FlamingText

Making Up Your Mind: Part II

That Warm, Soft Glow

When I'm watchin' my TV and a man comes on and tell me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarettes as me

  You know when you’re seeing an advertisement. You’ve seen plenty of them by now and you’re no doubt familiar with how they work. You know that the message relates to the product name that can be seen at the bottom of the screen (or hovering right over some cleavage) and that it’s designed to elicit some kind of favorable response from you. You’re probably even aware of the sorts of psychological appeals that are commonly used in advertising, understanding that most products avoid direct appeals to reason (this product is superior to other products, this product is necessary, this product will enhance your life in some tangible way) because those sorts of appeals are likely to be addressed critically by the recipients, whereas direct emotional appeals stand a better chance of influencing that person’s actions by bypassing critical thinking altogether. You, jaded media consumer that you are, recognize advertising when you see it and adjust your perceptions accordingly.

   There is a large class of PR that is similar to advertising in its appearance and methods. For instance, it has been said that Coca-Cola™ is the most successfully branded product in the world. It is sold in virtually every possible outlet that exists for carbonated beverages (often to the exclusion of competing products) and the name is a household word which in many places has become synonymous with “soft drink.” * So when you see an ad for Coke™ on television, it is not performing the same function as would an ad for a product which is unknown to you: "Hey! There's a new product in town! All the cool kids are trying it!" Instead, it is serving to reinforce that strong sense of brand identity and maintain positive associations with the brand name: "Remember that day when you played hooky from work and went to the baseball game? Wasn't that a great time? You just sat there watching the game and drinking a Coke™ without a care in the world. And then you saw your boss on the JumboTron™ ! What a day that was..."

  Similarly, when you see a message saying “GE: Imagination At Work” * immediately following your favorite PBS show, the intention is not to sell you light bulbs. Presumably you are already aware that GE™ makes light bulbs. Instead, the intention is to foster a positive feeling towards their company that a more descriptive slogan like “GE: Begrudgingly Fulfilling Our Court-Ordered Superfund Clean-up Obligations” would not generate.

  Here's a quick question: When you hear the old corporate slogan for GE (“We Bring Good Things To Life”) can you hum the accompanying melody? Do you suppose that you remember it because it’s catchy? Or because you’ve heard it repeated oh, a few thousand times and it is now indelibly burned into your psyche? GE engaged in rather aggressive branding efforts throughout the last two decades, resulting in that eight-note ditty becoming an inescapable fixture of the media environment. These efforts may have been undertaken at least in part to offset negative publicity surrounding GE's involvement in the production of nuclear weapons. After a lengthy boycott and an Oscar™ -winning * documentary entitled “Deadly Deception” inspired a growing backlash by publicly airing damning accounts of flagrantly irresponsible conduct, GE in 1993 sold off its Aerospace division and got out of the nuclear weapons business. It has since expended a great deal of capital shoring up its image as a responsible corporate citizen.

  This sort of campaign is known as "Damage Control." When a corporation's image is suffering in the public sphere it is often deemed necessary to engage in this type of PR to offset negative perceptions surrounding its products and activities. In the case of GE this ultimately took the form of placating its harshest critics by divesting its interests in the most controversial aspects of its business while simultaneously stepping up efforts to strengthen the brand name's association with the more humanitarian aspects of its operations, such as its contributions to medical technology.* But what is a corporation to do when no such divestiture is possible? What if the business model is so inextricable from some negative outcome that simply getting out of that business and walking away would represent too great a loss for the company’s shareholders to stomach?

   Those sorts of PR campaigns are the most interesting of all. Perhaps the best example, the poster child if you will, is to be found in what is hands-down the most successful damage control campaign of all time: That waged over the last half-century by the tobacco industry.

Next: Pt III!

Posted by flamingbanjo at October 12, 2006 06:39 PM