AIN’T NOBODY HERE KNOWS HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME (REDUX)?

The High Cost Of Arrogance In The Public Relations Business

Some of the smartest people I know are in the public relations business, although it doesn’t take super brains to do it on some levels. It would be hard to find smarter people in any profession than Richard Weiner, or Richard Levick, or Larry Smith, or Jennifer Prosek. It's the likes of them that elevate the profession. But one thing is sure – the guy responsible for the Boston fiasco is a prime example of the kind of public relations practitioners that the public relations profession can least afford. Idiots know better. For starters, he failed to understand the consequences of a stunt.

The fact is that it’s a basic tenet of public relations that turning an idea into something newsworthy is the key to success. And it is also a fact that when a public relations person does something stupid or thoughtless, it affects a lot of people. It also diminishes the art of public relations in the eyes of many people. I imagine that a lot of us in the communications business are embarrassed by what happened in Boston

            The successful public relations activity is a powerful device, and not to be taken lightly. The more successful it is, the more people it reaches, and the more people it reaches, the more people one can persuade or otherwise affect. And for this reason, irresponsibility is unconscionable.

            In case you were on the Great Wall of China or otherwise incommunicado recently, an events and public relations stunt company, retained by Turner Broadcasting System to promote a new television show, planted a number of glowing electronic devices throughout the Boston area. Suspicious looking electronic stuff. Which, on the face of it , sounded like a good idea. Well, maybe it would have been before 9/11, those nice naïve days when bomb planting terrorists hadn’t yet entered our civic consciousness. But not to have known the anxiety about terrorism since 9/11, nor to realize that strange electronic devices strategically placed where terrorists might well place bombs might cause panic, is to be at the lowest end of the I.Q. scale. The activity, according to Boston officials cost the city of Boston some $500,000 (says the AP). It cost two other local communities and their transit systems another $500,000. Presumably, somebody is going to jail.

            A quote from The New York Times. “If we ever would have perceived that this would have been the result, we never would have implemented the campaign,” said a spokesperson for Turner Broadcasting. What did Turner expect, given the climate of fear and anxiety generated by terrorism? Roses?

            The mewling of justification from others in the guerilla marketing games are almost as pathetic. “Turner did not disclose that this was a corporate message,” says one such executive. “It never would have been confused with a bomb if it had been disclosed that this was a corporate initiative.” Some people should eat more fish. It’s brain food.

            The company should have notified authorities of their antics before putting the device in place, said another. Brilliant.

            The best quote from the Times story comes from an interview in an advertising publication with the Chief of Interference, the ad agency responsible for the Boston stunt. Asked if he had ever been arrested for a stunt, the man said, “Luckily I have avoided arrest, mainly by dropping fictitious names of police officers from other precincts in town.” Nothing like eroding pride in a good profession.

            This kind of activity comes under the heading of Guerrilla marketing, which is merely an extension of word of mouth marketing. The idea is to promulgate activities that generate word of mouth – the jargon of which is buzz. Nothing is wrong with it, if it’s done well and honestly – and with a keen understanding of consequences. The motto seems to be, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

            Responsible and intelligent public relations is a public service. At its best, it educates, it sells, it gets people thinking in new directions. At its least, when done with intelligence, it’s harmless, and maybe even amusing.

            Ultimately, misuse of otherwise useful public relations devices … irresponsibly extending the license of otherwise sound public relations practices … is just plain stupid. In fact, when a public relations stunt makes the news that should have been reserved for the product, then somebody took a wrong turn. It is, I think, an excess of residing in one’s own assessment of one’s own cleverness, which is hardly clever at all.