Just about the only person in the world who hasn’t heard of ChatGPT, GPT-4, or OpenAI is this woman who quite literally has been living under a rock for the last 500 days. Depending on whom you are listening to, artificial intelligence (AI) is either going to put you out of a job, make you millions (if you follow some simple 10-step plan), or is the start of a technology apocalypse. In today’s Plain Talk, we’ll address the worries and excitement head-on. We’ll share what you need to know about the pros and cons of AI in marketing.

These days, the marketing discipline of public relations is increasingly stepping into the spotlight. With growing social media platforms and new generations of audiences, the looming wave of cancel culture is keeping a close eye on every single decision your brand makes, and for a good reason. As we discussed previously, the slightest misstep in an advertising campaign can send your brand into a tailspin with consumers. So, how can you keep your fingers on the pulse of your campaign to ensure your message is coming across the way you intend? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll discuss why you need to keep your PR team off the sidelines and your brand out of trouble.

For injury law firms, ChatGPT and Google Bard are already making an impact. If you haven’t heard of these tools, don’t worry. This edition of Plain Talk will get you up to speed. Both AI models are in their early stages. However, we’ve already been able to identify some exciting use cases for using LLM AI in legal marketing. You can up your personal injury law content game while gaining some valuable insights from Google along the way. If you want to understand how ChatGPT and Bard can help you with things such as keyword research, structured data, content development, technical SEO, and a better understanding of Google search, we will demonstrate by showing how these tools can help boost your online performance. And, of course, we’ll be getting some answers straight from the tools to demonstrate how intelligent they can be. Let’s dive in.

Have you ever watched a talk show and noticed a guest fidgeting with their hands so much that you forgot what they were even talking about? How about a politician with a blank stare who appears to be reading from a cue card or a CEO who refuses to answer questions from reporters and keeps saying “no comment”? Those actions can annoy or irritate the public. In business today, the way the public views leaders reflects their company, for better or worse. Does the thought of “going live” make you or your leadership nervous or anxious? It’s hard to be human and answer no to that question. However, the way you handle yourself with the media will affect your brand. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll discuss the importance of media training and how it is crucial to being thought of as approachable, honest, and caring when you or your business are suddenly faced with potential media coverage or during crisis communications.

Gen Zers will decide, almost immediately, whether or not they are interested in something. This includes which brands they love and which businesses they hate. In a world where skippable ads and subscription services are the norms—where ads are optional and only require a quick swipe or click of the skip button to get rid of them—how can you use your marketing dollars to reach and influence this massive consumer segment? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll look at Gen Z media consumption. We’ll also offer three insights on using your media budget to reach, influence, and convert this audience.

In his 1990 Canon ad, Andre Agassi famously stated, “Image is everything!” This is especially true when trying to impress Google with your newly created “Helpful Content”. So, why would you carefully handpick custom images and forget about image optimization? In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll examine SEO image optimization, which helps search engines understand images in related contexts and ultimately provides the best rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs) and image searches.

When we talk about diversity in marketing, we first have to identify that we’re talking about target audience diversity—racial, ethnic, and sexual diversity and inclusion. Marketing diversity can refer to a product or geographic diversification. This article is about the inclusion, exclusion, targeting, and stereotyping of women, minorities, and the LGBTQIA+ community and our industry’s efforts to improve. As marketers, our job is to be on the edge but not over the cliff. In college, we were told that we both mirror and mold our zeitgeist. So, while we were subject to the time and cultures of the said past times, we can and should still be judged for the directions we led.

It’s that time of the year in ad land when we take a look at the commercials produced at exorbitant cost and placed at, well, exorbitant cost to give brands (and ad agencies) their thirty seconds of Super Bowl fame. But something seemed a little different this year, and it’s not just the absence of twenty different cryptocurrencies running ads. When we previewed 86 or so Super Bowl and “Big Game” related commercials and teasers, we began to notice that almost every single one was funny (or tried to be, bless their hearts). In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll examine the sudden explosion of humor in advertising. We’ll also discuss why it’s happening now and what it means for the future of the business.

Since its beginning in 1997, the goal of SEO has been to prioritize keyword rank position, but should that continue to be the standard as Google continues to weigh personal factors and individualized results? In this edition of Plain Talk, we’ll discuss if Google keyword ranking is still the best way to measure your SEO and if not, what SEO tools you should use for search engine optimization.

Public relations touches all facets of marketing. Gone are the days of traditional earned media practices, so how are professionals supposed to succeed in an ever-changing landscape of increased expectations and noise? The only solution is to stay on top of technologies and trends and constantly innovate and evolve. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll first recognize the brands that killed it in 2022. Then, we’ll identify three hot PR trends for 2023 that we anticipate the winners will integrate into their PR mix.