Stephanie Fierman - Marketing Observations Grown Daily

Stephanie Fierman Says AIG PR Guy Missed His Shot

Thursday March 12th 2009, 6:22 pm
Filed under: financial services,US economy

As you may know, there is a dust-up going on between – no, not Jim Cramer v. Jon Stewart – I’m talking about Burson-Marsteller v. Rachel Maddow.

AIG opened a Pandora’s Box when it sent a media advisory to MSNBC notifying the network that the company was adding a new shop to its list of PR firms. List, you say?? This peaked MSNBC’s/Rachel Maddow’s interest, and she has twice run lengthy segments this week regarding the firm at the top of that list: Burson- Marsteller.

And aside from being absolutely beside herself that AIG is spending taxpayer money on spin, she offers a quite lengthy history lesson about BM, including specific references to the following Burson-Marsteller clients (Oh yeah: she’s irritated):
- Blackwater after it killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad
- The folks at Three Mile Island post-nuclear meltdown
- The Bhopal people after the disaster that killed thousands of people in India
- The Romanian dictator Nikolai Ceauşescu
- The government of Saudi Arabia three days after 9/11
- The military junta that overthrew the government of Argentina
- The government of Indonesia, accused of genocide
- The government of Nigeria, accused of genocide and Biafra
- Philip Morris? *cough*
- A silicon breast implants manufacturer
- The government of Columbia after killing unionizers
- They Aquadot people, after it was found that the toy produced the date rape drug.

She concludes this first segment with the following statement: “When Evil needs public relations, Evil has Burson Marsteller on speed dial.“

Wow. So I waited with interest to see Burson-Marsteller’s reaction… and think the shop missed an opportunity to sound like the grown-ups in the room.

After reading Mark Penn‘s (BM’s President) response, which includes a great deal of “for 50 years” phrases and chest-clutching indignity, I posted the following comment on www.PRWeek.com:

—- Penn had a shot here at a succinct, fact-based response, but blew it with a reaction that IMHO comes off as self-promoting, and his “mock outrage” mutes the core of his message. Phrases such as “our corporate values over the past 50 years”and “never forget over the past 20 years…” are entirely irrelevant and, more importantly, causes the reader to wonder as to the actual intent of this response.

From the way this is written, it appears to me that Penn felt he needed to address at least four different audiences: MSNBC/the cable news business, employees, clients and potential clients. I would propose that the firm would have been better off with shorter and more customized messages to each rather than this rambling catch-all that had to do double or triple (or four-ple??) duty.

And one last thing: I only read the entire statement because Penn’s statement that B-M wasn’t hired to help “burnish [AIG's] image” caught my eye. As a long-time marketing/mgmt exec, let me be clear: regardless of the specific task my team may give an agency, it is ALWAYS a PR shop’s job to help build (or “burnish,” if you will) a client’s image 24/7. If I were under siege at AIG, this comment alone would make me wonder, “What am I paying these guys for??” —–

And in a Penn v. Maddow mud wrestle? My money is on Maddow.