Richard Craig & Associates

Richard Craig & Associates Corporate Communications ● Public Relations ● Strategy
http://www.rcacomm.com
Established in 1995

31/05/2026

For those in the public eye - companies, institutions, high profile individuals, etc - reputation and perception management is an ongoing poker game.

Sometimes you’re up. Sometimes you’re down.

This is particularly applicable to the British Royal Family.

Seemingly ever unfolding matters regarding the former Duke of York continues to create negative issues for this ancient family.

The Prince of Wales, Prince William, has lately received some good publicity when he said he was planning on subdividing the Duchy of Cornwall for public land. This was a positive.

An opposing perspective was that he speaks out on homelessness in Britain and yet owns reportedly scores of houses. A cynic might argue, if one is so concerned about homelessness, why not make available some of those homes for use by the homeless?

By all accounts, the hardworking Princess of Wales is a genuinely lovely person and a major PR boon for the Royal Family.

There was a fine example recently of ‘good optics’ for Prince William when he was shown arriving for an interview on an electric scooter.

The message was that His Royal Highness doesn’t arrive in a specially built luxury limousine but a very simple environmentally sound means of transport available to just about anyone.

The rebuttal of this negative publicity and orchestration of these positive episodes for the Royal Family provides ongoing work for the Buckingham Palace communications and public relations team, which no doubt is a substantial unit.

17/05/2026

Richard Craig has fond memories of the occasions when he had the privilege of lecturing at three Australian universities. The first was for a six months semester lecturing in marketing communications and public relations at Deakin University, to students in Australia and Malaysia. Later he lectured in business and financial communications at RMIT and in corporate communications at his old alma mater the University of Melbourne.

30/04/2026

The speechwriters and communications team of King Charles would be presumably riding high presently, after the very positive reception received by His Majesty’s several addresses in the United States this week.

Wit, camaraderie and historical knowledge were evident in these speeches.

A reminder that in PR and communications the opportunities for writing across a number of formats - media releases, briefing papers, annual reports and speeches, etc - are legion.

01/04/2026

It’s been said that every second advertising and marketing copywriter has a half finished novel in their desk bottom drawer.

Similarly, many public relations and communications people are in the job because they like to write.

PR and communications allows practitioners the opportunity to exercise their creative writing skills on behalf of their employing organisations or clients.

An excellent example was the response from Victorian premier Jacinta Allan recently when asked to comment about speculation that her leadership was likely to be challenged

She said, and we presume the words were written by one of her legion of communications people, that the speculation was from “scallywags who need a cuddle“.

The succinct response was clever, witty and dismissive.

28/02/2026

War is, of course, an abomination.

Sadly, there is probably truth in Plato’s words all those centuries ago that “only the dead have seen the end of war.”

British prime minister Winston Churchill said the first casualty of war is the truth. Propaganda is used by all sides in a war to portray their cause as correct and their opponents as unworthy, at the very least.

We make these observations as the Middle East again is embroiled in turmoil.

Needless to say, we hope that hostilities will end soon, and the truth will prevail.

04/02/2026

We were saddened to hear recently of the CEO of a major Australian company lamenting the fact that the editing of an interview with him by the national broadcaster made him look in his words “a bit sketchy”.

Far be it for us to criticise any corporation’s handling of media relations, but the purpose of the in-house communications and PR team is to ensure, in a perfect world, media do not have a chance of portraying their top executives, especially when it’s a pre-arranged interview, in any manner other than as favourable a light as possible.

31/12/2025

As we enter our 31st year in operation, we wish success and prosperity to our friends and associates and look forward to 2026 being, in a most positive sense, an eventful year.

02/12/2025

Public relations difficulties and crisis communications issues are of course not restricted to companies nor indeed government. They can affect religious organisations.

The Mormon church recently has been accused, we stress accused, of being a cult and avoiding tax.

This was in addition to what has been termed the ‘Mormon Swinging Scandal’, which broke in the US in 2022. The details of which we shall not elaborate.

Needless to say, we wish the organisation well and hope that any difficulties before it are short lived.

01/11/2025

At Richard Craig & Associates we love a challenging client assignment which exercises our communications and other skills.

Chemistry between client and consultant is of course a key factor in an ongoing and successful professional association.

These observations may or may not be relevant to the fact that the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, so it has been reported in the past week, has had no fewer than ten chief communications advisors come and go in recent years.

30/09/2025

A further example of how the PR and Communications business continues to be at the forefront within a range of enterprises.

We read that in the United States, the University of North Carolina’s top person in this field rejoices in the title of vice chancellor for marketing and communications.

Indicating, of course, this executive’s position is very much towards the top of the academic totem pole.

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Melbourne, VIC
3141

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