Blog #2

James Hoggan’s "Do the Right Thing" is a big refresher from what I learned in Intro to PR during the spring semester. The first three chapters focused on how to achieve public relations success, the dark side of PR and the social media revolution.

The main focus I pulled from chapter one was the Hoggan approach (p. 4). He gave us three simple rules to achieving public relations success:

1. Do the right thing
2. Be seen doing the right thing
3. And don’t get #1 and #2 mixed up

To me, that is as simple as it gets. It does not seem hard to take an honest proactive approach and when doing it, making sure that it is not forced. It seemed like Hoggan was saying the public can tell when people feel as though they are obligated to doing right instead of having it come second nature. When positive acts are genuine, the public can be a lot more receptive and even sympathetic at times.


In the second chapter, Darth Vader PR, Hoggan was pointing out ways that PR practitioners were being deceptive in their tactics. Just like a young Anakin Skywalker, most PR practitioners start out with good and humble intentions. But when they stray away from the teachings of Yoda and using the Force and start to drift over to the Sith and the dark side that’s when you get the Darth Vader characters like Philip Morris International Inc. (pp. 20-21).

They hired independent scientists to try and persuade people that cigarettes were safe. Through a PR firm, APCO-Worldwide, they formed a grassroots organization called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, or TASSC. The company figured that if the public could buy in to believing the scientists came from a legit backing then their information must be true. Fortunately the plan was figured out, but that started a new trendy tactic of having a front organization to achieve legitimacy.


Chapter three’s the Social Media Revolution deals with social media being, “an engine for the anti-powerful - an authentic, interactive means of delivering content,” said Jesse Hirsh, a Canadian social media watcher (p. 36).
That means that anyone can get their message out to the public with the addition of receiving feedback. The anti-powerful is the public because in the past they did not have a choice as to how companies went about giving out information, but due to the growing use of social media, advertisements have to be more strategic in how they reach their targeted publics.