of many public relations campaigns is to change the public's perception
about someone or something so that everyone sees him or her or it in a
positive way. For example, Charley Smith is a jerk. But his PR guy tries
to get everyone to see him as a sensitive, caring person, concerned about
the poor, and so on.
Or Podunk, Inc. is about as predatory as a company ever gets. So its
PR consultants go all out to get the public to see it as the Salvation
Army, the Red Cross, and St. Vincent de Paul all rolled into one.
But public perception can be altered without a deliberate campaign being
waged by anyone. All that has to happen is for someone to start the ball
rolling and then have people keep it rolling.
Let me give you one of my favorite examples of this phenomenon.
Take the word “professional.” In essence it means someone who's paid
for what he or she does as contrasted with "amateur" being someone who
doesn't get paid for what he or she does.
However the perception of “professional” being fed to us today
has little or nothing to do with money. It has only to do with the image
of someone or some company's employees being expert, without bias, business-like,
and full of integrity, and many other Boy Scout attributes.
So the next time you hear or read about superstar Herman Sosa or billionaire
Clara Whittle, or international giant XYZ Company being professional, I
suggest you take the accolade with a large grain of salt. After all, isn't
the guy who pays the piper the one who calls the tune?
Think about it. |
