Água e Porta-Aviões 2007

Tiros para a água ou em cheio no porta aviões. Lista elaborada pela PR Week, disponível aqui.

De entre os vários hit charts destaco:

- Mattel toy recall With more than 20 million toys recalled, this was probably the longest-running crisis story of the year. Regaining the trust of parents around the world will be an arduous task.

- Taco Bell rats After getting through an E.coli breakout in the Northeast, a video surfaced of rats running amok in a Manhattan Taco Bell/KFC restaurant. While it was an isolated incident, the PR hit was still nasty.

- "Why don't you shut up?" Spain's King Carlos to Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, who had just insulted the former prime minister of Spain.

- "Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time." Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) speaking about Hillary Clinton's plans to support a Wood- stock museum. McCain was a POW in Vietnam during the 1969 festival.

- "We want democracy, we want human rights, we want civil liberties, but we will do it our way." Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on his declaration of martial law.

- "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you that we have it." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech at Columbia University.

- brands that soared: Apple - Thanks to the hugely successful launch of the iPhone and introduction of the iPod Touch, Apple continued to be a darling of Wall Street, with its stock prices reaching an all-time company high of $192 a share.

- brands that sunk: Britney Spears - Spears made such a mess of her life in 2007 that a judge awarded unemployed ex-husband K-Fed custody of their kids. Lowlights include: numerous panty-less exits from cars, a head shaving, and the infamous dead-in-the-eyes performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

- "Pro-social" - An academic-lexicon staple, this all-purpose adjective has now been adopted by networks including MTV, TV Land, and BET as shorthand for "good corporate citizen; gives back to society."

- "Going green" - It's become a catch-all term for everything from alternative light-bulb use to wearing hemp-soled shoes. Taking action is critical, but let's lose the color-coded euphemism.