Lead Balloon - Marketing, Public Relations and Strategic Communications Stories

Lead Balloon - Marketing, Public Relations 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. Lead Balloon is like Freakonomics for communicators and media consumers. It's a show where we tell stories from communications industry leaders, brands that everyone knows and loves (or hates), and spectacular PR disasters. With immersive storytelling and a wry sense of humor, host Dusty Weis (nominated for "Best Indie Podcast Host" at the 2026 Podcast Academy awards) 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, named by Adweek as "Marketing Podcast of the Year," nominated for a Webby award and nominated twice for "Best Business Podcast" in the Podcast Academy awards. Tune in monthly for new episodes. Visit podcampmedia.com/leadballoon to learn more.

Episodes

66. Cracks in the ICE: Legal Observers in Minneapolis Use the First Amendment to Swing Public Opinion About Immigration Crackdown

February 24, 2026 • 37 mins
Since the government shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, something has changed in the national conversation about the Trump Administration’s immigration policies. And the primary reason it’s happening is not a brilliant PR campaign, Pulitzer-winning journalism, or organized political strategy. It’s because of regular folks with camera phones documenting what’s actually happening on the streets of Minneapolis ...
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65. Delicious Redemption: Getting Fired for an Infamous PBR Tweet Made Corey Smale the CCO at Garage Beer

January 27, 2026 • 43 mins
It was four years ago that the Twitter account for legendary beer brand Pabst Blue Ribbon tweeted out: "Not drinking this January? Try eating ass!" And we're FINALLY talking to the guy who did it. Because Corey Smale—who was promptly fired for the Tweet and owned it publicly—isn't just PBR's ex-social media manager. He's now been named Ad Age's "Marketer of the Year" for his current work as Chief Creative Officer at Garage Be...
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64. The Wikipedia Prank: Why the Internet Mistakenly Thought the Movie Good Luck Chuck was Based on Ben Kollenbroich

October 22, 2025 • 35 mins
15 years ago, if you had googled Ben Kollenbroich’s name, you would have discovered that his life story was the inspiration for “Good Luck Chuck,” a mid-budget, critically-panned romantic comedy starring Dane Cook and Jessica Alba. That’s not REMOTELY true, however. In fact, Ben Kollenbroich was just a regular 25-year-old guy in 2010. There certainly weren't any movies based on his life. And it wasn't an accident, a mix up or...
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63. A.I. Podcast Host Invasion: Inception Point's Business Model & the Podcast Industry's Reaction

September 24, 2025 • 50 mins
Earlier this month, a new startup announced that they would be using artificial intelligence to churn out thousands of podcast episodes voiced by A.I. podcast hosts. Inception Point A.I. claims to be able to fashion 3,000 podcast episodes a week at a paltry cost of $1 per episode, and plans to flood the market with massive amounts of content in the hopes of generating revenue through programmatic advertising. But the reaction t...
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62. Modernizing the Way We Communicate About Road Closures (Especially During Emergencies), with Scott Oppman from ArcGIS

August 20, 2025 • 28 mins
Most people get travel information about road closures from Google Maps, Apple Maps or a similar smartphone-based application. But when a road is closed, most transportation agencies put out a press release. And this disconnect is not only annoying—it can be a public safety hazard. So after the recent catastrophic flooding in his Southeast Wisconsin community, Dusty wants to start a conversation about how public officials ca...
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61. Will Wikipedia survive Artificial Intelligence? (And Can A.I. Survive Without Wikipedia?)

July 30, 2025 • 46 mins
Wikipedia readers consume nearly one billion articles per day from the online encyclopedia. In its 25 years of operation, this compendium of human knowledge has become an integral tool for understanding the world in which we live. But artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT could threaten Wikipedia's viability over the next 25 years. And in fact, by diverting fundraising traffic, undermining traditional journalism, and thi...
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60. Recession Lessons from Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi: Double Down, Dig In

June 25, 2025 • 35 mins
In the world of business, yet again, things looks grim. A brewing trade war, the uncharted fallout of artificial intelligence, and political upheaval around the world... All these factors have created an atmosphere of business uncertainty. Marketing jobs and budgets face the specter of the chopping block once again, and many are taking a "batten down the hatches" approach. But at a time like this, it's important to remember: w...
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59. Bot Farms Have Made Social Media Engagement Metrics Meaningless, with Eric Schwartzman

May 28, 2025 • 33 mins
What you see online is not real. This has long been a reliable axiom for information consumption on the internet. But social media and SEO marketers have long relied on their engagement metrics as an exception to that rule—critical quantitative data that can't be faked and can be leveraged to demonstrate the value of a campaign or piece of content. Except in 2025, it's just not reliable any more. That is because sophisticate...
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58. The Mystery of the I-94 Sales & Marketing Tip of the Week Billboard, with Ken Hoffman & Kyle Brown

April 29, 2025 • 33 mins
There is a weird, enigmatic old billboard along the interstate in Wisconsin promoting a "Sales & Marketing Tip of the Week." Without any branding or context, this weathered sign invites thousands of motorists daily to call a mysterious phone number. And that has been driving Dusty CRAZY because, frankly, nothing about this billboard makes any sense in 2025. So we're going to SOLVE A MARKETING MYSTERY, folks! Together with our...
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57. Why Have Streaming Services Put So Many Ads In Our Shows? with Film Critic Matt Zoller Seitz

March 26, 2025 • 34 mins
After more than a decade of living in an entertainment golden age... Filled with more and better options, with less advertising, than ever before in human history... Are the good times over? Almost every major streaming service has recently begun inserting advertising into its programming. And it's NOT your imagination... the ads really are more disruptive and obnoxious than traditional television commercials. So what's d...
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56. What Happens at American Airlines After a Plane Crash: Behind the Scenes with Former Spokeswoman Jennifer R. Hudson

February 19, 2025 • 37 mins
Three weeks after accepting a new role as an American Airlines spokeswoman in 1995, Jennifer R. Hudson was paged out of bed in the middle of the night. The worst had happened. Flight 965 had disappeared in the mountains of Colombia, and Jennifer needed to report to the scene of the crash to coordinate the company's public relations response. Unnerved and uncertain, she had to push aside her doubts and power through what would becom...
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55. Liquid Death Spoofs the Pepsi Harrier Jet Giveaway, with Andy Pearson & Jeff Beer

January 22, 2025 • 40 mins
At the height of the Cola Wars in the mid-90's, Pepsi committed one of the most notorious PR and marketing fiascos of all-time. An eye-catching spot promised brand fans that, if they saved up 7 million Pepsi Points, they could win a Harrier fighter jet. However, no one at Pepsi or their ad agency ever expected anyone to try to claim that prize. And when Washington business school student John Leonard did, they faced a multi-year le...
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54. The Election of the Podcast? 2024 Presidential Campaign PR Focuses on Podcasts & Social Media

December 18, 2024 • 34 mins
Earned media has long been the holy grail of public relations. For decades, getting your client's message in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal has been the gold standard by which PR agencies are judged. But as we march further into this age of new media, those public opinion gatekeepers in the traditional media are losing their dominance of the American attention span. And as evidenced by this year's presidential campai...
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53. Alex Jones’s Infowars Being Purchased by the Onion and Sandy Hook Families, with Onion CMO Leila Brillson

November 26, 2024 • 29 mins
Alex Jones, founder of the extremist conspiracy-theory-peddling digital brand Infowars, has proved again and again that there is no lie he will not embrace and no moral line he will not cross. For his own, personal benefit, he has victimized the grieving parents of children who were killed in school shootings. He has deliberately stoked fear among his followers in order to sell them snake oil. He has promoted insane conspiracy theo...
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52. FEMA Public Affairs Team Still Carries Scars from Hurricane Ike Assignment, with Molly McPherson & Mike Moore

November 1, 2024 • 44 mins
The videos and stories we’ve seen and heard from Hurricanes Helene and Milton over the last month have been truly horrific. They're an important reminder that the rescue and recovery crews who rush into these disaster zones are invaluable... ...as is the work of public affairs crews and reporters who document the aftermath of these storms. They’re giving the outside world a window in to the carnage, making clear the need for aid, a...
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51. The Legend of Dukakis in a Tank: White House Comms Pros Talk Presidential Optics, with Josh King and Kevin Sullivan

October 2, 2024 • 47 mins
The image of 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis riding in a tank has become synonymous with abject public relations failure. For marketers and PR practitioners, it serves as an enduring reminder of the power that our mistakes have to burn down powerful people and institutions in one moment of lapsed judgment. And in the spirit of the upcoming election, in this episode we'll explore what led up to the catastrophe...
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BONUS: Literally, the Grammar-Nerdiest Conversation You'll Ever Hear, with Dr. Valerie Fridland

January 17, 2024 • 15 mins
Sociolinguist Dr. Valerie Fridland says we need to relax about the changing nature of language. In her book, "Like, Literally Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English," she notes that language has always evolved. Every generation adds its own spin, and the English language is almost unrecognizable from what was spoken centuries ago. And for the most part, we agree. But Dusty thinks there's a *figurative* line in the sand that shou...
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50. Grumpy Cat, the Sound of Freedom, Watergate and More: A Look Back and a Look at What's Next

December 27, 2023 • 51 mins
When you're working with high-profile people in fields like PR, marketing and branding, things are always changing. History gets uncovered. New information comes to light that changes everything. And sometimes an opportunity comes along to learn just a little bit more about a topic of interest. So in this episode, we're revisiting three separate tales from Lead Balloon’s four-year run to dig deeper, uncovering some new "holy crap" ...
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49. How I Almost Got Fired in My 1st Week in PR, and the Important Life Lessons I Learned

November 29, 2023 • 46 mins
At the end of his first week working in public relations, Lead Balloon host Dusty Weis did something so dumb, he could have been fired on the spot. During a meeting with one of his new bosses, prominent Milwaukee politician Jim Bohl, Dusty made a bad assumption and recklessly insulted Jim to his face. Dusty wasn't fired, and the pair went on to work well together at City Hall for five years. But they never again spoke about what wa...
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48. A UAP PR Campaign: Mainstreaming the Conversation About Unexplained Anomalous Phenomena, with Lt. Ryan Graves

November 1, 2023 • 45 mins
UFOs have traditionally been more of a pop culture phenomenon than an actual science. But with the recent declassification of Navy gun camera footage that shows unexplained craft seeming to defy the laws of flight and physics, there's a growing movement among the aviation, military and science communities. They insist it's vital to destigmatize the conversation around Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, which is the preferre...
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