The Donald doesn’t care what you say about him, as long as you spell his name right. True, whenever he opens his mouth or makes a move, the press is all over him. But his massive celebrity has made him only a famous fool. You are not likely to achieve the degree of fame that Mr. Trump has, but, given his shameful image, I would congratulate you on that.
P.R. vs. Marketing
With Guerrilla P.R. (and P.R. in general), you do not tell the public that your new digital fish cleaner is the greatest invention since the dawn of time. You could easily do that in an ad. Your goal is to lead people to draw that same conclusion for themselves. Otherwise, you’re engaging in good old-fashioned—or is it new-fashioned?—marketing strategy.
Companies often relegate public relations to their marketing departments. That might make sense from a corporate point of view, but there’s a distinct difference between P.R. and marketing. Going back to the “science vs. art” analogy, whereas P.R. is the art, marketing is the science.
Bob Serling, president of the Stratford Marketing Group, an L.A.-based marketing firm, has written, “Marketing is everything you do to make sure your customers find out about, and buy, your products and services.” That’s a tall order, and to go about filling it, marketing executives lug around a hefty bag of tricks. To a large degree, they rely on surveys, demographic analyses, and established sales and advertising procedures to accomplish their goals.
But in public relations, intangibles play a far greater role. How do you measure a feeling? It’s not easy, but in P.R. we trade in the realm of feelings every day. We may use the media as the vehicle, but the landscape we traverse is contoured by human emotion.
Marketing often goes hand in hand with advertising. The undeniable advantage with advertising is that the advertiser retains full control. He knows exactly what his message will say and precisely when it will be seen. But remember this little fact of life: Most top ad agencies consider a response rate of 1 to 2 percent a triumph. That’s all it takes to make them happy. And, like it or not, most people don’t take ads as seriously as advertisers would like. Everybody knows they’re bought and paid for. These days, they are mostly TiVo-ed and skipped in the watching.
I prefer the odds with major media exposure. True, you do lose a large measure of control, and you never know for sure when or how your message will be conveyed. But the public is far likelier to accept what it gleans from the news media than what it sees in commercials. If Brian Williams says a new sports shoe is a daring innovation, people will give that more credence than if company spokesman Derek Jeter says it. The news—indeed, the truth—is what Brian Williams says it is.
So who tells Brian Williams what’s news? The media like to boast that they rely on ace news-gathering staffs, but in fact they also depend a great deal on public relations people. (That doesn’t mean the journalists of America are saps. They’re just looking for good stories.) A hungry reporter and a smart publicist constitute a match made in heaven, and it’s been that way since the dawn of the Communication Age.
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FROM THE GUERRILLA P.R. FILE
In Amarillo, Texas, you’ll find the Big Texan Steak Ranch, where the owner issues the following challenge: If you can eat a seventy-two-ounce steak in an hour, you get it free (the cholesterol test is on your own dime). News of the deal traveled far and wide, even to the skies, where I first read about it in an airline magazine.
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Glory Days: The Founding of the P.R. Industry
The public relations industry flourished with the growth of twentieth-century mass media, although sensitivity to public opinion on the part of public figures is nothing new. Even Abraham Lincoln got into the act, declaring once, “What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.” The fathers of modern P.R. knew the value of simple images to convey powerful messages.
Edward Bernays, a founder of modern P.R., defined his mission as the engineering of consent. He was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, and he strikes me as having been just as perceptive about human nature as was his esteemed uncle. Bernays displayed a genius for concocting indelible images, something good P.R. campaigns require. In one early triumph, he arranged for young debutantes to smoke Lucky Strikes while strolling in New York’s 1929 Easter Parade. What Bernays sold to the press as a bold political statement on women’s rights was no more than a gimmick to sell cigarettes.
Pioneers like publicist and film producer A. C. Lyles set the pace for generations of publicists to follow. Another innovator, Ivy Hill, is often credited with inventing the press release. Hill believed telling the “truth” in journalistic fashion would help shape public opinion. He sensed editors would not dismiss press releases as ads but rather would perceive their real news value. He was right.
The publicist’s ability to appeal to newspapers proved invaluable to captains of industry seeking to shore up their images. Back in the 1920s, Hill masterminded industrialist John D. Rockefeller’s much-ridiculed habit of handing out dimes to every child he met. Ridiculous—but effective in its time. (Imagine Bill Gates trying that today—even with dollar bills.)
Occasionally, clients got less than they bargained for. In the late 1950s, the Ford Motor Company hired P.R. trailblazer Ben Sonnenberg to help overcome the negative fallout from the Edsel fiasco. He charged Ford $50,000 for a foolproof P.R. plan, and after three days he submitted it in person. Sonnenberg looked the breathless executives in the eye and intoned, “Do nothing.” With that, the dapper publicist pocketed his check and walked out, much to the slack-jawed shock of the Ford brain trust.
Even nations sometimes need help. During the 1970s, Argentina developed a little P.R. problem when its government kidnapped and murdered thousands of its own citizens. Buenos Aires hired the high-powered U.S. firm of Burson-Marsteller to tidy things up. For a cool $1,000,000, the firm launched an extensive campaign involving opinion makers from around the world. A stream of press releases stressed, among other things, the Argentine regime’s record in fighting terrorism. Sometimes the truth can be stretched until it tears itself in half.
I don’t wish to give the impression that P.R. is strictly a polite version of lying. That’s not the case. As I said, P.R. is gift-wrapping. Whether delivered in fancy or plain paper, truth is truth, and the public ultimately comprehends it. The trick is to package the truth on your own terms.
How often have you read about a big movie star storming off the set of a film because of “creative differences” with the director? We all know the two egomaniacs probably hated each other’s guts. But if the papers printed that, we’d perceive the situation very differently. By our soft-pedaling the row with words like “creative differences,” the movie star’s reputation remains intact, even though intuition tells us the star is “difficult.”
More Than One Public
Thus far, when referring to the public, I’ve generalized to mean the population at large: We the People. The sophisticated modern art of P.R. encompasses many more “publics” than that. In fact, selective targeting is a primary tactic in sound P.R. strategies. As you will see, bigger is not always better.
Depending on the goals, a publicist could target any one of various business, consumer, or governmental communities. An inventor who seeks financial backing aims for the financial press and relevant trade publications. A rock musician zeroes in on the local music rags and well-regarded music blogs. A lobbyist might need nothing more than a friendly article in the Washington Post, a retailer only the residents in his immediate neighborhood.
Though I’ve found a few clients easily dazzled by quantity, in P.R. quality is what really counts. A seven-inch stack of press clippings means nothing unless the objectives of the campaign have been met. The scrapbook makes a great Mother’s Day gift, but I’d rather see my clients’ careers advanced in the right direction.
Figuring out which public to reach is one of the most critical decisions a publicist makes. My orientation—and, I hope, yours—is geared toward the most significant audi
ence vis-à-vis your objectives, not necessarily the widest. You may want to target the people you buy from, the people you sell to, the people you hope to buy from, the people you hope to sell to, the people you work for, the people who work for you, and so on. It’s a big world full of little worlds when you look closely.
In most cases I spell out precisely who and what I’m going after, and then proceed aggressively. Don’t go for the moon all at once. Set a goal, achieve it, then build on that base. Any good planner knows the advantages of thinking three steps ahead while proceeding one step at a time.
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FROM THE GUERRILLA P.R. FILE
The history-making August 1991 revolution in the former Soviet Union began when then-president Mikhail Gorbachev left Moscow for a vacation on the Crimean Sea. Because the whole affair had a happy ending, everybody laughed when, only a few days later, the president of an outdoor billboard company in Detroit ran a series of large ads all over town reading “Welcome Back, Gorby! Next Time Vacation in Michigan.”
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2
Basic Training
I don’t care what they call me, as long as they spell my name right.
—George M. Cohan
Ideas and Innovation
The challenge before me was formidable. I realized my client, Oscar-winning actor Charlton Heston, couldn’t possibly be made any more famous than he’d already been for the previous four decades. But as his public relations counselor I was responsible for enhancing his distinguished image and career.
Because of his legendary status, due in no small part to the epic nature of the characters he’s portrayed on screen, one area in which I felt Mr. Heston could benefit was showing the public that he was a regular human being, just like the rest of us. I also knew him to be among the wittiest gentlemen I’d ever met (this was before we parted ways over his radical gun control tirades and before Mr. Heston, tragically, began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease). Suddenly, one of those lightbulbs went off. Why not have Mr. Heston guest-host Saturday Night Live?
It was perfect. Though selling the concept to both the show and my client took some doing, in the end Mr. Heston did host the show. He was a big hit, and many critics at the time called his appearance a P.R. masterpiece. It all began with a simple brainstorm.
There’s a theme running through the examples used in this book. All are based on ideas, not skills. The tricks of the trade are simple to acquire, and easily adapted to a tight budget. The mechanics are not what count. What must be emphasized above all else is the idea itself. From there, all things are possible. H. G. Wells said, “Human history is in essence a history of ideas.”
So often I’ve heard people lament that they don’t know how to come up with ideas. As my friend psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers explained to me, “Our most creative thoughts do not come when we try to force them. They come as a by-product, while lying in the bathtub or when we’re busy with the kids.” She’s right. Robert Louis Stevenson based Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a dream. Igor Stravinsky composed in his mind the entire ballet The Rite of Spring while asleep.
Our best ideas derive from the unconscious, and that’s a realm to which we have no practical access.
Yet, the challenge to you is to base your Guerrilla P.R. campaign on ideas. But perhaps you’re unsure of your ability to generate them. Take it from me—you possess all you need to conjure up clever and effective ideas. Over the years, I’ve found that the best ideas are based on four fundamental principles:
Utility. Juxtaposition. Humor. Image.
The four are not interchangeable, and not all four work equally well for any given project. But if you look closely, within one of these principles lies the pathway to your own sensational ideas—ideas that will fuel your campaign.
Utility means usefulness. Most ideas, inventions, and innovations are based on this simple principle. The question to ask yourself is, “What do people need or want that they haven’t thought of before?”
One large bank offered customers $10 for every bank error they discovered in their checking accounts. Not only did this help the bank cut down on internal audit procedures, it also brought in 15,000 new accounts and $65,000,000 in deposits within two months. What better form of utility can anyone in business imagine than fostering good customer relations?
Successful Dallas obstetrician Walter Evans sends his new mothers and their babies home from the hospital in a chauffeured limousine. International cosmetics and beauty products giant Estée Lauder originated the idea of giving away a free gift with every purchase. Today, of course, the company is worth billions, and everybody else in that industry similarly gives away gifts.
Los Angeles radio station KTWV, known as the Wave, scored points by dotting Southern California beaches with “Wave” trash cans, encouraging beachgoers to put their litter in the proper place. It was useful, it was effective, and it made the Wave a much better known radio station than before.
Don’t worry if the usefulness of your ideas isn’t immediately apparent to others. Federal Express founder Fred Smith first cooked up his idea for overnight courier service while still a student at Yale. In fact, a paper he wrote about the idea was returned with a C grade and a scoffing note from his professor. It took six more years before Smith launched FedEx. Today, I imagine his ex-professor is coaching high school badminton, or should be.
The utility principle works not only in business but in shaping a P.R. campaign as well. When a mother-and-daughter country music duo first began to get their career off the ground years ago, instead of performing in circus-like mob showcases at well-known clubs, they performed short sets in intimate hotel rooms for a select audience of media people. It didn’t take long for the press to conclude that the Judds were without a doubt one of country music’s best artists—a sentiment just about everyone else agrees with today, years after the act stopped performing together regularly.
Utility equals innovation in design and execution. If you own a health food store, how about giving away a fat-and-cholesterol-counter guide? Do you run a sporting goods store? Hand out baseball or football schedules with your logo printed on the back. Do you manage an Italian restaurant? How about an attractive description of the various kinds of pastas printed up on giveaway cards? Then, all you have to do is let the media know about it. Apply the precept of utility, and you will make headway fast.
The second fundamental principle is juxtaposition. Woody Allen once said that this is the secret to comedy. I also think it’s one of the secrets to many great ideas. Throwing together two disparate personalities, notions, styles, or concepts makes people see things in an entirely different light.
For my client Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart, I helped come up with the idea to have her gorgeous legs insured with Lloyds of London for $2 million. One of the brightest women I’ve ever met, Mary quickly realized the potential of such a plan. I brought together one of Mary’s most attractive assets with the notion of insurability.
Two disparate themes, one wild P.R. idea.
The female hard-core rap music trio BWP sought to bring attention to itself in a crowded field of sound-alike look-alike rap groups, and hit upon the idea of incorporating into their latest music video the notorious home video depicting the beating of Rodney King at the hands of a few L.A.P.D. officers. They brought together two distinct entities into one, and reaped enormous media coverage from it.
People are used to seeing Sir Paul McCartney treated like, well, a knight. But they were not prepared, during the World Series of 2001, to see him directing traffic outside Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx. Sir Paul was attending the game as a reaction to the devastating 9/11 attacks, had become a big Yankees fan, and was just trying to help, much as he did when he composed and sang “Freedom” at a superstar concert he organized in Madison Square Garden. McCartney didn’t need extra publicity, but he did want to get a message out: they’re not going to stop us.
To demonstrate the severity of hunger in the world
, a noted charity staged an elegant black-tie sit-down dinner, but the only thing served on the fine china was a tiny portion of rice and beans, representing the typical day’s diet for most poor Third World residents. Again, the juxtaposition of upper-crust dining manners and starvation food rations made for a powerful P.R. message.
You too can devise two or more concepts and link them together, forming a similarly impressive synthesis. The alchemy you create by juxtaposing themes can work wonders for your business or your Guerrilla P.R. campaign, and you will find that your creativity will be recognized and rewarded.
Be careful, though. Juxtaposition can look disconnected and badly staged when not done well. Make sure the two concepts you’re joining are compatible and that the point being made is clear. It’s the message you’re trying to communicate through the image you’re creating, not the other way around.
If done right, the third principle, humor, rarely fails. Ideas grounded in humor succeed because, frankly, they make us feel good. If you recall your favorite TV commercials (and even discussing the idea of a “favorite commercial” is a little humorous), I’ll bet at least half are of the comedic variety. Maybe the fast-talking Federal Express man tickled your fancy, or it was the Bud Light “Tastes Great–Less Filling” debates, or perhaps the turbocharged Friskies kitten. Maybe the Geico Cavemen (who got their own sitcom out of the deal!) made you laugh, or the AFLAC duck voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Clearly, the use of humor is the most disarming method for hooking others.
Dave Schwartz catapulted his used car business into the stratosphere by renaming it Rent-A-Wreck, a moniker that delighted everyone who came across it. The name alone brought Dave literally millions in media exposure and business dollars.
Personal fitness trainer Bill Calkins got his name in every paper in the country with his annual “Worst Shapes Hall of Fame.” Patterned after Mr. Blackwell’s “Worst-Dressed List,” Bill’s list teased those celebrities most in need of diet and exercise. Sample entries saluted such notables as Chicago Bears lineman William “The Refrigerator” Perry (“The Refrigerator is overstocked”), movie critic Roger Ebert (“Should spend more time ‘At the Movies’ and less time ‘At the Snack Bar’”), and rocker Ozzy Osbourne (“The only man to find a rat in his fried chicken and eat it”).
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