PR with a higher purpose

I was aware that religious and spiritual organizations practice PR and promotional tactics in order to deliver their desired message. Discussing their strategies such as branding, celebrity endorsements, word of mouth publicity, direct marketing etc even led me to believe that they practice a kind of ‘disguised’ public relations. Although the existence of regulated organizations that undertake PR responsibilities for religious groups was news to me.

WDC media is a leading media and public relations firm; they claim they are ‘Good news specialists’ who do ‘PR with a higher purpose’. Since its launch in 2003,
WDC Media has been effectively bridging the gap between religious America and the secular media. Their clients include faith-based organizations, ministries and businesses who need to deliver a religious or faith based message. They may be rooted in Christian values but claim to relate to all kinds of faiths and beliefs. Among WDC's most progressive and successful clients is Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the world's largest religious broadcaster. Also apart from garnering effective media coverage for their clients they also produce religious films.

Organizations like these are revolutionary in the world of PR and are introducing a whole new genre to the world of PR and Marketing. In a recent article in US Religious News stated that the chasm between religious America and the media is being bridged by an amazing telecommuter-based publicity firm, WDC Media, which is employing a new market strategy while gaining the lion’s share of the religious publicity business. So it can easily be said that PR is going places and it’s taking its religious beliefs along.

Organizations like WDC media have even inspired large multinational PR firms to undertake faith based practices. Mike Paul, the president of MGP & Associates PR, claims that his public relations firm's philosophy 'is grounded in both business and biblical principles'. In a recent seminar about the Evangelical society, Paul further endorsed religious PR by saying that "If you're a Christian organization and you want to get stories placed on mainstream media consistently, you need to form a relationship, you need to think from their perspective, not just our own," Paul added. "It's a two-way street." That is also the philosophy behind most PR and promotions and seeing religious and spiritual organizations adopting it makes us believe that religious promotion maybe the new trend in PR and marketing.

The Scientology Celebrity

Religious organizations are not only practicing PR and Marketing; they are adopting it with all its trends. The most effective trend to hit the spiritual world is that of celebrity endorsements. After conquering and exhausting the red carpet, celebrities are now turning to religion to add their glamour.

The church of scientology has even established a ‘celebrity centre’ within Hollywood to cater to the scientology needs of it’s celebrities. The founder, L.Ron Hubbard says “The world is carried on the backs of a desperate few.” Unfortunately, it is these desperate few who are often the most neglected. It is for this reason that L. Ron Hubbard saw to the formation of a special Church of Scientology which would cater to these individuals — the artists, politicians, leaders of industry, sports figures and anyone with the power and vision to create a better world’
Illustrious patrons to this church include Kelly Preston, the Presley Family, and Kirstie Alley, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise and his family. In fact Tom Cruise has heavily endorsed the faith by having a widely publicized Scientology wedding ceremony, and speaking about it constantly in the media so much so that The Sun newspaper nicknamed him ‘The Christ of Scientology’. Celebrity mania within this religion increased to such a level that it triggered an investigation by FACTnet, who declare that all these celebrities are not simply propagating their faith; however they are compensated heavily for their endorsement. FACTnet made further claims that Scientology's celebrities are compensated richly for endorsements with:

• Free Scientology services costing up to $1,000 dollars per hour. John Travolta alone has had in excess of $100,000 of free services in compensation.
• Commissions of up to 10% for bringing people into Scientology (who subsequently pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for Scientology's services).
• One or more Scientology staff being sent to travel full time with celebrities as "support," at Scientology's expense.
• Free luxury accommodations and carte Blanc use of the finest Scientology facilities and properties. E.g. During their visit, Cruise and Kidman are provided the additional luxuries of a specially prepared suite, maids, and two four-star chefs, all at scientology's expense as a quid pro quo exchange for Cruise's endorsements of Scientology. (Source: http://www.factnet.org)

While some may view this as an unethical use of Religion and god, it cannot be denied that it is very effective marketing. Using celebrities is a tried and tested formula which is known to have worked for brand image, corporate social responsibility, crisis management and advertising, so why now religious promotion?

A brief history of how it happenned?

This is an interesting video about the origins, spread and rise of religions accross the world. The video observes that Hinduism is one the world'soldest religions, however Christianity and Islam are the most widespread.

Does GOD practice PR ?

It was purely by observation I realized that the latest users of Public Relations and marketing tactics are religious and spiritual organizations. Walking down London’s Tottenham court road you will almost definitely be stopped before a storefront called ‘the church of dianetics and scientology’ and will be asked to come in for a free stress test and an introduction into the practice of scientology. A few steps further down you may encounter a ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna’ disciple inviting you for a free meal at their temple along with an introductory discourse on Krishna consciousness. It may be disguised as ‘spreading the message’ but if you think about it, these smooth-talking, smart salesmen are practicing direct marketing and, throwing in freebies and incentives just ads to their use of promotional activities.
As a PR student it is interesting for me to notice how PR is taking over the world and is applying itself in all possible fields. However when it comes to faith or religion the roots of using promotional strategy or tactics that may classify as modern day PR are steeped in world history. For example Sikhism in India bas born out of Hindu-Muslin angst and angst against the caste system, however it spread by the effective word of mouth promotion of it’s founder- Guru Nanak and his disciples. Being only 531 years old, one could say that Guru Nanak saw a market for a religion of its kind and thus went about promoting it effectively. In a country like India, where religious converts usually arose out of conquests, Sikhism re-instated the concept of religion by way of ‘spreading the message’.
Even Christianity and the Church are known to use widespread promotional tools and events towards spreading their message. In fact the Christian faith has since history been accused of using propaganda tools in order to further their belief;, however propaganda is also something that Public Relations has forever been accused of using. In light of this I found a comment on the BibleBabble website that may not have qualified as propaganda but it definitely qualifies as Public Relations,

“No doubt you have been walking down a street, in a store, or in a public bathroom, when you look down and there in front of you is a ten dollar bill, or a wallet, maybe even a nice folded up hundred dollar bill. You see the money and think that today is my lucky day (or in case of the wallet you hope there's ID so you can return the wallet), but when you pick it up it's actually something promoting Christianity. Who hasn't had this happen?”

By making all these observations, under no circumstances am I trying to insult any religious practices or lower the credibility of any religion, my observations purely go on to raise the credibility of the practice of Public Relations.

PR has a duty to tell the truth, No ?

A few days ago the University played host to an exciting debate titled ‘PR has a duty to tell the truth’. Amongst the speakers were PR-guru Max Clifford and PR man turned priest George Pitcher. The motion of the house was defeated, but its difficult to say if that was actually the general consensus or that people were more awed by Max Clifford’s enigmatic style of putting a ‘spin’ on things. Since the room was filled with PR students and practitioners it is safe to assume that most of them believe that they need NOT tell the truth for PR purposes. In fact the word ‘spin’ reveals how PR has more of a duty to twist, gloss-over and manipulate the facts rather than tell it like it is. However I do have a few observations and arguments of my own that contribute to this debate. Interestingly a lot of the crises’ that PR has to manage or salvage arise out of the revelation of what maybe called the truth. This can be explained by taking the example of Coca-cola and Pepsi in India. They faced a collective crisis recently when the ‘truth’ about the colas containing a high level of toxic chemicals and pesticides was revealed by the Centre for Environment and Science (CSE) . So what does one do when your duty to tell the truth is what is causing vast damage to your image and your sales? Well, Coke and Pepsi responded by denying everything flatly and getting celebrities to endorse their safety claims. They also issued a bunch of alternative test reports and had everyone believe what they wanted to prove was the truth. So in a case like this the whole concept of truth gets warped because Coke and Pepsi are back on track and going strong in spite of once being accused of negatively impacting the Indian nation’s health. Similarly, signed as the new face of Yardley cosmetics, actress Helena Bonham Carter, unthinkingly once told a magazine journalist that she didn’t wear make-up. So the ‘truth’ was out, what could be worse PR for the company if the endorser herself claimed that she never used the stuff? So it has to be agreed that in a situation like this, Helena should probably have lied and attributed her beauty to Yardley cosmetics, after all that is what they are paying her for. Although there are many situations in which the truth works much better than anything else. Microsoft, in the wake of an Apple Computer ad campaign to woo Windows users, briefly ran a similar ad of its own. An ad, titled "Confessions of a Mac to PC convert," was posted to Microsoft's Web site. The article purports to be a first-person account of a writer who decided to switch from an Apple Macintosh computer to a PC running Windows XP. The writer was quoted as saying. "I like the Microsoft Windows XP operating system enough to change my whole computing world around”. It seemed like a really good idea until CNET News uncovered the fact that it was a PR stunt by Microsoft rather than a real person writing the testimonial. Apparently the PR consultants to Microsoft were not all that techno-savvy as they should have been and Microsoft has since been the subject of extensively framed online forums for the ‘lie’ and their reputation has thus been sullied. Therefore truth or no truth, in the words of Max Clifford, ‘PR has a duty only and only towards their client’.