This is classic public relations, and a lesson to be learned: When you are losing the spotlight, win it back by playing ugly. Oh, I know that the Obama team did nothing illegal, immoral or unfair. It was just so calculated. A couple of other notable examples:
- While President Reagan was recovering from the assassination attempt on him, his staff retained a scheduled visit from a Chinese leader who was older than he was. One of the most notable images from that visit was Reagan holding his visitor's elbow as they climbed stairs, which actually made the president look more vigorous.
- When Michael Jackson was facing myriad accusations of child molestation, he announced a multimillion dollar contribution of computers to a school district. This worked for about 48 hours. If Jacko could have controlled his bad behavior, the benefit of this tactic may have been extended.
When I worked media relations for GE turbine business in upstate New York, we were continually announcing layoffs. One day, the GE Foundation announced that several organizations were receiving matching contributions.... a few thousand here, ten thousand there. But when I added up the total number, it was very close to a million dollars. So that was our story:
GE Contributes Nearly One Million Dollars to Community
That bought us a well-needed respite.
The point here is that the Obama campaign knew how to take center stage away from Senator Clinton. It is a lesson those of us in external communication can well emulate. Just be sure you have a legitimately newsworthy story to tell, or the press is likely to recognize it for what it is - opportunism.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment