PR Studies

PR and the media (latest from the US)

Here are three observations on contemporary public relations from a media perspective (most positive first):

1. The Power and the Story: Michael Wolff's analysis in Vanity Fair of President Obama's powerful media operation. (Note the difference in style between a magazine and a blog: there's a 76-word sentence containing no fewer than nine commas here. But don't let that put you off reading this elegant article.)
2. Spinning the Web: PR in Silicon Valley: New York Times business section (and note Richard Edelman's scathing reaction to this exercise in self-promotion).
3. PR Girls Who Don't Know Where Darfur Is Bask in Bruno Press Blitz: New York Times fashion section (via PROpenMic). Nuff said, probably, though there's already a tribute blog - Hot Twin PR. 

What are we to make of this? In brief, it shows the problem of simplifying an activity that spans political and technology communications and also includes celebrity publicity. But I suspect it also shows something of an east coast, west coast divide in the US. Here in the UK, Max Clifford, Matthew Freud, Alan Parker and Roland Rudd all work in London (see post below) - a political, financial and media hub.

Susan Boyle: rags to riches

Here's what we can learn for sure from the past week in the life of Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle.

We learn of the enduring power of storytelling - this is 'rags to riches' while 'David and Goliath' is another perennial favourite. There are surprisingly few great stories.

Great stories get people talking; great stories have the power to move. Great stories remind us of our humanity.

What we don't exactly know is what this tells us about the balance of power between broadcast and social media, between manufactured and organic success. Sure, people will comment on the ability of a YouTube video to make her a global viral phenomenon - but don't forget that this would not have been possible without prime time broadcast television.

Sure, she's a homespun amateur talent. But the ITV programme is presided over by Simon Cowell, that master creator or manufactured success. Will she now have a makeover?

The Guardian newspaper has a detailed analysis of the fame factory at work, including comments from Max Clifford. (That's how The Guardian justifies most of its celebrity and entertainment coverage - by taking an analytical view of the phenomenon.)

See also NBC: An Unlikely Star is Born. Don't be too quick to dismiss the so-called mainstream media and their ability to influence public opinion.

Dynasty

John Harris has written an extended feature on Matthew Freud's connections to the worlds of politics, media and celebrity. It reads rather like an appendix to Miller and Dinan's A Century of Spin: the author can't quite pin his subject down, but clearly senses there's something wrong in someone having this much influence.

Having a famous great-grandfather, being the son of well-known MP and broadcaster, having Rupert Murdoch as father-in-law must confer advantages. I suspect it encouraged him to take risks, because you can see Freud's progress as an entrepreneurial success story - how someone who did not go to university built a business and became connected to the most powerful people in the country. He's earned the money he's spending on private jets and lavish parties, though John Harris sees him as the Great Gatsby of our age.

Sex, lies and celebrity

Mark Borkowski (2008) The Fame Formula: How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers and Star Makers Created the Celebrity Industry, Sidgwick & Jackson

Mark Borkowski writes that 'in the media world, very few genuflect to the past - the zeitgeist is all.' Yet he's rather different ('I fell into publicity because I failed to get into university to read history' he says) and has written this history of the Hollywood publicity machine in follow-up to his previous book, Improperganda: The Art of the Publicity Stunt.

It's full of stories: Barnum's elephants, a Tarzan publicity stunt involving a tame lion, and the hilarious tale of how a publicist protected the reputation of actress Tara Tiplady and her co-star after an incident involving oral sex and a hot frying pan required medical intervention. Tiplady was starring as the Virgin Mary in a film about the birth of Christ at the time, so publicity would have been a bad thing.

But what does it tell us? 'The great skill of the publicist in this era [ie 1930s Hollywood] was making journalists think they had the measure of power they craved when in fact they were simply desperate for access to be granted.' Not perhaps so different then from the world of sport, entertainment, politics and even big business today.

There is a special case to be made for Hollywood, of course. Since show business manufactures make-believe, why should its publicity be held to higher standards of veracity? Is it such a bad thing to tell white lies to conceal the sexuality or height of a leading man? Note how this 'entertainment industry exemption' is the defence used by Max Clifford to this day - the 'Freddie Starr ate my hamster' school of entertainment PR. It's all about the stories; if you want to keep something out of the media, feed them a better story.

These ethical questions are not Borkowski's main concern; he's also interested in the stories. He quotes a newspaper report on two celebrated publicists, Harry Brand and Russell Birdwell: 'Lots of people can run a publicity department, but it takes a peculiar man to think up ideas... Harry and Russell are primarily idea men - each with a different approach'.

This is revealing: to succeed in publicity, you need to come up with big, bright ideas. What's the word for people who deal in ideas? Intellectuals. Students will find this surprising; they sometimes complain that their lecturers over-complicate things and seek to take the moral high-ground. But the implication is that celebrity PR is itself an intellectual activity: let's call it 'cerebrity PR'.

The topic was also rehabilitated recently by one of the UK's best known public relations academics. Jacquie L'Etang's latest textbook considers celebrity PR worthy of academic study.

Borkowski's isn't an academic study, but it's a lively account of some large characters written in an appropriately Chanderlesque style. 'Jim Moran was a large man with a penchant for wearing a big beard - unonventional in clean-cut mid-century America - and a fez. He was one of the biggest personalities in an industry rife with larger-than-life personalities, so much so that his personality wound its way inextricably into many of his stunts.'

Some of these large characters gained positions of power over matters of life and death. Referring to Howard Strickling, MGM would advise its stars: 'If you get into trouble, don't call the police. Don't call the hospital. Don't call your lawyer. Call Howard.' The murder of 'platinum blonde' Jean Harlow's film director husband by a former lover became a much more convenient suicide at the hands of the publicists in order to protect her reputation.

In a less troubling example of the publicist's art, Jack Tirman invented a non-existent exotic dance duo in order to promote a Manhattan nightclub. He gained plenty of publicity for the dancers but was surprised to read a stinking press review of these performers, 'who for obvious reasons hadn't put a foot wrong'. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yet publicity had started a slow journey towards becoming a respectable business. Henry Rogers played a part in this: 'He hosted parties for his clients, put himself into the social whirl of Hollywood and made sure he was well read enough to be able to talk anything but shop when he was out on the town.' He focused on relationships with the studios and thus offered his clients more than press agentry. His business, Rogers & Cowan (formed in 1945 and later acquired by Shandwick) became a recognisably modern public relations consultancy, able to adapt to changes in business and the media. 'Dog food and movie stars are much alike because they are both products in need of exposure', as Rogers said.

We're now into the short-attention-span television age in which anyone can seek their '15 minutes of fame'.  But we're given a useful distinction: 'Publicity is about noise and the excitement of the moment, whereas public relations is more about planning and carefully structuring a series of events that build to a bigger picture. The successful public relations merchants...are as much media strategists as press agents.'

One such strategist, Pat Kingsley - a useful counterpoise to all the male publicists featured in the book - realised the value of less publicity in a media-saturated age and rewrote the rules. 'If you can't stop celebrities making mischief, she reasoned, then at least you should try and stop the journalists from making mischief.'

The formula of the book's title may be an awkward addendum; the book may be more concerned with answering 'how?' than addressing 'why?' - but this is an entertaining read and a valuable contribution to the history of public relations.

If this review is brought to the author's attention, he may enjoy this. In the same year as Borkowski began his career in theatrical publicity, your reviewer was accepted to read history at an ancient university. Perhaps as a result, his career has never reached the same heights as Borkowski's.

Borkowski's fame formula

Mark Borkowski has a new book coming out called The Fame Formula and he's written an article on this theme in today's G2 section of the Guardian newspaper.

I take the science with a pinch of salt (it's a classic publicity stunt), but Borkowski is worth listening to on fame and celebrity publicity as he updates Andy Warhol's concept of 15 minutes of fame:

Madonna is an excellent example of a celebrity working the fame formula to perfection. From her early days as a sharp-witted 80s party girl, she has moved onwards and upwards in her quest to stay famous, creating controversy through videos of her kissing a black Jesus, her Sex book and her flirtation with lesbianism, changing style for every album, acting parts in movies, adopting children, writing books for children and becoming a member of the English landed gentry by dint of marriage and money. Even her sporadic film roles, lambasted though many of them have been, are part of her success. Each new innovation has caused her fame to spike and kept her in the media spotlight.

Harry the PR hero: the backlash

It's not about a brave young man; nor is it about the restraint shown by the British media for ten weeks. Nor is it about the reappearance of the Drudge Report. It's about Max Clifford, who entered the fray to say this was all a publicity stunt. Of course!

Peter Wilby writing in Media Guardian follows the Max Clifford line. 'He [Harry] is a pawn in a PR game.'

Let's see who's involved in the 'PR game'. Certainly the army, and who can blame them, given the problems, unpopularity and bad press they've encountered. Certainly the Royal Family, given the problems, unpopularity etc. Certainly the media (in particular the press), given the problems etc. Certainly the Drudge Report which shot to fame when citizen journalist Matt Drudge bypassed the caution of the US media and broke the Monica Lewinsky story. That was ten years ago, so the site was in need of some new notoriety on the global stage.

Some journalists will continue to lament the growing influence of PR (one of the themes of the Nick Davies book); but most of us can accept that everyone's 'on the game'. This is also a challenge to university courses teaching the subject, which may struggle to distinguish professional and ethical PR from Max Clifford-style publicity stunts or do-it-yourself 'citizen PR'.

Think global

I'm told that Biggins has won a TV show called I'm a Celebrity... Get me out of here! This has evidently passed me by, but appears to matter to many others in Britain.

What if we raised the bar and defined celebrity in global terms: who would appear in a list of the most iconic and recognisable living people around the world?

This exercise would filter out much of the media's influence because this tends to be local rather than global (though Hollywood and the music industry would have prominent representatives, as would some global sports like soccer and motor racing). But I suspect the biggest reversal from the usual celebrity rankings would be the inclusion of political and religious leaders. Rank and titles would reappear as a sign of renown; age would gain over youth; men over women.

I've not done the research (has anyone?), but would expect the following to appear prominently on a global celebrity ranking (some titles matter more than the title holders):

• The President of the United States
• Nelson Mandela
• The Pope
• The Dalai Lama
• Osama bin Laden
• Muhammad Ali
• Pele
• The Queen of England
• The Archbishop of Canterbury
• UN Secretary General
• Madonna, Michael Jackson or Mick Jagger
• Bill Gates or Richard Branson

Stars eclipsed by celebrities

Madame Tussauds is to close the Planetarium, that fixture of the London visit. As communications manager Diane Moon explained on the Today Programme, 'we're a world obsessed with celebrities - and there's nothing wrong with that'. It seems the planets can't match the pulling power of stellar celebrities. The Independent reported this development yesterday.

The fall of spin?

I'm not yet convinced, just hopeful. The Observer proclaims the fall of the Hollywood spin-doctors on the back of an honest celebrity interview in Vanity Fair (good publicity for the glossy magazine, note). The availability of unbiddable gossip weblogs such as Gawker is another factor cited. Peter Himler has more on this at The Flack.

PR - or publicity?

Question: which PR person was profiled on the front page of a UK Sunday newspaper review section? Answer: Pat Kingley, 'in many respects the most powerful woman in Hollywood'.

As gatekeeper to so many celebrities, she exerts control over the media that would be very damaging if she worked in corporate relations or public affairs. But it's movies (a make-believe world), so her power doesn't raise many eyebrows.

She'll demand that her stars appear on the covers of magazines or not at all, that they have the right of veto over writers and photographers, that they get copy approval... She is rumoured to have have said to one editor: 'Why do you get to decide who goes on your cover?'

I've been carrying the newspaper around since Sunday, so here, belatedly, is the link from The Observer on Sunday 25 September.