Damaging the Image of PR

Jack O’Dwyer, the respected and long-time voice of reason in the public relations industry, recently wrote about the use of students in communications classes at five universities to post phony profiles and bogus statements on Facebook and MySpace on the evils of counterfeit handbags, clothing, sporting goods and other consumer products.

The PR campaign was cooked up by the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition — a whistle-blower front for high-end consumer brand products — and Paul Werth Associates, with the complicity of the university professors. The whole scheme was downright dishonest and wrong, in my opinion, and I question its ethics. Most troubling was the lesson it taught the students about deceptive behavior by some people in business and corporate America.

Asked by AdWeek about the deceptions in the campaign, one student said this was nothing but the reality of how PR works. “PR people, in general, have very little morals when it comes to being completely honest with the consumer.”

I asked Robert Barchiesi at the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition by email to comment about his organization’s campaign, as reported by AdWeek. His response via email, “Their (sic) is nothing misleading about it. What specifically are you referring too (sic).”

There’s something terribly counter-intuitive about an anti-counterfeiting group using less than fully transparent practices in a PR campaign. As O’Dwyer correctly observed, “fake anything hurts PR.”