Lead Balloon - Public Relations, Marketing and Strategic Communications Stories
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 communications scenarios, professional inflection points and notable campaigns we all remember, and usually finds a reason to chuckle.
Because sometimes, there are important lessons to be learned from someone else's worst day.
And sometimes, it's just more convenient than group therapy.
Lead Balloon is an award-winning program for strategic communicators and content creators, named by Adweek as "Marketing Podcast of the Year," nominated for a Webby award and nominated for "Best Business Podcast" in the Podcast Academy awards.
Tune in monthly for new episodes. Visit podcampmedia.com/leadballoon to learn more.
- Update frequency
- every 25 days
- Average duration
- 42 minutes
- Episodes
- 67
- Years Active
- 2020 - 2025
43. Brands Don't Have the Rizz: Appropriating Gen Z Slang Is Falling Flat in Social Media Marketing
"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 an…
00:40:23 |
Thu 01 Jun 2023
BONUS: Covid is—Air Quotes—Over. What That Means for Strategic Communicators, with former HHS Spokesman Bill Pierce
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 Hea…
00:28:52 |
Thu 11 May 2023
42. OkCupid Stays On Target During the Covid Pandemic: PR Messaging and Online Dating Apps
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 c…
00:49:54 |
Tue 02 May 2023
41. Deepfakes: How Communicators Must Prepare Now for this Imminent Reputation Threat
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 nev…
00:47:56 |
Tue 04 Apr 2023
40. In Event of Moon Disaster: The Greatest Speech Never Given
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 Dis…
00:47:58 |
Wed 01 Mar 2023
39. Pernicious Copyright Robots Are Targeting Your Website: PicRights and the Practice of "Copyright Trolling"
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 w…
00:46:10 |
Wed 01 Feb 2023
38. The Bud Light CoRntroversy, Revisited: Miller Lite Strikes Back
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 superstit…
00:48:52 |
Wed 21 Dec 2022
BONUS: Celebrating 20 Years Behind a Mic With Dusty's First Audio Boss, Scott Thompson
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 micr…
00:24:28 |
Thu 15 Dec 2022
37. Blue Angels Ride Along: Lead Balloon Becomes the First Podcast to Fly with the US Navy Blue Angels
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…
00:47:57 |
Tue 01 Nov 2022
36. The US Navy Blue Angels: Public Affairs and Marketing at 500 Miles Per Hour
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 a…
00:51:04 |
Tue 04 Oct 2022
35. Post-Cold War PR Trip to Uzbekistan Boosts Fundraising for United Jewish Appeal's Operation Exodus, with Dick Grove
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 M…
00:35:16 |
Thu 01 Sep 2022
Trailer—The Lead Balloon Podcast—PR, Marketing and Strategic Communications Stories
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 r…
00:01:31 |
Mon 08 Aug 2022
34. Murder in Boston Blamed on Sega's Virtua Cop Video Game, with Lee Caraher
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 Vic…
00:57:22 |
Tue 02 Aug 2022
33. National Airlines' Saucy "Fly Me" Ad Campaign, and the Great Stewardess Rebellion of the 1970s
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 a…
00:39:50 |
Wed 06 Jul 2022
32. Tesla’s Elon Musk Fires the Entire Public Relations Team—What Could Go Wrong?
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 re…
00:51:26 |
Thu 02 Jun 2022
31. Snapple: Pitching the Best Catchphrase On Earth, with Jane Cavalier and Richard Kirshenbaum
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 a…
00:52:10 |
Tue 03 May 2022
30. Inside the PBR "Eating Ass" Tweetstorm, with Adweek Editor David Griner and Kyle Brown
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 …
00:47:03 |
Tue 05 Apr 2022
29. Ukrainian Creatives Waging an Information War Against Russian Invasion
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 vei…
00:40:59 |
Sat 19 Mar 2022
28. Wendy's Twitter Account Manager Recounts Battle with Social Media Burnout, with Amy Brown and Sallie Poggi
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 …
00:51:50 |
Tue 01 Mar 2022
27. Sherwin-Williams Paints Itself Into a Corner on TikTok, with Tony Piloseno
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…
00:46:31 |
Wed 02 Feb 2022
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