This is Your Brain on PR

Remember those old War on Drugs commercials? Where they crack an egg into a sizzling pan and say “This is your brain on drugs?” PR can have that effect, too. Get an ordinarily lucid CEO going on the subject of PR and suddenly he’s strung out. The guy is clearly fried, the brain part anyway.

I was reminded of this after stumbling into a chat on PR with a casual acquaintance who happens to be a C-level exec. He knows all about PR, or should, having burned through four agencies in 18 months. (I know this through rock solid hearsay, not personal work experience with the chap, thank God.)  Seems nobody can get his mug on the cover of TIME, Fortune or even Eastern Dogfood Gazette in 90 days, the bumbs.  It’s a major disappointment, but he’s hooked.  So he cycles through agencies in the hope of finding a winner, or maybe a lucky break. That line from Baudelaire comes to mind — “His face bore the forlorn look of a man condemned to hope forever.”

Listening to this tale of woe, I had a thought. Maybe I should tell him about social media and how it’s made traditional PR obsolete. But I thought better of the idea.  I have friends in that market and prefer to stay on good terms with them.

Heading out I bumped into a PR colleague, there to make his pitch on becoming Agency Number 5.

“Hey, got any tips on how to handle this guy?” he asked.

“Yes I do. Apply the Viking approach — pillage, plunder and get the hell out quickly.”

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