PR NOTABLES OF AMERICAN

PATRICK J. JACKSON APR, Fellow PRSA

Launching PR With the Push of a Button

1932–2001

Patrick John Jackson was one of the 20th century’s most widely known and respected public relations practitioners. Often called the “public relations counselor’s counsel,” he was committed to teaching practitioners about the direction the profession was going and the strategy, techniques and philosophy needed to get there, and he championed stakeholder behavior change as the profession’s goal. He formed Jackson, King and Griffith with two experienced colleagues. In 1956, it became Jackson Jackson & Wagner. From 1979 to 2001 he published pr reporter, an influential industry newsletter. Awarded PRSA’s Gold Anvil in 1986, Jackson later co-chaired a PRSA committee that led to the creation of the College of Fellows (he was in the original group of inductees).

PRSA created the Patrick Jackson Award in his honor. (Courtesy of the Museum of Public Relations)

1978

Email as a PR tool is taken for granted today, but it was relatively late in the 20th century before it changed the game. Until then, typewriters, and printing, postal and wire services remained the essential tools. It was slow going.

The public had no way to access the emerging networks of computers until the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990. But in 1978, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp., had a novel idea. He wanted to invite potential customers to a product demonstration of Digital’s new T series of VA x computers, which was being introduced later that year. And he didn’t want to send old-style paper invitations.

Thuerk sent an unsolicited mass email to 397 customers over the ARPANET, a computer network that was the precursor to the internet, on May 1, 1978. The response was mostly positive. The campaign generated about $13 million in sales, although some people did complain about receiving an unwanted email — and he got reprimanded by the ARPANET administrators.

Guinness World Records credits Thuerk with sending “the world’s oldest spam,” but that’s not how he looks at it. “I think of myself as the father of e-marketing. There’s a difference,” Thuerk told Computerworld magazine.

Guinness World Records credits Gary Thuerk with sending the world’s first spam email in 1978. He sent an unsolicited mass email to 397 customers. But Thuerk preferred to cast himself instead as the father of e-marketing. (Feng Yu / Alamy Stock Photo)

Reimagining a Product Rollout — The iPhone Debut

2007

On Jan. 9, 2007, Steve Jobs walked on stage at a Macworld conference wearing his iconic black turtleneck and jeans. Standing before a glowing projection of the Apple symbol, he held something in his hand. “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he began.

Apple’s public relations strategy added to the suspense of the moment, as Jobs went on to describe the iPhone as three products in one: “a widescreen iPod with touch controls . . . a revolutionary mobile phone . . . and a breakthrough internet communications device.”

The company had managed to keep this new device secret for 30 months and decided to announce its debut before filings with the Federal Communications Commission would have become public.

“Apple reinvents the phone with the iPhone,” the first press release declared.

That first iPhone worked on one mobile network (Cingular), had a 2-megapixel camera and 15 apps. It cost $499 for 4G of storage ($599 for 8G).

Thousands of people lined up outside Apple stores for the June 29 product release; within 74 days, Apple had sold a million iPhones.

The product was truly transformative — a sleek pocket-sized computer that was a tool for communication, information and entertainment. The Apple public relations team helped bring that concept to life and set an enduring standard for new product introductions.

“Our mission was to tell the story of how our innovative products were giving customers the power to unleash their creativity and change the world,” Apple communications strategist Craig Cameron wrote in the Harvard Business Review