PR practitioners, many of whom are enjoying enhanced business opportunities, must be grating on the nerves of industry outsiders with their casual approach to today’s market meltdown. Crises, shutdowns and layoffs can often provide work for PR experts—just as journalists thrive on negative events.  While other sectors are pummeled by the one-two punch of inaccessible credit and decreased consumer spending, communicators still see opportunity. Such is the PR game, where tough times for others can reap big rewards for savvy strategists.

Businesses can’t simply stop talking when profits are down. Regardless of the message, companies need to articulate it clearly, using the right tactics, reaching the proper stakeholders. PR is thus needed at gloomy company announcements as much as it is at celebrations and positive news. Opportunity is always abundant with the right positioning and good news judgment.

Communications, however, is far from “recession-proof.” PR prospects are certainly out there, but the approach necessarily changes when profits are down. What remains important? Knowing where opportunities lay, what venues are no longer viable and which audiences remain relevant. Do people buy luxuries during recessions? Not really but they do go to movies and eat at McDonald’s (which just announced strong results, while Starbucks’ profits dropped).

Here are some helpful pointers to set you on the right path:

• Contract Work is In – Reduced budgets mean large, long-term retainers are unlikely in many companies. Short-term, one-time projects are increasingly available, especially during crises situations. If you were ever planning on heading out on your own, now – ironically enough – may be the time.
• Internal Communication is Key – When companies face hard realities, their employees do too. The need to communicate effectively within organizations becomes especially necessary in the instance of layoffs (such as is happening at Canwest now), pay-cuts or hiring-freezes. Leverage your practice toward these areas, showing clients that your external PR successes are only half of the equation.
• Public Sector Pays – In bad times we are all Keynesians; governments will start pumping money into job-creating public works projects as unemployment rises. This investment can prove costly and     contentious despite its benefits. PR expertise will be needed to broaden massive government spending’s appeal.
• Diversify Your Portfolio – Balance investments – and client portfolios; loading up on clients in one industry is asking for undue risk. If you mainly deal with resource companies, try to land contracts with a retailer or entertainment firm. Depending on your experience, this may be unrealistic; however, any hedge you can afford against overexposure can’t hurt.

Lastly, get out there and hustle. As you’d advise clients to step up their marketing efforts and ramp up PR, who are you to retreat? Now is the time to invest for your business’ future. It can’t last forever, the experts say but it might last for a while. Be ready; don’t stop thinking about tomorrow; create your own strategic plan for a post-recession Obama economy. That starts January 20.

As any Mac fan knows, Jerry’s desk on Seinfeld desk was a virtual gallery of Macs in the 90s. The show started with an original all-in-one Mac SE, and then featured numerous others as the show gained steam. I can’t believe I was the only one who noticed.

But when the recent announcement came that the comedian would become a Microsoft pitchman, in addition to his other duties for American Express, no one in the media seemed to realize the delicious irony. I emailed Simon Avery the author of the Globe and Mail’s otherwise excellent piece and asked if he was aware of the Mac’s role in Seinfeld? “I was looking for just such a reference yesterday afternoon!” I urged him to call PR Writer next time.

A Google search of other stores turned up the remarkable circumstance that only The Washington Post picked up the amusing nature of the announcement:

“Apple’s ad campaign “Get a Mac” pits a coat-and-tie clad older guy (John Hodgman) representing a PC, against jeans and T-shirt-wearing Justin Long, who plays the Mac. The commercials have also poked fun at Vista.
Steinberg said this latest campaign by Microsoft shows that the rivalry between the software company and Apple is reaching the intensity of Coke and Pepsi’s cola wars of years ago.
It’s also possible Seinfeld seems more like a Mac guy, Steinberg said.
After all, it’s a Macintosh that’s seen in the background of his apartment on ‘Seinfeld.’”

My brother Jesse Rotman of the Rooster Group is apparently a better Googler than I, as he found the following other reference in PC News:

“One sidelight to all this has been the buzz that Seinfeld used a Mac on his old sitcom. ‘Used’ is a generous term. I don’t think I ever saw him—or any character—sit in front of the Mac SE-class system and type a thing. Even if he did, how is that relevant to computing in 2008? It’s not.”
So how come only The Washington Post and PC News got the reference? And why didn’t the Microsoft story even mention it, to head off a possible slagging somewhere in the media. Is it that we are so commercialized that Jerry doing yet another endorsement to increase his fortune even more isn’t news? And why wasn’t it one of the story’s key messages?

This story is somewhat like the movie Goodbye, Lenin where a family tries to convince their dying mother that all of the BMWs appearing in East Berlin were as a result of socialism’s victory. Here someone goes from Mac to Windows, a similarly unlikely occurrence if you’ve been watching the young people clamor for Macs, now that they have used iPods and know Jobs scored again with the iPhone.

And why didn’t Jerry ever use his Mac? Every other part of his apartment became a scene of action, from the bathroom to the kitchen. Maybe he was like McCain and didn’t know how to use a computer. If he did, then he wouldn’t have lost his joke on that episode where the piece of paper with the idea on it was thrown away in Los Angeles.

All in all, somebody other than me, the Post and PC Mag should have noticed it—certainly the AP Tech writer originating from Seattle. At least someone should have asked the question whether Jerry was a Mac or PC user: if you look at the commercial, you know the answer. Here’s the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxOIebkmrqs

New-age tools have also been the backbone to his immensely successful grassroots fundraising drive. Altering a page from Karl Rove’s playbook, Obama’s team has assembled two disparate masses: the party faithful and the black vote. One hundred dollars at a time, his new communications tactics appear to be weaving a less corporate, more cohesive political web.

While exciting, this revolution also poses some serious questions for PR practitioners. Is this new way actually going to prove successful at the ballot boxes? How much of the youth vote will actually live up to its promise and turn out. Political scientists will be analyzing this for decades to come. Is the voting public, particularly the older demographic, ready for the shift? Is it too soon for a Web 2.0 election platform? November’s election will provide many of these answers, but the following analogy may prove insightful for now.

Imagine a luxury car manufacturer believing that his company must be relevant and launching a sleek new Web 2.0 campaign, replete with various social networking applications. As always, it is necessary to identify the underlying audience for the company: buyers and potential buyers. In reality, this group is far removed from early-adopting, bandwagon-riding young people who would be most likely to experience the campaign. It is important to keep this contrast in mind when looking at the utility of Obama’s strategies…

This parallel proves that no matter one’s desire to change, the fundamental marketing realities still remain integral to success. Obama thus needs his Democratic base, lobby support, older swing voters, veterans, single mothers and older women, precisely and other groups (along with Latinos) on the Web 2.0 periphery. Premising a campaign on the ‘new way’ may very well disenfranchise the population needed for its success.

This is a communications paradox indeed.

Politics, like some areas of business, is still a staunchly entrenched environment. Web 2.0 should therefore augment a solid campaign, bringing into the fold otherwise inaccessible groups. Losing sight of who the actual voters are might see a great deal of creativity go to naught.

Given John McCain’s technological ineptitude, we can only hope not.