Federal Reserve Tries to Burnish Image with Ad Campaign

Anne Landman — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:36:19 -0500

The Federal Reserve Bank is on the hot seat for failing to protect consumers from unscrupulous mortgage lenders, failing to predict or prevent the financial crisis, and its involvement in the multi-billion-dollar, 2008 taxpayer-funded bailouts, making this a great time to run an ad campaign to try and burnish its image. As the time nears for Congress to consider legislation to rein in the country's financial sector, the Fed started running 45-second public service announcements in movie theaters throughout the U.S. urging viewers to use their credit cards wisely. Amid jazzy music, an announcer asks, "Want to use your credit card wisely? Here are some tips you can trust from the Federal Reserve." The announcer suggests things like paying your bill on time, staying below your credit limit and watching for changes in the terms of your account. Rocky Vega of the Daily Reckoning points out the hypocrisy of the Fed urging the responsible use of credit, saying the Fed "has been on a spending spree in the trillions of dollars, with seemingly little concern about the debt being accrued." The timing of the ads could also help improve the Fed's image just as its Chairman, Ben Bernanke, faces hearings to consider his nomination for a second term.

Sugar-Coated Counterattack

Bob Burton — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:15:35 -0500

The PR firm Edelman is handling a crisis management campaign for Imperial Sugar to "pick apart claims" by a whistleblower about poor safety standards at the Port Wentworth refinery near Savannah, Georgia. Graham H. Graham, who was Vice President of Operations for Imperial, testified that the refinery was a "dirty, dangerous facility" before a February 2008 explosion which killed 14 people. In its report on the explosion, the Chemical Safety Board stated that “Imperial’s management as well as the managers at the Port Wentworth refinery did not take effective actions over many years to control dust explosion hazards...". Bill Huey from the PR firm Strategic Communications, commented on O'Dwyerpr.com website "that wasn’t fairy dust that exploded in Savannah and killed 14 people. The plant had obvious safety problems, and attempting to discredit a whistleblower (to the point of suborning a United States senator) isn’t going to work."

Toxic PR

Bob Burton — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 01:42:26 -0400

The Denver public relations firm MGA Communications boasts that it has won a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America, for its work organizing a special event at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal for Shell Oil. Chemical weapons had been manufactured at the site for for the U.S. Army before it was leased to Shell, which manufactured pesticides there until 1982. In 1987 the site was designated as one of the most polluted Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites in the country. MGA, which has worked for Shell for over 20 years, states on its website that "the task was to ... dispel false claims, and shift focus back to where it should be -- the cleanup and transition of the Superfund site to a national wildlife refuge worthy of the nation's pride." In 1995, Greg Marsh, an environmental chemist with a local watchdog group described the information given to the public by MGA/Thompson as "watered down statements written by slick-talking liars."

Putting Lipstick on a Sick Pig

Diane Farsetta — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:17:09 -0400

The National Pork Board and its public relations firm, Weber Shandwick, are working "to distance 'the other white meat' from the outbreak of swine flu in the U.S." The industry group "is highlighting health and safety measures at hog raising and production facilities in the U.S. and assuring consumers and media that pork products are safe to eat ... [and] providing media with soundbites and video from top staff." The group is pushing people to call the virus the "H1N1 flu." Pork Board head Chris Novak complained that "calling this swine flu, when to date there has been no connection between animals and humans, has the potential to cause confusion." Meanwhile, PR executives are giving the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) high marks for its flu communications. A Burson-Marsteller crisis management specialist called the CDC "pretty effective ... in informing the public and, just as importantly, in setting expectations. ... They erred on the side of overcommunication and that's exactly the right thing to do," she told PR Week.

Merck's Heart-Stopping PR in Australia

Diane Farsetta — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:24:20 -0400

In Australia, the pharmaceutical company Merck is on trial. Australians who took the pain medication Vioxx allege that Merck and its Australian subsidiary, Merck Sharp & Dohme, "knew Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks long before it voluntarily withdrew the drug from the market in 2004." Merck has paid $4.85 billion to U.S. Vioxx patients, but never admitted liability. As the Australian trial proceeds, Merck's public relations people from the Kreab & Gavin Anderson firm "follow journalists out of court, ask them what they are writing, hand out daily press releases and send 'background' emails they say should not be attributed to the company but which detail what they think are the 'salient points' from the evidence presented in court." The firm also phones reporters who write critical articles, to accuse "them of 'cherry-picking' the evidence and bombards newspapers with letters to the editor ... five were sent to The Australian in just seven days." Merck's Australian PR team, along with U.S. Merck spokeswoman Casey Stavropoulos, attends each day of the trial. The PR team sit near journalists covering the case, at one point even "looking over the shoulders of journalists at their notepads."

Anger Management

Sheldon Rampton — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:00:59 -0400

Harvard Law School is hosting seminars in April and November to teach "Public Relations, Communications and Media Strategies for Dealing With an Angry Public." They'll be teaching techniques for dealing with people who "are angry because you've let them down" or who "want to embarrass you publicly," as well as "environmental groups threatening you" over issues such as "the use and disposal of toxic materials." You can visit their website for details. A flyer announcing the seminars carries endorsements from officials with the U.S. Air Force, Federal Aviation Administration, ConocoPhillips and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. If you're angry at any of the above, or even if you're just outraged by the price of the seminars themselves ($1,950 per attendee), you know who to call.

Even Dezenhall Couldn't Have Saved Madoff

Sheldon Rampton — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:48:52 -0400

"As the swindle of the ages inches closer to its denouement, reporters covering financial scandals -- and a few friends -- have asked me, 'What could somebody like you have done for Bernie Madoff?'" writes crisis management specialist Eric Dezenhall. His answer is, not much: "Whereas attorneys dwell in the world of legal nuance, crisis communications is all about painting plausible alternative narratives to the allegations at hand with a very broad brush. There are, however, crimes that are so monstrous or unambiguous that there is nothing that can be done to paint them as anything but a desolate landscape." However, he thinks other financial companies may have a shot at rehabilitating themselves with the public, or at least staying out of prison. "Those facing prosecution associated with subprime mortgages may, unlike Madoff, actually have something to work with. Subprime lending was not a scheme cooked up by a hidden cabal of swindlers meeting in out-of-the-way motel rooms to fix prices, but a loudly-merchandised enterprise by publicly-traded companies that was embraced by government policy that cheered easy home ownership as an American 'right.' ... If our society wants to have a serious debate about its debt-addiction and the government policies and corporate enticements that exploit it, defense teams will argue in the media and in court, so be it. But to declare such behavior criminal because what goes around finally came around ignores the most critical underpinning of prosecutions: Criminal intent."

The PR Firm for "Evil"

Bob Burton — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:44:16 -0400

After it was revealed that the floundering American International Group (AIG) had hired Burson Marsteller (B-M) as one of its PR advisers, Rachel Maddow, the host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC, wondered who else the firm had worked for. After a scathing review of their past clients -- including the Argentinean military dictatorship, Philip Morris, and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu -- Maddow concluded that "when evil needs public relations, evil has Burson-Marsteller on speed dial.” In response, B-M CEO Mark Penn wrote an internal email to staff claiming that Maddow "significantly mischaracterized the nature of the firm's past." In the email, which was leaked to PR Week, Penn wrote that "we are and should be proud of the work we do. ... While we can't spend our time responding to every attack that comes our way over the internet or cable television, I do think it is important that I reach out to each of you to let you know that we have a good story to tell about the work we do."

Global Warming Fills Lobbyists' Coffers

Bob Burton — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:18:31 -0500

A review of U.S. lobbying disclosure records has revealed that global warming has proved to be a boon to lobbyists. The Center for Public Integrity. a non-profit journalism group, estimates that "more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy on climate change in the past year." The Center calculates that the climate change-driven boom has resulted in "an increase of more than 300 percent in the number of lobbyists on climate change in just five years, and means that Washington can now boast more than four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress." Amongst the lobbyists benefiting from the boom are Wayne L. Berman, a former Bush administration official who now heads Ogilvy Government Relations; John Breaux, who founded the Breaux Lott Leadership Group with former Senator Trent Lott; and Kirk Blalock, a tobacco industry lobbyist turned Bush administration official who is now a partner at Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock.

Before Blackwater Had Xe, PM Had NewCo

Anne Landman — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:14:50 -0500

First of all, we want our name changed from 'cockroach' to 'companion beetle.'After years of bad press over no-bid contracts and massacres of Iraqi civilians, the private military contractor Blackwater Worldwide has changed its name to the cryptic "Xe" (pronounced "Zee"). In an eerily similar move, disgraced sub-prime mortgage lender Countrywide announced that its new name is the smooth-sounding "Bank of America Home Loans." Rounding out the triumvirate of chameleons, Baghdad's Abu Ghraib Prison, made infamous worldwide for the torture and abuses perpetrated inside its walls by both Saddam Hussein and the U.S. government, is changing its name to "Baghdad Central Prison."

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