University of California at Berkeley senior staff attorney and senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology Chris Hoofnagle writes, "In my work on consumer protection, I have begun to recognize patterns" in the actions and arguments of corporations and think tanks opposing regulations and other oversight. "Whether the topic is tobacco, food and drug safety, or privacy legislation, these groups employ the same rhetorical devices to delay and stop consumer reform." Hoofnagle presents common arguments by these pro-corporate "denialists" as a deck of cards. Arguments likely to be made early on in anti-reform campaigns are lower-level cards, progressing up to the face cards. "No Problem" is the two of clubs, "Stifles Innovation" is the six of hearts, "Fake Consumer Groups" is the ten of clubs, and "We'll Lose Money!" is the ace of clubs. "I hope the Denialists' Deck of Cards has been an entertaining critique," concludes Hoofnagle, adding that it "can help consumer advocates frame the opposition that they receive."

Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com examines MoveOn's new role as power-broker for the Democratic Party. "MoveOn, which began with an e-mail petition opposing President Clinton's impeachment in 1998, has grown into one of the biggest and best-known netroots groups on the left. ... Now, however, with the Democrats running the House and Senate, MoveOn's stance on the Pelosi bill has led critics to suggest complicity with the new congressional power structure. ... MoveOn has long been part of Win Without War, a large collection of progressive antiwar groups; now it is virtually alone among the coalition's membership in its support for the Pelosi plan."

As noted in previous Spins, the movie "InnerState" was bankrolled by Johnson & Johnson to promote a drug produced by its biopharmaceutical unit, Centocor. But J&J isn't alone. The Fireman's Fund, along with its PR firm, Ketchum, "brokered a deal with the History Channel for its 'Into the Fire' in 2006." The TV movie was geared to show that "post-9/11, firemen's services are basically under-funded," said Mark Owens of Ketchum Entertainment Marketing. "We didn't set up to make a documentary about the brand. ... If it were a preachy story about what the brand was doing, it wouldn't work." Owens said that although TV movies get better numbers -- "Into the Fire" was watched by three million people -- "showing a corporate documentary in a theater is a 'Holy Grail for what a brand would like to have. It is prestigious and has a great sound and feel.'"

Examples of product placement

The New York Times reports on two marketing trends. "The Online Publishers Association released a study showing that mobile Internet use was on the rise, as was acceptance of mobile advertising," reports Eric Pfanner. While "the publishing group's numbers seem surprisingly high when compared with other recent surveys of Web access by mobile phone users," mobile marketing "could be a big thing simply because the potential audience size is enormous." Nokia recently announced "new services to increase mobile advertising." For television, the trend is to make commercials seem more like programs and less like ads, reports Stuart Elliott. "We want to bring the audiences right to the commercial so they don't feel they've gone into the commercial," explained ABC's Michael Shaw. The CW network "is selling commercials that resemble programs, with the sponsors' products incorporated into the plots." VH1 has "Showstoppers," which intersperse "program snippets and [ad] spots." General Electric is producing commercials for "new-media outlets like video on demand and the Internet, which bear titles like 'G.E. One-Second Theater' and 'G.E.'s Imagination Theater,'" named to evoke the old "General Electric Theater" shows hosted by Ronald Reagan.

In February the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) hired BKSH & Associates, Burson-Marsteller and the polling company Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, to promote the need for "free, open and transparent elections in Pakistan in 2007." The contract, which runs to June 2007, could be worth as much as $250,000. Pakistan's current Prime Minister, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, came to power in 1999 by a military coup while the leader of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, is living in exile. Kevin Bogardus reports that the first stage of the campaign involves the development of op-eds and white papers. This is to be followed by a "broad public affairs campaign" which includes enlisting "third-party supporters," including former U.S. government officials and think tanks. In the final stage, the campaign hopes to organize meetings for Bhutto with the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post and also "target top journalists" such as the Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

An examination of records from Minnesota, where legislation requires drug company payments to doctors to be disclosed, reveals that between 1997 and 2005 over 5,500 medical professionals in the state were paid a total of over $57 million. Gardiner Harris and Janet Roberts report that "another $40 million went to clinics, research centers and other organizations. More than 20 percent of the state’s licensed physicians received money. The median payment per consultant was $1,000; more than 100 people received more than $100,000." Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, who worked as a sales representative for Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson until 2002, explained that "the vast majority of the time that we did any sort of paid relationship with a physician, they increased the use of our drug ... I hate to say it out loud, but it all comes down to ways to manipulate the doctors."