I am a student of Public Relations and Marketing in Scotland, day in and day out I work with Scottish issues and I am heavily involved in the political scene in Scotland – however something I can’t escape is the brand of America.

Now I’ll be clear, when I say “the brand of America” I’m not referring to Jersey Shore and Big Macs. What I refer to is the pull America has as a nation. A nation built on immigration and integration – eventually. Around this time last year I visited one of the top Public Relations firms in America with my Scottish college that firm was 5WPR. Now to say I was impressed is an understatement; I was overwhelmed.

I had never experienced America really in person and only had TV shows to go on, but the design of the offices, the friendly nature of the staff and the knowledge of the impressive character who showed us around. Juda Engelmayer was clearly one of the best in the Public Relations industry and he in the matter of minutes had us all open jawed at his prowess and the popularity of 5WPR as a firm.

Now whilst studying in Scotland it seems we cannot escape PR cases from the states. It seems clear to many of us, that the most exciting PR industry is present in America – now of course our home country has many different clients – but what really gets our blood pumping is America. America has such an array of sectors within PR and is at the frontier, yet again in the Public Relations industry. The key advances are being made in America, the biggest cases develop there and of course – the biggest array of skilled PR professionals is there.

I am now in my 3^rd year of study and it is clear to me, I want to work in America – to pursue that American dream, the “dream” that was surely one of the biggest PR scores for a country, ever.  Why though? Besides the fact that every day in university we are given case studies of American firms, we are told to look at firms like 5WPR and Weber Shandwick for the right way of doing things? Well to put it quite simply – it’s the brand.

Every PR expert knows about branding and attempts not to be pulled in – but America, you have pulled many of us in. In fact I can assure you almost every PR student I have spoken to looks at America in awe and aspires to make it there.

Sure there would be differences, sure it would be a challenge and sure it would be galling; but surely as someone who works in PR that is qualities that should be there anyway? The willingness to overcome challenges, that sheer passion for your industry – and of course networking and taking advice from professionals like Ronn, buying his book (which is better than most textbooks I’ve read recently) and subscribing to his videos.

Dear America, you have one student here – the most influential PR student in Scotland according to the Behind the Spin blog, run by the Chartered institute of Public Relations in the UK and he has fallen for you.

How have you fallen for the brand of America? How do you think it could be improved?

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Thanks, Kenneth Murray – @Kenny_murray

“Shouting fire in a crowded theatre” is a well known paraphrase of a U.S. Supreme Court decision which served as an example of the limitations on free speech, when the speech is imminently dangerous and has no conceivable purpose.   In a world where we have seen real revolutions in part because of digital media, its interesting that everyone today has digital media to amplify whatever noise they’d like to make – good or bad – and can utilize media without a filter.

Its on the backs of Wikileaks pressure by the American government to shut down – including pressuring financial companies not to process payment, threatened prosecutions and the like – that a close friend of mine for many years, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, is all over the media today threatening to sue Twitter for allowing terrorists to use the digital media network. Trust me, I know her – she is smart, focused and ideological – a formidable opponent raising a valid point. If the US government deems these organizations illegal and they cant raise funds – why can they amplify their message freely to Americans ?

Leitner’s organization, The Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, is a civil rights organization dedicated to “combating the terrorist organizations and the regimes that support them through lawsuits litigated in courtrooms around the world.” They have done a lot of good worldwide to fight terrorism via lawfare – utilizing the courtroom to battle Anti-Western interests.  Hezbollah, al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab and others violate American law by using Twitter. A breakdown of terrorists utilizing social media is at: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/01/most-infamous-terrorists-twitter/46852/

The ACLU says “the government can’t force private companies to censor lawful speech just because the government doesn’t like the speech or the people making the speech.” Does that mean I can go online and scream fire in a crowded theatre ? Can I behave however I want simply because I am online and hidden behind a computer screen ?

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently cited President Obama as believing that “the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become”, one wonders where the administration will stand if mass rioting was sparked by digital media.  UK authorities say rioters used social networks to coordinate mass civil disobedience earlier this year in London.  State prosecutors in Mexico have accused people of terrorism and sabotage by claiming that their Twitter posts helped spread false rumors about a school attack, leading to real-life violence.

Its no secret that the terrorists are public relations savvy and very concerned with brand and image.  As was recently reported, Al Qaeda is concerned about the baggage associated with that name, and is increasingly going by the name “Ansar al Sharia” because of concern about their brand. Its no secret that American PR Agencies have represented Qaddafi, Assad, and just last year Qatar hired a leading U.S. PR firm to lobby for the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

Darshan-Leitner stopped the second Gaza flotilla earlier this year, and has won lawsuits against Hamas, Hizbollah and the Palestinian Authority.  I am sure Twitter’s going to be answering this one pretty soon. I’d venture that a modern “fire in a crowded theatre” discussion may be coming to a courtroom near us very soon.

Ronn Torossian is the CEO of 5WPR, a Top 25 PR Agency and has a best-selling PR book“For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations” an Amazon best selling Public Relations book available for purchase at: http://www.amazon.com/Immediate-Release-Deliver-Game-Changing-Relations/dp/1936661160

As revolutions spread throughout the Middle East you can’t help but notice declining coverage in media – Quite different than the coverage of March 2003 during the American invasion of Iraq, with embedded reporters and constant TV coverage. That was followed in July 2006 with the Israel-Lebanon War of 34 days, when coverage was also limitless; night and day.  Much of the American and even foreign media outlets were consistently covering the action.

On December 17, 2010, protests began in Tunisia, and we heard about it – in passing.  Some of us paid more attention, but media gave it passing coverage as something going on in a foreign place; almost like the killing fields in Rwanda received coverage during the horrific genocides.  It was happening, but it was so far away and so few details that it wasn’t top of mind.

And then Egypt came in January 2011.  A revolution began and TV news was on the ground – even after being threatened and some correspondents being injured. Every day of the 18 day rally brought intense coverage of the people and the events.  While Facebook and Twitter were part of the rallying cry for the people; the TV, Internet and print news coverage was a constant – as if to show us in the West, something completely revolutionary – a revolution by the people of an almost authoritarian hegemony.  That was something to see and the media, and the people ate it up.

And now, we have Libya – a former arch-Enemy of America, replete with voluptuous nurses, the Lockerbie bombing and the years of stories…. And in mid-February a popular uprising began with the hope of ending the 41 year despotic rule of Muammar Qaddafi.  We cared because “the region was in revolt”, and because of the oil.  That said, we seem to be caring a lot less than we did…

Today, news reports that the revolt is “heating up” and that conditions in Libya are getting worse.  Yet, TV coverage is trivial and far from what it was – many of the local papers reported on Charlie Sheen’s latest sanctimonious rant with more detail than the alleged deaths of hundreds, probably thousands, by Qaddafi forces.  Media outlets were kicked out, and there’s no mass media within the country, the little we know is from handheld home videos.  So, media can’t film it, so media doesn’t cover it. 

The biggest revolution to happen in our time that can literally change the world has bored us.  Qaddafi is not going fast enough for us to care, media is not able to walk around freely, so it just doesn’t get the headlines Egypt did – and hey, how long can we in the US stay focused on another region?

We are the A.D.D. generation, complete with blackberries and tweets wanting instant response, one wants revolution like we want our movies – in time and on schedule.  One hopes that when history asks our generation about Libya’s fight for freedom, we can offer them something more insightful than the fact that it interrupted the war between CBS and a spiraling sitcom star.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

While it is still uncertain whether Egyptian youngsters will achieve their end goals, the young have not disappointed as they have moved quickly and unhesitatingly to form nothing less than a ‘New World Order’ – utilizing new media.

The 1970’s counter-cultural poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” couldn’t be further from the truth today, as we see governments shutting down social media outlets. “The Great Lie” is harder to maintain than ever before, as self-created content via social media has spread to the Middle East and worldwide.  While President Mubarak and many throughout the Arab world have ruled with a strong fist, I am sure that never did he dream that the biggest threat to his rule- and possibly an actual overthrow – would come through a simple technology that people entertain themselves with, through 140-character messages.

Jan 25, 2011 is likely to be remembered as the day commemorating the start of the modern Egyptian revolt led by the Internet.  Many will also note that Egypt decided as an early measure to entirely disable both the internet and the wireless services implying our era’s “mouths-shutting” altering basic freedoms of expression in Egypt. In Tunisia, Social media was also found to be the main medium for anti-government forces to mobilize, inform, and communicate with one another.

So, whereas state run media in countries like these could previously propagandize to the people messages they saw fit, today social media is a mass communications tool whereby each citizen is a journalist, giving true rise to the title and concept of citizen journalism.  This of course comes on the heels of Wikileaks’ whereby countries spent several days in sheer anxiety before each release. The unprecedented phenomenon causing undisclosed records to reach the public amass stirred diplomatic chaos worldwide.

Political philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and John Locke addressed the issue of a government’s responsibility towards its people, and social media allows people to force government to face their version of truth, whether they like it or not.  New media today will result in the open – We see images today of protestors with hand held cameras surely for Youtube, and we remember the images a few months ago of the protests in Iran – Similar visuals only 30 years ago which would have very likely never reached the Western World.

The ‘truth’ is now in the open; exposed and accessible to people instantly and vertically across most of the world. The impact – is something we are currently witnessing. Lies and manipulations must be handled differently by dictators with this degree of transparency. It takes one person with a mobile phone to start a revolution, one network on Facebook to mobilize friends and contacts around a cause, and only 140 characters to start the process of expelling a dictator from Tunisia.

Social media has shown its potential with the simplicity of online and wireless access by individuals with passion, energy, and a just cause. While it is still uncertain whether Egyptian youngsters will achieve their end goals, the young have not disappointed as they have moved quickly and unhesitatingly to form nothing less than a ‘New World Order’ – utilizing new media. Perhaps state run media in many countries will also follow the lead of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who joined Twitter a few months ago, and invited Cuban head Fidel Castro to join him on Twitter.  He had previously called Twitter a potential “tool of terror” – but maybe he has realized that it can be used as his tool of terror.

China, Syria, Iran and other South American countries are working to limit the access their people have to online media outlets, they know that if they want to protect themselves, they need to limit the use of these platforms, or learn how to harness social media tools themselves.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

We lost a client this week…and I was happy.  We were hired by the International headquarters of a major company and market leader, but the local Headquarters here openly did not want us hired.  To say that the International and local offices were not on the same page would be a very kind understatement.  We would get a call from headquarters to embark on a certain strategy, and then the US office would tell us a different story – no, we absolutely do not want this done. And then we would throw up our hands and say, repeatedly and regularly: “Who is the client – International headquarters or New York?” Both would say: “I Am.”

Needless to say, they wouldn’t say this to each other. Our staff was regularly frustrated, and I couldn’t give them a clear answer.  Headquarters was fair and good to us, so we essentially did as they told us and they forced the US office to follow along.  It was never friendly interaction and, amazingly, the US Director of Marketing for months on end refused to meet with us and essentially grunted through the conference calls we had.

Meanwhile, both offices told us that the campaigns we had thought up and implemented had raised their business significantly; that ROI from PR & marketing was up significantly; and that all metrics we set at the start of the campaign were exceeded.  Every time someone tried to trip us up, we exceeded expectations.

That said, it has been a few days since we spoke to headquarters, and I admittedly did not really focus when a staff member forwarded me a Google alert: the pre 8 AM notice said the International CMO was rumored to have accepted a new position.  Sure enough, before the end of the day we received the termination notice from the grunting Director of Marketing. 

Here’s to better clients…but I wasn’t unhappy at losing this client.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR