Tags:
Perhaps more than anything, social media has demonstrated the accuracy of Andy Warhol’s 1967 prediction that ‘in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.’
But some 15 minutes last longer than others. I thought my musings on the infamous Coldplay ‘Kiss Cam’ incident were too late – until the spoof on Strictly Come Dancing showed that this is one story that has stayed in people’s consciousness.
‘Kiss Cam’ certainly sparked numerous debates on topics such as the nature of privacy, how much your personal life and conduct should impact on your working environment and even the ethics of big companies using the situation for some reactive marketing.
For me, it certainly highlighted how difficult it is to be deceitful in our all-seeing digital world. Cameras track our every movement, and our phones give away our precise location.
As I know very well. A few years ago, even before apps such as Life 360, I attended a client’s management conference, which that year was held in Amsterdam. Our team building exercise involved walking the city streets, answering questions on different landmarks and doing various tasks. With this client, a stop at a local hostelry along the way was obligatory. Sharing some photos on my phone with my wife after the event, the location for our happy group shot proudly proclaimed ‘Red Light District’!
However, while it is easy to be ‘found out’ in this digital world, the same digital tools also make it much easier to put out misinformation, untruths and fake news.
Of course, such things are not solely a product of the digital world. According to a BBC article, fake news was used as early as Roman times, during the civil war between Octavian and Mark Anthony, to discredit Mark Anthony. Octavian got his negative messages across through poetry and short, snappy slogans printed onto coins – the forerunner to X or TikTok?
And not all fake news is deliberate. Chinese whispers is an old game where a message is passed from one person to the next and the message gets distorted as it travels down the line. It highlights the challenges and potential for miscommunication when information is shared, especially when relying on memory and oral transmission.
I remember a teacher demonstrating this at school. While I can’t recall the piece of news he started with, I do know the final version bore no resemblance to the original message. Now, with a bunch of eight-year-olds, it is very likely that at least one or two of them deliberately chose to alter it – but that is what happens when someone wants to manipulate a narrative to suit their ends.
So, in a world with easy access to information overload, where identifying what is genuine, half-truth or a downright falsehood is increasingly difficult, where does that leave PR and marketing communication practitioners? After all, we are often referred to – usually in a derogatory way – as ‘spin doctors.’
Well, I have always found in the business-to-business world that PR honesty and integrity are essential to operate effectively and deliver for clients. Yes, it is our job to present them and their products and services in the best light and to put the most positive ‘spin’ on the news and content that we create, but we veer away from the truth at our peril. Good relationships with the media are built on trust – betray that trust and it’s a long and difficult road to get it back.
If you constantly provide well-written and accurate information, you can very quickly build up a rapport and a good working relationship with your media contacts. It can help to get your story selected for publication over other equally deserving ones. It can also mean that when you do have to handle some bad news, you may get a more sympathetic treatment. Of course, the journalist will still have to run the story but there can be a huge difference in its tone and how it is presented.
Such a philosophy has served Nielsen McAllister and its clients very well over the years and will continue to do so in today’s crowded and noisy media environment.
Two more thoughts on the Kiss Cam incident – whatever else AI and digital technology can do, they cannot (yet!) change human nature. If the guilty couple had brazened it out for the few seconds the camera was on them, although it might well have led to company gossip if they had been spotted and possibly some questions at senior level, the incident would surely have been far more contained and not turned into this global story. But their immediate reaction to duck out of sight made it social media gold.
And, the Astronomer’s immediate reaction in the hiring of Gwyneth Paltrow as a temporary spokesperson does tend to prove the old saying “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”!
In her latest blog, Rhiannon discusses the five benefits of strategic outsourcing PR services.
PR is often thought of as sleek, controlled, and meticulously planned. Press releases, media events and content strategy are all carefully orchestrated. But anyone who’s spent time in this world knows the moments that stick aren’t the ones that went perfectly; they’re the ones that go completely off-script.