The Flack

At this rate, the British gossip magazine that just arrived on our shores will go broke before too long. You may remember that OK! made some news when it proudly announced it would pay celebrities to appear on its pages and give them approval over what was written.

Now the magazine is on a spending spree to live up to its word. It recently plopped down $2 mill for blurry photos of Britney Speers' baby (or was it a cabbage patch doll), plus another $1.5 mill for the birthing. Today it was reported that the glam glossy forked over $3 million for Ashton & Demi's wedding pics.

I pity the publisher who has to come up with the ad dollars and single-copy sales to cover this nut since these photo deals surely prohibited syndication rights.

Klein, Versace, Jacobs. These branded icons of the fashion world have spent millions to cultivate their public images. So when fashion insider and New York Times "Fashion Diary" scribe Guy Trebay today pictured each of them in a front-page Styles story (in the newspaper, not online), pegged to the travails of cocaine-waifed Kate Moss and the industry's dogged problems with drugs, it likely hit these fashion houses like a bad review in WWD.

Of course, it's no secret that many of today's popular culture icons are plagued with all sorts of unsavory habits and behavior. Still, to the casual viewer of "ET's The Insider" or "Extra" or reader of The Post's Page Six or US Magazine, one may never all the dark details. This may be due to their publicists' efforts to mask their clients' seamier sides, but likely because media fragmentation and the 24/7 tenuous nature of news today, shortens a story's legs.

It takes Kate Moss publicly being quoted as having little remorse or Courtney Love exposing her dark side in a drug-induced stupor on national TV to give their stories legs, and their PR reps heartburn.

The title of this blog posting caught my eye: "Can the PR industry and the blogosphere be friends." In delving into this blogger's take on our industry, I was drawn to this quote:

"PR is an organised effort to control the thinking of a targeted group of people, which constitutes propaganda. If the PR industry couldn't fulfil [sic] that function, the industry would cease to exist."

What a crock! Once again, some activist Brit with a fleeting sense of what we do as a profession attempts to broadly paint PR professionals as propagandists. Clearly, his anonymous posting (very unblog-like) leads me to believe that he is hiding an agenda or past affiliation with PR Watch or some rabidly anti-PR group.

Let me ask: is it propaganda to advise a CEO to quickly make the facts of a crisis known to all affected parties? Do PR pros have sinister intentions when tasked to use the news media to alert a "group of people" that a devastating hurricane is about to hit? What about the PR professional's role in getting the word out about a product recall, or a consumer scam?

Sure, as PR people seek to reconcile their practice with an increasingly influential citizen journalism movement, who's to say that the transparency that permeates (and defines) the blogosphere will not be practiced by the new breed of PR pros? If the author of this posting had spent more time perusing Global PR BlogWeek , he would have observed an earnest intention by the participants therein to play by the blogosphere's still-evolving rules.

His groupings of the three types of PR practitioners -- the first two being harmless -- is insightful, but who's to say that the third nefarious group operating on the public policy front couldn't eventually come to embrace open communications? It will take some doing (and perhaps a new administration), but it certainly is an idea worth pursuing. If not, the profession will be hard-pressed moving forward.

PaidContent.org, the indispensable online resource for anything having to do with digital content, had a note today congratulating Google for allowing CNET News back in to the fold of media the search company deemed access-worthy. Fourteen months ago, CNET reporter Elinor Mills ran a search on Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealing some innocuous, but personal info, which she deemed newsworthy. Writing about it then, I chastised Google's PR guy for apparently succumbing to whims of his thin-skinned bosses by banishing the news outlet for a year.

Water under the toolbar. Purgatory for CNET appears to have ended. Ms. Mills wrote today's CNET piece touting Google touting the size of its searchable database, but this time featuring an interview with the previously slighted CEO. Smart move, Google. Blackballing reporters from legitimate news organizations generally does not produce the desired result. (And there are other ways to skin a cnet.)

...is the word Fortune magazine (and former NY Times) gadget guru Peter Lewis uses to describe the much-hyped birthchild of Apple & Motorola with Cingular as its midwife. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, and even vlogged about it on this blog.

With all the hype surrounding the boffo news conference to introduce this new cell phone that also plays 100 iTunes, little can be done to sway the jaded critical press if the product doesn't deliver. In fact, too much advance hyperbole can have a deleterious impact on the tenor of a product's critical reviews.

Marketers might be better served with the element of surprise, as was the case with the Nano, an elegant wafer-like surprise bi-product of the same over-hyped news conference. As in our business, there's much to be said about under promising and over delivering.

Business Week's Stephen Baker who tag-teams with colleague Heather Green to stay on top of the trends in the blogosphere, picked up on a survey of PR pros' feelings toward blogs. Yes, another survey to generate media exposure for the survey funding company (Blog Relations), which manifests, in this case, on the company's own blog called The Angel Blog. I know. It's very confusing.

Anyway, the proprietors of Blog Relations posted, in true blogging fashion, the unedited results of its survey of 50. Key findings include:

"...eight out of ten believe that businesses could benefit from setting up their own blogs."

"..eight out of ten PR pros also think that blogs, if used correctly, can be a useful communication tool for businesses."

"...although 56 percent of PRs say that they have never pitched a blogger, 46 per cent of those same people think that there are already a 'good number of influential blogs.'"

We're sure to see much more of this. This one, however, probably doesn't carry much weight given the small size of its sample - 50 PR pros.

Over the weekend, I managed to catch CSPAN's coverage of the anti-war protests in D.C. Specifically, I caught Cindy Sheehan, the mom whose son was killed in Iraq, address the large crowd that had gathered on the ellipse. I was unpleasantly surprised. I did not find her especially articulate, nor did she demonstrate the anguish one would expect from a mother who has lost a child.

In fact, she seemed caught up in her new-found celebrity status, fawning for the cameras and positively basking in all the attention. Talk about a desperate housewife!

Today, Ms. Sheehan was arrested at another protest outside the White House. The photo showed her with a large grin on her face while physically being carried off by federal officers in uniform.

As someone who sympathized with Ms. Sheehan's personal vigil and the earnestness of her message, I am now disheartened by the change in her image and demeanor. I suspect her new persona is not helping her cause.

Pat & Peter 

It looks as if one Kennedy family member will achieve the fame that has eluded him growing up in the famous Camelot clan. The publication of Christopher Lawford's new book is getting more than respectable reviews for the nephew of JFK and childhood friend of Rick Hilton, father to the infamous Paris.

The revelations contained herein -- including the fact that Peter Lawford's son can actually turn some reasonable prose -- has the makings of the next celeb-du-jour. Look for him on the usual outlets - ET, Access or Extra, and one of the network morning shows. Add to the mix Hugh Grant signing on for a screen portrayal of Chris's enigmatic father, and the tell-all tome's mediability grows.

Let's watch how these two cases are linked. I wonder if the doctor on the left will receive the same treatment for his ailment as the doctor on the right?

As Americans sit glued to the reports of the maelstrom in the Gulf (with the same morbid fascination as watching a crippled airliner descend to the tarmac of LAX) the news from the other Gulf continues unabated. Overlooked was the departure of President Bush's trusted aide Karen Hughes to the Middle East to mount a counter-PR campaign to (in Bush's words) "...improve our government's capabilities to confront terrorist propaganda quickly before myths have time to take root in the hearts and minds of people across the world."

The effort will commence with a so-called "listening tour" in Muslim nations. Not to second guess the PR acumen of this administration -- just look at how smoothly Judge Roberts's confirmation went -- but really, how much more listening is needed? A qualitative analysis of Al Jazeera's coverage of Iraq over the last year should suffice.

Talking about the area's most pervasive and credible (among Arabs) media voice, here's what it had say about the effort: "Hughes has long been a power player in Washington and is viewed by many to be a genius in media spin tactics."

Still, let's give her the benefit of the doubt, and hope that her initial public posturing eventually produces recommendations for tangible new policies.

Courting "affinity groups" to spark a viral buzz about a new cultural offering has been a mainstay practice for marketers for as long as I can remember. Special pre-release movie screenings to like-minded individuals sometimes even leads to more than just accelerated word-of-mouth. The advance publicity from screening Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" to church groups, and allegedly the late Pope, led to a firestorm of media coverage, not to mention boffo box office.

I remember showing Alan Alda's first film "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" about infidelity in the Beltway (who'd a thunk?) to the wives of the members of Congress. It sparked some great press (now on microfiche).

More recently, Disney's marketing team is screening a film about the virtues of golf to church groups. "Its themes are about family, about not giving up on your dreams, courage," said Dennis Rice, head of publicity at the Walt Disney Studios. "They are very secular virtues, but they also could potentially be Christian virtues."

What's next: penguins who putt?

Caught on the front page of a British tabloid snorting cocaine? No problem! Captured in a pornographic video widely available on the Internet? Not to worry! Exposed your surgically-enhanced breast to the paparazzi at P. Diddy's birthday bash? We still love and want you!

Maybe I'm out of touch, but my PR instincts tell me that these are not the ideal candidates to rep a company's consumer product or service.

When Europe's largest retailer H&M woke up one morning to find its new poster child Kate Moss on the cover of the UK's Daily Mirror in a coke-ingesting photo-op, it decided that Ms. Moss, whose marriage to a strung-out junkie made headlines in the last year, deserved a second chance. The tide of public opinion, however, spilled over the levee of good taste, prompting H&M to recant.

"If someone is going to be the face of H&M," the spokeswoman, Jennifer Uglialoro, said, "it is important they be healthy, wholesome and sound."

Right.

With the tens of millions Wal-Mart has spent to counter the relentless criticism of the company and its Microsoft-in-the-90's evil image, it took one logistical initiative to capture the adoring spotlight of the national media. Between Fortune's fawning story and The New York Times equally obsequious Op-Ed by John Tierney (subscription to TimesSelect required), each touting the company's success in provisioning for Katrina victims, the PR people at Wal-Mart finally have something on which to hang their hats.

It's not dissimilar to Donald Trump's first (and some say only) work of benevolence that almost made his Presidential aspirations plausible. Goes to show that the least complex and visually illustrative actions by a company gain the greatest media traction and thus have the biggest reputational impact.

What if the video of Dennis the K. carousing with Las Vegas-caliber showgirls at his over-the-top party had never surfaced on the evening news? What if The Journal never published the laundry list of conspicuously consumed decorating items? What if the high-livin ex-CEO of Tyco committed massive fraud, but the details of his excessive lifestyle never made it into the mainstream media. Would he have been as harshly judged? The court of public opinion has handed down its verdict.

Coming back to Katrina given that the storm and its aftermath continue to flood the news and opinion pages. Take Frank Rich's commentary in yesterday's New York Times. He chastised FEMA for its solicitation of "community relations officers," instead of experienced emergency services workers. To Frank's point, I was told that FEMA posted on its website a call for volunteers specializing in crisis communications.

Rich writes: "The two top deputies at FEMA remaining after Michael Brown's departure, one of them a former local TV newsman, are not disaster relief specialists but experts in P.R., which they'd practiced as advance men for various Bush campaigns."

So while Frank Rich takes FEMA to task for emphasizing PR over substance, another opinionated blogger - Mark Cuban - chastises FEMA for not having an effective communications system in place for the disaster relief effort:

"FEMA needs to realize that we are a media centric culture. We look for information wherever we can find it. The wider spread the communication, the more people will receive it and the more assistance, of the type that is needed, can be offered. I can only speculate, but based on what I saw today, which I’m sure was repeated in cities around the country, but millions, if not tens of millions of dollars in timely support was lost because people, including me were uninformed."

Talk about mixed signals!

Third-party advocacy or constituency-building, as it's sometimes called, is a most effective strategy for building public support for, or opposition to a contentious issue. Take Kansas. With 38 Nobel Laureates adding their weight in defense of Darwinism, one would think that intelligent (design) people would be moved. But those undermining the long-studied theory of evolution have their own "third-parties" in their corner, one of which is the scientific-sounding, anti-science Discovery Institute.

Now here's the dirty secret of the PR profession and, in my opinion, its achilles heel. It's the industry's hand in conceiving faux-sounding advocacy groups whose names cloak their true raison d'etre, and more often than not, financial backers. It's a common and accepted practice in business, politics, and even in the not-for-profit world of NGOs.

If transparency is something we hold up as an ideal, then the PR profession should look within to put an end to this publicly deceptive practice.

I'm not a conspiracist by any stretch. Still, in following the "Able Danger" story wherein it is alleged that the 9/11 ringleader's identity was known two years before that fateful day, I cannot help but observe just how diluted the mainstream media has become. Ten years ago, an Associated Press story like this would move mountains. Today it's lost in the cacophony of an increasingly fragmented and politicized media environment. I guess it requires a hurricane to commandeer the national news agenda (and the blogosphere to fuel it).

News today of the annulment of Renee Zellweger and Kenny Chesney's marriage after just four months. Who among us is surprised by this? I predicted last May that the mismatch would last "less than a year." Oh well. You can't be right all the time. At least the beach wedding photo was great...for the dress designer.

Once again, scrappy Tim Arango of the New York Post's even scrappier business pages scoops the world. Today he reports news of advanced talks between Microsoft and Time-Warner wherein MS will acquire part of AOL and merge it into MSN. Even The Times's star M&A reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin gives credit (and a hyperlink to The Post!) where credit was due in his DealBook electronic newsletter. It's ironic how just yesterday I pondered how Microsoft and Yahoo could ever hope to compete for the minds, eyeballs and wallets of consumers with the relentless news and innovation emanating from Google. I guess digging deep into their corporate pockets is one way, though Google just deepened its pocket yesterday with a 4.1 billion cash infusion. Let's watch the AOL MSN story unfold over the next few days...big time.

With John Battelle's new book poised for the bestseller list, and the unrelenting stream of breathless news announcements emanating from the monopolistic search engine, web portal, software company, advertising firm, cash machine, etc., how can Microsoft, Yahoo or AOL ever expect to dampen Google's mighty mojo? Google news comes in all shapes and sizes -- from new products and innovations to strategic partnerships/acquisitions to financial maneuvers.

Just today, two new products from Google broke into the public domain: an in-browser online video playback feature and a new blog search engine. Like Microsoft or GE or Kraft, for that matter, industry segment leaders needn't do much to capture the attention of their loyal gaggle of beat reporters. Even so, the quality of the "news" emanating from Google just seems to resonate better. It's nice as a PR person to have something substantive to communicate.

While her husband just cut a lucrative deal to appear in advertising for Fidelity Investments, don't expect Heather McCartney to land a big-time sponsor anytime soon. Yesterday, the PETA folks deployed Mrs. McCartney to a J. Crew store in Manhattan wearing a flatscreen TV on which graphic video of animals being skinned played out. (The pet-friendly group has always had a penchant for the dramatic -- the more telegenic, the better - and Fashion Week is its prime time.)

"PETA mouthpiece Michael McGraw said his group has launched JCruel.com after pleading with the clothier to drop its furry fashions." Watch out Anna Wintour! Stranger things have been known to happen during NY's Fashion Week.

As for J. Crew, the timing of this couldn't be worse given its impending $200 million IPO. (I wonder if Fidelity has a stake.)

Much has been written about the issue of outsourcing jobs overseas. Intelligent people have made reasonable arguments on both sides of the debate from Tom Friedman's musings on globalization and the new-found wealth of Bangaloreans, to the unions, which have ratcheted up their efforts in the Beltway to effect protective legislation.

When one's voice does not gain sufficient traction through public relations or public affairs activities, the advocates frequently turn to advertising to make their point. One of the most effective ads I've seen on the outsourcing issue struck me in the face this morning when perusing The New York Times. It featured a headline that read "Remote Control Journalism" with a photo of Warren Buffet and caption (allegedly written by workers in Singapore) that read "...whose hits included 'Margaritaville,'..."

I'm sure the PR folks at Reuters, the target of this ad, were none too happy. It was the opening salvo of a by-line strike by workers at the UK-based global news organization.

The top story on today's national media agenda focuses on the lack of relevant experience by FEMA officials to deal with a disaster. The New York Times went so far as to address this issue in its lead editorial where it characterizes FEMA management as "advance men," and includes a healthy dose of disrespect for the public relations profession.

In fact, the FEMA PR people who are serving as PR people deserve their share of chastisement given the inexplicable mixed signals over the distribution of $2000 debit cards. Clearly an emasculated and heavily patronized FEMA management merits much of the blame for not establishing clear channels of communication.

But getting back to the insinuation that public relations is no more than spin and gloss. This is a siren call for practitioners to absolve their long-held role as messengers in exchange for a seat at the decision-making table. Our core competency is not one of finding words to minimize reputational damage, but rather advising on operational decisions or actions that will produce results. Are we experts on how many firefighters or troops to deploy? No. But we should have the honed instincts to anticipate, and provide counsel on the fallout for not having enough.

EuroDisney started out much the same way: with negative media coverage of the sparse attendance at the brand extension of the popular theme park. Today, word from the beta-testing of the soon-to-open Hong Kong Disneyland is negative, but for quite the opposite reasons. The facility cannot accommodate the large throng of visitors, which has led to long queues, food shortages and short tempers.

Rather than admit that some kinks still need to be worked out, Disney officials, in a nod to investors, defiantly refused to limit the number of daily visitors. Spokesperson Esther Wong says the company is "confident we can manage peak day attendance in the future and have designed our marketing and sales plan to manage attendance at Hong Kong Disneyland throughout the year."

(Tell that to those in line at the ladies' restrooms!)

Next year, to be exact. What struck me first about Paul McCartney's decision to appear in TV spots for Fidelity Investments was his age -- 63! My friend Chuck Nyren, author of a new book on advertising to baby boomers, will certainly be attuned to the wisdom behind Fidelity's decision to tap the ex-Beatle for commercial exploitation. After all, what better persona is there to connect with the deep-pocketed, but media-elusive boomers?

In spite of the gazillions the Boston-based financial company likely has doled out, which includes sponsorship of his concert tour, the PR buzz alone may make Fidelity Investment's investment pay off. It's reminiscent of Citibank's deal with another Knighted British rock star (an announcement this blogger handled in 1998).

Wouldn't it be a stronger story if a celebrity visited a scene of death and destruction without his or her publicist in tow? A private visit, perhaps? Operation Assist is Paul Simon's new initiative to help those in small towns whose lives were uprooted by Katrina. Oprah, through her publicist, called on the nation to apologize. (Why the nation and not the governmental laggards?) No matter. The image of her mired with the minions beats one of her shopping at Hermes. And let's not forget about Sean Penn who was asked by Larry King this evening about his true motivation for being in New Orleans. The celebrity parade continues Friday with the cross-network concert telecast fundraiser for hurricane victims.

With all the hoops many companies jump through to exploit an anniversary ostensibly to gain media attention, today's editorial in The New York Times on the simple vision of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, pegged to the company's 10th anniversary, says more about the culture and spirit and business model than all the manufactured, celebrity-filled, photo-opportunistic anniversary fare to which we as PR practitioners are accustomed to dusting off and doling out. (Witness Amazon's 10th.)

Truth be told: in the eyes of the news media, company anniversaries, more often than not, are viewed as non-news events. There's one for every day of the calendar year. Coming back to Mr. Omidyar, who happens to be an alum of the college I attended, it helps that he has demonstrated a heartfelt commitment to "doing good" while "doing well." His Omidyar.net, an online community that strives to build a better world, likely influenced the tonality of today's editorial in The Times. Kudos to Henry Gomez and the communications team at eBay for keeping the dream alive.

In the aftermath of 9/11, many of the PR trades and mainstream media beat writers sought out members of our profession to comment on the appropriateness of tying in one's product or service to those tragic events. Invariably, all -- including this blogger -- cautioned practitioners about exploiting the situation.

Over this long, gloriously sunny weekend in New York, I came across this item in the New York Post. I was reminded about what happened four years ago this week, and dismayed by the fact that some in our profession didn't instinctively know to leave well enough alone. At least, Page Six's editor Richard Johnson saw to it that they do now.

New Orleans 

In this, my third posting on Katrina, I find myself in the position of having to push back on the posting of several days ago commending the professional communicators charged with supplying the media channel with accurate information to save lives. Sure, they worked their butts off to do their jobs -- and the information they disseminated in advance of Katrina helped save countless lives.

Still, no one imagined nor planned for the chaos and anarchy that sprouted in the aftermath of this monumental American tragedy. Timely access to accurate information, and the means to disseminate it, are the key ingredients needed for the PR professional to successfully do his or her job. Neither exists right now, even with our President's planned photo-op today.

Andy Roddick's surprising first-round loss in this week's U.S. Open no doubt caused much consternation for his sponsor American Express. Amex spokesperson Judy Tenzer had this to say: "The campaign isn't about winning or losing; it's about celebrating the Open." Still, "in sports like in life," she added, "you have good days and bad days." Good comeback, Judy.

There is considerable precedent for sudden changes in marketing strategy based on unforeseen events. Some of us are old enough to remember Pepsi's withdrawal of its "sponsorship" of Madonna following her sex-infused religiosity phase of her chameleonesque career. I personally had a hand in helping Reebok capitalize on the Olympic decathalon star Dan O'Brien's inability to make the U.S. Olympic team after Reebok spent millions to market "Dan 'n Dave."

For Reebok, the big investment paid off in spades from the added publicity Dan's ill-timed failure created. American Express, on the other hand, seemed to go forward with its US Open advertising with a full page ad featuring Roddick in today's NY Times as if he's still in the draw.