March 2008

HEATHROW TERMINAL 5 THE PR DISASTER

The opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow has been a complete PR meltdown! So far, 70 flights have been cancelled and irate travelers spitting blood are wandering the concourse trying to reclaim luggage. I hear it's going to get worse with more cancellations expected over the weekend. What a PR disaster especially when the media was hoping for great things. In PR slanguage, the BA brand is in a tailspin. But wait.... out of the chaos steps BA’s boss Willie Walsh with an honest sound bite “it’s not our finest hour.” Holy mother, a chief executive accepting that the debacle had affected the reputation of BA and of Britain. “We clearly disappointed a number of people and we sincerely apologise,” Mr. Walsh said. “British Airways has not delivered and we need to deliver,” he said. “I am accepting responsibility, the buck stops with me.” Bloody well done

I think a huge slap on the back for the BA PR team and their damage limitation consultancy. Everyone is earning their fat crust and have formulated a strategy that sees the brand taking it on the chin. They are facing all the issues with a clear and equivocal honesty. I applaud the move to front up the pandemonium and try to salvage something from the smoking wreckage. Never the less I am not sure I would feel quite the same if I was jetting off on my hols this weekend. Let’s see how the next few days shape up; there is still time to screw up – the pressure is still on.

AB FAB ALIVE, BUT LOST IN SHOWBIZ

My attention has been drawn to Lost in the Showbiz, a website set up to celebrate the weight of witless, achingly silly PR guff. The site declares that it yearns to share all the inane crap it receives with the world.

Gawd, I feel my age! The explosion of airhead PRs, who make Eddy Monsoon look like a quantum physician, surround my paunch like a plague of enthusiastic zombies. I predicted the reputation of the industry was in deep peril after I interviewed a frothy funky girl from a frothy funky boutique agency a year or so ago. She was “on the hunt for a new challenge”. I asked her what she thought her weaknesses were. She replied: “I am hopeless with faces, names, and people.” Obviously, this is not a plus for someone seeking a “new challenge” in PR.

More power to Lost in Showbiz, then, in their mission to highlight the piffle, the pointless and the downright “stoopid” in the industry, but might I suggest something more drastic? Let’s kick this useless detritus out of the industry. Unfortunately, things have sunk to an all time low. I guess entertainment PR has always been plagued with the odd rogue trader, but I now see far too many poor and hopeless people being employed simply because they are cheap and hungry to get a foot in the door.

It does not help that too many entertainment entities allot pathetic financial resources to the music and showbiz arena. Sadly, there are plenty of shops out there only too willing to work for peanut husks. I have seen these desperate start ups looking for any manner of collateral that might help them wedge their feet in the door as well as a brand logo on a website or creds document. They invariably turn out to be promiscuous, drug-fuelled, ego-tripping scum celebrating a pathetic craft on fabulous websites that sucker-punch new biz. I say bag them up with weights and drop them down a deep, dark well so they can drown in stagnant waters of their own narcissism

COLD MUD AND MONSANTO

Cold Mud - www.coldmud.com - the excellent site that links you to all you need to know about food – posted Monsanto profit news this morning

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/newspid=20601103&sid=a1GHj4N2tLEI&refer=us

All very interesting. Some time ago, Coldmud reminded us that Monsanto invented Agent Orange, "herbicide and defoliant" used by the States' Armed Forces in its Warfare programme during the Vietnam War. Between 1963 and 1966, 6 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in Vietnam.

Monsanto is pretty good at silencing the critics. As Spinwatch pointed out a few years ago, “Monsanto was also finding other equally aggressive ways to silence critics”:

The Ecologist Journal issue on Monsanto (The Monsanto Files) was pulped by the printers without any notice being given to the editors. The printers refused to comment on its decision although it is understood the company was afraid of a possible libel action. Monsanto insisted that it had nothing to do with the printers action, thus highlighting the effect of its reputation.

In 1997 in the US, Fox TV commissioned a report on rBGH. As the programme was to be aired, Fox TV received a visit and a letter from Monsanto: the journalists, who had investigated the link between rBGH and cancer in humans, were asked to re-write the report and eventually were offered money to resign and keep quiet about the whole affair. The reporters are now suing Fox TV.

The UK Guardian is and has been critical of Monsanto. Three Monsanto representatives visited the Guardian offices to ‘ask’ them to end this criticism: the Guardian refused and published a story about it the next day.

Werner Reisberger who had an email server based in Germany was sued by Monsanto for forwarding a call to action published by German Activists where they referred to Monsanto as ‘vultures’. Monsanto lost the case.

MISS BIMBO PLOY

There’s been much talk about a website that has created a game called Miss Bimbo where children as young as nine years old are invited to become the most famous, beautiful, sought after bimbo across the globe. It’s certainly got most of the broadsheets and blogs here frothing at the mouth in their attack on this well already well criticised game. That’s another lot suckered into the familiar trap which has now given PR to the issue. Of course this website wants a generation of outrage, that’s how they attract the kids. It’s far too juicy a story for the media to ignore and the website knows it. So the defamation is all the website needs to get itself going. It’s such an old trick to create a stir in order to deliver up column inches.

FIVE YEARS

It’s a very unhappy fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. I thought it was a good moment to return to the BBC3 documentary entitled Iraq: How the War was Spun. My contribution to the programme was an investigation of the role of PR in promoting the Gulf war, and in controlling our perceptions of the conflict. The ineluctable conclusion was that you and I and anyone with an ounce of humanity thinks of war in terms of death, destruction, horror and pain, but some PR companies simply regard it as a lucrative business opportunity.

MUCCA TO THE U.S.

As I envisaged, in my blog and on the Jeremy Vine Show, it wouldn't be long before the former Mrs McCartney would be heading to the U.S. I predicted that Heather would soon be on a PR drive in the land that loves her.

Well it took just 52 hours before we were told that she is considering acting as a judge for the Miss U.S.A. pageant.

WHAT NOW FOR NEWSPAPERS?

Sky News
"Newspapers now are lacking confidence," publicist Mark Borkowski said. "They really are driving hard for audience and, I'm afraid they will try and get ...

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1310041,00.html

HEATHER PUSHED OFF THE FRONT PAGES

The 24 7 news cycle has switched. One moment I was commenting on Heather..

.....the next I was jabbering about the McCann landmark legal victory on Sky and the BBC. I suspect that Ms Mills is pleased that the focus has shifted.

MUCCA TO THE U.S.

As I envisaged, in my blog and on the Jeremy Vine Show, it wouldn't be long before the former Mrs McCartney would be heading to the U.S. I predicted that Heather would soon be on a PR drive in the land that loves her. Well it took just 52 hours before we were told that she is considering acting as a judge for the Miss U.S.A. pageant.

THE MASKED CELEBRITY

I have been sent this in the post – an ingenious new device - a paper mask from the cuddly scorpions at Holy Moly. The blurred mask is part of a great campaign from Holy Moly reiterating their distaste for the current climate in celebrity photography.

Holy Moly being the first “sleb missive” to announce it will no longer use photos it deems unacceptable of celebs in distress, being hounded by photographers etc.

I have sent two of the masks to Noel Edmonds and his partner Liz, whom the paparazzi seem to be hounding on a daily basis. Maybe now they will be able to go about their daily business in peace. I am popping into the new celebrity dining rooms, St Alban, at lunchtime; I expect the management might also find them useful. Thanks to the janitor for a clever idea…

FILM PR JOB DESCRIPTION

I have just seen the most wonderful description for a modern film PR in a comment feature in Variety.

WANTED: Top flack for the film industry. Ideal candidate will maintain inexhaustible ability to spin, wheedle and cajole. Must have strong parenting skills; magician's training preferred. We offer plenty of responsibility, little power or support and great pay. Burnout guaranteed.

Yup its very glamorous job but it has the “the burnout factor and the seven year itch”.  "Once upon a time, the studio publicists were the ones with all the information, who had the connections to executives and talent, but recently they’ve been demoted to running interference and not even being given the proper tools to do that."

FROM B.A.C. TO BREMNER AND SUB-PRIME MARKET EXPLAINED

Interesting day yesterday at the Battersea Arts Centre – I took part in their Inspiration Week and I was supposed to inspire young performance artists. The group proved to be a challenging mob from Search Party (young company from Bristol, studying at Dartington, already making work using sport as an influence), Tassos Stevens (football fan and member of Coney/Rabbit collective), Catherine Walpole (recent graduate from Goldsmiths - did a 13 hour piece at BAC where she danced on stilts to music chosen by audience members), Sally Marie (choreographer), Ben Faulks (Manchester based artist who has started developing work with a sonic trampoline).

I delivered a talk on the art of media story telling using the on and off line media to create a canvas to publicise work. The sporting context was used as an example of how sport can generate community and collective word of mouth. There was conflicting opinion and a healthy debate on my methods and views.

A short limo bike ride later, I was in an office listening to Rory Bremner’s weeze to publicise the new series of Bremner, Bird and Fortune. The last time we took the Vera shilling, we helped Rory out his Margaret Beckett spoof. The Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett was tricked by Rory when he pretended to be Chancellor Gordon Brown. He phoned her on the day of the 2005 general election when she was environment secretary, and they discussed her Cabinet colleagues. She gave frank assessments of some of them, advising “Gordon Brown” on who was performing well. The media firestorm was a mighty kick off to the Jan 08 run of Bremner, Bird and Fortune.

Rory was excited that the two Johns (Bird and Fortune) were starting to be a hit on Youtube with their satire on the sub prime market.

KAREN MATTHEWS AND THE CLASS AND CULTURE DIVIDE

When I heard Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, I was shocked on two levels. Firstly, the manner in which Karen Matthews was literally interrogated astounded me and secondly when comparing the disappearance of Shannon Matthews and Madelaine McCann, it’s plain to see who had PR muscle behind them and who didn’t.

In the agenda setting news report, The Today Programme interviewed Shannon Matthews’ mother, Karen Matthews and her boyfriend Craig Meehan. In what resembled more of a trial than a radio interview, Karen Matthews and Craig Meehan were quizzed about domestic abuse and difficulties in the household.

The interviewer made a point that Karen came from a somewhat chaotic and unusual background, having had seven children by five different men and went on to compare her situation to that of the McCanns. What became clear was that this wasn’t just an issue about the class and culture divide between the Matthews and the McCanns, but instead about a PR issue.

From day one, the McCanns had someone helping them and advising them on how to get the momentum for the search going. When the McCanns were implicated in their daughter’s disappearance, they had serious PR backing, advising them how to respond. This poor woman from a “chaotic” background didn’t stand a hope on the Today Programme. If Karen Matthews had had any PR advisor, they wouldn’t have allowed her to go on air for an inappropriate roasting from an unsympathetic journalist. There is no comparison with this and the very sympathetic interview with Kate McCann on Sky TV. At the end of the day, the sad fact is that there are two missing children here who need to be found. Let’s hope that the impetus to find them and keep their profiles up is not purely based on who has the best PR campaign. The sadnees is that two families are still missing their daughters

AT THE MEDIAGUARDIAN AWARDS FOR INNOVATION

I was at the Millennium Dome last night at the first MediaGuardian Awards for Innovation, or Megas, as some funky Guardian person has christened them. The night kicked off with a performance by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius pip “Thou Shalt always Kill” . I think they are better on Youtube

The awards, launched to recognize innovation across the media industry, received more than 400 entries from different sectors. I judged the PR campaign of the year that went to Weiner Sandwiches’ execution of a giant 87,500 square foot KFC logo in the Nevada desert - claimed to be the first brand logo visible from space. I thought it had gone to Sputnik PR’s Cadbury Gorilla campaign – but that is another story. It was an achingly cool evening with gallons of free booze showering the pasteurized cream of the media world. I am sure the Megas will be become a huge future hit but I think it must alter its judging format if it’s really going to be able to champion innovation. If not, it will become just another Haymarket style money generating, back slapping piss up. The event felt like it could become a platform for the usual suspects to kick start their award machine teams to focus on yet another gong from an industry backslapping carnage. Who needs another self-congratulating scheme to sell tables in a smart location for top dollar?

Bore of the night was the blogger who tried to storm the stage, he was a hairless, bespectacled geek who politely asked to borrow the microphone - v radical. Evidently he was striking a pose for all three independent blogs on the award shortlist who did not win. The genius presenter, Hardeep Singh Kohli did a sparkling job of putting him down, perhaps the funniest moment of the night.

But hey, I had a great night and shared the tube home with the wonderful human Julien Henry to hear outstanding top flight gossip.

WHO SPILLED THE BEANS ON PRINCE HARRY'S TOUR OF DUTY?

Poor MOD PR folk what do you do? Alas the news has broken that Prince Harry has been doing his duty for this Grandmother and shooting at the Taliban on the front line in Afghanistan. A huge pat on the back - the young man is certainly courageous. Supposedly, Matt Drudge has broken the media blackout. The head of the British Army, Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt mused “I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us.” I am an old PR cynic and experience suggests that it was someone in the UK media who leaked it to the US site. It was too tempting not to be able to freely report the story before the fighting Prince is packed off home. The acres of ink spilled this weekend on the subject is certainly going to push up circulation of the weekend papers.

WHO TAKES THE BLAME FOR THE CLINTON FAILURE?

It's do or die time tonight for Hilary Clinton who must win Ohio and Texas or she’ll have to face throwing in the towel and bow out as the Democratic nominee.Reports suggest that there is a thinning of support - so Who will take the blame for the defeat ? In May, 2007, the Nation magazine ran an insightful article into the relationship between Burson-Marsteller’s top executive world-wide, Mark Penn, and Clinton. Penn is her pollster and chief strategist. Perhaps he might have to take the bullet tonight for the failure. More worrying for Penn is the fall out – and the amount of ink spilled in looking into his methods and his work for Burson-Marsteller,

From Spinning Hillary Centrist, The Nation, Ari Berman…

Burson-Marsteller is hardly a natural fit for a prominent Democrat. The firm has represented everyone from the Argentine military junta to Union Carbide after the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India, in which thousands were killed when toxic fumes were released by one of its plants, to Royal Dutch Shell, which has been accused of massive human rights violations in Nigeria. B-M pioneered the use of pseudo-grassroots front groups, known as “astroturfing,” to wage stealth corporate attacks against environmental and consumer organizations. It set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s. Its current clients include major players in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries. In 2006, with Penn at the helm, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.

A host of prominent Republicans fall under Penn’s purview. B-M’s Washington lobbying arm, BKSH & Associates, is run by Charlie Black, a leading GOP operative who maintains close ties to the White House, including Karl Rove, and was former partners with Lee Atwater, the political consultant who crafted the Willie Horton smear campaign used by George H.W. Bush against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Black regularly disparages the Clintons; he has called Hillary a “martyr figure” and said Bill “tearfully embraced…government preferences for homosexual lifestyle.” In recent years Black’s clients have included the likes of Iraq’s Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocon right in the run-up to the war; Lockheed Martin; and Occidental Petroleum. In the summer of 2005 he landed a contract with the Lincoln Group, the disgraced PR firm that covertly placed US military propaganda in Iraqi news outlets. The agreement, according to Intelligence Online, allowed the Lincoln Group to “tap into BKSH’s extensive contacts in the Republican administration.” When asked by The New Yorker if there was too much cronyism in Iraq, Black responded, “I just wish I could find the cronies.”

As expected with such a lineup, B-M has a highly confrontational relationship with organized labor. “Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labor’s coordinated campaigns,” read the “Labor Relations” section of its website (until it was scrubbed after Mark Schmitt of The American Prospect quoted the language in March). It consults frequently with George Washington University professor Jarol Manheim, author of The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation and Biz-War and the Out-of-Power Elite: The Progressive-Left Attack on the Corporation. And it lends help to some of the most controversial union-busting efforts in America.

Back in 2003 two large unions, UNITE (which later merged with HERE, the hotel and restaurant union) and the Teamsters, launched a major drive to organize 32,000 garment workers and truck drivers at Cintas, the country’s largest and most profitable uniform and laundry supply company. Its longtime CEO, Richard Farmer, was a mega-fundraising “pioneer” for George W. Bush. Despite posting $3.4 billion in sales and $327 million in profits last year, the company had a record of overcharging consumers, denying workers overtime pay, keeping unsafe working conditions (an employee in Tulsa died recently when caught in a 300-degree drier) and using any means necessary to block the union drive. Management fired employees under false pretenses, according to worker complaints documented by the unions; vowed to close plants; and screened anti-union videos. A plant manager in Vista, California, threatened to “kick driver-employees with his steel-toed boots,” according to a complaint UNITE HERE filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). To put a soft face on its harsh tactics, Cintas hired Wade Gates, a top employee in B-M’s Dallas office, as its chief spokesman. Gates coined Cintas’s shrewd response to labor: “the right to say yes, the freedom to say no,” which has been repeated endlessly in the press. In a speech at the USC Gould School of Law last year, Gates outlined Cintas’s strategy, calling for an “aggressive defense against union tactics.” Says Ahmer Qadeer, an organizer for UNITE HERE: “It’s the Burson influence that’s made Cintas much, much slicker than they were.” The unions have won two NLRB rulings against Cintas, but for four years the company has continued to resist the organizing campaign.

Link: Spinning Hillary Centrist, The Nation

Burson-Marsteller
From Sourcewatch…

Burson-Marsteller is the world’s fifth largest PR company (Source: Council of PR Firms, 2002) and part of the WPP Group. According to a 2004 profile in The Hill, a Washington, DC newspaper, “This multinational PR behemoth has an active public-affairs practice led by Richard Mintz, who ran the media shop at the Department of Transportation during the Clinton administration. He also served as staff director for Hillary Clinton during the 1992 campaign. B-M has won awards recently for its work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the “No on Proposition 54″ campaign in California. Its public-affairs practice is bolstered by its affiliation with Direct Impact (grassroots marketing) and BKSH & Associates (lobbying).

SCAREMONGERING STUNTS

A "diseased water" publicity stunt has got a few feathers ruffled in New Zealand and has been called irresponsible. Sometimes when spectacular guerilla actions go bad, the global focus creates a sharper focus on the issues.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4428798a10.html

The plastic bottle, containing putrid water and live mosquito larvae, listed its contents as "cholera, typhoid, faeces and guinea worm".
One bottle arrived in a brown wrapper, by courier, at The Press office yesterday.

Printed on the side of the bottle, labeled "Mudd", was an invitation to the Auckland launch of a United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) international safe-water project.

No other written material came with the bottle, leaving newsroom bosses wondering what it contained and how it should be handled.

Judy Williamson, a health protection officer from Community and Public Health (CPH) said it was a clever idea, but the same effect could have been achieved by colouring water with brown paint.

"It was irresponsible to suggest that New Zealand water supplies have got cholera and typhoid in it," Williamson said.

"There are some supplies that are dodgy in New Zealand, but those kinds of diseases are not rife in our community, so there is no way that they could have got into our water systems.

"It's sort of scaremongering in some respects.

POWER TO THE PRESS

For all the control that Hollywood publicists try to exercise over the press, they pour disdain on the supermarket titles like Weekly World News and The National Enquirer. But when one of these rags breaks a story, there is very little they can do to stop the chaos. Witness the acres of press surrounding Patrick Swayze’s illness. His publicity machine is backed into a corner and a doctor had to be wheeled out to issue a statement. Let’s hope the doctor’s address was valid, otherwise the spin meisters will be outed.

BAD BEHAVIOUR PAYS

I heard on the BBC news yesterday that the UK was one of countries with the highest cocaine use in the European Union, and that the United Nations drugs watchdog says the UK and other countries respond too leniently to the drug taking escapades of celebrities. President of the International Narcotics Control Board, Philip Emafo, said that celebrity involvement in narcotics is often glamorised and the watchdog says this all goes to give the wrong message to children and young people.

The issue here concerns the record company executives and entertainment moguls who need to create traction with the media to promote their artists. And drugs scandals always sell, whether it’s Amy Winehouse, Pete Docherty or Kate Moss, the more outrageous their behaviour, the more fucked up they get, the more their popularity soars. Where would in house PR’s be without outrageous behaviour. Promoting it keeps their contacts happy. It’s the Machiavellian people behind the scenes who sustain the “sex, drugs and rock n roll” aura around the celebrity who should be addressed here. The INCB have been targeting the wrong people.

SMOKE SCREENS?

Watching the new BBC 4 drama, The Mad Men, which began last Sunday, I think this brilliant series will do a huge amount to promote cigarette smoking. Every person in every scene, including a gynaecologist, is fagging it . I know it’s the 1960’s and authenticity is important, but I get the feeling that one of the big tobacco companies might have paid for this critically acclaimed series’ development. It’s the holy grail for most of the tobacco business to make smoking hip again, and the mood and subject matter of Mad Men and its prime time smoking is a gift to all those giants. I suspect it is actually a coincidence but my cynicism tells me otherwise.

PRINCE HARRY, THE AFGHAN CRUSADER AND RELUCTANT PR MAN

Who would be a Royal Prince?  I have been hounded this weekend by various media organizations wanting my comments on the furor surrounding Prince Harry’s tour of duty in Afghanistan.  We know how important Harry is to the national media – putting him on the front page certainly sells newspapers but the majority of callers wanted me to pursue the PR element of this story. Was it great PR or were the Ministry of Defence using the Prince as a PR pawn?  When the maelstrom of this debate dies down, I am sure we will look at this situation in another light.  Prince Harry has to face life with the knowledge that he is under total media scrutiny, which must be exacerbated by the tragic fate of his mother.  Harry has had some negative press in the past couple of years for partying and falling drunk out of nightclubs, doing what any other boy of his age would do.  But of course, he’s not like any other boy.  The Royal Family are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. It must be very difficult to be Prince Harry. He’s not just some reality TV star who has chosen to do endless media interviews to identify his life, he is a real person who has made a choice to be in the armed forces and has been duly trained as a soldier. Naturally, watching his comrades and those he works with every day, fighting in Afghanistan, will make him want to fight there too.  But with the conflict being so intense, Harry cannot fight against the Taliban as he’s too much of security risk, both to himself and also the men he would be fighting with.  If he can’t bond with his comrades and take part like any other soldier, what can he do now? Go back to his clubbing ways or follow in the footsteps of his Uncle Andrew, a man without a portfolio, who gains negative press for being a playboy?   It’s difficult enough for any young man of his age, and Harry is no exception, he needs to find a role in life. When I saw him giving his soundbites, talking about his military service, I thought him to be a very committed man, bright bloke, fulfilling what he’s been trained to do, to serve in the armed forces. So his tour of duty has been brought to an end and the situation has become a PR nightmare both for Harry and the Army.  I think he deserves more respect for the fact that he has been cursed by his birth.  Unlike most men of his age, Prince Harry will always be under media scrutiny and the pitfalls are far greater for him. The media will continue to feed from his carcass and expect people like me to give the necessary sound bites.  Leave the country son, get a meaningful job in NGO and use your communication skills and influence for impact in a complicated world with an apocalyptical future.

REVEALED: THE SLY PR RUSE THAT MADE RAMBO PC

Hollywood has had publicists as long as it's had movies. But getting audience bums on seats to see an ageing Sly Stallone is evidence of creative genius writes Mark Borkowski
The old silent movie publicist and space grabber, Maynard Nottage, oncewrote that it is essential to think about the after effects of a photo opportunity. One of his cardinal rules was never to place anything on the actor's or actress's head when posing for a photographer.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/revealed-the-sly-pr-ruse-that-made-rambo-pc-790437.html

Perhaps Barack Obama should have read Nottage's 1921 Photoplay article before allowing cameras to snap him in 2006 dressed as a Somali elder on a trip to Kenya. The spinmeisters' leaking of Obama in Muslim costume, and then poor Barack spending hours discrediting the lie that he is Muslim are arguably low PR tricks, but despite all the hand-wringing this week about the dirty tricks in the US presidential campaign, there is something much cleverer going on in the film distribution world.

I'm referring to the campaign to get audience's bums on cinema seats to marvel at the new offering in the Rambo franchise series. If I had to give a perfect ten for a creative publicity campaign, this would be it. I don't think I have seen a movie campaign with such a dazzling, platinum- thread of cultural engineering. We are all conscious of the predictable ad campaigns for Hollywood films, classically run and costing hundreds of millions of dollars. But the unseen hand of a publicist involved in constructing a cheap and effective stealth PR campaign is perhaps a little more difficult to spot.

So sit back and consider a PR strategy of dark genius. Rambo, a seemingly anachronistic icon of ludicrous Eighties machismo, is suddenly repackaged as a twenty-first century human rights campaigner in Myanmar (formerly Burma). With the film already in the can (though not shot in that country), right on cue, crowds take to the streets in mass protests against the authoritarian regime. The demonstrations were triggered by the government's announcement of drastic increases in fuel prices. According to American PR gossip blogs, film executives from Lions Gate Entertainment, the company behind Rambo, and suits from the US PR goliath Burson-Marsteller were visiting Myanmar on official business only days before the announcement.

Exactly what the PRs were actually doing there is not clear but the happy coincidence is that the protests generated extraordinary publicity for the film with mass coverage by the world's media. The publicists were then able to position Stallone as a voice of protest, via the movie, for state cruelty in Burma.

Sly has embarked on a country to country campaign, working his arse off. He has voiced his pain about Myanmar's regime, slipping in mentions of reports that Myanmar police have prohibited DVD sellers from stocking pirated copies of his movie, and that some of the film's Myanmar actors have had members of their family arrested.

This masterful strategy was designed to get into the global public consciousness a movie which is, in essence, another Rambo "blood fest". Undeniably, this is a film about retribution in its most brutal and atrocious form and the audience is given permission to really enjoy the mass carnage of the finale because of the good causes outlined in earlier scenes. There is no real political understanding and no moral understanding. The film vindicates violence and makes it heroic: it's ruthless stealth PR. They have taken the core brand values of the Rambo franchise, multiplied them by ten, and then ladled in a dollop of political point-scoring by setting the action in Myanmar. Stallone has seemingly forgotten his comments to Mark Kermode, about not doing anymore Rambo movies as it would just be "stupid".

This manipulation is a sophisticated, grown up version of Nottage's ground- breaking PR ideas of the 1900's. One of his stunts involved an attractive young woman climbing on the handrail of a bridge in New Jersey. A crowd gathered and a police officer tackled the woman who clawed at him and screamed: "My unborn child! You do not understand. I must die. My unborn child!" The woman refused to identify herself. The story remained in the news until reporters learned that the woman was an actress paid to publicise a movie titled My Unborn Child. Simple, but a clever tactic and the root of the stealth campaign we are witnessing with Rambo.

I watched the Oscars on Sunday, mesmerised by all the faceless women hovering around the stars, tapping notes into their Blackberrys. Some people think that's all there is to PR, managing celebrities. Forget it – the real art is alive and well and continues to get more sophisticated. So marvel at the ability to spin a morally repugnant film into a humanitarian blockbuster.

Mark Borkowski's The Fame Formula – how Hollywood fixers and star makers shaped the PR industry is published by Macmillan in August.