12/05

It was understandable why Bush imposed tariffs in the first place.  The mighty steel industry of the 1960s is on its death bed.  One old-line company after another has fallen to ruin, disappeared or been sold off.   Each partition or disruption has put thousands out of work, and those thousands were staunch Bush supporters in the last election.  Moreover, without tariffs cheap steel continues to flood the country, and some of it almost certainly is being dumped.

But there are times when a PR gesture is not something one can do.  This is one.  Tony Blair of the UK was under intense pressure to get Bush to remove the tariffs, and Blair has stood by the President unlike anyone else except Koizumi of Japan who also was miffed by the tariffs.  So whose relationship is more important in a case like this?  Tough question.  The voters in West Virginia helped get Bush elected, but Blair was the point man who helped Bush invade Iraq and Koizumi stood by Bush when many others did not.

It takes statesmanship to get out of a vise like this and not to damage either the local or international relationships one must keep. 

We should probably list the tariffs under the PR rubric that "no good deed goes unpunished."
 

12/04

By all means, check the site out and try your hand at noses, eyes, shapes and colors then see if you are of the early 20th Century artistic class.  Get the beret if you are and the long cigarette holder to go with it. 

What the site proves, if nothing else, is that Ruder Finn Interactive has the tools and talent to get a job done well online.  That's a pretty good advertisement for one's services, it seems to me.   So, maybe the site is not so useless after all.

12/03

This story revolves around two complex issues in finance for a client and how to explain them in layperson's language.  One was a sentence in a press release that my boss wanted to write, but I couldn't agree with.   I did not know if his view was correct.  We argued nuance until we called the client and dropped the question in her lap.  She noted we were both right and wrong then proceeded to explain in detail how the study had gotten to a "provisional" answer.  The answer was not clean nor clear-cut.  After we hung up, we argued more until we found language that satisfied us and the client.

The second instance was interpretation of a financial study sent our way for publicity.  My boss disliked the study the first time he encountered it -- and the second time too.  He had powerful arguments against it and in 45 minutes had me backed against a wall.  He was right, and I was wrong.  I have to go back to the study, look at it in detail and answer objections before we send a pitch letter to the media.

Why is this thrilling?  Because it forces me to use my brainpower to pick apart difficult issues.  There are many dull moments in PR when rote takes over.  But, when times come that test one's ability to think, it makes  mechanical tasks worthwhile. 

I live for those moments, and I think my boss does too.  He does not shrink from argument when he thinks he is right -- and often, he is.  On the other hand, he is objective and concedes when he is wrong.  The skill all parties must have is to know that one is searching for a right answer and not to win.  I am satisfied when I have tested every concept and come up short because I know I have tested every concept.  And, when a reporter asks a question, we will have a right answer.

I don't know how I could continue in this business without debate and difficult issues.
 

12/02

Acclaim Entertainment is promoting their new video game, "Gladiator: Sword
of Vengeance <http://www.acclaim.com/games/gladiator/index.html>," with bus
shelters in the U.K. that will literally seep blood.

The ads, placed behind plexi-glass for a six day period, will shoot red dye
onto the backside of the plexi-glass which will then drip down onto the
street. Aligning the campaign to the company's marketing strategy, Acclaim
Communications Manager Shaun White said, "The concept of 'Bloodvertising'
ties in with our marketing strategy and sticks to the theme of blood and
carnage which is consistent throughout the Gladiator video game."

The video game, set in 106AD, is claimed to be the bloodiest ever to hit the
gaming space.

Does this smack of the Coliseum in Rome 2000 years ago, when the blood of gladiators was spilled on the sand?  Isn't there a civilized limit to this sort of thing? The game maker would contend that it is acceptable because  game players do not act on the fantasies the game is merchandising.  Even so, familiarity breeds contempt.  When one sees so much blood and mayhem, isn't there at least familiarization and lessening of revulsion? 

Call me conservative and out of touch but I believe violent video games are unhealthy for boys and men.  They cater to fantasies opposed to civility, to say the least.  One cannot say the Coliseum and its gore was the direct cause of the downfall of Rome (It wasn't, as far as I know), but one can say the societal attitude that tolerated that kind of spectacle was lax in other regards as well. 

I don't know what I would do if I were asked to promote a violent video game.  I would have a hard time accepting the job and a harder time executing it. I suppose I could prance about in a gladiator suit with bottles of fake blood that I splash hither and yon in Times Square, but I would feel ridiculous and immoral. 

But, there are PR firms promoting violent video games.  How do they handle it? I suppose they don't have the qualms I have -- or they hold their noses and collect the money. In the PR business, someone will whore as long as the money is good enough.

This reminds me of other embarrassing circumstances of late -- for example, Paris Hilton with her amateur porno movie.  Hilton retained a PR firm right away to fight the crisis for her.  But wouldn't she have been better off if she hadn't made the film in the first place?  Does anyone remember one has choice in these matters?  Or, do we believe we are victims of circumstances, coerced by commerce to purchase a violent videogame or to record our sexual fantasies?
 

12/1

The flu sneaked up on me.  I first felt full and slightly nauseous.  (Who wouldn't around Thanksgiving?)  Then I couldn't eat.  Finally, yesterday about 2:30 pm, I told my wife I had to lie down.  I was shaky and barely moving.  Fourteen hours of sleep later, and I feel fine (I think).  So, I'm off to work and should be OK.  If not, I'll just come home again.  Meanwhile, I can catch up on the world.

I have always been a news junkie, and I think it is a requirement to be a PR practitioner.  If one is going to insert clients into the news flow, one must be up-to-the-minute on what reporters are thinking and talking about. 

No one can follow all of the news.  There are classes of news I rarely look at -- like style sections and gossip.  There are other classes I skim.  And there are a few areas which I read in a detail.  Sometimes, just knowing the headline is enough.  I am not one of those who compares stories to see what The New York Times picked up and what the Washington Post missed.  There is rarely a need to do that.

News is hardly complete.  It is a selective view of events -- some of which are important and much of which are not.   It is a truism that reporters often miss the news in their efforts to cover it.  They aren't interested in a topic, or the subject is too difficult to comprehend in a deadline world.  As a PR practitioner, my job is not to help reporters cover the news so much as cover my clients in the news flow.  If reporters are selective and missing the point, so what?  I might mention it to one or the other of them but if they evince no interest, it is not my job to set them straight -- unless it deals with my client. Still, there are times when it is frustrating to see reporters groping toward an answer that is in front of them.  They are caught in their biases and the biases of those around them.  It takes a thoughtful reporter to question his or her assumptions and to write something that is different in tone. 

But this is why one must stay up with the news flow -- to find a reporter who is willing to think differently and with whom one can work.  I don't mean an easy reporter.  The journalist can be tough as nails and skeptical as hell, but still willing to listen.  It is up to us then to assemble the facts that sell the story.