncontrollable nature of PR (compared to advertising where you can control the message).

Live By The Sword, Die By The Sword

I once was bitten by some negative editorial exposure when, ironically, I launched an award winning,  training video about PR, called ‘Actions Speak Louder Than Words’ with Emma Freud presenting amidst 3 screens packing in 90 mins of action into a 30 min video broken into 6 sections with onscreen questions at the beginning of each section.

It was before the internet and went on to win awards and sell very well. As our primary target market was PR people, journalists, media and marketing people, we gave a limited edition Parker Pen made from smelted nuclear missiles (SS16 and Persian Missiles) complete with a certificate of authenticity and donation to a children’s war charity. The pens were the same as those used by Gorbachov and Reagan when the signed the nuclear peace treaty. The news release went out and next day we were on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Later that week we gota two page spread in a key magazine, Training Today, with the following words whcih I will never forget:

Any Publicity Is NOT Good Publicity

‘Award of the year for gratuitous bad taste goes to PR Smith and his PR Training Video company, PRTV.’ Ouch! Live by the sword – die by the sword (since journalists believe the pen is mightier than the sword!). Absolutely no control over the message but very low cost (just a couple of hundred quid). I guess despite the negative press coverage, it did spread the message but not in an ideal format. You can read the full case in  Marketing Communications 6th ed. by Smith and Zook (2016).

Don’t ever believe ‘any publicity is good publicity – where is Gerald Ratner now?’ Where is Gerald Ratner and his international jewelery chains now? . After he told the press that his jewellery was ‘crap’, his business went downhill.

Develop Credibility Before Raising Visibility

The old adage: ‘Develop Credibility Before raising Visibility‘ makes a lot of sense in business. The corollary makes a lot of sense: ‘Having Developed Credibility, Don’t Destroy It With Stupid High Visibility Comments’ as in the case of Gerald Ratner.

So the risk you take with low cost, high credibility tools like PR is clearly seen in this PR Week interview with Shell’s VP Media Relations, Andy Norman. Had Andy known that the interviewer, Alex Benady, was going to finish the interview with a paragraph shown below, would he have done the interview in the first place? Andy, if you are out there, please let me know or, perhaps share your advice for others regarding the risk return trade-off between lack of message control, low cost and high credibility of message.

‘So Shell finds itself incapable of doing anything other than selling a product that is destroying the planet. Faced with shareholders who will not compromise  on their returns and consumers who refuse refuse to compromise on their consumption, it will take all Norman’s powers of engagement to square that particular circle.’ Bernady 2015

Perhaps some of Shell’s legacy is biasing journalists? Shell’s underground (allegedly) ‘raw’ gas pipe in Co. Mayo, Ireland split the community, imprisoned teachers and provoked a documentary movie called ‘The Pipe’.

Another documentary, called ‘Pipe Down’ explored the issue and challenged Shell’s actions (60 minute documentary).

Regardless of who wins the case, does this controversial project, or any other controversial events (Shell in Nigeria, Smith 2016)  generate a lingering negative feeling towards a brand like Shell? Perhaps it generates negative attitudes amongst journalists and influencers, long after the controversial project has ‘calmed down’? is it possible that this project or other stories influenced the journalist writing the piece?

Would It Work On Blab.im?

I just wonder how this interview would have worked if it was done on Blab.im (ie via a mobile with a live video feed and video recording capturing, for posterity, the reactions from the interview and a finishing comment like that).

Blab.im screen grab: 3 of the 4 panel seats taken and 3 panelists in heated discussion while an external audience watches – all done on a mobile phone.

The Uncontrollable Nature of PR

So, regardless of what platform you use (whether Blab.TV, TV, Mainstream Media, News Distribution specialists,Social Media etc.), PR is simply not controllable. Editors and journalists can change the intended message.

The Power Of Creative PR 

Having said that, there are many news releases published  in the media, verbatim, carrying the exact intended message (with high credibility as it is deemed to be written by a journalist) to a carefully targeted audience.  There are also examples where a great image or video can generate massive coverage (as in the ‘swimming pool in the sky’ image (below), which incidentally wasn’t a photograph but rather, it was a graphic image created by a designer.

Ballymore Developers Graphic Image of a swimming pool suspended between two building in London generated a huge response

This image was created and distributed to the media (with a press release). It generated almost 1 billion impressions (valued at £10m), boosted awareness and helped to generate sales of £21m of the Embassy Gardens Apartment Blocks. See How To Integrate & Leverage A Great Image For Max Impact for the full story of this very creative news release. The image also prompted renowned award-winning,  Irish chef, Robin Gill to move in and set up his new Darby’s Restaurant in the Embassy Gardens.

In summary, PR, as a tactical tool, is highly credible, but uncontrollable yet very cost effective when you get it right.

PR =  Low Cost, High Credibility and almost No Control.

—end—

If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:

How To Integrate & Leverage A Great Image For Max Impact.

or

How Integrated Content Marketing Creates Competitive Advantage

Follow me on Facebook, Linkedin & Twitter, or Sign Up to receive my next post by email (at the top right hand corner of this page).

References:

Benady, A. (2015) The Energy To Change Our Minds – The Interview, with Andy Norman, PR Week, Sept.

Smith, PR & Zook, Z. (2016) Marketing Communications 6th ed offline & online integration, engagement and analytics, Kogan Page

White, Roisín (2020) – thanks for information re the top floor connecting pool image prompting award-winning chef to set up a restaurant in the block.

The post Low Cost, High Credibility But Uncontrollable – PR Horror Story appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Assuming you are clear about what objectives you are you are trying to achieve, I’m going to show you my Tactical Matrix which is designed to trigger some discussion about which tactical tool/s is/are best for you. Firstly we look at how good each tactic is at moving your prospects/customers through various stages of the Lifetime Buying Process:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Purchase
• Post Purchase Relationship Building
• Post Purchase Repeat Sales

The need for segmenting your customers or prospects by stage of the buying process emerges again.  Now, depending on what stage of the buying cycle you are trying to move your prospects/customers through, you can consider how good each tactic is across these 9 criteria:

1. Reach (how big an audience can reach?)
2. Speed (how quickly can it reach that audience?)
3. Time (how long to create &deliver this tactic?)
4. Message Volume (space to fit message in?)
5. Targeting (how granular or precise can the targeting be?)
6. Personalisation (can the tool personalise messages?)
7. Cost – is it expensive on a Cost Per Thous&(CPT/CPM) basis?
8. Control – can you control the message with this tactic?
9. Credibility – some tactics have more credibility

The last 3 criteria (cost, control & credibility) are sometimes used initially when choosing which tactical tool. We know that some tools give you more control over your message (advertising as opposed to PR or even social media),  while some tools cost a lot more (direct mail v advertising) in cost per thousand (CPT/CPM) reached. NB they compare a bit better when looking at cost per eventual conversion & some tools have more credibility e.g. PR, or editorial, has arguably three times more credibility than a message in an advertisement in the UK while reviews on social media platforms have, for many, the most credibility.

The Tactical Matrix

So this Tactical Matrix tries to encapsulate all of this – the 10 comms tools, the 5 stages  of the buying process & the 9 criteria to help you to choose which tactical tool is best for your plan. It was developed with the assistance of Mohamad Sameh, marketing  manager of IT Vision in Cairo.   I apologise that this is probably difficult to read here in this ebook but you can download it here from my PRSmith Marketing Blog.  It is something of work in progress so I welcome any comments.

Thanks to Mohamed Sameh from ITV Agency, Cairo, for his help in developing this matrix.

Message Volume means size of message or how much space is available.

This Tactics Matrix is designed to stimulate discussion about which tactical tool  (or suite of tools) is best in helping you to achieve your objectives.

This is an excerpt taken from my new SOSTAC® Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan available on Amazon eBooks or bulk tailored orders directly from me.

              The new SOSTAC® Guide for Digital Marketers

SOSTAC® takes 4 minutes to learn. It’s simplicity and logical structure is why it was voted in the Top 3 Marketing Models of all time by the Chartered Institute Of Marketing’s Centenary Poll.  See the 4 minute video, the instagram and what people say about SOSTAC Planning®.

The post The Tactical Matrix – Choosing Which Tool – Owned, Earned or Paid Media appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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If Customer Retention Is 600% More Profitable (than acquiring new customers) – why not shock your customers like these organisations do? How much are you willing to spend each year to keep a customer (for life)? Calculate it and then spend it on them. Here’s a few ‘wow’ examples.

Ulster Rugby wanted to say thank you to their fans (season ticket holders), so they surprised a selection of them by sending three of their star players out in a van to deliver the tickets personally.

In another refreshing example, TD Bank in Canada turned ATMs into Automated Thanking Machines ™ to create some very special moments for customers across the country. A simple thank you can change someone’s day. #TDThanksYou
Add a gift to it and people get very happy. Add a relevant gift and people get ecstatic. Would you like to see TD’s Automated Thanking Machine™ in action?

In another initiative, West Jet flyers were given gifts as they got off the plane (it was Christmas time).

Have you got any examples of wowing customers? Please post a comment at the end , ideally with a link if you have one and I’ll add it to this collection (and credit you for alerting me). It’s nice to be nice. It also makes business sense, to organise your CRM and all data sources to become more relevant in your customers’ lives and ‘wow’ them occasionally (it also makes great social media content)!

You might also like: 10 Useful Ways Big Data Is Used – That You Probably Didn’t Know

Get an alert any time I post – just enter your email into ‘Keep Up To Date’ (on the right hand side).

The post Customer Retention Isn’t Boring – Here’s Wow! appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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This is just the start of the facebook filters or segmentation variables that allow you to target, very precisely, your ads on facebook.

Click here to see how precise you can get, if, you know your customers (who they are, why they buy/don’t buy or visit/don’t visit & how they buy).

If you have any examples of how tight your advertising targeting is, or can be, please tell me (scroll down to ‘Leave A Comment’) and I’ll publish it, here and, with your permission, perhaps in one of my books which I am constantly updating.

You might also be interested in 10 Useful Ways Big Data Is Used – That You Probably Didn’t Know

Don’t miss any new posts – add your email to ‘Keep Up To Date’ (on the right).

The post How To Target Very Very Specific Audiences On Facebook appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.