Bluff world of PR may be good natured but bad for clients

The late Hollywood director Sam Goldwyn once cracked: “The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

The amusing little aphorism came back to me after a recent phone conversation with a public relations executive.

We were discussing a client of his – big Dubai name, although it shall remain nameless, as shall he – and I’d offered a critique of said client’s business strategy and achievements over a number of years.

I don’t really think I believed all of my critique, but was working on the “devil’s advocate” technique of journalism, that is, to come out with something outrageously negative and see what reaction it provokes.

The PR launched into a defence of his client that blew me away. All my negative points were answered satisfactorily, plus a couple of negatives he’d thrown in that I hadn’t even considered. The “spokesman” was obviously well on top of his brief, and I told him so.

But then he clouded the water by adding: “This isn’t PR, this is me believing it.” The Goldwyn alarm bells began to rang immediately. Was he faking it?

The declaration that his views were not just part of an advocate’s eloquent spiel, but actually reflected his personal convictions, made me more suspicious of them.

Or was it all a double bluff? Was his declaration of personal sincerity sincere or faked?

I think I’d rather be on the safe, familiar ground where a PR pretends to back his client’s track-record/reputation/creditworthiness, and I pretend to believe him, rather than having to weigh his genuine convictions against my professional scepticism.

The other conversation was equally perplexing.

Occasionally, as someone who’s been around UAE media for a few years now, I get a call from a PR seeking my opinion of an issue, a company, or an individual.

It’s usually a prelude to pitching for new business, or making a new hiring, and I’m happy to give my half-baked views where I can.

In this case, it was a hiring. The firm – again, no names – was considering hiring an individual I knew and was looking for an honest appraisal. I said bluntly that I thought the person concerned would have little credibility with journalists.

“We’re not too bothered about that, as long as he’s good with the clients, and we think he will be,” came the PR man’s reply.

Well, OK, I understand that the PR business isn’t what the Americans call a not-for-profit, working unpaid towards the goal of better communication and public transparency.

We all have to make a living, PR men as well as journalists, and the clients, after all, pay the big bills. But PR firms should ask themselves why they’re in the business at all. Surely the job is to help clients communicate with the world at large – shareholders, stakeholders, employees, governments – via newspapers, online, social media and all the rest of the media. If they give up on one end of it – ie the media – they’re letting the clients down too, simply by not fulfilling that part of the contract.

A very wise PR man once said it was “bad manners to get between the client and the footlights”, meaning the activities of the PR business should not obstruct the audience’s view of the client.

I’d always assumed the media was part of the audience in this scenario, but now it seems the poor old hacks are outside the theatre altogether, in the cold, peering through the stage door in pathetic hope of a glimpse.

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