Some truth....

I have been trying to understand how and why PR practitioners and the media in general feel the need to "spin" their stories, or hide the truth. As we have discovered in my previous post, the truth can be ugly and scary, and well lying is easier then explaining the real facts. No one who smokes really wants to know that their favorite product is killing them softly.

I remembered a very intelligent campaign that appeared at the beginning of this decade called "Protect the Truth". It was one of the largest youth-focused anti-tobacco educational campaigns that exposed the Big Tobacco industries marketing practices. It is no longer legal for tobacco companies to advertise their products, so tobacco sales relied heavily on the addiction of their product, peer pressure and alcohol. The promoting of tobacco products by a PR person was a serious faux-pas, so the "non-intelligent masses" began to use their brains and subsequently came up with an anti-smoking PR campaign. 

This PR campaign was designed to show the whole truth about smoking. They used the real facts and real testimonials to get their message across. According to their website www.protectthetruth.org, their campaign was successful. Although the statistics do not calculate how many youths actually stopped smoking, they do state that the Truth campaign was remembered and that some youths now understood the dangers of smoking. The campaign was not designed to get youths to stop smoking, but to raise awareness of the harmful effects of smoking.

Finally a PR campaign that doesn't tell lies or "spin" stories!  Although, promoting an anti-something campaign is easier then trying to promote a difficult subject like war.. 

Don't be mistaken, war has been promoted, but the ugly truth and death is never mentioned.

The tobacco companies PR practitioners busy at work re-wording their intentions. A very smart "spin" tactic indeed!