PUBLIC RELATIONS REDISCOVERED

THE GENTLE ART OF PERSUASION.

Public relations comes of age.

Becoming one of the top selling agents in the world is a matter of choice. Getting people to come to you to sell their products is also a matter of choice. It is the choice of people who simply want to get on with it and are prepared to learn and apply a few techniques of the gentle art of persuasion.

Some scores of years ago when public relations seemed out of place in polite society, Britain had come to a crossroads. Victorian attitudes were still very much in place and dusty frosty offices with worn curtains and polite, well educated, personnel verging on the saintly, addressed you with a sense of importance that was deeply impressive. The question of promoting or worse, selling anything forcefully was the cardinal sin that bordered on delinquency. Soft, alluring posters and well explained offers set in a habitual format was the order of the day and somehow, things worked but then competition was not as keen as it is today. The consumer storm had not yet arrived. There was a niche for everything and nothing could be done in a rush. Things took their time, but they got done. There was however a way of doing things, of plying the product gently to accustom the client to its wonders and perhaps purchase. It was always honest and slogans were colourful and to the point. Today however, the market place feels like something out of Dante´s Inferno where the buyer treads wearily with strong chances of being taken for a veritable and expensive ride. Consumer controls went by the board decades ago, if they ever really worked and short of daring to go before the expensive and unpredictable courts there is very little chance of redress in the mayority of cases. Some denounced companies, mainly monopolies, swamp consumer agencies with millions of similar complaints. Short of creating a massive pro consumer public service complete with free legal advisors able to take the issues up to the highest authorities, it is doubtful that an effective means of preventing these abuses will be found in the near future. The skilful and honest use, however, of public relations techniques by competing companies, could very well redress the trend as people seek clarity and understanding of the benefits of the product claiming attention. If ever a professional art deserved a second chance, it is most definitely this one. Eventually, without doubt, transparency will rule the day and every aspect of the service or product will have to be sold with clarity attached to public relations techniques designed to do just that

Monopolies and abuses.

The devious and monopolistic giants who march through the markets with half truths and every psychological trick under their arms, get away with it, but only for a time. Even for them, the market eventually falls away as they defy and break the rules of guaranteed success. The joy ride may fool the public and shareholders for a while, but it only takes a well aimed rebuttable of the product value for money, from the most unexpected sources and the downward trend can become unstoppable. In some cases, the perpetrators move away into retirement and the shareholders hold the screaming baby with little more than a long and arduous return to normality, if at all, on the way. The sweet side of the pill however is that for those very perpertrators whose end profits were tied into their share stakes, a sudden lunge to safety by disposing of personal shares is adecuately registered in the market with the corresponding loss of share value. To get away with it, the delinquents have to do it in one go and send the remaining shareholders into the pit. Dumping is what it is called and although a criminal offence, it has for the past half century gone unnoticed or unchecked in most European countries. As a result, those administrators who traded in lies and false public relations to prop up or promote an unhealthy product or service, could only rid themselves of the very liability that they were creating by casual, steady sales of their large shareholdings in the hope that the journalistic watchdogs (do they exist anymore ?) failed to notice.

At the tender age of 18, I was being watched by employment specialists who had noticed that I had a very different way of doing things. My stock in trade was above average English and fast typing speeds. Having to work to be able to study part time, was not quite the way of doing things, but it got me into the market place early in the game. Work of any sort became the main stimulation in life with a broad spectrum of possible avenues available for those without any real sense of direction. I decided to live and choose by the day whilst trying to keep interesting studies alive. I thought then that the challenges that these jobs that were being offered represented, were by far more educational than any sticky mass of stereotype studies that seemed meaningless in the context of personal development. I chose the school of life and let myself go on any challebege that held my interest, if only for a short time, leaving only the unequenched appetite for university life and the character development available there. As an immigrant with little chance of returning home for some years at least, it was a question of not wanting to know the pitfalls or where the next baked bean would come from. It did not even strike me as important. I simply got on with whatever happened that day knowing that it had a benefit at the end if I did it well and fitted it into a gradually emerging scale of values. I had an innate vision of cause and effect, but I enjoyed turning it all into what I thought it could be turned into with that little bit of extra effort. I made things grow and people turned and took notice. It was almost comical. Some invited me to address the board. Others paid for and put special protective covers on any books I chose to buy. In the case of publishers, like Haymarket Press which sported a Chairman who was to become a household name, I had the choice of long lists of stimulating and educational books which I read with the voracity of a dinosaur. Little did I know however, that only a short three years later, I would be talking a language of accumulating wealth; that the press would take notice of such an immature teenager and that my first car would be a a Rolls Royce. I did not even have a licence when I actually bought it since London transport was so varied and traffic so horrific that it put me off even taking the time consuming courses. I simply loved the Burgundy monster when I saw it and had to have it taken home there and then. When I did pass the required test, my tutor who took me back to where he picked me up for the exam in his Austin 40, said “I watched with horror as you stood next to the RR. I thought you were fantasizing.” In fact he rushed out screaming and scaring the living daylights out of me as I opened the car door. “Don´t – please don´t you are not quite ready for that. He was trembling with apprehension and insisted on taking me out in it during the week. I promised not to touch it. It was automatic and although I had driven it around locally with L plates to the amusement of most, it was a bit of a weapon in the wrong hands.

Small beginnings – mayor results.

The Daily Telegraph letter sparked it all off. It was published in defense of a political situation that I was incensed about. It was hard, to the point and I think, impressive, but then, something I appeared to do well, was compose a good letter. I also spoke that way thanks to my Grammar School teachers and even perhaps to my Primary School tutors. I remember being set up on a pedestal desk at the age of seven and asked to read out loud in English to what appeared to be jaw locked , future colleagues terrified that they should be asked to do the same. That letter in the Telegraph some nine years later, produced, it would appear, a flurry of response from a variety of people who insisted that they meet me. I was only allowed one contact and only because, according to the editorial department, there was possible employment at the end.

I entered austere, heavily carpetted premises of the type I explained initially with every attachment of gilt framed paintings, mirrors and polished wood. I later found out that the whole house was a public monument having beeing created by one of Britain´s great architects, Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens. It was reminiscent of the Dickensian interiors I had read so avidly and the extraordinarily affectionate and charismatic person who received me, the embullient Alderman Kenneth Hay, towered behind a desk that clearly spoke of weight and carving effort. I was about to be praised and employed as the very first public relations officer of a struggling and ambiguous national, educational institution with the mandate to create a Press relations department and bring in lots of new students. The art, for that is what it was being plied as, had just about began to be noticed by the highly conservative institutions which faced a bleak future in anonymity unless they brought themselves to the fore of press attention.

I did it well. I did it too well and perhaps innocently casting a shadow unwittingly over the very man who had faith in a gawky teenager - the future magnate who sparkled with innocence and had never met challenges other than exam after exam which were sailed through like knife to butter. What the secret was, I still do not know – the imagination perhaps, but over the years with accumulating successes, I had other ideas as to what it was. In fact, I was not that clever. I froze when asked direct questions involving memory in things like quizzes knowing the answers but unable to formulate them. So much therefore for the brain and its function. Given time and thought, I could plan and build a pyramid, but faced with en emotional situation involving others, I lacked the necessary discretion or sense of diplomacy to avoid confrontations. I never acquired it. The instant reactions would make me a veritable liability in politics or in the face of hypocritical social behaviour. Yet, I found that if I channelled the gut feelings produced by tasks in hand, without outside influence, most things became what I imagined they would lead to. Challenged unfairly however, I was all too capable of throwing in the towel instantly, vividly imagining situations that I could be led into. I also found that studied acceptance of the basic components of most situations as plus or minuses, produced the inner calm and clarity of vision that enabled me to see things through however tangled they appeared to others.I could rate things including human behavioiur in mathematical terms which did not exactly endear me to sensitive people. Some people high in the social game, called it psychic, but as time went by, as mentioned, it became a skill – an acquired ability to see the way ahead but always, within rigid criteria based on ethical values. My Irish Christian Brother teachers probably never quite knew just how close to sainthood they had driven me and conversely how pragmatic, inflexible and ultimately unforgiving individual they had created. I would pay the Midas price.

Success after success, altered little in this respect. Doors opened in every direction as my public relations skills and what most assumed was business acumen placed the horn of plenty firmly in my hand. Associated journalistic skills, brought the contact with the influential and learned of the social scene of the sixties and seventies within the same grasp, for good or bad. I could not however despite criticism of arrogance even remotely understand what exploiting opportunities meant and often saw advantages pass on to people whose values were questionable but who appeared not to find utilising contacts a matter of course. On one occasion a very prominent member of society whose company I enjoyed by virtue of the style of life I led and what appeared to be genuine attachment, was puzzled enough about my lack of guile to make an offer which at the time was literally climbing up a whole ladder in one go. I am not sure whether it was a test of character or simply a moment of weakness. I looked at the bottom line and was disturbed by the implied committment and the implicit understanding that I obviously wanted something of the relationship. I reacted as I always did with well chosen words of resentment and and it took a very long time before our relationship returned to normal. I had however, tasted the bitter sweet taste of missed social shortcuts. It was to haunt me for years, but despite often being condemned in my absence by those who attempted to manipulate me, I was stronger in some spiritual way and this became the cushion I needed for harsh realities of life. Some years later, a chance encounter enabled me to see where a less resentful person had accepted similar terms and just how easily the honours and glories of the opportunity had been obtained. I was never, even after such revelations tempted to either sacrifice ethical values, honour or personal liberty for the sake of tinsel. I knew then that public honours could be bought and despite moving close to and enjoying immensely the occasional relationship of the people capable of providing them, even without payment, the thought of utilizing those meaningful interchanges never crossed my mind. Neither would I ever embarass or utilize personal contacts for the sake of social enhancement or short cuts. I was incapable of riding opportunities when they arose, if I felt that I was off track – that somehow I was taking advantage. I valued looking at people straight in the eyes and feeling that in some way, I was someone they could always rely on and if necessary, derive support from. I discovered that unwittingly I was honing in to the most powerful force in the world. The force that held society together and always ensured that everything set up, stayed set up and grew as if by magic. It also ensured that even the people who utilised you to their own benefit, always came to your doorstep at one time or antoher in silent consternation but happy to be there.

The most powerful approach.

Public relations was designed to create and maintain a mutual relationship between product (or service) and client. It used to be wrapped in a module of ethical values which unfortunately, in the main, appear to have been discarded. The main aspect of this basic understanding of public relations is, that without ethical values, the sum effort of the persuasion ultimately comes to nothing. The scale of genuinely and long term succesful outcome is dependent on the degree of misrepresentation utilised. In short, the bigger the lies, the sooner it will be found out and the sharper the final reaction. Everyone knows about the impact the word free, for example, has in an advert or offer and most know that the purchase comes to an end when the price tag appears. The consumer danger lies in the absence of a demand for payment until well after the event and sometimes, when it is difficult to get out of the contract. Bottom lines are not always clear and with modern, highly sophisticated, marketing techniques, the fraud does not become apparaent until the bills come in with the all the attached threats on non payment. It takes little consideration to understand that the relationship with the supplier is not going to last long, but the latter has already, by virtue of mass marketting exercises, brought in the score of millions they aimed for. Next time round, they will do the same under a different name with an altered, but just as fraudulent approach.

Many of the giant monoplies (even in highly sophisticated democratic countries) get away with these technically delinquent, exercises and continue to trade in the absence of effective competition. Among these are the energy, airline and communications merchants who often get fined, long after the event, by judicial processes but have meanwhile scored well on the stock exchanges which define success with healthy balance sheets.

To recap, sales marketting techniques based on misrepresentation, create short term rewards even in the absence of real competition. Long term public reaction often see these abusers, discredited and abandoned. Often, the fraudsters for want of a better word, have to resort to an image cleansing campaign utilizing every possible, genuinely acceptable, marketting techniques to do so, but public memory is long and the emergence of meaningful competition often undermines them significantly. The introduction of public relations as an art, underlined the complexity of the subject and the degree of finesse required to perform with it in the final aim of establishing and maintaining a strong relationship with the client or public. Trust therefore and transparency is most of the game and in that, the very product plays an important role.

Some products are self evident. Quality of performance and overall advantages over any other of its type is apparent in use, but often the household name of the producer is enough to provide the attraction. Luckily, the market names of respect, ensure that quality does most of the job, but even these, from a public relations view point, leave a lot to be desired when the brand itself suffers considerably in the hands of those suppliers who fail to provide the client service one would expect. Sometimes, a form of negative sales approach provided by a supplier, covers a desire to switch attention to other less favourable products which provide better margins. Public relations techniques therefore often have to offer the buying public, information that goes beyond the basic qualities of the product. It sometimes has to define the absence of such in the most immediate competitor.

It is here that the art of public relations, properly performed, scores well above the convenient design abused by those simply looking for the widest margin in the cheapest manufacturing cost. Today, many multinationals, look to countries like China to copy and produce high selling products which are often inserted in the market as the originals or cheaper competitor. The drop in quality of the basic materials to achieve market breaking prices, often result in throwaway, one use, rejects which have unfortunately been paid for at prices, often very close to the originals. This tactic is often described as “grey imports” and despite European protective legislation, for example, sit in most of the shelves of multinational outlets as their own versions. One of the trajedies of these malpractices is that the originators who spent years and millions into the perfection of a good product at the right price, often have to cut back in production unaware that their international sales are being sabotaged by the copy dealers. Neither are they aware that the seemingly identical product is a lower specification copy and that the they and dangerous, copy accessories, will taint the name in the public mind.  Clearly, the art has a lot to get on with and particularly, as we shall see, when it is defined as a function and not an instrument of management.