education

Writing for AdWeek, Andrew Adam Newman reports that a deceptive PR campaign on behalf of the Coach bag company has become "the latest illustration of how a buzz-seeking stunt may backfire." Led by Paul Werth Associates, an Ohio PR firm, the "International AntiCounterfeiting Campaign" (IACC) sought to discourage people from buying knockoff handbags. As part of the campaign, Coach persuaded Hunter College in New York to offer a public relations class which invented a fictional student named "Heidi Cee." They created blog postings, a YouTube video and MySpace pages in which Heidi Cee complained that she had been ripped off when she bought a fake Coach handbag. The campaign also claimed that counterfeit products are linked to criminal activity, child labor and terrorism. The revelation that Heidi Cee was a counterfeit herself has drawn criticism, and college officials and Coach are now trying to distance themselves from the fakery. These denials drew scoffs from Sarah El-Edlibi, one of the students who participated in the class. According to El-Edlibi, "the entire PR team from Coach was in the class" egging the students on. "We were supposed to be working for Coach, who was the client, and they really liked the idea of making someone fake. If they had some ethical issues with it, they should have said so. If there was anybody who could have stopped it, it would have been Coach."

Who could blame them if they sent the Mounties to the border? CMD reported previously on the Heartland Institute's climate change skepticism, and its efforts to cast doubt on the overwhelming evidence of global warming. The Chicago-based, ExxonMobil-funded think tank has taken its case north of the border, sending out "more than 11,000 brochures and DVDs to Canadian schools urging them to teach their students that scientists are exaggerating how human activity is the driving force behind global warming." While Heartland says that the outreach effort is an attempt to introduce "balance" into the discussion, the Sierra Club of Canada disagrees. Spokesperson Emilie Moorhouse said, "It's alarming that an American think tank is distributing misinformation on the most important issue of our time in Canadian schools, to actually create an illusion that there is a scientific debate." Ignoring the consensus reached by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that climate change is "unequivocal" and caused by human activities, "the brochure and DVD said that scientists were 'deeply divided' about 'the notion that climate change is mostly the result of human activities.'" Heartland also sent the information packets to 200 Canadian policymakers.

Buried in junk mail...what to do?A recent blog about the pro-junk mail lobby and its front group, Mail Moves America, drew many comments. Mail Moves America is a coalition of businesses that oppose efforts to create a legislated "Do Not Mail" list to protect citizens from being showered with unwanted junk mail,Junk mail is clearly a hot topic that arouses strong emotions on all sides. As electronic mail moves closer to overtaking paper mail as the medium of choice for written communication, it is clear that the Post Office remains an essential way to communicate and transfer goods. Still, many people are overwhelmed with junk mail and have little idea how to stop it.

How does a mother explain to her children why she's having a breast augmentation, a tummy tuck or a nose job? Help is on the way -- a new book for kids about plastic surgery, My Beautiful Mommy. The story features a handsome, musclebound, superhero-type male doctor and a Mommy who says that as she got older, she couldn't fit into her clothes any more. Mom explains to her child that the doctor is going to help her fix all that. Mom comes home after surgery looking slightly bruised and bandaged, but with fuller, higher breasts. The text of the book doesn't mention breasts, though; only Mom's "tummy." Michael Salzhauer, the plastic surgeon who wrote the book, said, "The tummy lends itself to an easy explanation to the children: extra skin and can't fit into your clothes. The breasts might be a stretch for a six-year-old."

Fear-driven marketing gets resultsThe Second Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals missed a great opportunity this week to hold the tobacco industry accountable for one of its worst marketing tactics -- positioning cigarette brands in response to smokers' medical concerns. The April 7, 2008, issue of the New York Times has an article about the dismissal of a huge, class-action lawsuit against the tobacco industry that was brought by smokers of "light" cigarettes who claimed they were misled about the relative safety of "light" cigarettes compared to regular, "full flavor" cigarettes. The suit, and its dismissal by the court, brought to mind a little-recognized tobacco industry marketing survival tactic that weighs heavily on the public's perception of exactly what "light" means.

The tobacco industry has long had a remarkable ability to rescue itself from damaging health claims by turning allegations against its products into marketing opportunities. Inside the industry, the fact that cigarettes cause widespread illness and death is referred to as the "smoking and health" issue, or "S&H issue" for short. Tobacco marketers consider "S&H issues" to be little more than "external marketing forces" that require re-positioning of products, through changes in advertising copy strategy, so that smokers will get an illusion of safety from the dangers they perceive.

It was originally planned as "a low-key classroom discussion about patriotism and service to country" at Forest Lake High School in Minnesota. But when the Republican Party-associated pro-Iraq war group Vets for Freedom "decided to call a press conference at the school and alerted media," things got heated. "Anti-war activists, including veterans of Iraq who oppose the war" decided to organize "their own press conference and rally." The high school canceled the event, and angry conservatives began contacting the principal, "calling him a coward, a Communist or a spineless America Hater." Columnist Nick Coleman writes, "Maybe a Minnesota school was just trying to keep its students from becoming pawns in a political game. There would not have been much outrage" if, instead of being billed as the "Vets for Freedom National Heroes Tour," the event had been called the "Republican Tour to Shore Up the Pro-War Vote," he suggests.

After the tragic collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis last August, the state wants to "restore the image of the beleaguered Minnesota Department of Transportation." So Minnesota is paying the public relations firm Himle Horner at least $550,000. The firm's work includes a "proactive, on-the-ground" initiative with "information kiosks, attempts to shape media coverage and weekly 'sidewalk superintendent tours' of the construction work." It also plans "to use a webcam to beam a half-hour live educational show from the bridge site to all Minnesota school-age children." The PR campaign was a major part of the bridge reconstruction contract. The U.S. Department of Transportation said the contract "emphasized public relations and aesthetics more heavily" than similar projects in the state. Some are questioning the need for the PR. "Who's against building a new 35W bridge?" asked the legislative director of the advocacy group Minnesota Transportation Alliance. "It ain't the spin, it's the span," quipped one columnist.

Additional details have surfaced about the story we mentioned last month regarding a corporate-sponsored hoax at Hunter College. The college receives donations from the Coach Corporation, a manufacturer of handbags, shoes and other women's accessories. In particular, Coach funded a "guerrilla marketing" class that "educated" students about the dangers of knockoff products by creating a fictional student named "Heidi Cee" who claimed that she had been conned by a counterfeit Coach handbag. "The professor who taught it says that he was pressured to do so even though he has no expertise in advertising or public relations (he teaches computer graphics) and had ethical qualms about the course," reports Scott Jaschik. "Further, the professor -- and other professors who have investigated the circumstances of the course -- maintain that the professor was required to teach only one side of the issue, had to accept industry officials watching him teach, and had little clout to fight back since he didn't (and still doesn't) have tenure." According to Hunter professor Stuart Ewen, the lessons in deception were designed by Paul Werth Associates, an Ohio-based PR firm working for the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition, a Coach-funded organization.

"A pair of agriculture groups has temporarily suspended about $1.5 million in grants to the University of Minnesota to protest a controversial study by U scientists earlier this month about biofuels and global warming," reports Tom Meersman. The Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, which funds university research into soybean use, cut off the funds after university scientist David Tilman published a study that found that dedicating huge amounts of land to grow corn, soybeans, sugarcane and other food crops for fuel could drastically change the landscape and worsen global warming. "The university hurt the farmers' feelings, OK? That's probably the best way to say it," said Jim Palmer, executive director of the two soybean groups.

John Rendon

Steve Runge, an instructor at Northeastern University in Boston, is raising a red flag about a controversial lecturer. "John Rendon of the Rendon Group will be addressing the College of Business Administration Thursday afternoon. I hope business students will take this opportunity before his address to learn a little about the Rendon Group's role in the Iraq War. Rendon, as documented in an award-winning article by James Bamford in Rolling Stone magazine, and Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's books Weapons of Mass Deception and The Best War Ever, helped promote Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as spokesperson for the Iraqi people to the Bush administration. Chalabi and the INC were directly responsible for much of the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction spread before the war, and also for the administration's rosy visions of welcomed liberators. ... Business students, I urge you to learn about Rendon on your own and recommend you attend his talk (his public talks are rare). Decide for yourselves whether his career is one you would choose to emulate."