community papers. On the fourth day, as the earned media started to recede, the paid media broke from our sister ad agency, Campbell Creative, including TV , radio, print, online, transit, and outdoor. If you were alive in Canada that week, you knew about the Citizen Astronaut contest.
Our media relations effort also yielded 158 editorials and opinion pieces. Predictably, about a third of them were negative, linked most often to the cost of putting civilians in space. There was also plenty of criticism that the contest was simply a “ PR exercise” with no real purpose beyond hype. As I read this, I realized that we needed to do a PR job on the term “ PR .” Those two little letters attached to my chosen profession were usually delivered with a dismissive head shake, a pejorative tone, and a look thatstraddled disdain and disgust. In the modern vernacular, “It was just a PR exercise” really meant, whatever “it” was, that it was completely devoid of substance. Or that smoke, mirrors, or both were somehow involved. Or that someone like me was spinning one lonely little positive attribute into a towering all-powerful juggernaut of virtue, while downplaying or even ignoring a boatload of horrific side effects that threatened (please select one or more of the following options) children, animals, trees, water, air, earth, the ozone layer, the Idaho striped blister beetle, and the entire human race. In my mind, that was the old PR , an outdated stereotype in decline. I was a practitioner of the
new
PR . As far as I was concerned, my job was to tell the truth, and tell it well. And, no, that’s not spin. I believed it.
But I didn’t have time right then to rehabilitate the public’s view of my profession. I was too busy persuading Joe and Joanne Public to enter a contest that could land them in orbit aboard the International Space Station.
My phone chirped. Phones today don’t really ring any more. Chirped is as close as I can come to describing the sound. “ TK D.C. ” flashed into the liquid crystal screen. I love caller ID . I had no idea who would be calling me from the D.C. office.
“David Stewart.” I opened with my usual greeting.
“David, it’s Crawford Blake.”
Uh-oh.
“Oh, hi, Crawford,” I said. “Congrats on all the great U.S. coverage. You must be pleased.”
“Yep, it was a triumph. I’ve never seen so much coverage on an announcement in my entire career. I reckon it shows just how many Americans actually want to go into space, the dumb fuckers,” Crawford said.
The profanity caught me a little off guard, but I had heard the term before.
“I’m callin’ for two reasons. First of all, you folks up there did a fine job driving coverage of the Canadian announcement. Kelly spoke very well of the TK Toronto team and of you in particular.”
“Thanks so much. We have a great group of PR pros in this office and they worked very hard under very tight timelines.” I was skating. “We were thrilled with the coverage. On a per capita basis, we ended up with more coverage than in the U.S.”
Idiot. I knew it as the words were passing over my palate. But I couldn’t seem to stop them. Why would I say that?
“Well, we’ve got so much more going on here stateside than you folks do up there in the wilds. The competition for column inches down here is fierce. So I’m not surprised you got the front page up there. I mean, what else is going on in Canada right now anyway other than ice hockey?”
“Right …” I had nothing else.
“Anyway, the second reason for my call is to make sure you understand how important it is that we end up with the right Canadian winner. The goal is to help NASA so we need a classic Canadian winner. You know, young and strapping, hale andhearty, maybe even a hockey player in a lumberjack shirt. We want something quintessentially Canadian. Right, David?”
“Um, I’m a little confused. The winner is chosen through a random draw. We have no role in
Our media relations effort also yielded 158 editorials and opinion pieces. Predictably, about a third of them were negative, linked most often to the cost of putting civilians in space. There was also plenty of criticism that the contest was simply a “ PR exercise” with no real purpose beyond hype. As I read this, I realized that we needed to do a PR job on the term “ PR .” Those two little letters attached to my chosen profession were usually delivered with a dismissive head shake, a pejorative tone, and a look thatstraddled disdain and disgust. In the modern vernacular, “It was just a PR exercise” really meant, whatever “it” was, that it was completely devoid of substance. Or that smoke, mirrors, or both were somehow involved. Or that someone like me was spinning one lonely little positive attribute into a towering all-powerful juggernaut of virtue, while downplaying or even ignoring a boatload of horrific side effects that threatened (please select one or more of the following options) children, animals, trees, water, air, earth, the ozone layer, the Idaho striped blister beetle, and the entire human race. In my mind, that was the old PR , an outdated stereotype in decline. I was a practitioner of the
new
PR . As far as I was concerned, my job was to tell the truth, and tell it well. And, no, that’s not spin. I believed it.
But I didn’t have time right then to rehabilitate the public’s view of my profession. I was too busy persuading Joe and Joanne Public to enter a contest that could land them in orbit aboard the International Space Station.
My phone chirped. Phones today don’t really ring any more. Chirped is as close as I can come to describing the sound. “ TK D.C. ” flashed into the liquid crystal screen. I love caller ID . I had no idea who would be calling me from the D.C. office.
“David Stewart.” I opened with my usual greeting.
“David, it’s Crawford Blake.”
Uh-oh.
“Oh, hi, Crawford,” I said. “Congrats on all the great U.S. coverage. You must be pleased.”
“Yep, it was a triumph. I’ve never seen so much coverage on an announcement in my entire career. I reckon it shows just how many Americans actually want to go into space, the dumb fuckers,” Crawford said.
The profanity caught me a little off guard, but I had heard the term before.
“I’m callin’ for two reasons. First of all, you folks up there did a fine job driving coverage of the Canadian announcement. Kelly spoke very well of the TK Toronto team and of you in particular.”
“Thanks so much. We have a great group of PR pros in this office and they worked very hard under very tight timelines.” I was skating. “We were thrilled with the coverage. On a per capita basis, we ended up with more coverage than in the U.S.”
Idiot. I knew it as the words were passing over my palate. But I couldn’t seem to stop them. Why would I say that?
“Well, we’ve got so much more going on here stateside than you folks do up there in the wilds. The competition for column inches down here is fierce. So I’m not surprised you got the front page up there. I mean, what else is going on in Canada right now anyway other than ice hockey?”
“Right …” I had nothing else.
“Anyway, the second reason for my call is to make sure you understand how important it is that we end up with the right Canadian winner. The goal is to help NASA so we need a classic Canadian winner. You know, young and strapping, hale andhearty, maybe even a hockey player in a lumberjack shirt. We want something quintessentially Canadian. Right, David?”
“Um, I’m a little confused. The winner is chosen through a random draw. We have no role in
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