October 2, 2025
In this week's edition: Embarrassing yourself is the new big trend, the poisoning of trust, the Invisible Expert, how to be a Supercommunicator, the hard lesson for Disney, and much more...
The biggest internet trend of 2025 is embarrassing yourself - “Zoomers might fear cringe, but the internet embraces personal humiliation.” (Vox)
Trust itself has been poisoned - Commenting on the latest crisis facing the Tylenol brand, the author says “This is the post-vax, post-truth, post-common-sense era. Every recall is “proof” of guilt to one silo, while another swears it’s a Big Pharma cover-up. Tamper-proof seals? Brushed off as theatre. Safety campaigns? Drowned in memes and conspiracies. The brand isn’t addressing “the public” anymore because there isn’t one. There are tribes, echo chambers, algorithmic fiefdoms.” (Mark Borkowski)
Don’t sack Stephen Rue – Optus CEO needs better comms - “In a catastrophe like this, we, the audience, want to connect with emotion and humanity, because that is what we are feeling. We are grieving and angry. Technical explanations, which is what we got, make it worse.” (Mumbrella)
More on the Optus crisis here: So, what have we learned from the Optus triple zero emergency call debacle? “It would be great if lazy journalists stopped calling the Optus debacle a ‘PR disaster’. It wasn’t. It was a technical and management and reputational disaster. PR people and other communicators didn’t cause the problem. However, yet again, they have to step in and help clear up the mess.” Well said (Managing Outcomes)
The Invisible Expert - “Activate your knowledge or fade away.” A great framework that moves you from invisible to influential: 1) Expertise alone = Invisible asset, 2) Expertise + Visibility = Recognition, 3) Recognition + Consistency = Authority, 4) Authority + Community = Influence. (Dan Nestle)
Why the Corporate Greenhushing Trend on Climate Could be Bad for Business - “It might be polarizing in state houses and capitals, but it’s not polarizing around kitchen tables… The actual humans out there who are investors, employees and customers are seeing it the same way.” (Newsweek)
Cracker Barrel Outrage Was Almost Certainly Driven by Bots, Researchers Say - “Doesn’t that make more sense than lots of people caring about Cracker Barrel?” (Gizmodo)
How to Be a Supercommunicator - “Vulnerability, identifying the type of conversation, and ‘looping for understanding’” (Range Widely)
Unlocking content potential: a report on organising structures and capability - “A survey of over 70 content teams, exploring the organising structures they use, and how they help or harm content capability.” (LaPope)
More Americans than ever now get news on TikTok, Pew finds - “One in five Americans say they regularly get news on TikTok, a dramatic uptick from just 3% in 2020, according to a Pew Research Center analysis published last week. ‘During that span, no social media platform we’ve studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption,’ Pew researchers noted.” (Nieman Lab)
Bob Iger Just Learned a Hard Lesson - “Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night TV taught Disney’s CEO and the rest of corporate America that playing yes-man to the Trump administration is bad for business… Companies realize they need to find their red lines and push back against the administration. This shouldn’t be confused for Disney or Iger suddenly rediscovering their moral high ground; instead, it’s a realization that submitting may come with a higher price than pushing back.” (Bloomberg - $)
More on Kimmel: Disney & Jimmy Kimmel: The Real Story is Stakeholder Strategy - “Disney’s decision has far less to do with free speech than it does with smart strategy. Whether it was an orchestrated move or just a seat-of-the-pants improvisation, what we witnessed was a masterclass in stakeholder management under extraordinary pressure. More than ever, that’s an essential skill for business leaders.” (Forbes)
Cultural insights for the READINESS framework: A qualitative study of practitioner and scholar perspectives - “Key findings include the importance of an organization being prepared and building and fostering a culture of READINESS before a crisis… Acting quickly, seeing the ‘big picture,’ and exerting emotional intelligence exemplify optimal crisis management leadership, contributing to organizational culture and crisis READINESS.” (ScienceDirect - Public Relations Review)
Failing the F-List: Why marketing’s annual naming and shaming fest needs to move on - “Clean Creatives has spotlighted fossil fuel marketing, but Paul Mottram says the industry must now channel its influence into regulation, disinformation and systemic reform.” (Campaign)
And finally the most popular article from last week was Return to Real: The Marketing Trend to Watch a comprehensive slide presentation by FUTUREStrategies.