There was a time when the editorial and advertorial worlds had clear lines of demarcation. It was easy to tell the difference between an investigative report and an ad. However, the days of this “Church and State” arrangement have been disrupted by the sheer weight of online content we now see on a daily basis. As we’ve moved from a print-dominated to a digital world, new avenues for promotion like native advertising have blurred this once easy-to-read landscape. And with social media and online influencers, this line can be even murkier – in some cases being obfuscated on purpose to …

My colleagues Mark McNeely and Alice Chapman, along with an incredible MP&F team, have just completed a clean sweep of national awards honoring their work for the statewide “Red White and Food” campaign to allow the sale of wine in Tennessee retail food stores. Not only did they win “Best of Show” at the local Parthenon Awards last spring, they’ve just completed the trifecta of national awards – the SABRE Award, the Silver Anvil Award and the PRWeek Public Affairs Campaign of the Year award. For a Nashville public relations firm to claim all of these awards in one year …

We are excited to share that MP&F took home yet another national honor for the Red White and Food campaign at the PRWeek Awards in New York City last Thursday. In the article below, PRWeek explains why MP&F’s and the Red White and Food Coalition’s work won the 2016 Public Affairs Campaign award: ‘Where’s the wine?’ That message, uttered by shoppers in Tennessee grocery stores, was the rallying cry of MP&F Public Relations’ campaign to allow wine sales in the state’s grocery establishments. The process was harder than it sounds. Although state legislators passed a measure that would allow wine …

Back in 2011, my friend Gini Dietrich asked me and several of our marketing and PR colleagues nationally to write one-pagers for a book she was working on titled “Dear CEO: Letters to the C-Suite from Experts on Vision, Culture, Community, and Integration.” The advice was to help organizations make it through the Great Recession. My one-pager was in the Community section. In total, there are 32. There was a recent instance that made me want to pull it out for a quick read. In reviewing this more than five years later, I don’t feel that I would change a …