The Dark Side of PR

Phony protests go hand-in-hand with
phony measures of success.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

Every night for a week, I've watched MSNBC's Rachel Maddow expose yet another astroturfing or "spin-a-palooza" incident:

• Health insurance giant United Health fills up ersatz grass roots protests with its employees.
• Oil companies promote their anti-climate change legislation by stealing the letterhead of local non-profits and conducting letter writing campaigns.
• The American Petroleum Institute asks member companies to provide employees for "Energy Citizen" rallies to protest climate change legislation.
• The anti—everything organization Freedom Works protests anything and everything that big business deems potentially damaging to its profits.

At the end of each segment Maddow points out that while there's nothing illegal about any of these activities, they are nothing more than corporate-funded PR and should be labeled as such.

She's right. These phony protests are PR -- reprehensible PR. Fortunately, in this day and age, it is very easy to identify and expose the people and the motives behind any such "campaigns." All it takes is a click or two to figure out where the money is coming from and who is pulling the strings. Maddow even shows you how and where to get the facts.

Once the true nature of these events is exposed, any thinking person will immediately become skeptical, question the motives, and lose confidence in the effort. And lose confidence in public relations in general.

At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves: If this is what our profession is becoming known for, then why would anyone believe the rest of us? These manipulated campaigns are making it harder and harder for normal everyday -- principled, that is -- PR professionals to do their jobs.

If the essential image of PR is that we're the people behind astroturfing and fake rallies and counterfeit letter writing campaigns, anything we do will be looked at with suspicion. Worse still, any young person with morals, ethics, or integrity will no doubt chose a different career.

Wherever there is a 24-hour cable station hungry for content, corporate-sponsored protests will make news. The real problem is that, as long as success is measured in how many eyeballs are reached by the effort, the PR firms behind the pretend protests will earn their fees and put the campaign in their brag books.

Whether or not the companies ultimately achieve their business objectives -- and are helped or hurt by the inevitable backlash -- is a vital but seldom-considered measure of success. Chances are good that the firms are using good old AVEs to prove to the clients that they have achieved enormous success.

Fortunately there is a new breed of PR people emerging from the ranks. People like Brian Solis, who has co-written Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, the guidebook for how to do PR right in an age of spin (read the book review also in this month's issue). And like Kathleen Buczko of NMC Partners, who, for as long as I've known her, has told prospective clients to take a hike if they don't have a product or service worthy of attention. And a host of other people, wise in the ways of social media, who understand that being real and transparent is the best road to trust and commitment.

So, to all you idealists out there who think that PR has to do with building relationships and solving problems: Hang in there. Read Solis and Breakenridge's book, and believe that your time is coming. Learn how to measure real impact and outcomes, and wait for those eyeball-counting, AVE-advocating media manipulators to go out with the buggy whip, the rotary phone, the phony protest, and the other failed symbols of the 20th Century.

Comments

[Tony Mackey]

Agree, agree and completely agree. This is very well said and I'm in the process of reading Putting the Public Back in Public Relations - it is a must read.

I just posted a blog on the topic. Not as well stated as yours, but it's one additional opinion.

[Bill Paarlberg]

Thanks for the comment, Tony. PR will always have good and bad sides, as do so many other professions. It's proper that we should remind people where the line is.

By the way, you can read Tony's blog here: http://tonymackeypr.blogspot.com/ .

And you can read The Measurement Standard's review of "Putting the Public Back in Public Relations" here: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/2009/09/your-guide-to-survival-in-the-world-of-the-social-web.html