Vox Optima LLC

Embracing the crisis and engaging audiences in creative ways is an effective strategy for regaining some control over the narrative and working your brand through the situation, but it’s not the end of the road. Even if you successfully embrace the fun and find an opportunity to laugh with your audiences, there’s still work to restore brand reputation and trust fully. These opportunities simply provide another platform for you to continue your brand and reputation campaigns. Brands have to continue to demonstrate their commitment to improvement and accountability. This might involve making tangible changes to policies or practices, communicating regularly with stakeholders, and being transparent about progress. Remember, your crisis plan should be tailored to address that specific crisis. However, embracing the crisis and leveraging humor, when appropriate, opens the door to these opportunities. Remember, it’s the ongoing effort that ultimately rebuilds trust. ~ Travis Claytor of TC Strategic Communications via Spin Sucks

No. 4. Show Value (For Them and Their Audience) If you’ve done your job targeting your journalists, it should be immediately apparent why your pitch is relevant to your journalist and their audience. But, the true value might not be as obvious. While the subject line can also infer value, driving home the value of your pitch in the email body is critical. Remember that journalists, like everyone, have goals and KPIs to meet. They need to drive clicks and views to their stories. The real value of your pitch is what it can do for them and their audience. ~ Vince Nero via BuzzStream

In the physical world, academics, like Harvard’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter who study interpersonal communication say anywhere from 60-80% of interpersonal communication is non-verbal. That means hand gestures, facial expressions, posture, eye contact and more. While much of our communication, including influencer marketing, takes place digitally, it still bears a non-verbal message. In many ways, that’s why emojis exist. :-) (Although as communication theorist Hugh Rank pointed out long ago, composition can be a tool of propaganda in written form.) Even so, you don’t need a study or a PhD to understand that when someone talks to you, you listen and then try to speak in return but they aren’t listening…that’s just rude and self-centered. ~ Frank Strong via Sword and the Script Media, LLC

No. 3. Limit the Number of Reviewers. Too many cooks in the kitchen can slow the review process and result in conflicting feedback. Each reviewer’s role should be essential to the project—subject matter experts or key decision makers. While it’s tempting to get as many perspectives as possible, limiting the number of reviewers will streamline the process and produce better feedback. At the same time, if someone’s feedback is vital to the quality of the product, make sure you engage them early and allow enough time to incorporate their feedback. ~ Jennifer Gehrt via Communiqué PR

Vox Optima is #hiring for these new positions coming open in the future! A Secret-level security clearance is required, and Veterans get a hiring preference. Reach out to us today at [email protected] to learn more! #WeAreHiring

Align your AI policy with your core values At Vanguard, we pride ourselves on a people-first approach, which means that we use only human voice artists and real people in images and video to the extent possible. Your organization should determine the ethical principles and values that guide AI development and deployment, such as inclusiveness, human well-being, transparency and accountability. These principles will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive and ethical AI policy. We think of AI as an assistant, never an author. AI should enhance, not replace, human intelligence and decision-making. Your AI policy should also include human oversight to avoid overreliance on automated decisions. ~ Allison Gross via Vanguard Communications

"macOS trusts applications to self-police their permissions," Benvenuto noted. "A failure in this responsibility leads to a breach of the entire permission model, with applications inadvertently acting as proxies for unauthorized actions, circumventing TCC and compromising the system's security model." Microsoft, for its part, considers the identified issues as "low risk" and that the apps are required to load unsigned libraries to support plugins. However, the company has stepped in to remediate the problem in its OneNote and Teams apps. "The vulnerable apps leave the door open for adversaries to exploit all of the apps' entitlements and, without any user prompts, reuse all the permissions already granted to the app, effectively serving as a permission broker for the attacker," Benvenuto said. ~ Ravie Lakshmanan via The Hacker News

4. Protect Ad Placements With YouTube’s Safety Advantage Brand safety is non-negotiable for any business investing in advertising, whether it’s a traditional TV commercial, a sophisticated animated ad, or UGC. The potential damage of having your brand associated with inappropriate or harmful content can far outweigh any potential gains. Luckily, YouTube is acutely aware of this critical concern and provides a suite of brand safety controls. These tools allow you to define specific content categories or channels where you prefer your ads not to appear, providing granular control over your brand’s image and associations. Even better, these safety measures extend beyond simple keyword blocking, as YouTube uses advanced contextual analysis to evaluate the overall content and sentiment of videos, so that your ads appear alongside content that aligns with your brand’s values. ~ Victor Blasco via @convince

Russian courts ordered Google to pay the three television channels large sums as compensation for the company’s decision to remove them from YouTube and deleting their Google accounts to comply with sanctions against Moscow. In court filings from last week, Google said that Russia “levied unprecedented fines and arbitrary legal penalties against Google in an attempt to limit access to information on our services and as a punishment for our compliance with international sanctions against Russian individuals and organizations”. “The bailiffs seized more than $100 (million) of Google Russia’s assets, even though the amount purportedly due under the judgment at the time was less than $12.5 (million),” Google said in one of the court filings. ~ Ariel Zilber via New York Post

We hope everyone has had a great long weekend and a fabulous #LaborDay2024