Nothing works better than the truth

One of our founding fathers of the public relations industry once said, “Perception is reality”. Harold Burson was of course referring to one cornerstone all communications professionals should embody: manage the perception of your client to its stakeholders.

Another founding father of our industry and former Burson-Marsteller man, Robert Leaf, also has shared his insight into perception, reality and PR: “Public relations is about perception management. You might run a great company, your product or service might genuinely provide great benefits. But if the customer does not perceive it that way it remains on the shelves.” It’s Public Relations 101 stuff; a cornerstone of the industry that we all have to be reminded of time to time – even the founding fathers.

But the picture on the other side of the coin is a blurry one.  We cannot assume that all companies’ products, services and business practices can justifiably be described using one of the countless superlatives the English language affords us. All is well when the cool scoop of perceived reality, with hundreds-and-thousands sprinkled on top, and dished out by the spin-doctors, reflects the truth – even with the hundreds-and-thousands.

However, when the perceived reality, with promises of the hundreds-and-thousands in abundance, doesn’t even have the ice cream sitting below, things aren’t so sweet. Think Enron – the perceived reality, which their PR guys undoubtedly played a role in developing, was that Enron shares were a safe and lucrative bet. We now all know that Enron was heading for the biggest fall from grace in US corporate history; its stakeholders suffering big time.

When perception is reality, but not necessarily the truth, we are left with a different ball game; this is where perception management – a rather ambiguous term – becomes more than just shifting as many cartons of ice-cream out of the freezer to the delight of the client and the kids who bought it. As the Wikipedia entry shows, there are connotations attached with it, for example, its roots with the less euphemistic US Department of Defense term ‘information warfare; information warfare having the basic ingredients of falsehood and deception.

It’s not pretty stuff. But let’s not shy away from the reality that there are elements in public relations practice where falsehood and deception are utilized for achieving objectives – for better or for the worse. As one of the earliest founding fathers of public relations, Edward Bernays, commented:

“When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans… using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Council on Public Relations”.

Bernay’s comments paint a rather murky image of the industry – there are legitimate reasons why the ethical public relations debate is out there. Even as recently as yesterday, news broke that the former White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, is claiming that he was sent out to lie on behalf of President Bush – telling the White House press corps that the two aides, Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in leaking the identity of a CIA agent. The excerpt from his book reads: “There was one problem. It was not true.” Scott McClellan is on the money with this one. The perception that Bush had no involvement has been tarnished because, according to McClellan, it isn’t true.

And the truth is important. In this day an age reputation is a key asset for any organization or company. And although it must be constantly earned, it can be lost in a fleeting moment. We are now living in an era of scrutiny and the ‘big, bad’ corporations are often the ones who are scrutinized the most. Former White House press secretaries can write books and throw mud which sticks on a president, corporation, whoever; a blogger in Vietnam can tell the world about their sweatshop treatment on behalf of Nike. If it’s a story, we will be reading it with our clients’ stakeholders on our RSS news feeds come the next news cycle. The truth is out there, plain and simple. That’s the age we live in.

Another Burston-Marsteller man and former US deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, is someone who also seems to be on the money and his words are particularly important for what should be seen as a new era for public relations.

Bennett Freeman says that in this day and age ‘corporate reputation and corporate responsibility are inseparable’. What he means by this is that real commitment and performance matter most – and only substance sells. He says that although PR firms sometimes have questionable associations themselves, they still have an important role in helping companies put substance first, and then help deliver it credibly.  Freeman is also concerned that although most communications professionals understand the potential impact of corporate responsibility issues on company reputation, not all are comfortable with integrating these issues into their communications strategies.

For me, Bennett Freeman is the closest our industry has to a prophet right now; he is someone from whom young PR professionals like my-self should take heed from. Public Relations 101 is still as important as it always will be – our job is to manage the perception of our clients. I whole heartedly agree with Harold Burson: perception is reality.

But the fact is, the world is changing and the PR industry is transforming with it. We have to distance ourselves away from ‘perception management’ and the negative connotations that are associated with it. Our real job is to first make sure that the PR industry itself has a reputation with real substance and integrity – we need to live and breathe on exactly the same stuff we should be advising our clients with. And we will be advising our clients that they better make sure that the messages being spun out are unquestionably reflecting the truth. If it isn’t, well there is a new cornerstone that deserves to be cemented into our daily work: helping our clients develop and establish real substance which the world actually wants to hear about. Having a CSR program is one thing, but for corporations to actually put as much substance into it as spin is another. In the years ahead PR firms will undoubtedly find themselves increasingly pushing clients for the need for substance over spin, in fact they already are.

Those with years of experience under their belt in PR will understand this more than those of us who don’t. Today I read a CEO mini-bio for one of our affiliates in the US, his words were: “After working for more than 30 years in communications I have learnt that nothing works better than the truth”. So there you have it folks – nothing works better than the truth – a cornerstone for us all to embody as we pursue our careers in PR. And believe me, we are going to need it.

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