Guerrilla PR 2.0 Read online

  So you can see there are as many doors closed to the professional as are closed to prospective clients. Add it up, and there may be countless businesspeople, civic leaders, inventors, performers, scholars, directors of charitable groups, and others who could greatly benefit from the services of a professional P.R. firm, yet are unable to connect.

  To them I say there is a way out that bypasses the pros, that avoids the high costs, and that proves as effective in securing publicity as the efforts of most professional P.R. companies, if not more effective. It’s a method that incorporates everything the pros have—energy, contacts, written and oral skills, and broad perspective—by teaching a new approach. I call it Guerrilla P.R.

  The Jungle Fighter

  A guerrilla is a jungle fighter, a lightning-quick devotee of the sneak attack. A guerrilla knows his terrain better than his opponents, believes passionately in his cause, and is nearly impossible to defeat. A Guerrilla publicist works in much the same fashion—but without the deadly weapons. Agile, confident, dynamic, making do with far less than his desk-bound professional counterpart, the Guerrilla is a model of compact efficiency.

  Resourcefulness is next to godliness. That’s the cornerstone of my technique. What a Guerrilla lacks in funds, he or she makes up in moxie. Every press campaign, even the most expensive and sophisticated, is ultimately a grassroots crusade. The goal of any publicist, professional or Guerrilla, is to reach individuals. The pros, as paid pitchmen, can’t help but take a less credible posture in representing a client. By taking a close-to-the-ground, one-on-one approach, and wearing his passion on his sleeve, the Guerrilla P.R. trooper cuts to the chase.

  In other words, because you are the owner of your business, or the manager of the business, you have more credibility as an expert in that business than a professional P.R. agent would have. You can promote not only your business but your knowledge of the business, and therefore yourself, by drawing attention to it. You start off with more gravitas before you pitch your story. It’s an advantage—use it.

  Today, technology permits millions to launch cottage industries at home. Everyone has access to the prime tools: phone, fax, computer, modem, and mailbox. On the road, you have a cell phone with Bluetooth technology, and a BlackBerry that can access your e-mail and send responses, keep your schedule, and hold your address book, among many other uses. But these tools mean nothing to the Guerrilla publicist without the attitude I’ve described. I’m talking about the attitude that says, “My project is the most important thing in the world, and I’ll stop at nothing to tell the world about it!”

  So who are the Guerrillas?

  The owners of a Utah ski resort who noticed their guests developing runny noses standing in long lines at frigid ski lifts. Management installed tissue dispensers and made sure the local media knew about it. That year, business climbed, and it’s still referred to as the “Kleenex resort.”

  The creators of “Lonelygirl15,” which began as a video blog on YouTube and became a phenomenon known worldwide—and was always meant to help its creators land movie deals.

  The director, writers, and producers of The Blair Witch Project, made for a minuscule amount of money and promoted via viral video on the Web and through a Web site to become unquestionably the most profitable film ever made.

  The Miami florist who ran a campaign in his shop dubbed “Who Would You Most Like to Send Flowers to?” Entry blanks were available to all customers, who enjoyed filling them out. The florist issued a press release announcing the winners (Tom Cruise and Cybill Shepherd). The flower shop gained a good deal of notoriety, and business increased sharply.

  Candy Lightner, who formed Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in response to the death of her daughter at the hands of a drunk driver. At her first press conference, she and her surviving daughter wept openly while describing their ordeal. An electrifying photo of the two women flashed around the country, and MADD was off and running. Though her emotion was genuine, Candy knew that touching hearts would reach minds.

  The heavy metal band Immaculate Mary, which sought to distinguish itself from the hundreds of competing bands in L.A. At every show, the lead singer threw foil-wrapped condoms into the crowd. Weird, yes, but different and eye-catching.

  The owners of the Improvisation Comedy Club, who wanted to increase the club’s visibility. They launched a petition drive to demand a Best Comedy Oscar. Thousands signed the petitions, which were delivered by the boxload to the Motion Picture Academy. Press releases announcing the campaign, the tally, and the delivery were sent, and they even wrote a guest editorial in the Los Angeles Times. (There remains, however, no category devoted specifically to comedy.)

  The out-of-work accountant in Los Angeles, tired of discouraging headhunters and go-nowhere want ads, who strapped a sandwich board over his body and hit the streets of Beverly Hills. Emblazoned on his homemade billboard were the words “Unemployee of the Month.” He got a good job a few days later.

  The Guerrillas are those who take responsibility for their own success or failure. They reject the smug conventions of our specialized society. They say “no” to the advisers, the naysayers, and the consultants, and they bring to their projects the kind of spunky cleverness that typified the old Hollywood. People say movies were better back then.

  They say cars were built better back then. They’re right. It’s because in those days individuals cared more, complained less, and took pride in the whole, the final product, no matter how little may have been the piece of the puzzle they claimed as their own.

  Who Needs It?

  The 1990s were dubbed the Age of the Entrepreneur. It seemed in those days that everyone was starting a business, and it’s still true: every year more and more people jump into the marketplace, seeking to turn products, projects, and concepts into successful and lucrative ventures. What kinds of individuals need Guerrilla P.R.?

  1. A fledgling manager of a local rock band, hoping to be spotted by major download sites and eventually by recording companies and concert promoters.

  2. A director of a free clinic or shelter for the homeless, seeking to increase public support.

  3. The designer of a bold new look in apparel, ready to excite the tastemakers in the fashion world.

  4. An actor or actress appearing in a small production, hoping to be “discovered” by top casting agents.

  5. A shopkeeper in a competitive mall, trying to focus attention on his store.

  6. The inventor of an environmentally safe automobile engine, attempting to attract the interest of Detroit or Tokyo.

  7. A crusader against drug abuse, needing increased community involvement and financial support.

  8. A restaurateur, seeking loyal clientele for her newly opened café.

  9. A medical practitioner, hoping to expand his practice.

  10. Professors from the rarefied halls of academia, who have lost touch with the real world of business.

  11. The franchisee, seeking to distinguish his own store from the scores of copycats in the neighborhood.

  12. The author, in search of the widest possible audience for his new book.

  13. And even the journalist or other media professional who would like a deeper understanding of the people vying for his or her attention.

  You may already have in place an ongoing marketing, advertising, and merchandising campaign on behalf of your business or project. If so, great! Assuming your campaign is working, there’s no need to stop. Guerrilla P.R. can simply serve as an ancillary marketing tool. But if you don’t have any such campaign, and/or you cannot afford one, then listen up. This book was expressly written for you.

  Why a Manifesto?

  This is by no means the first book on the subject of P.R., and it wasn’t even that in 1993, by any stretch of the imagination. I make no claim of originality on that score. However, thumbing through previously published volumes on the subject, I noticed a major defect running through many of them. Although each explained what to do (some
more lucidly than others), none showed the reader how to think like a publicist.

  Consider the difference between learning a few phrases in a “Traveler’s Guide to Spanish” and really learning the syntax of the language. Once you’ve mastered “Where can I get my pants pressed?” you’re no better off than before. You have to learn to conjugate. You have to learn sentence structure. You have to feel the music of the language. This book teaches the grammar of directing public perception.

  If you can’t think like a publicist, you won’t know what to do if something unexpected happens. You won’t pitch the talent coordinator at your local morning show in a persuasive way. You won’t know whom to call or what to write when an innovative campaign idea occurs to you. In fact, you might not even conjure up those ideas in the first place.

  Guerrilla P.R. is as much manifesto as textbook. I show you not only what to do but why to do it. Throughout, I offer my own partisan philosophy of public relations. Granted, it may not be shared by all my colleagues in the profession, but it has worked very effectively for me, especially early in my career before I had a large and well-connected company, and I know it can work for anyone who applies Guerrilla P.R. techniques.

  This book is designed to change the way you see the world, insofar as the media are concerned. If you apply my principles, you will emerge a media-savvy urban Guerrilla, fighting and winning the battle for public attention.

  But that’s not all. I truly believe that many of the philosophical principles of Guerrilla P.R. offer a prescription for living, a manner of interacting with others. It’s not a new idea. From Aristotle to Sigmund Freud, the premier minds of their times have pondered the intangibles of human relations. The ideology undergirding my plan for gaining media attention works just as well in getting ahead in your office, or in making friends or customers, as it does in getting your name in the paper.

  Just as hard work and initiative in one area of your life have a beneficial spillover effect in other areas, so can your Guerrilla P.R. efforts make you a better—and better-liked—person. I’ve seen it happen many times.

  How to Use This Book

  Guerrilla P.R. is a tool for empowerment. But it works only if you use it. In each chapter, I’ll outline several principles, give examples, describe methods for practical application, and frequently offer Tips & Traps. In some sections I suggest exercises. Do them. Practice is the key to thinking like a Guerrilla.

  Throughout the book, I give real-life examples of creative ideas that have kicked selected P.R. efforts into overdrive. I also cite individuals—I call them Guerrilla P.R. Commandos—who best exemplify the Guerrilla P.R. spirit. Some of them are well known; some are not. All have successfully engineered their own P.R. campaigns. You can learn from them. I certainly have.

  Most importantly, I’ve designed this to be an action manual. That means you should utilize the principles as you devise and initiate your campaign. Refer often to the book. Use it the way a jungle fighter would use a map. Check back frequently to see if you’re on track. Don’t worry—I’m right behind you.

  Dream On

  We can’t all be Beethoven, but we can all make music. If you own a hamburger stand, don’t be consumed with a desire to become the next McDonald’s, because you probably won’t. But that doesn’t mean the game is over. Perhaps you can turn your place into the best burger stand in the city. For that you can strive.

  I’m not telling you to avoid dreaming big. If you’re not dreaming big, I would question why you’re in business in the first place. But dreams occur while we’re sleeping. I focus on the waking hours, when steel-eyed practicality goes a long way in making dreams come true.

  What you can achieve is limited only by internal factors. Fear and laziness are tougher obstacles than irascible reporters and distracted talk-show producers. Basically, all it costs to make it in the Fame Factory is the price of a few stamps (or better, the non-cost of a few e-mails) and a telephone. What cannot be appraised is the value of imagination.

  If you can make a mental picture of yourself benefiting from media exposure; if you feel you have enough creative energy to devote to planning and engineering an original, self-directed P.R. campaign; if you’re up to acquiring new skills that will help you comprehend the world of the mass media; if you are prepared to look at media and society in a new and positive way, then consider yourself a recruit in the Guerrilla P.R. forces.

  It would be a mistake to promise you too much. In the beginning you may find the going difficult. Not every newspaper or radio station is going to be interested in what you have to offer, and you may feel discouraged at times. But don’t be afraid of failure. Teddy Roosevelt said, “He who has never made a mistake is one who never does anything.” If you follow my system, not only will you pull off a first-rate public relations campaign but you’ll gain a new sense of yourself.

  The seeds are within you right now. Forward, march!

  1

  A Brief History of Time…

  and Newsweek and USA Today

  Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

  —Napoleon Bonaparte

  The Nature of Media

  More than four decades ago, Marshall McLuhan, the father of modern communications, wrote these immortal words: “The medium is the message.”

  Today I would amend that to “The medium is the media.” Our civilization is utterly dominated by the force of media. After our own families, no influence holds greater sway in shaping the text of our being than do the media that cloak us like an electronic membrane.

  We all think of ourselves as unique, unlike any person past or present. Indeed, what gives human life its divine spark is the distinct quality of every individual. Yet, in many ways we are all the same. The task of market analysts, pollsters, and demographers is to identify those characteristics we share and to group us accordingly. If you are in your early fifties, male, Caucasian, a father of two, earn $100,000 or more, and listen to a Top 40 radio station, there are total strangers out there who know an awful lot about you. That’s because they understand a lot about your upbringing.

  They know you watched The Mickey Mouse Club in the fifties, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the sixties, and Saturday Night Live in the seventies; became environmentally conscious in the eighties; and were probably sorry ABC canceled Thirtysomething in the nineties. They’ve got your number because they understand the role the media have played in your life from the moment you Boomed as a Baby. Today, in America, we tune in to over 9,000 commercial radio stations, 1,100 television stations, 11,000 periodicals, and over 11,000 newspapers with a combined circulation of nearly seventy million. This doesn’t even take into account online radio stations, blogs, podcasts, video feeds, iTunes, and pay-per-view events.

  These are the sources of our opinions on everything from nuclear disarmament to Madonna’s recent adoption. Nobody likes to be told what to think, but all of us, every single day, are told precisely what to think about.

  As Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson show in their insightful book Age of Propaganda, the mass media are most effective in terms of persuading the public for two primary reasons: First, they teach new behavior; second, they let us know that certain behaviors are legitimate and appropriate. So if the media are encouraging certain buying patterns, fashion trends, and modes of thinking, the unstated message we receive is “It’s okay for me to like that, do that, feel that.”

  In this way our culture evolves, is accelerated, and is disseminated. Like the transcontinental railroad of the nineteenth century, the media link every city, gully, farmhouse, and mountaintop in North America.

  Regionalism is fading. The American accent is more uniform; our penchant for migration and blending in is like the smoothing out of a great national blanket. We are fast becoming one.

  A common grammatical error occurs when people say “The media is” rather than “The media are” (“media” being the plural of “medium”). Yet, I sense people who say “th
e media is” are on to something. They perceive the many arms of the media—TV, newspapers, radio, etc.—as part of one monstrously monolithic creature. The media are “one,” too.

  Consider “Baby Jessica” McClure, for whom my firm donated public relations services. Jessica was the toddler from Midland, Texas, who fell down a narrow pipe in her backyard in 1987. For thirty-six hours, America was mesmerized by press coverage of her rescue.

  Acting as a concerned neighbor, the media conveyed Jessica’s plight to the nation. The private agony of the McClure family became the anguish of all America. Think of it: the temporary suffering of one “insignificant” little girl stopped the world’s most powerful country dead in its tracks.

  (Then, to canonize the experience, the TV movie version of Jessica’s story made it to the small screen within a year. You may draw your own conclusions.)

  Without those cameras there to catch it, and those TV stations to broadcast it, Baby Jessica’s ordeal would have made absolutely no impact on anyone other than her family and those who saved her. Because of the media, all of America for two days became part of Jessica’s family.

  Contraction and Expansion

  Journalists and talk-show hosts like to claim they’re in the information business or the news business. But you know and I know they’re in the money business just like everyone else. Because practically all media are privately held profit-making ventures, they behave much like any other enterprise, looking for ways to increase the bottom line.