Perhaps you’ve been at a baseball game this year where the announcer asked everyone to use their cell phone to send a text message showing support of US troops as part of the “America Supports You” campaign. And perhaps, in a moment of patriotism and compassion for our young soldiers, you tapped out a message. Where did it go? According to today’s NPR Morning Edition report by Martin Kaste, it not only didn’t reach the troops, it went nowhere. Except to the Pentagon.
Chris Moore, who left America Supports You a month ago, says text messages from ball parks don’t actually go anywhere. They don’t appear on the site, they aren’t sent to the troops.
So what’s the point of spending tax dollars on a Pentagon campaign to count text messages?
Kaste says those text messages are just being used as a barometer of public sentiment about the war, and not being sent anywhere beyond the Pentagon.
Much of the Pentagon’s publicity work has been farmed out to a private firm, Susan Davis International. For the first year of America Supports You, Kaste reports, the firm signed Pentagon contracts for at least $2.7 million. The firm’s response to Kaste’s inquiry? “No comment.”
Via Stan Vornovitsky
Pentagon’s PR Machine and Baseball Game Text Messages
BL Ochman | July 13, 2006 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) | TrackBack (
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Categories: Politics, Public Relations, Worst Practices
Tags: , Martin_Kaste_America Supports You, Public Relations, text messages, worst practices
Tags: , Martin_Kaste_America Supports You, Public Relations, text messages, worst practices
Assuming that is true — and we must by the “no comment” reply from the Pentagon — that is a terrible way of playing on our emotions and patriotism.
It amazes me how large organizations think that such deception will not leak out — evenutally.
I get the USDOD Press Service and other military releases, and often see the America Supports You releases. Now, I’ll be a little more skeptical of what is being said.
On a side note, there are whole a lot of milbloggers who are likely doing more good PR for the military than it ever possibly can by itself.
Mike
Other great points
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Oops, sorry. It wasn’t the Pentagon that had “no comment.” It was the PR firm — Susan Davis International — that said no comment. Guess PR firms are not always their best client.
Mike