PR's best and worst

BW offers its end-of-the-year roster, which includes some obvious clunkers (the O.J. Simpson book and TV interview, Hewlett-Packard's boneheaded efforts to obtain personal information on reporters, Sony's battery recalls and the E. coli outbreaks). Among the winners were campaigns tied in some way to MySpace or YouTube. Locally, the financial trouble at KB Home was probably the toughest PR challenge of the year, while the publicity surrounding the opening of H&M stores got some of the most positive hype.