The people seated at the big long oak table seldom looked at each other. Instead, they either looked at the monitors mounted at their seat, or to the person in the room currently speaking. Many of the meeting’s participants were not physically in the room. They were attending the meeting through video conferencing and most of the men and women in the room were watching and communicating to them through the monitors. The splitting of each participants attention was intensified by the fact that most people used a portion of their screens to display various graphs and written data supporting their viewpoint, or proposed plan of action.
Austin was no stranger to these high pitched multimedia conferences. Though he functioned quite well in them, he still preferred attending meetings where all participants were physically present and off line. He deemed these meetings as showy and expedient business circuses, constructed more for affect than content. Austin felt one face-to-face with all decision makers present was more productive than six of these high tech extravaganzas.
Most of Austin’s peers viewed personally attending business meetings as a waste of time and money. Through video conferencing they could attend five or six meeting in one day all over the world. Austin, on the other hand, valued quality over quantity and felt one job done to perfection was worth many done haphazardly.
Yet, Austin would admit the impact of his presence was severely compromised by the lack of eye contact in the room. The more people focused their attention on monitors the less he could tailor his presentation by reading and responding to gestures and visual cues. Though Austin still managed to elicit strong support for his ideas, it no longer approached the fervent pitch of a revival meeting he generated when everyone’s eyes in the room were locked on to him.
The week was passing by even more slowly than Austin had anticipated. His distracting thoughts regarding his upcoming date with Claudia left him far less patient than usual. His feelings of being disconnected from all the participants only amplified his frustration with the meeting’s format. Austin strained to stay attentive and optimistic as he waited for the facilitator of the meeting to get to the meat of the matter.
The knowledge that decisions made at today’s meeting were crucial ones directly effecting the entire corporation’s course of action for the next six months helped retain Austin’s focus. A series of recent mergers amongst the world’s largest drug companies had caused a serious reshifting in the industry. The people in the room many of whom were fierce competitors less than six months ago were still in the process of establishing the trust and team chemistry needed to increase their global market share of the pharmaceutical industry.
A torrid year of acquisitions preceded the merger which finally formed DD&P. Austin spent hours learning the previous and current positions of the officers of the new company, as well as their specialties and pet projects. Though he had done business with most of the people in the room, it had been years since he had talked to all but a few. As far as he could assess, the merger was being viewed by most of the major players as a positive move.
The rash of mergers in the pharmaceutical industry was fueled in great part by a global territorial war. Large drug companies acquired smaller one’s who had carved out a lucrative niche dealing with a specific medical procedure or malady. Each acquisition strategically expanded their consumer base. As the major corporations expanded, they found themselves in increased direct competition with each other. They each had a multitude of patents and new medications in their research pipeline dealing with the exact same conditions and diseases.
In the last few weeks one of DD&P’s major competitors had beaten them to the punch by getting governmental approval on a few experimental drugs. Public response to one of these drugs, an immune system enhancement drug, had been swift and highly favorable. The instant success of the drug worried DD&P executives that their immune system drug, slated to get approval within the next month or so, would enter the marketplace at a severe disadvantage. Today’s meeting was called to devise a strategy which would help level the playing field allowing their drug to be successful when it entered the marketplace.
The vice president in charge of research and development had just finished speaking. Her highly technical speech focused on the advantages she saw in their product. The most notable advantages were test trials seemed to point out it was faster acting and it had less noticeable side effects than their competitor’s product. Yet, she admitted their competitor’s drug having been developed earlier than theirs had been put through more tests, and, therefore, had far more documentation backing up its claims.
The next speaker was head of the advertising department who outlined their current and future plans. Austin did not dispute their need to be aggressive in tempering the public euphoria over their competitor’s new drug. Yet, he had plenty of reservations about the way in which they were planning to alter the public’s perception of the drug.
The goal of the advertising head’s plan was to attack their competitor in a negative ad campaign. Austin was immediately uncomfortable with the overtness of the attack. In Austin’s opinion DD&P was close to invoking an all out industry war which would not only hurt the sales of the new wonder drugs, but could endanger sales in many other areas.
The essence of a drug company’s success is in the consumer’s trust and belief in their products. The public must see the company as caring and concerned with their general health and quality of life, not with profit. Austin felt an overly aggressive negative ad campaign would overshoot its mark and destroy the trust in not only their competitor’s new wonder drug, but in the entire pharmaceutical industry.
If they chose to attack, Austin felt they must do so with surgical precision. If they called into question the validity of the new drug’s claims or its efficacy, they needed to do so in a way which did not call into question the integrity of any other drugs.
When Austin looked around he saw the same anxieties he was feeling reflected in many of the faces around the table. Austin decided to seize the opportunity and asked to speak for a few minutes.
First, of course, Austin praised the “fabulous” work done by DD&P’s advertising department up to this point. He cited sales statistics with ease and pointed out how various ad campaigns were directly responsible for the company’s success. Austin made sure to include successes from all the individual smaller companies which now were part of the DD&P family.
Austin went on to praise the board for having the insight to call for such a needed meeting. He admitted that, like them, he recognized a need to swiftly minimize the damage caused by the commercial success of their competitor’s immune system drug.
Austin went on to say he agreed with much of what Carl, the head of advertising, had proposed. He agreed with Carl’s desire to act swiftly and aggressively. He also agreed with his desire to temper the public’s enthusiasm by calling into question the new drug’s capabilities.
Though the urgency of matter was incontestable, Austin claimed his objectivity might help provide a little clarity. Austin admitted if he were Carl, he too, would probably be proposing the same campaign. Yet, being removed from the situation allowed him to be aware of some of the possible fall out from such an aggressive campaign. Austin suggested they could accomplish all of the goals Carl outlined, and through the same general means, but only executed a little more subtly.
Austin proposed softening the edges a little by running a “reverse spin campaign”, rather than one directly attacking their competitor. He claimed this would avoid inciting an all out ad war between the two giants, a war he contended could injure the economic health of the entire industry.
In fact, Austin claimed they could undermine the integrity of the new drug in a way which actually increased people’s opinion of the pharmaceutical industry. “If you question the drug’s efficacy through raising industry standards,” Austin claimed with fervor, “then you can actually increase public trust while still reaching your business objectives. You can conduct a positive PR campaign at the very same moment you’re trashing your competition.”
The last statement received a smattering of applause and praise from those in the room and on the monitors. The tension in the room dissipated and was immediately replaced by an optimism born of relief. Even Carl smiled and nodded his approval of Austin’s suggestion.
When asked to expound upon what he meant by a reverse spin campaign Austin replied he would explain it later after everyone else had brought their initial ideas to the table. Austin apologized to Carl for the interruption, and encouraged him to continue. Carl took Austin’s lead and talked optimistically about ways DD&P could undermine its competitor’s product while not openly challenging them.
While Carl and his associates talked, Austin began thinking through the particulars of a reverse spin campaign. Austin had always found reverse spin campaigns to be the easiest of all to conduct. Yet, thoughts of Claudia continued to intrude and sap him of his creativity. He was disappointed in his ideas and was afraid he would have little of true ingenuity to offer when he was finally made to outline his plan.
Austin thought back to some of the first reverse spin campaigns he had ever helped organize. In college he used these techniques in a local election in a small city. Instead of mud slinging, he resorted to sabotage. He paid students his age a few dollars to place the opposing candidates bumper sticker, Ed Cummings, on their cars. He then encouraged them to be obnoxious and insensitive drivers, to cut people off in traffic and beep their horns unnecessarily, making sure the other drivers saw the bumper sticker. Most of these kids being poor college students had old rickety cars which could easily be viewed as offensive to the conservatives who were leaning towards voting for Mr. Cummings. The goal of course was to get people angry at the Cummings supporters so they would support the other.
The entire campaign focused on tricking the mainstream voters into thinking the supporters for Cummings were disgusting, unwholesome extremists. To accomplish this Austin helped form bogus organizations which boasted their strong support of Cummings. There were atheists for Cummings, biker’s for Cummings, Transvestites for Cummings, etc. By election day the name Cummings was associated with almost every unpopular faction of the public. Cummings had little choice but to denounce the very groups claiming to like him and lost the election in a land slide.
The technique of guilt by association became a staple of the public relations industry. Austin couldn’t help but recall how upset Claudia got when she learned of how this strategy was often used. A corporation hounded by questions regarding the effects of their business practices on the environment formed bogus environmental groups whose methods were extreme and dangerous. They would claim the actions of these environmental groups hurt innocent workers or destroyed valuable equipment all in an effort to save a tree, a bird, or an animal most would view as a pest.
Claudia’s ire was not only reserved for environmental issues, but also was incited by how the government and its intelligence agencies conducted business. It was standard practice for an intelligence agency to infiltrate and sabotage any domestic or international agency they felt a threat to the status quo. This could be as simple as planting a few people to turn a peaceful demonstration into a violent confrontation, to using agents to overthrow a government or create international furor over a grassroots resistance group.
Yet, government actions did not usually have to be so blatant. Most times they could muster public sentiment and patriotism through a steady barrage of press releases. Often, their goals could be accomplished by the simple selection of words. Any attack conducted by an enemy of the US would be characterized as a vicious surprise attack needlessly killing numerous women and children, while the exact same action taken by the US or its allies would be described as a strategic surgical strike. When our intelligence agency interfered in another nation’s affairs it is labeled as our assisting the nation in removing the resistance to freedom, when our enemies take action it is labeled terrorism.
Austin’s recalling the horror Claudia felt regarding the use of such tactics was broken the moment he heard his name called. He once again was being asked to explain what he meant by reverse spin, and how it could be used to assist them with their current problem.
After taking a few seconds to orient himself, Austin explained that reverse spin was simply the process of winning support through subtly undermining your opponent. “The easiest way to get people to band together is for defense purposes,” Austin explained smiling. “So, we get people to join us, by creating an evil them.”
Austin told them he believed every strength contained a weakness. Their competitors strength was in its getting first exposure in the marketplace and in the amount of research done on its wonder drug. Therefore, it is essential for DD&P to use these strengths against them. He compared it to a smaller karate expert using the strength and power of his opponent to his own advantage.
“The fact that more research has been conducted on their product than ours is easy for us to utilize to our advantage. As you all well know, no drug is perfect, for every study they have demonstrating its benefits they’ve conducted at least two which show the drug’s drawbacks or limitations. All we have to do is to find those studies and make sure some of those weak spots leak their way into the papers.”
Attempting to insure this campaign was done with style and grace Austin added, “This negative information should be innocently leaked, not used as an attack. In fact, we should quote experts who defend the drug against these non-flattering studies. If we attack we could elicit sympathy and loyalty. Yet, if we have expert after expert defend study after study, we soon have people wondering if they should buy a product whose most avid supporters spend their time downplaying its dangers and side effects.”
“At this moment the side effects from our product are only theoretical,” Austin stated gleefully, “while theirs are showing up in actual consumers. We should seek out and publicize instances where people are having particularly sensational reactions to the new drug. We should feed the papers a steady diet of news releases highlighting and exaggerating the reactions and hopefully dig up a potential lawsuit or two from disgruntled consumers. Yet, once again, we should do our best to pepper these releases with favorable statistics which simultaneously minimize the dangers and maximize the doubts concerning the new drug.”
Austin continued talking for a few more minutes. Most of what he added had to do with specific ways to create doubt in consumers minds through innuendo and well turned phrases. He described letters which could be written ostensibly as defensive editorials which would in fact raise consumer’s fears regarding the new drug.
The longer Austin talked the more disappointed in himself he became, for nothing in what he was saying was new and original. This was all, in his opinion, textbook stuff, strategies he and many others had done thousands of times. Usually Austin was able to put his signature on even the most mundane campaign but today he found his creative reservoir had run dry.
Though everyone involved in the conference seemed quite pleased with Austin’s ideas, he felt he was cheating them. Austin knew the situation with Claudia was at the root of his mental block and he made a commitment to himself to make changes. Even if his date this weekend resolved nothing, he vowed to eat better, get sleep and move on with his life.
Summing up, Austin cautioned his listeners that the success of this campaign depended on two factors. One, of course, was in how effective they undermined their competition without eliciting consumer sympathy. The other was in how well they package and promote their own immune enhancing drug so their own campaign couldn’t be used against them.
“We must make sure,” Austin warned, “that whatever we attack in them we make sure cannot be said about our’s.” With this last statement Austin sat down, and did his best to acknowledge their praise and appreciation with as genuine a smile as he could muster.