February 2006

RISING FROM THE ASHES.

Rising from the ashes.

The smoking ban is brilliant news for certain areas of the public relations industry, especially if they learn from the guerrilla tactics of US PR legend Edward Bernays

http://media.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1710330,00.html

The front pages herald the news that smoking has been banned in public places - a good day for those not addicted to Satan's snuff, but a brilliant day for certain areas of the public relations business.
The PR fees offered by the various tobacco giants are eye-watering. Camouflaged in PR speak, most of the tobacco companies employ public relations professionals to communicate issues that promote a responsible attitude to the horrors of lighting up.

Pressures have increased over the years to handicap the processes of the giants, and it's a far cry from the heady unregulated days of the 60s and 70s. Bob Burton's recent report, "Inside The Tobacco Industry's Files" for the Center for Media and Democracy, said: "The tobacco industry pioneered many deceptive public relations tactics, casting a long shadow over science and health reporting, as well as the public's right to know. Before its fall from grace, the tobacco industry created front groups, courted journalists and obscured damning scientific evidence using obscure facts to shape public debates."

A new study by researchers at the University of California has found that the tobacco industry "recruited and managed an international network of more than 80 scientific and medical experts in Europe, Asia and elsewhere in a bid to avoid regulations on secondhand smoke." In 1991 alone, the industry spent $3.3 million (£1.89m) on the programme, according to company documents.

The programme's goal was "to influence policy makers, media and the public" by having industry consultants attend conferences, present papers and lobby, all while hiding the tobacco industry's role.

This murky legacy has one man to thank, Edward Bernays, who should undoubtedly be the muse to young PR professionals who are happy to work on tobacco accounts in the 21st century. Money will be pouring in today to apply Bernays' blend of lateral thinking and unconventional guerrilla tactics to keep butts smoldering.

Bernays' company, in the dawn of the last century, was called Big Think. It was commissioned to develop new ways of behaving, which appeared obscure but over time reaped huge rewards for his clients and redefined the very texture of American life.

Perhaps one of the finest examples of a Bernays "tactic" was his campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes, after the first world war. George Washington Hill, the head of the American Tobacco Company, commissioned Bernays to exploit and win over female consumers for Lucky Strike.

Bernays engineered a campaign to infiltrate approval among young women. The covert campaign deftly wove cigarettes into health, beauty, and feminism. An ad agency of the time had come up with ATC strap line "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet", Bernays conscripted experts in the style, fashion and health industries to extol the benefits of slimness and the dangers of sugar.

After spotting that there was a social taboo against women smoking in public, Bernays made his assistant, Bertha Hunt, a mole to encourage a cluster of young New York trendsetters to march down Fifth Avenue smoking cigarettes at Easter in 1929. The stunt generated unseen media interest, resultant news stories about the "Torches of Freedom" march, which failed to declare Hunt's employer. This led to similar manifestations in other cities and helped transform public view about women smokers.

Bernays also invented sophisticated product placement by persuading the Ziegfeld Girls, entertainment icons of the time, to "puff away". Perhaps the best example of his chutzpah was a ruse to persuade a Parisian fashion house to change the forthcoming season's colour to the same as the brand colours of ATC. Failing to achieve this, he dusted himself down and targeted the British suffragette movement with the idea that they should embrace puffing in public places, something of a social taboo at the time.

Years later Bernays tried to distance himself from his dubious achievements which had generated revenues of $32m in 1928 for American Tobacco. Bernays never smoked, and said he preferred chocolate, but his pragmatism raked in enormous fees estimated at around $300,000.

That same pragmatism will be at the heart of modern day PR, which the descendants of Bernays will be considering, in an attempt to hurdle one of the final obstacles for the tobacco giants.

If true creative genius still exists and can be applied to overcome*the challenges set by our modern masters to delay the twilight of the industry, the rewards will, as Bernays noted, be "like opening a goldmine in your own back yard!"

HOW TO GO TO GROUND

How to go to ground

Sol Campbell last week proved there is a simple way of buying time and escaping the media storm-troopers by bolting for Belgium rather than The Ivy
The carnival publicist Doc Crosby was a wise man and never short of home spun wisdom.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/columnists/story/0,,1705166,00.html

He was a former university professor of English and although he was never sober, used a tin cup as a mirror, the frazzled end of a rope as a lather brush, and a sharp edge of a glass as a razor-blade, he knew how to keep his acts out of trouble.
This colourful old rummy once said, if you are in real trouble - hide in a barrel of rattlesnakes. Risky advice one would think, but good advice is in short supply at times of brand meltdown.

When on the run from torrid tabloid revelations, the celebrity colony usually sends out flak to distract and then predictably cries foul. It is often said that it is impossible to go to ground while being pursued by the predatory media pack. However, Arsenal defender Sol Campbell provided glowing example of how to escape the Blitzkrieg of crack media storm-troopers last week.

Please respect our privacy is the sad cry while fleeing the waiting paps outside The Ivy. Observers of celebrity crisis cringe at the pathetic attempts to seek a safe bolt hole. Really, how difficult is it to disappear? Every meaningful name has got an escape plan ready to roll, as well as a mate with a Cessna.

How many times have we seen the drawn curtains and chain hooked doors of the harassed stars' urban homes, while they are phlegmatically trying to ignore the banks of snappers laying siege to their houses, featured in OK! and Hello! in more carefree times? I remember an MP's wife screaming through the letter box as a journalist rang the door bell: "Go away! How did you get my number? It's ex-directory."

But the fragile Sol demonstrated that going to ground is not biophysics. Clearly the man was sane enough to pick Belgium as the ideal place to seek shelter. Perhaps he sought the opinion of Stephen Fry. I recollect that the stressed thesp ran to Brussels following his critical mauling after his West End debut in Cell Mates in 1995.

Fry, like Campbell, ejected quickly and left friends and family to leak out scraps that suggested an imminent breakdown. Sympathy for the poor Gooner negated the Schadenfreude and rumours of malevolent weekend revelations that threatened to turn his life upside down.

He took control, evaporating and then resurfacing to show a brave face, ready to defend any slurs. The lonely Sol, training alone in the morning mists of Arsenal's London Colney training ground painted a poignant photo opp of a man who had come to terms with his demons.

Clearly there is always an option A to buy time, which does not require paying the Priory a fistfull of cash before skulking back into the limelight. I predict a whole raft of unfashionable European destinations offering safe haven to highly strung public figures.

Who is going to follow a broken husk of a soap opera star to Luxembourg City or Ryazan, even Jogevamaa? After all, is it not a perk that tabloid hacks dream of, being sent on a celebrity stake out in the sun where the booze and ciggies are cheap and the barking news editor is a thousand miles away? I don't think "Sorry guv. There is no mobile signal in Slovenj Gradec" has the ring of glamour to it!

Fry and Campbell have set the standard in celebrity bolt holes. Proving there is a simple way of buying a large piece of prized time and creating real distance in order to find that peace of mind, and to re-read the small print in the Faustian contract they signed with the media in happier times.