The Bear's Den podcast returns for another season, Join Kev, Davie and host Danny Carissimi once more as they take a deep dive into the band’s forthcoming new record 'Blue Hours'. The podcast features in depth conversations about each song and their experiences writing and releasing an album in 2022.
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Compelling tales from the world of public relations, marketing and branding, told by the well-meaning communications professionals who lived them. On Lead Balloon, professional communicators share tales of the do-or-die situations that defined their creative careers—how they planned for the unexpected, how they navigated high-profile crises, and what they learned in the process. With immersive storytelling and a wry sense of humor, host Dusty Weis revisits epic PR disasters, intense communic ...
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BONUS: Literally, the Grammar-Nerdiest Conversation You'll Ever Hear, with Dr. Valerie Fridland
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Sociolinguist Dr. Valerie Fridland says we need to relax about the changing nature of language. In her book, "Like, Literally Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English," she notes that language has always evolved. Every generation adds its own spin, and the English language is almost unrecognizable from what was spoken centuries ago. And for the mo…
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50. Grumpy Cat, the Sound of Freedom, Watergate and More: A Look Back and a Look at What's Next
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When you're working with high-profile people in fields like PR, marketing and branding, things are always changing. History gets uncovered. New information comes to light that changes everything. And sometimes an opportunity comes along to learn just a little bit more about a topic of interest. So in this episode, we're revisiting three separate ta…
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49. How I Almost Got Fired in My 1st Week in PR, and the Important Life Lessons I Learned
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At the end of his first week working in public relations, Lead Balloon host Dusty Weis did something so dumb, he could have been fired on the spot. During a meeting with one of his new bosses, prominent Milwaukee politician Jim Bohl, Dusty made a bad assumption and recklessly insulted Jim to his face. Dusty wasn't fired, and the pair went on to wor…
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48. A UAP PR Campaign: Mainstreaming the Conversation About Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena, with Lt. Ryan Graves
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UFOs have traditionally been more of a pop culture phenomenon than an actual science. But with the recent declassification of Navy gun camera footage that shows unexplained craft seeming to defy the laws of flight and physics, there's a growing movement among the aviation, military and science communities. They insist it's vital to destigmatize the…
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47. Sliding into DMs on the Dating App Hinge, with NextGen America's Kristi Johnston
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Let's be honest: political groups don't have a great success rate when it comes to their strategic communication tactics. Every election cycle, American voters are bombarded with mailers, emails and text messages that mostly just get trashed or deleted. And when a Political Action Committee like NextGen America is charged with reaching out to young…
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46. Why Are Wireless Emergency Alerts on Your Phone So Terrible? A Strategic Communication Conundrum
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On January 18, 2018, the entire State of Hawaii received an ear piercing alert on their cell phones. "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." Those with a keen memory will recall that the Aloha State was NOT, in fact, wiped off the map by a missile strike. It was a false alarm. But what it revealed …
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45. Replaced by Chat GPT: Are Creative and Copywriting Jobs Threatened by Artificial Intelligence?
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The robot revolution has arrived. And they're coming for your marketing or content creation job. The advent of generative artificial intelligence chatbots—most notably tools like Chat GPT and Midjourney—is poised to revolutionize creative industries. These tools use deep learning technology to generate new content based on prompts from human users.…
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44. How a Real Life Ad Agency Inspired the Robin Williams CBS Sitcom, "The Crazy Ones"
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Every professional communicator has had a day that seems like it came straight out of a TV sitcom. For Rob Davis and John R. Montgomery, working at the Chicago ad firm Leo Burnett in the early 2000’s, it was a regular occurrence. In fact, the stories from their time there were so singular, that when they shot a pilot and pitched it to Hollywood, it…
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43. Brands Don't Have the Rizz: Appropriating Gen Z Slang Is Falling Flat in Social Media Marketing
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"How do you do, fellow marketers? We think it would be pretty 'on fleek' if you would stop trying to use slang terms to make yourself more relatable to young people." Certainly, brands swooping in and trying to leverage youth culture to drive sales is nothing new. But as bad as it was in the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s, the advent of social media …
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BONUS: Covid is—Air Quotes—Over. What That Means for Strategic Communicators, with former HHS Spokesman Bill Pierce
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Communicating during and about the Covid-19 pandemic is a topic we've discussed several times on this show, including in our most recent episode. And, as of today, May 11, 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services coronavirus Public Health Emergency is expiring. But just because Covid is "over" doesn’t mean we won’t still have to discuss it…
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42. OkCupid Stays On Target During the Covid Pandemic: PR Messaging and Online Dating Apps
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When the unstoppable force of online dating met the immovable object of global pandemic social distancing, there was no road map for what would come next. Michael Kaye is the director of brand and communications for the online dating app OkCupid. And, in the early days of the Covid lockdown, he and his team faced decisions that weighed on no less t…
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41. Deepfakes: How Communicators Must Prepare Now for this Imminent Reputation Threat
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It is now only a matter of time until someone attacks your reputation with a deepfake, according to the experts. So-called deepfake technology, which can synthesize audio and video of things that never happened, has arrived en masse. And, while these tools for generating potential disinformation were previously only available to trained experts and…
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40. In Event of Moon Disaster: The Greatest Speech Never Given
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It has been called “The Greatest Speech Never Given.” Drafted as a contingency plan for President Richard Nixon on the occasion of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the memo entitled "In Event of Moon Disaster" is inarguably a better piece of writing than any of the presidential remarks actually delivered on that day. Penned by White House speechwriter W…
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39. Pernicious Copyright Robots Are Targeting Your Website: PicRights and the Practice of "Copyright Trolling"
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There’s a disturbing new trend making waves in the world of online content creation. Corporate blogs, mom-and-pop business websites, podcasts… Even stuff that you posted years ago to your personal website or social media. It’s now being examined, sifted through and screened by artificial intelligence bots, which are programmed to search for copyrig…
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38. The Bud Light CoRntroversy, Revisited: Miller Lite Strikes Back
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Now with 50% new footage! During Super Bowl LIII in 2019, Bud Light launched a new advertising strategy that was... unconventional, even for them. Instead of frogs or "wazzap" guys or silly superstitions, this campaign focused on attacking Bud Light's rivals for using corn syrup to brew their beers. Stranger still, outside observers noted that the …
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BONUS: Celebrating 20 Years Behind a Mic With Dusty's First Audio Boss, Scott Thompson
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It's been a busy year here at Podcamp Media. So busy, in fact, that we almost forgot to recognize a pretty significant milestone in Dusty's career. 20 years ago, Dusty got his first job behind a microphone. He was 17-years-old, working an after school gig at his local radio station in Monroe, Wisconsin, when he was afforded the opportunity to voice…
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37. Blue Angels Ride Along: Lead Balloon Becomes the First Podcast to Fly with the US Navy Blue Angels
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For the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron, media relations is not a job that just happens on the ground. Each year, dozens of media reps, influencers and VIPs are invited to take a ride in the back seat of one of the squadron's F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets. And, in order to help tell the story of the Blue Angels public affairs…
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36. The US Navy Blue Angels: Public Affairs and Marketing at 500 Miles Per Hour
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The U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron is not only the world’s most well-known group of elite performing aviators. It’s also—and people forget this—a group of elite public affairs and marketing practitioners. From the pilots to the technicians turning wrenches on the planes, every Blue Angels team member is trained to uphold the un…
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35. Post-Cold War PR Trip to Uzbekistan Boosts Fundraising for United Jewish Appeal's Operation Exodus, with Dick Grove
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In 1993, the world watched as two bitter rivals shook hands on the South Lawn of the White House, presenting the best hope for peace in the Middle East seen in centuries of bloodshed. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chair Yasser Arafat’s signing of the Oslo Accords—and the handshake that followed, cajoled …
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Trailer—The Lead Balloon Podcast—PR, Marketing and Strategic Communications Stories
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Adweek's 2020 "Marketing Podcast of the Year." Webby Award-nominated. Profiled on Forbes.com. On Lead Balloon, professional communicators share tales of the do-or-die situations that defined public relations and marketing careers--what went wrong, how unexpected obstacles were overcome, and what was learned in the process. With immersive storytelli…
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34. Murder in Boston Blamed on Sega's Virtua Cop Video Game, with Lee Caraher
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On a busy evening in Boston's financial district in 1995, gunshots ring out. When the smoke clears, a prominent divorce attorney is dead and a police officer is wounded. And Lee Caraher, then the Vice President of Corporate and Consumer Communications for the Sega Corporation, doesn't know it yet... ...but she's about to have a public relations cri…
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33. National Airlines' Saucy "Fly Me" Ad Campaign, and the Great Stewardess Rebellion of the 1970s
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Sexist advertising that objectifies women reached its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But, in that era, it was very seldom that any company actually faced backlash or consequences for its ad practices. That began to change, however, when National Airlines deployed a racy new ad campaign in which alluring young stewardesses invited travele…
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32. Tesla’s Elon Musk Fires the Entire Public Relations Team—What Could Go Wrong?
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As the world’s most valuable automotive manufacturer, electric car giant Tesla is the largest company in the world that operates without any kind of public relations personnel. That means no media relations arm. No crisis comms plan. No PIO. In fact, the entire PR team was purged just a couple years ago in 2020, and CEO Elon Musk has defended the m…
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In the final episode of this season of the podcast Danny, Kev and Davie discuss the album's closing track 'All The Wrong Places'.
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In the penultimate episode of this season of the Bear's Den podcast, Danny and the band talk badminton & dig into album track 'On Your Side'.
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31. Snapple: Pitching the Best Catchphrase On Earth, with Jane Cavalier and Richard Kirshenbaum
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The strategy at the heart of the Snapple brand's precipitous rise... and its cataclysmic fall... is simple: Embrace your roots. Celebrate authenticity. It's a lesson that's been served up again and again in the brands and marketing ecosystem. But it never seems to sink in. So in this episode, we'll pop the top on a Snapple double feature. First, Ja…
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In the latest episode of the Bear's Den podcast Davie reveals how his experiences with his mother's dementia inspired the track 'Selective Memories'.
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Danny and the band discuss forthcoming new track 'Frightened Whispers', find out more about how the song was created and get a sneak first listen at some clips.
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30. Inside the PBR "Eating Ass" Tweetstorm, with Adweek Editor David Griner and Kyle Brown
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On January 3, Pabst Blue Ribbon lit the internet on fire with one obscene tweet: “Not drinking this January? Try eating ass.” The uproar was swift and loud. And PBR deleted the tweets and apologized publicly, even as some writers blamed a “rogue employee” for the tweets. That was NOT the case. The offending Tweeter was actually an established socia…
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Danny, Kev and Davie discuss the genesis of 'Gratitude' a song partly inspired by Davie's experiences searching for caves near Bear's Den in Scotland and holding on to positive memories from being young
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29. Ukrainian Creatives Waging an Information War Against Russian Invasion
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For Ukrainian ad agencies and freelance creatives, "business-as-usual" stopped on the day that Russian forces launched their unprovoked war three weeks ago. Now, they need your help to pierce the veil of Russian propaganda and fight for their homeland in their own way--by waging a global information war to win the hearts and minds of the world. In …
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Danny, Davie and Kev discuss 'All That You Are', the first song released from the new record and a song that was first played live on the Austin To Boston tour way back in 2012.
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The new season of the Bear's Den podcast continues with a look into the band's track 'Spiders'.
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Danny, Kev and Davie get under the skin of the band's latest single 'Shadows'
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28. Wendy's Twitter Account Manager Recounts Battle with Social Media Burnout, with Amy Brown and Sallie Poggi
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Wendy’s, the burger chain, is infamous for its punchy, no-holds-barred Twitter account. And social media manager Amy Brown was the creative instigator of that success. Many internet historians even point to her epic 2017 tweet-roast as the viral moment that launched an entire genre of Snarky Brand Twitter. It certainly made her a hero to social med…
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The deep dive into the new record continues as Davie unpicks the title track and reveals the story behind the album's name
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The band begin their deep dive into their forthcoming new record 'Blue Hours' with a discussion about opening track 'New Ways'.
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27. Sherwin-Williams Paints Itself Into a Corner on TikTok, with Tony Piloseno
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Tony Piloseno really likes paint. And as a junior studying marketing at Ohio University, he channeled his passion for a part-time job at a Sherwin-Williams paint store into a wildly successful TikTok channel. His weirdly entertaining videos of mixing paint colors amassed hundreds of thousands of social media followers and tens of millions of views.…
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In episode 2 of the new season, Danny is reunited with Davie as they discuss Davie's experience of the pandemic, quitting drinking and becoming a father for the first time
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The Bear's Den podcast returns! In the first episode of the new season, your host Danny Carissimi has a long overdue catchup with Kev and discuss how his life has developed over the past year.
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BONUS: Milwaukee Bucks Senior VP Alex Lasry on the City's "Quiet Swagger," His U.S. Senate Campaign, and the Team's Prospects for 2022
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This month on the show, we talked to Alex Lasry, the Senior Vice President of the Milwaukee Bucks, about the team’s dramatic stand for social justice last year during the NBA Playoffs. It’s a really important story and a great case study for how organizations can and should navigate some of these situations we face as a nation. But Alex has a lot o…
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26. Bigger Than Basketball: The Milwaukee Bucks and the NBA Social Justice Walkout of 2020
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With a shot at an NBA title on the line, an entire basketball team refuses to take the court. They won’t even come out of the locker room. It’s a sports marketing nightmare. And just last year, it came true for the management of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Alex Lasry is the Senior Vice President of the Bucks. And even though he was shocked…
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BONUS: What "Cancel Culture" Really Means for Reputation Management, with Molly McPherson
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Reputation management and social media consultant Molly McPherson showed us in Ep. 25 of Lead Balloon how she herself was "Indestructible" following an on-assignment near-death experience. But these days, her consulting practice, her book, her podcast and her online courses all center on helping brands achieve an indestructible reputation. And, at …
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25. FEMA Rep Has Near-Death Experience After Hurricane Ike, with Molly McPherson & Mike Moore
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Established by President Jimmy Carter in the late 70’s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has responded to every major American disaster over the last 40 years. But for all its many successes, FEMA is also an agency that has struggled with its image in the public eye. Its high-profile failures have dominated the conversation in the media and …
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24. The Dreaded Grand Jury Subpoena, with Duct Tape Marketing Founder John Jantsch
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There's nothing easy about striking out on your own as an independent marketing consultant. Work can be scarce and hard to come by, and when an opportunity does come along, there can be a lot of pressure to accept it no matter what. John Jantsch knows from experience. Before he was the founder, host and author of Duct Tape Marketing the agency, pod…
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23. Bridgegate: Behind the Scenes at the Port Authority During the 2013 Scandal, with Anthony Hayes
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The George Washington Bridge between Manhattan and New Jersey is the world’s busiest motor vehicle crossing, carrying more than 103 million vehicles a year over the Hudson River. And so in 2013, when accusations came out that hand-picked members of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s staff deliberately caused massive traffic backups on and …
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BONUS: Bulletins From an NBA Title-Winning Terrible City
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At Podcamp Media, we are *proudly* based in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Founder Dusty Weis explains why in this column he wrote for our friends at OnMilwaukee.com. (Music by Ghost Beatz) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBy Dusty Weis
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22. Scandal at Foresters Financial, with former VP of PR Henry DeVries
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Henry DeVries had to choose: a big fat raise and a promotion, or maintain his integrity. The year was 1996, and Henry was the Vice President of Public Relations at Foresters Financial. He had just found out about an ongoing affair between two high-ranking executives, and they had made their intentions clear. They wanted him to aid in the cover-up, …
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21. Hip-Hop Mogul Russell Simmons Hijacks the Mainstage at LinkedIn's Sales Summit, with Justin Shriber
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When Justin Shriber was the Vice President of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales and Marketing Solutions, he was charged with emceeing the social media juggernaut's Sales Leaders Summit mainstage. And with hip-hop legend and business magnate Russell Simmons lined up to serve as headliner, the hall was packed with people eager to hear Simmons's stories fr…
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20. Plane Crash in Colombia: American Airlines Flight 965, with Jennifer R. Hudson
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Three weeks after accepting a new role as an American Airlines spokeswoman in 1995, Jennifer R. Hudson was paged out of bed in the middle of the night. The worst had happened. Flight 965 had disappeared in the mountains of Colombia, and Jennifer needed to report to the scene of the crash to coordinate the company's public relations response. Unnerv…
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