By Greg Hazley
Feld Entertainment, producer of Ringling Bros. and Disney on Ice, has suspended its PR agency review, said VP of corporate communications Stephen Payne.
The Vienna, Va.-based company issued an RFP in April to review its six-figure account which was handled by Hill & Knowlton. That move drew the protest of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which threatened to “educate” Feld's selected firm with material critical of its circus operations.
Payne said the review was halted before selected finalists presented. “Right now we are taking it all in-house but may consult with firms on a case-by-case basis in the future,” he said, adding the move had “absolutely nothing to do with” PETA.
“We evaluated the team we had in house and concluded we had the talent and expertise,” he said.
Payne last month called PETA' protests of the review “absurd” and said that participating firms did their own due diligence on the organization and none dropped out.
PETA's campaign included emailing CEOs of top firms, issuing an open letter and taking an ad in a PR trade publication.
Feld planned to award a two-year contract billing at about $30K/month. H&K has handled the work for the past six or seven years.
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Ron Levy (6/16):
Terminating with a great PR firm, and deciding "we had the talent and the expertise" to take the PR work in house, is a decision that has long had interesting consequences.
America's tuna fishing industry, for example, had Hill and Knowlton doing Washington work, and national media people also doing their magic, over an earlier animal rights issue. Dolphin tend to swim on the surface over schools of tuna, which helps fishermen locate tuna schools by looking for dolphin. Problem: the nets that catch tuna may also entrap dolphin which are air-breathing, not fish, and which die after being netted under water. With Hill and Knowlton's cooperation, our federal government posted inspectors on each tuna boat to make noise and scare away the dolphin before nets were thrown. "But what is Hill and knowton realy doing for us," idustry leaders reasoned, "that we can't do for ourselves for less money?"
In truth, dolphins were BETTER OFF because of the "scare 'em away" inspectors but soon the inspection program ended, and so did the Washington work and national media coverage on how tuna fish is good for people and how inspectors are good for dolphin. "Save our dolphin" activists marched and chanted, Congress listened, so did the public and laws were changed. It became economically impossible to operate tuna boats under American flags. So the fishermen had to sell their boats for whatever they could get, many boats were bought by fishermen in Thailand and other Asian countries, and today nearly all tuna--caught in the same places by the same boats but under foreign flags and with foreign seamen--come from Asia.
Every major PR firm and many smaller ones can tell similar stories. Most people have the good sense not to try do-it-yourself medicine nor even do-it-yourself plumbing, but PR looks easy enough so some accounts figure they have or can hire people who'll do "the same damn thing" for less. Only very rarely does "bargain PR" turn out to be a bargain. |