Bondage: Backlash and Bend Over

Gender equality has become a relatively mainstream concept, so it seems strange that 50 Shades of Grey has received so much commercial success. The erotic novel, containing strong themes of female submission, has become the best-selling book in Britain since records began.

Written by a woman, with a female dominated audience, 50 Shades of Grey has been described as “mummy porn” containing steamy sex scenes involving taboo subjects such as bondage. The book details an innocent virgin dominated by her high powered boyfriend. Female commentators have branded it a victory for female empowerment. Their argument often goes as follows: the novel encourages women to take charge of their sexuality; the theme of female submission plays out within sexual fantasies which are just that – fantasies rather than reality; just because a woman enjoys being dominated in the bedroom, does not mean she rejects power in other aspects of life. Popular feminist blogger Maya suggests, “…[if] gender equality allows for greater and deeper trust between men and women, then maybe we’re destined to get kinkier and kinkier… I am fully in support of anyone doing whatever (safe, consensual) thing that wants (sic) to do to get themselves off. Feminists for orgasms.”

If 50 Shades of Grey fails to offend ideals of gender equality, then surely the same would apply for women appearing in other aspects of the media - at least those with no intention of portraying females in a derogatory manner. However, Lush’s PR stunt about animal testing (see video right) earlier this year was heavily criticised for its so called use of bondage when animal torture techniques were performed on 24 year old Jacqueline Traide in the shop window of the beauty brand's Regent Street store.

(To make a disclosure: the person who organised the Lush campaign - Tamsin Omond -  used to work in Parker, Wayne & Kent’s offices for a pro bono client, although she was not directly employed by us.)

Executed in April, one blogger commented on the campaign, “Women aren't marketing tools. Rape is not a gimmick." [It now seems that that blog has been deleted.] Blogger Another Angry Woman wrote; “Lush have used violence against women to promote their own products. This is never acceptable and ultimately serves to perpetuate the context in which this occurs.” Laura Woodhouse from The F Word blog wrote, “We desperately need to draw attention to violence against women, not use violence against women to draw attention to other issues...In this context, Lush's actions are crass, insensitive and actually damage many of the people who care about the issues they are trying to raise.”  The criticism got to a scale where Omond felt compelled to use a column on Guardian.co.uk to defend the campaign from its critics.

The defence seemed to fall on deaf ears. Anna Breslaw from Jezebel.com – the site billed as “gossip, culture, fashion, and sex for the contemporary chick” –  wrote of the campaign and the follow up statement: “If…a certain sort of man will be masturbating to it later, does its self-awareness negate the fact that it's perpetuating the same sort of titillation”.

This stunt involved a female being subject to imprisonment and torture at the hands of a man. But, Lush’s campaign was not about sex. Or for that matter about highlighting women’s issues. It was about animal testing. It used a conceptually very simple mechanic to convey to members of the public the horrors of animal testing by aiming to arouse empathy with animals. The most efficient way to arouse feelings of empathy amongst an audience is to use human beings as the subject  - as an audience can relate to the subject easily. It’s a mechanic used by pretty much every pressure group, theatrical production, book or film.

The scrutiny directed at Lush for supposedly grabbing male attention and downplaying women’s issues seems unwarranted. Putting aside the fact that Lush has very little interest in marketing to men – their products are made for women – if the stunt was to titillate men, as alleged on Jezebel.com, upper / top shelf men’s magazines like FHM, Zoo and Nuts would surely have covered the PR stunt for their audience of groin grabbers as it’d be free content for the magazines to use. Sales of 50 Shades of Grey suggest that if bondage was going to tickle anyone’s fancy, it seems to appeal to women rather than men.

Much of the online criticism the Lush campaign received challenged the use of a female subject in the stunt. From a PR perspective the answer to this is simple: to draw attention to your campaign, whether ethical or not, you will be more likely to get coverage if you use images of women than if you use images of men. Open any newspaper, magazine or visit a website to find out whether that’s true or not.

It is interesting to consider whether public reaction would differ if a male test subject was used. In this instance, would the campaign still have been criticized for supposedly having sexual connotations? Probably yes, as it arouses 1980s concepts of Miss Whiplash and her clientele of MPs. The public reaction would also differ. The stunt would probably be downplayed as tongue-in-cheek. Surely subjugation and torture of any human being – regardless of their gender – should arouse disgust.

But possibly the motives behind the selection of the performance artist for the stunt are being over-intellectualised. The artist in question, Ms Traide, was known to the stunt organiser, Ms Omond. In this economy, it could be fair to say that paid work for performance art is pretty hard to come by. There could be a pretty basic fact being over-looked here. Ms Omond was in a position to give her mate a gig. Not such a bad decision to choose someone for a PR stunt, is it?

By sowing the seeds of public debate, Lush did indeed reap the benefits of the public’s attention. Unfortunately, however, this stunt was undeniably brand damaging. Then again, it was always going to be – and Lush would have known that. Associating a horrific image such as animal testing with a commercial product, service or brand is going create associations with a brand that are ugly, even when the brand is actually campaigning against such horror. Lush have built a great high street business, and as such they aren’t ignorant marketers. That the company persisted with the stunt is a truly commendable decision.

Criticism with similar sentiments has been levied at another campaign with ethical messages: American Apparel’s search for XLent models. “Plus-sized” customers were invited to e-mail self portraits to the company to win the opportunity of modelling for their new XL clothing range. Unlike a similar UK campaign, Dove’s “Real Women” Campaign, American Apparel were not lauded for promoting women of all shapes and sizes, but instead slated for having no respect for larger ladies. Nancy Upton, who won the competition, actually sent in her photographs to mock the campaign. She produced a series of humorous images including one where she slathers a pie across her face and another where she stuffs chicken in her mouth in a swimming pool. With no intention of modelling for the company, Upton said, “Companies don’t do enough research or even talk to enough plus-size women to know that these are strong, confident women. We don’t need to coddle them. We don’t needto talk down to them. We can talk to them like other people.”

Despite the fact American Apparel and Lush were campaigning for wildly different causes, they both received a hefty backlash from commentators on women’s issues. Which raises questions how 50 Shades of Grey, another commercial product with very apparent themes of violence against women is attracting acclaim. Perhaps campaigners distinguish the novel as a form of art rather than what it truly is; a business. Perhaps it’s an admission of self-defeat, that the intense buzz surrounding 50 Shades of Grey – the first commercially successful, female orientated, bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism book (there’s an initialism, apparently, which is “BDSM”, but that was found by researching this issue, not that we’re “into” that stuff) – would surely overshadow criticism of the book’s glamorisation of women being hurt.

It could be that campaigners criticize established brands to obtain the most publicity for their own cause. According to a survey recently conducted by international consultancy agency, SIGWATCH, the most scrutinized companies are not the ones with the worst intentions, they are merely the ones with the profile to boost publicity for the issue campaigner’s cause.

Any brand taking forays into ethical campaigning places itself as a target for criticism. In marketing for a more perfect world, imperfections become apparent. It’s easy to criticise such campaigns, because nobody’s perfect. Campaigning organisations themselves aren’t perfect, and if they have such an arrogance, they themselves must be questioned.

When commercial entities make moves into ethical campaigning, they need to be supported – particularly by campaigning organisations. This will encourage more brands to act more ethically. If their first attempt is feeble, they need constructive criticism to tell them how to be better, not destructive criticism that will dissuade them from ethical behaviour in the future.

LinkedIn Users Loving Twitter Breakup

More than three out of five LinkedIn users (61 per cent) say their experience of the business networking service is now “better” or “much better” since their connections’ Twitter updates were removed from their live stream. The poll, carried out by Parker Wayne & Kent Public Relations, also shows that younger LinkedIn users were more likely to be in favour of the change. 

In June 2012, Twitter announced that tweets would no longer sync with LinkedIn streams, severing the two and a half year partnership between the companies. Ryan Roslansky, Head of Content Products at LinkedIn, said the split stemmed from Twitter’s “evolving platform efforts”, suggesting a push in efforts by the micro-blog giant to channel consumers back to its own site.

According to Michael Sippey, Product Team Director at Twitter, some of Twitter’s new features, such as expandable tweets, were not visible on LinkedIn. He noted in a company blog post that “[users] need to be able to see expanded Tweets and other features that make Twitter more engaging and easier to use. These are the features that make Twitter Twitter.”

Whilst many may have expected this backtracking move to be met with objection by social media users, poll responses suggest otherwise. Of the 300 voters who participated in the poll on LinkedIn, just 11 per cent of voters feel that it has become “worse” or “much worse” while 28 per cent maintain that their experience of the site remains unchanged by the split.

Many assume that younger people are the most hungry for social media updates from every platform, yet the results of the poll prove that those in a younger age bracket appreciate the split most. Of the voters whose birthday is logged with LinkedIn, users in the 18-36 year old bracket showed a significant tendency to say that their experience has been improved.

When the partnership between the two social media sites began in 2009, the syncing of streams was set to boost the number of younger users on LinkedIn. In return, Twitter was to gain increased exposure to LinkedIn’s fast-expanding user base. The sync appealed to users as it allowed CEOs and employees on LinkedIn networks to provide real-time updates to their connections.

However, the poll revealed that the general sentiment once tweet updates were removed was one of relief. Participants said that having LinkedIn activity streams filled with tweets became a nuisance. Where many Twitter users may update every hour or so, LinkedIn users might only update their statuses once a week. The result was that carefully put together LinkedIn updates were swamped by a mass of tweets. One user commented, “The tweets on LinkedIn were akin to spam mail, rarely having anything to do with professional networking”. Another user commented “it is too bad that this feature was abused by so many”, whilst one referred to the tweets on LinkedIn as “pointless rambling”.

Senior Public Relations professional at Parker, Wayne & Kent, Richard Bell, said “If social media sites are going to collaborate successfully, there needs to be a way to filter what is relevant for the different sites and for the different users. Syncing updates across all social networks makes the content untargeted to each networks’ communities and users’ various groups of connections. The time-poor business community wants focused content with a personality on LinkedIn; Facebook users want deeper personal information from people they’ve met; Twitter users want information, recommendations and short comment from strangers as well as friends.”

It is still possible for LinkedIn updates to broadcast to Twitter. When posting a status on LinkedIn, clicking the ‘Share on Twitter’ button beneath the text box will permit the status to appear on Twitter feeds.
The results of the poll here. 

Social Media’s Not Enough for LinkedIn

It was odd. All these people waffling on about how great social media is, and they’re all at a trade show, meeting together - actually talking. If you listened to the enthusiasm enunciated in their words, you’d have thought that social media was the be-all-and-end-all of marketing, news, and social interaction in general. Nothing else mattered. But I was meeting them face-to-face at a trade show. The irony was lost on most, but Social Media World Forum showed that whilst social media is a go-go, the reality is that the trade show still has an imperative role in effective engagement.

Yet a study conducted by Altimeter Group shows the level of hype continues unrestrained. A third of the 140 social-media strategists interviewed spend between $100,000 to $500,000 a year on social media marketing. This suggests that social media is worthy of a high budget, but not as cost effective as you might think. The ROI of social media campaigns is largely unknown.

Like most companies, LinkedIn, the fast growing professional network, employs a clear social media marketing strategy in line with its well established online reputation. One of LinkedIn’s successful social media channels is its blog where employees at LinkedIn post specific information they've spent time developing, but which failed to make the cut of the company's PR campaign. It has become an unexpected success turning into a resource hub not only for LinkedIn users, but also journalists and other bloggers to discuss current issues making conversations and feedback more immediate. LinkedIn has used its blog to implement a more simple and effective communications strategy than traditional media outreach allows by creating an online forum accessible to a number of different stakeholders.

However, in its work up to IPO the online network’s membership base has grown over 160 percent in the last two years to 150 million users , with the number of corporate customers increasing by 450 percent in the same period through investment across marketing disciplines. The decision to use a variety of channels indicates the company’s recognition that relying on social media alone cannot achieve the level of success desired.

LinkedIn's marketing campaign has to maintain current users whilst enticing potential new customers – or “product”  – to become part of the ever growing online social media boom. That oft quoted “If you’re not the customer, you’re the product,” is most clearly demonstrated by LinkedIn. Unlike other social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter, LinkedIn has cleverly defined users who are true customers – those that spend money with LinkedIn on premium profiles and advertising – from those who are “product”, merely signing-up to benefit from the free services that LinkedIn offers. One of the most valuable customers for LinkedIn are recruitment consultants. These customers want to benefit from LinkedIn’s “product” – all those people who put all that CV information up online. Hence why LinkedIn exhibited at Recruitment Agency Expo in February 2012. (See the pic.)

By exhibiting at the Recruitment Agency Expo trade show LinkedIn’s marketing team demonstrated that traditional marketing cannot be ignored in spite of the hype around social media. Contrary to the array of extravagant, eye catching and expensive stands at trade shows, LinkedIn’s presence was simple, honest and understated. Consisting of just a couple of white pop-up stands scattered with the company logo – costing no more than £200 each - a camera, a laptop and a stool, the multi million pound company’s minimalist stand intrigued passers by. It didn’t have fancy banners, flat screen TVs and an extensive floor space as you might expect of such a large and innovative company, but what it did have was a clear, effective and extremely simple stand that did exactly what it was supposed to do – generate sales leads for LinkedIn.

Visitors could have their photo taken against a backdrop of the LinkedIn logo and set up an account there and then. The LinkedIn logo is then in clear view on the person’s profile image for all to see. However the person who looks at their profile picture most frequently is the person whose profile it is. This reminds that person that LinkedIn offers services to recruiters whenever they check their profile. LinkedIn’s decision to exhibit at the Recruitment Agency Expo enabled paying-customer lead generation from the range of attendees from recruitment firms, rather than just gaining individuals that simply benefit from the free services that LinkedIn offers. They acquired customers, not just product.

Trade shows provide exhibitors with the opportunity to network, promote products and services and learn more about their target audience’s needs. A study outlining the value of trade shows claims that 75% of attendees have a personal agenda with a good idea of the companies they want to see, whilst 46% of executive decision makers make purchase decisions whilst at a show. Equally trade shows enable exhibitors who attend to extend their promotional reach beyond the footfall of the event by liaising with the journalists. This enables a business to share information about its products and services, increase its standing in the media and raising its profile amongst consumers or relevant publications who didn’t attend the event.

Cynicism about the value of trade shows is rife and online networking through social media is often touted as a replacement for industry events. But social media isn’t replacing other marketing channels; rather it provides an additional communication avenue that is most successful when used in conjunction with more conventional methods. Kay Luo, director of corporate communications at LinkedIn, says its outreach strategy includes both traditional and social media including PR, advertising and trade shows.

Interaction with customers remains key and it’s important that marketers remember that their advertising must be effective rather than expensive – a mantra effectively demonstrated by LinkedIn’s modest but effective stand at Recruitment Agency Expo. Strong effective offline marketing is just as vital as newer techniques when engaging with audiences, building brands and strengthening the level of trust between company and customer. Companies will always seek to employ the most contemporary marketing methods to grow their business but sometimes its best to take a responsible step back. Effective marketing doesn’t necessarily mean expensive marketing. LinkedIn, the largest professional network has demonstrated the value of offline marketing tactics better than anyone by employing simple, cost effective strategies that have increased its client base and allow it to continuously grow and dominate the professional online world.

Community management in iGaming video: Playscan

Sara Larsson, Chief Marketing Officer at Playscan, talked Parker, Wayne & Kent through Playscan's community management tools for iGaming and gambling websites:

 

Playscan is the first tool worldwide to offer players a way to keep track of their gambling behaviour, both in terms of their own perception of gambling via a traffic light system, and provides an analysis based on their actual gaming data.

Online gambling video: TopBetta

Todd Buckingham, CEO of TopBetta, introduced Parker, Wayne & Kent to a brand new social betting platform:

TopBetta is the world's first social betting platform for sports and racing tournaments that enables sports fans to compete against each other, rather than the bookie. It's changing the way in which people bet on sports to make it all about the users, and how wisely they can place their bets. Punters don't even have to put any money down, as TopBetta provides free to play tournaments that enable players to win cash prizes without betting a penny. TopBetta combines the best of social gaming and online gambling to provide users with a rich, unique and rewarding sports betting experience.

Have a heroic new year

Outrage For The X Factor Machine

It’s official. The nation is obsessed with the media monstrosity that is The X Factor. Auto-tuning auditions, exploiting the mentally ill, the innocent and the deluded hopefuls, and the production team’s decisions to drop anyone with real talent but no emotional back-story. Not despite, but because of, the continuous negative coverage related to the show, the public are tuning in and ratings seem to be at an all time high. The publicity strategy for this year’s X Factor campaign (cue back drop fireworks, stings and rapturous audience applause please)…causing, and sustaining, public outrage.

When Cheryl Cole chose not to let eighteen-year-old Gamu Nhengu through to the live shows after a flawless performance at Cole’s million-pound pad in Ascot, the public were furious. They blamed Ms Cole’s decision to end the young girls dream on her immigration status, as Miss Nhengu and her family have recently been refused permission to stay in the UK and face deportation back to their violent and unstable home country, Zimbabwe. Although cleared of racism after Cole punched a black toilet attendant in 2003, her decision not to let Miss Nhengu through to the live shows sparked a huge race row. Seeing the usually obsessed-by-everything-Cheryl-Cole-says-and-everything-Cheryl-Cole-does nation turn against her was fairly man-bites-dog, so great publicity for the show.

Call us cynical but at the back of X Factor publicists’ minds, the toilet attendant fiasco is something that has been forgiven but not forgotten from Ms Cole’s past. Faced with a black African contestant, the publicists were able to turn a controversial event in Ms Cole’s past into a valuable media asset to publicise the show through outrage.

We’re not the only minds that this possibility has popped into, Mark Borkowski commented in a recent article, on his website Mark My Words that: “I strongly suspect that they may be deliberately leaking info and then claiming to be upset, thus generating more stories. All of this boosts the show, the ability to make money, and more often than not it is at the expense of the ‘talent’.”

Social networking sites are undoubtedly one of the best ways for people to express their personal feelings, vent some anger and generate debate. And the vehemence in which people portray their opinions through these sites is a hell of a lot more aggressive than what is portrayed in print or broadcast media. With 17,000 people joining a Facebook page ‘Gamu should have got through’ in a matter of hours after the show was aired, and a ‘Hate Cheryl Cole’ trend emerging on Twitter, these two social networking sites were clearly a great method of supporting the media strategy. And The X Factor is clearly aware of this. If they want to create hype, using social networking sites is probably the best way to go about it and they’re certainly not going to generate the same amount of fuss about the show if they put through the public’s favourite, maintain Cheryl Cole’s ‘the nation’s sweetheart’ title and simply let the overall winner get that expected Christmas number one spot they’ve always dreamed of.

However, one’s fall is another’s rise. The “Mr Nasty” music mogul and fellow X Factor judge Simon Cowell is coming off looking like the good guy. Again. Granted it is his show, so why wouldn’t he want some positive PR. Using Miss Nhengu’s uncertain future, BBC News reported Mr Cowell “has thrown his weight behind the campaign to save X Factor singer Gamu Nhengu from being sent back to Zimbabwe.” Simon Cowell commented: “We have lawyers working with her lawyers – not because we have to – but because I really feel for their situation, and that’s outside of the show.” How good of him. Although I’m sure the price he’s paying for his lawyers will be like a drop in the ocean compared to the money gleaned from sustaining viewers to the ad breaks during The X Factor, whether or not Miss Nhengu’s potential deportation is “outside of the show”, the media coverage of the threat is a boon to the programme’s view figures.

Nick Ede, Creative Director of Eden Cancan, comments that: “The controversy surrounding the judges’ choices is always of interest and there will always be media stories to fuel the public’s interest in the build-up to the first live shows. It’s a win for The X Factor but a loss for Cole.”

So with Cole getting the negative coverage this time round, the tables really have turned as Cowell has managed to go from Mr Bad Guy, to Mr Nice Guy – at least for now. On the contrary, the incredibly powerful entrepreneur is never going to come out of the show any worse off from any negative publicity the show receives. This is, after all, the man who attacked last years Rage Against the Machine campaign to sabotage the Christmas number one spot from winner Joe McElderry, telling The Daily Star: “It’s all very Scrooge.” Of course, he probably wasn’t that bothered by it at all as he does after all own rights in Sony BMG’s catalogue – who Rage Against the Machine are signed to. So for Simon Cowell, it was always a win-win situation. He’d earn money from sales of “Klling in the name” and “The Climb”.

Profiting from the positive and the negative – what a genius.

It wouldn’t be unfair to suspect that the previous 2008 campaign to get Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah to the number one spot and deprive winner Alexandra Burke of the Christmas number one with her version of the song, was a test run for the Rage Against the Machine campaign. Social networking sites went lunatic, and although Alexandra Burke still managed to win the top spot, fans were angered on either side of the debate. This perhaps resulted in the show realising just how much benefit they can gain from pissing people off.

So when Ms Cole kicked off Gamu-gate, social networking sites were swamped by X Factor viewers’ campaigns demanding the reinstatement of Miss Nhengu and hundreds of fans lined the streets outside the eighteen-year-old’s house to show their support for her.

How on earth did they get her address? Has the show no consideration of public safety?

Well, actually they probably do. It’s quite easy to come to the conclusion that the X Factor publicity team may’ve organised such an event. Cheryl Cole on the other hand reportedly received death threats over her controversial decision.

So we could finish this all off by saying the same trite stuff that “people are clearly forgetting that this is just another reality TV show. It’s a competition. It’s just a bit of fun…”
But no – what people are clearly forgetting is that the X Factor is a masterful media product, a powerful publicity machine and a genius money-making, ad-unit selling device. Question and criticise the ethics, but be amazed and aware of its raison d’être.

All the so-called ‘leaking’ of stories about the show and about its contestants seems like an inexcusable way for a huge corporation to exploit innocent contestants who have no idea what they are letting themselves in for. Miss Nhengu recently told The News of the World that: “If I hadn’t been on X Factor everything would have been fine. Someone else would have been the scapegoat instead of me.” All these hopefuls want is a chance to live their dream of becoming the next Leona Lewis, but if the show actually treated them with any respect, they wouldn’t receive the publicity the show craves so badly.

So this years PR campaign of causing public outrage is doing pretty damn well so far, but what those who are so outraged need to see is that while it’s all very well campaigning against decisions made by the show, bitching about it by the water cooler and criticising the ethics of the show, if you really want to make the point, stop watching the show.

Try it. See if you can. We challenge you.

Rooney pays privacy price for profitable publicity

If Wayne Rooney’s PR team had had some sense they would have known that one tell-all interview about prostitutes was quite enough personal information. But instead of then requesting privacy they advised him to splash his wedding photos across the covers of the nation’s glossy magazines. And then helped his wife to build an empire of fashion lines and reality TV shows on the back of his fame. Of course, they received a handsome fee for all this.

It should have come as no shock then when they were forced to advise him not to even try and keep the press quiet about recent allegations surrounding his infidelity. After all, he was happy to ‘bare all’ about similar stories in the past; the only difference was this time it wouldn’t be him and his advisors making money out of it. Rooney’s PR men have turned the idea of his ‘celebrity private life’ into a laughable oxymoron. It appears they’re not the only ones to have done so.

Celebrities, like Rooney and his wife Coleen, promote themselves, with the help of PR teams and advisors, as a brand and make a lot of money from telling the media about their private lives. Any celebrity worth their salt will now have accounts on many of the various social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, allowing them to promote themselves directly to their fans and across the Internet.

Frequently celebrities will use social networking as a covert PR tactic. They tweet personal information and then, just when we’re hooked, ask for the press to ‘respect their privacy’. Actor Neil Patrick Harris is a prime example of this. He tweeted that he and his partner were planning to adopt twins but also expected complete privacy. As every good celebrity advisor knows, by asking for privacy a celebrity will, more often than not, generate more press coverage – just take a look at the Catherine Zeta-Jones wedding photo scandal if you need proof. It’s all just a little like reverse psychology for the media world. After all, the word privacy just screams ‘scoop’ to journalists.

Despite this, it should not be forgotten that some celebrities are famous simply for being very good at their job. Fame is a price rather than a perk to these celebrities and they have no choice but to hire PR advisors simply because of who they are. These celebrities are usually able to have social networking accounts and handle publicity without causing too much scandal. They are after all just people living their lives. They are not elected officials or members of government necessarily deserving scrutiny for immoral behaviour. Which profession celebrities choose to work in should give the media no more right into their personal lives than they have into anyone else’s.

It is the celebrities who exploit their fame, through extensively revealing interviews, ‘too-much-information’ tweets and publicity stunts, who give up their privacy. Agents and PR teams must take responsibility for this though. Most celebrities have their actions dictated by advisors whose main aim is to make as much money from their 15 minutes of fame as possible. Although everyone is accountable for their personal actions, the way celebrities handle the media, particularly in times of crisis, is often not their decision.

As such, many celebrities are advised to plea for privacy on emotional grounds and there is no doubt that stories such as this do have a devastating impact on the individuals involved. However, it seems that much of the time the wish for privacy actually has nothing to do with protecting them. It is simply a PR team’s way of trying to save brand value and keep hold of lucrative sponsorships and contracts.

Rooney’s case draws unsurprising parallels with that of John Terry whose gagging order was over-turned because it appeared he was more concerned with protecting his financial interests than his family’s feelings. Rumours of Rooney’s infidelity were already rife in football circles. With the certainty that they would soon reach the Internet, it seems his advisors motivations may have been no different. The Rooney brand is fronted by a ‘happy family’ image and the suggestion is that it was this they were trying to salvage, not Coleen’s feelings.

Celebrities, despite what the media says, are not always aware of what they are letting themselves in for by becoming famous. The media argues that celebrities should expect privacy invasion simply because they’re famous and journalists often claim ‘the public’s right to know’. Whilst celebrities undoubtedly have a right to privacy what they have lost is the expectation of it. Rooney’s failure to obtain an injunction suggests that when it comes to celebrity PR clearly there is such a thing as ‘too-much-information’. Agents must make celebrities very aware that there’s only six inches between a pat on the back and a kick in the arse. Unlimited or uncontrolled promotion of private lives naturally compromises claims for personal privacy.

Truth and Lies in PR and Media

It is foolish to believe that articles in media are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is also imprudent to say that everything in the media is lies or untrue. The people that say, "I don't believe anything in the papers," can't possibly be right. They may not agree with the content of an article, and they may have a very healthy scepticism about the content of the media in general, but most people only know that Barak Obama is the President of the United States via the media having not ever seen him in the flesh.

Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News, argues that journalists have become dependent on the public relations industry to such an extent that it is harming the media’s balance and objectivity in news reporting. Journalism’s primary task, says Davies, should be “to filter out falsehood” but journalism has now “become so vulnerable to manipulation that it is now involved in the mass production of falsehood, distortion and propaganda.” The easy access to information in today’s society, as noted by Frederick Williams- author of The New Communications- coupled with the rise of electronic communications and the media’s recent obsession with providing a constant stream of news, has meant that journalists are under ever-weightier pressure to file an ever greater number of stories. With this increased pressure, and given how email has made it easy, quick and affordable to disseminate press releases, Davies argues that the newsroom has become like a factory production line, with reporters’ role now being to “churn” out an uninterrupted stream of stories.

The change in the reporter’s role has had a striking impact on the reliability of the British news media. In a recent study of 2,000 news stories in several major national newspapers, researchers at Cardiff University found that only 12 per cent of the stories were wholly composed of material researched by reporters. Four fifths of the stories were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry. Journalism is easily influenced by PR, so if reporters are failing adequately to check their facts, then there are implications for the PR industry. The media has never before been so dependent on news stories created or influenced by PR. So, while a PR person’s job is primarily to provide information and opinion, they are in an almost uniquely powerful position when it comes to influencing the veracity of news that appears in the media. The industry as a whole must take care not to abuse this power, and be seen actively to contribute to the truthfulness of news stories. This leaves aside public relations’ ethical duty to the wider public. But that ethical duty to the public goes further than merely disseminating accurate and truthful information. If PROs have a duty to the public at all, then they must also be committed to influencing the media to ensure that what appears therein is truthful. Journalism and PR are two professions supposed to keep the public informed.

Over the course of the autumn and winter of 2009, more than 444 PR professionals from a wide variety of organisations and consultancies were invited to take part in an online poll to establish their opinions on the importance of honesty in public relations and the media. There are limitations to the poll. It is an online poll conducted in isolation- it analyses the opinions of a single industry's practitioners on the truthfulness of their own profession and on that of the media. Also, the construction of the questions encouraged respondents to take a very absolutist approach to the ethics of communication and lying - you either lied, so "Yes", or you did not, "No". In an absolutist sense, white lies are still lies, and we should be aware that if the industry absolutist in its defence - stating that its practitioners never lie - then they must also be absolutist in their communications ethics.

The results reveal a streak of cynicism within the PR industry, with the vast majority of PROs claiming personal probity, yet criticising their industry peers. Although 88 per cent of PR practitioners say they have never made a claim or disseminated information that they knew to be false, 73 per cent believe that public relations professionals lie in the course of their work. This huge disparity in perceived ethical conduct suggests that people in the PR industry have a very low opinion of their own industry. That said, 96 per cent of PR people agreed with the statement that they regarded themselves as fundamentally honest (55% "agree", 41% "totally agree").

When considering the media environment as a whole: presenting truth in an absolutist sense - as in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - is very difficult to attain whether by journalists, sub-editors, editors, advertising executives, publishers and public relations practioners. So if truth in this sense is unobtainable, the currency of the media can be seen in general as fact, opinion and interpretation of facts. Or maybe "angles".

There are often many unconsidered facts, opinions and interpretations that do not appear in articles, however dressing up lies as fact is of course morally reprehensible. Lies do appear in the media from time to time - unquoted "sources", someone in an online forum and maybe even journalists themselves. That does not mean that everything that appears in the media - either from a PR operation or a journalist is a lie. Both industries must necessarily provide fact because without those facts, trust as a source of information will be lost very quickly.

One does not need to write an essay on ethics to conclude that public relations, like journalism, has a duty to wider society to tell the truth. When a journalist checks facts, and puts the time into investigating an article in an unbiased manner, this gives more value to the article - both to society and often to the PR operation itself if the article or subject matter is truly useful to society.

Deservedly or not, the PR industry has a reputation among the public for spin and untruthfulness, and the survey results show that this perception is current even among PR people themselves. The issue of truth needs to be considered more by the industry rather than just through this simple survey. It needs to get to a point where PR people can be confident that they and their peers are acting ethically. When there is confidence about the ethics of people working in the industry, that ethical confidence will be communicated to critics. If public relations practitioners are not truthful, this threatens any genuine attempts to foster productive and mutually beneficial relationships with publics.

Read the full report: Facts, Angles, Opinions And Interpretations - How Much Is Truth And Lies In The Media