McDonald’s CEO Burger-Bite Uproar Faux Pas vs Crisis — Know the Difference

When did our profession start calling every little flare‑up a crisis? A TikTok trend, a snarky comment thread, a logo people don’t like — suddenly everyone’s acting like the business is melting down. But most of these moments aren’t crises at all. They’re upstream matters that are manageable, or a faux pas with a short life span and a valuable learning opportunity.

In this episode, we get into why PR keeps over‑labeling everything a crisis -- and how that habit distracts us from identifying the issues that could be tomorrow’s emergencies at best.

Today we’ll walk through the spectrum of incident categories — the harmless creative misstep that gets a couple of days of flareup, the issue that starts quietly and grows over the decades until the industry is in decay, the emergencies that hit daily operations hard and fast, and the rare, true crises that actually reshapes a business for years.

Buckle up and take a roller coaster ride today through real stories and case studies about the spectrum of incidents that can either make us or break us – and learn how to tell the difference.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Struggle no more to tell your leadership what your value is to the organization. Join the movement to help change the conversation inside our organizations about public relations (a.k.a - communications, corporate comm, marcom, public-information office, etc.). We've heard you, seen your frustration on LinkedIn -- being disregarded, left out, treated like an afterthought. But we sometimes are creating our own headaches by how we talk about our profession. So we've designed some items we think you'll like -- and these "tools" will start the conversation for you. Check them out here!

NEW RESOURCE PAGE (a.k.a FREE STUFF) Visit our new resource landing page to check out free downloads and tools to help you lead, manage and implement top-notch PR in your organization. Click here

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO (a.k.a. Who is this crazy woman who can't stop talking about PR?) https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

NEWS UPDATE: FeedSpot named IT'S A PR THING to its list of top PR podcasts in the world again - two years in a row, with IT'S A PR THING moving up four spots in 2026. Read more.

What Consumers Said. Why the FCC Is Acting on It.

Today's episode is a case study in the progress that demonstrates why it's important for companies to regulate themselves -- or else they'll invite regulation to be imposed on them.

Consumers have been signaling their frustration with offshore call centers for years — and companies didn’t simply miss those warnings; they dismissed and disregarded them. Now they're facing the real possibility of federal intervention later this month.

This development represents more than mere compliance. The FCC may very well be forcing companies to rebuild a stronger, more reliable U.S. customer service industry.

Listen in and learn what can happen when companies repeatedly ignore consumer feedback.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Struggle no more to tell your leadership what your value is to the organization. Join the movement to help change the conversation inside our organizations about public relations (a.k.a - communications, corporate comm, marcom, public-information office, etc.). We've heard you, seen your frustration on LinkedIn -- being disregarded, left out, treated like an afterthought. But we sometimes are creating our own headaches by how we talk about our profession. So we've designed some items we think you'll like -- and these "tools" will start the conversation for you. Check them out here!

NEW RESOURCE PAGE (a.k.a FREE STUFF) Visit our new resource landing page to check out free downloads and tools to help you lead, manage and implement top-notch PR in your organization. Click here

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO (a.k.a. Who is this crazy woman who can't stop talking about PR?) https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

Brand Backlash: The Cost of Content Overload

Consumers are officially hitting the wall.

Five recent studies all point to the same thing: people are drowning in brand content, tuning out messages, and walking away from companies that won’t give them a break. In this episode, we break down what that overload is doing to the brain—fatigue, anxiety, decision paralysis—and why it’s eroding brand connection instead of strengthening it.

Then we get to the proven and practical solution as we walk through the four stages of relationship development, what actually influences people in each one, and how to shift from pushing content to creating real connections that builds relationships that build business.

And we've posted the links to the five studies we mention in today's episode on our Resource Page. (So check that out.)

Lots to cover today, so . . . let's go!

NEW RESOURCE PAGE (a.k.a FREE STUFF) Visit our new resource landing page to check out free downloads and tools to help you lead, manage and implement top-notch PR in your organization. Click here

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO (a.k.a. Who is this crazy woman who can't stop talking about PR?) https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

What Customers Are Begging For (and Taco Bell Gets It)

In this episode of IT’S A PR THING, we’re circling back to customer experience — not the buzzword version, but the kind that actually builds relationship capital. Today, we’ll cover a recent customer experience that demonstrates how much it matters when organizations make things easy, give people a way out of technology when they need it, and create moments that become memories.

We’ll walk through what happened, why it stood out, and what it says about how we treat the people we work so hard – and invest so much -- to attract.

We’ll also touch on what some of the pros — including the C-suite at Taco Bell — are saying about customer experience in a high‑tech world. Spoiler: even the most automated companies know that human touch is still the biggest differentiator.

This episode is well worth a listen and a share!

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Struggle no more to tell your leadership what your value is to the organization. Join the movement to help change the conversation inside our organizations about public relations (a.k.a - communications, corporate comm, marcom, public-information office, etc.). We've heard you, seen your frustration on LinkedIn -- being disregarded, left out, treated like an afterthought. But we sometimes are creating our own headaches by how we talk about our profession. So we've designed some items we think you'll like -- and these "tools" will start the conversation for you. Check them out here!

Bonus Resources Also, check out these bonus free resources to help you manage the PR function inside your organization, and deliver the value that earns you that seat at the table.

10 STRATEGIES TO TRANSFORM YOUR PR FUNCTION

FREE GUIDE - 8 STEPS TO MEASURE CUSTOMER EFFORT

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

Stewarding our PR Time -- What Is Your ROTI

PR pros are always being pulled in different directions. We are expected, as the nature of the job, to be on-call, to be available to respond to breaking news, to crisis, to bend and flex with urgent deadlines, and to spend much of our day in meetings gathering info and intel – and then finding time to get the work done. That’s all on top of responding to media inquiries and sundry minor fires that happen across a week. And that leaves little time for strategic reflection, planning and the crucial relationship building needed to build business. How in the world can we steward our time, when we often don’t have claim to it?

Meet Lissa Figgins, a time-stewardship coach who counsels CEOs, Christian businesses and solopreneurs. (Notice I did not say “time management”.) Lissa is also the host of REDEEM HER TIME podcast.

I heard Lissa as a guest on a different podcast months ago, and I thought about how as PR pros our time is rarely our own – because so many things can change the trajectory of our day. And the concept of time stewardship just seems to fit much better for us. So I reached out and asked Lissa to talk to us about this approach – and I’m delighted she said yes.

Join me today as Lissa walks us through the difference between time management and time stewardship, how to measure our ROTI (she'll explain the acronym), and why it's so important to both our profession, our home life and our personal character. LEARN MORE, DOWNLOAD THE FREE "IMPACTFUL DAY GUIDE" Listen to Lissa on her podcast: https://redeemhertime.com/tune-in-redeem-her-time-podcast/ Download the free IMPACTFUL DAY GUIDE: https://redeemhertime.com/day

LISSA'S BACKGROUND https://redeemhertime.com/about-me/

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IT'S A PR THING PODCAST RESOURCES & INFORMATION

DOWNLOAD: FREE GUIDE - 8 STEPS TO MEASURE CUSTOMER EFFORT

BONUS RESOURCE:

If you’re new to IT’S A PR THING or if you’re looking for a proven path to make your PR team more effective, check out the free resource: 10 Strategies to Transform Your PR Function. It’s a collection of deeper-dive episodes organized to help you rethink how you implement PR in your job everyday. Click the link above and download the free resource.

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

Measuring Customer Effort In this episode, we take the next step in the conversation we started last week about boiling customer frustration and what it means in reading the organization’s relationship radar.

Today we focus on Customer Effort Scoring — a practical way to see where people are running into friction and operational hurdles long before they turn into a reputational issue.

CES helps teams see the incremental operational hurdles that show up in aggregate as overall poor customer satisfaction. When organizations use CES well, they can help reduce customer effort and create a smooth and positive customer experience. And that generates return business, referrals and revenue generation.

Listen in today and learn how CES is an excellent tool to add to your relationship radar system.

DOWNLOAD: FREE GUIDE - 8 STEPS TO MEASURE CUSTOMER EFFORT

BONUS RESOURCE:

If you’re new to IT’S A PR THING or if you’re looking for a proven path to make your PR team more effective, check out the free resource: 10 Strategies to Transform Your PR Function. It’s a collection of deeper-dive episodes organized to help you rethink how you implement PR in your job everyday. Click the link above and download the free resource.

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

CUSTOMERS ARE FED UP

The urgent reputation risk PR must face in 2026

In this first episode of 2026, we take a clear look at a growing issue shaping the year ahead for PR professionals: customer frustration has reached a breaking point, and new data from 2025 shows just how widespread the problem has become. Customers are dealing with broken processes, confusing systems, and automated tools that create more work instead of solving problems. Companies are trying to cover these issues with messaging, storytelling and AI, but the numbers show that approach is backfiring. People want ease and peace, and instead they’re getting noise, delays, and unnecessary friction.

We walk through the latest national research on customer frustration, including record levels of anger, wasted time, financial loss, and emotional strain. We also look at how customers are responding — from ghosting brands to walking away after one or two bad experiences. At the same time, many executives believe their customer experience is strong, creating a dangerous perception gap.

This episode lays out what PR pros need to understand as they guide their organizations through 2026. Join me as we break down the data, the trends, and the real reputational risks shaping the year ahead.

EPISODE STUDY SOURCES:

Forbes Technology Council (2024). Breaking the Cycle of “Doom Loops” in Automated Customer Service. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/09/23/human-centered-cx-breaking-the-cycle-of-doom-loops-in-automated-customer-service/

CSG International (2025). 2025 State of the Customer Experience Report. https://www.csgi.com/resources/2025-state-of-customer-experience/

National Customer Rage Survey (2025). CCMC & Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business. https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20251202dc36248/new-national-customer-rage-survey-reveals-civility-in-freefall-across-americas-marketplace

Emplifi (April 2025). The Social Pulse: State of Consumer‑Brand Engagement on Social Media in 2025. https://emplifi.io/press/emplifi-reveals-70-of-consumers-will-abandon-a-brand-after-just-two-negative-experiences/

PwC (2025). 2025 Customer Experience Survey: The Loyalty Illusion. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/business-transformation/library/2025-customer-experience-survey.html

BONUS RESOURCE:

If you’re new to IT’S A PR THING or if you’re looking for a proven path to make your PR team more effective, check out the free resource: 10 Strategies to Transform Your PR Function. It’s a collection of deeper-dive episodes organized to help you rethink how you implement PR in your job everyday. Click the link above and download the free resource.

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E

Today we tackle my favorite part of the PR work -- measuring success while a campaign is still in motion.

In today’s show, we’ll talk about a framework to help you read the signals stakeholders give off in real time, and how those behaviors reveal whether your strategy is progressing or stalling.

You'll learn clear, actionable ways to measure momentum as it happens, so you can refine your approach and achieve stronger results. And here’s the proof: campaigns that consistently apply this framework outperform those campaigns that fail to use it.

Too often, evaluation happens only at the end of a campaign, when the chance to adjust has already passed. Don't be those guys!

You’ll want to share this with your team, your division leaders and use it as a basis for strategy development and management in the future.

BONUS RESOURCE: If you’re new to IT’S A PR THING or if you’re looking for a proven path to make your PR team more effective, check out the free resource: 10 Strategies to Transform Your PR Function. It’s a collection of deeper-dive episodes organized to help you rethink how you implement PR in your job everyday. Click the link above and download the free resource.

GOT TOPIC IDEAS? WE WANT TO HEAR THEM!

Send topic ideas and mailbag questions for a future episode to podcast@prthing.com We would love to hear from you!

HOST BIO https://www.audible.com/author/Stephanie-McFarland/B00YNFH16E