If you’re a man, watch television with a man, or watch the TV programs that advertisers like us to believe that men watch, chances are you’ve seen one of these ads from Charles Barkley, former pro basketball player and self-described “round mound of rebounds”:

Yep, that’s Charles Barkley. For Weight Watchers. You might expect to see this guy endorsing Nike or ESPN, but a commercial weight loss program? Not so much.

Weight Watchers, like other weight loss brands, has centered its advertising and PR campaigns around celebrity endorsements for some time now. But this partnership is definitely not par for the course. Barkley is the opposite of Weight Watcher’s last spokesperson, Jennifer Hudson. He’s not sophisticated or eloquent or stunningly beautiful… and well, he’s a dude.

It’s clear that the brand has been wildly successful with the ladies – 82% of their consumer base is women. And it makes a lot of sense. I hate to be stereotypical here, but striving for a svelte figure through a diet program is considered lady business. So what better way to expand that image and break into the male demographic than with an off-the-cuff, “man’s man” athlete like Charles? Not only does get he get the average guy’s stamp of approval, he’s the last person you’d imagine doing a weight loss campaign… and that’s why he’s making it look cool. The campaign’s called “Lose Like A Man” and the Weight Watchers folks (and their agency Ketchum) have hit it hard with big time ad placements, plenty of PR, and liberal doses of digital and social media.

Of course, it couldn’t all be smooth sailing. Leave it Charles Barkley to mix things up for the well established brand. You might have heard about the little bump in the road they recently hit, when good ol’ Charles didn’t know he was live on NBA.tv, and called his Weight Watchers deal a “scam.” The viral video’s been taken down, but Charles said, “I ain’t giving away no money… I thought this was the greatest scam going — getting paid to watch sports. This Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam.”

While many were quick to call this a “PR fail,” Weight Weighers wisely embraced Barkley’s comments, releasing a statement saying, “We love Charles for the same reason everyone loves Charles, he’s unfiltered. We are thrilled that he is having great success and inspiring millions of men to join him. We agree that being a spokesman for Weight Watchers is a pretty great gig.” The best part? The “scandal” got the campaign a whole lotta press.

Will Weight Watchers be able to leave its ladies-only image behind with an unfiltered guy like Charles Barkley? That remains to be seen, but I really love their gusto for going in a new direction. It’s refreshing to see a brand that could easily rest on their laurels with their current base to commit to this kind of a campaign whole heartedly.

About a year ago we began hearing some unsettling stories about our favorite fast food franchise, McDonalds. Specifically, that the chain was setting us back about 50 years by charging African-American customers an extra $1.50 as “an insurance policy due in part to a recent string of robberies.” Despite the fact that we eventually learned it was a hoax, this photo circulated the interwebs for a while. And then the whole thing just sort of died.

However, that wasn’t the last time this scandal would rear its ugly head.

About a week ago, this ridiculous meme began making the rounds again. Thistime, accompanied by the Twitter hashtag #SeriouslyMcDonalds. The whole thing seems to have died down now and McDonalds did respond from their official Twitter account, but the question remains – How does a brand keep a hoax like this from coming back?

As a brand, it’s important to surround yourself with a network of influencers and ambassadors. This way, at the first sign of trouble, you can reach out to them for support in squashing even the most vicious of rumors. While it’s imperative that you respond to your entire network “officially,” it’s equally important that you deploy your ambassadors as well.

Jonha over at I Just Did suggests controlling the bleeding with an alternate campaign – In this case, the use of the hashtag #SincerelyMcDonalds. An alternate campaign that you can get your ambassadors and other influential connections behind can go a long way. Especially when that alternate campaign focuses on the good you do as a brand.

As we’ve seen in the McDonalds case, no brand is safe from an Internet-based, viral hoax. However, all brands have the ability to protect themselves while keeping the integrity of the brand intact. In the end, a carefully crafted network of influencers and ambassadors and a well thought-out crisis communication plan can help save your brand online.

Advertising and public relations: sometimes we ask what the difference is. Sometimes it seems more than that; PR vs advertising in a battle of the ages. But we are mistaken to think that the two are so different or work against each other. In fact, the two probably need each other more than you might think.

While many purists remain on both sides, still more have seen the light and realized that, in some cases, it’s extremely important to create advertising and public relations campaigns that go hand in hand strategically.

Don’t believe me?  In 1993, when Jack in the Box restaurants suffered a crippling E. coli outbreak, advertising guru Dick Sittig created a new ad campaign that featured an updated, business attired mascot (the Jack that we all know and love today).  When paired with an industry-leading food safety initiative, the combined powers of advertising and public relations kept the company out of bankruptcy and revived an otherwise struggling brand.

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For those of you who don’t know me, I am a self proclaimed “PR princess.” Don’t believe me? Check out my Twitter bio. I even graduated from college with a degree in PR and freelanced in the field for some time. So how, you may ask, did I end up working as an account coordinator for an advertising agency?

The truth is that it isn’t so strange for someone like me to be working in advertising: I don’t see public relations and advertising as separate entities. While there may be PR firms and ad agencies, I think that it makes sense strategically to employ tactics from each discipline to achieve the best mix of results.

I think Fast Company blogger Wendy Marx puts it best; advertising versus PR is like the battle between the sexes. While each maintains specific characteristics and powers, in the end, there are a lot of similarities between the two. And to top it all off, they need each other in order to be successful. I mean, what would spaghetti be without the meatball?

If you haven’t heard, Toyota has recently been hard at work cleaning up the mess of its 2.3 million vehicle recall. While it is potentially devastating for Toyota, whose entire brand image has been based on vehicle reliability, it led for some pretty opportunistic moments for others in the auto industry.

Hardly anyone took advantage, but GM stepped up to the plate with an awesome incentive program that helped capture what would otherwise be some pretty loyal Toyota consumers. The best part about GM’s plan is that they didn’t alter their positioning at all. They haven’t made any new promises or changed their advertising. They simply allow Toyota owners (who terminate their Toyota lease, of course) to get up to $1,000 off a new or leased GM vehicle: a pretty good incentive for making the switch. Toyota’s fumble couldn’t have come at a better time for a company like GM; it has allowed them to really push their own promises of reliability and quality to a very tuned in audience with a specific set of needs. So whether or not Toyota is handling their recall the right way is almost beside the point; GM has stepped in at exactly the right time to take advantage of their competitor’s weakness.

As far as any business goes, it is important for your company to be able to handle problems and crises with foresight and grace, but it is just as important to know what is going on beyond your company. Keeping tabs on your industry and your competitors can bring advantageous opportunities to really reach your audience.