President may have ignored rule No 1

By DITA DE BONI

Despite Howard Paster's proximity to the inner workings of the White House, the public relations specialist was not there to help handle what could be considered the greatest PR crisis of them all.

The former director of the White House's office of legislative affairs had long since resigned his post when Monica Lewinsky caused a global tidal wave of bad publicity for his former boss, President Bill Clinton.

Mr Paster, who left the White House in 1994 to become chairman and chief executive of the world's second-largest public relations network, Hill and Knowlton (H&K), seems reluctant to speculate on the President's affair.

"I have not discussed [the scandal] with [the President], but it would seem his problem was not 'acknowledging' the relationship, more than the relationship itself.

"He was not ill-advised, but probably kept his council on the matter and failed to confide it to his [PR people]," he says, categorising the ensuing storm of bad press as a case of "ignoring the obvious rule of crisis management - not letting the PR person have as much information as possible up front."

He says the US does not have the luxury of confining political problems to a domestic stage - something that applies equally to H&K's list of multinational clients.

"We tell our clients now there is no purely local story - everything is global."

As part of the WPP global communications network, H&K helps service more than 300 Fortune 500 companies. The firm has an annual fee-income of around $US243 million ($528 million), and in New Zealand has clients like British Telecom, Kellogg and IT Capital, a very exciting account, Mr Paster says.

Integrity is stressed as a key component of H&K's operating philosophy. This principle has perhaps come to the fore as a result of H&K's controversial history within the American political and corporate landscape, which saw it, and a few others, forge the modern public relations industry, encountering criticism as the influential nature of the discipline was unveiled to an increasingly cynical public.

H&K was established by John Hill in Ohio in 1927. An ex-journalist and political conservative, he first represented banks and steel manufacturers in the US Midwest.

After a merger with Donald Knowlton, the business grew in the 1940s by attracting the war-fuelled steel, aircraft manufacturing, petroleum and shipbuilding industries.

After the Second World War, the agency network worked on behalf of clients who were to become public foes. Most notably, it was on the payroll of large tobacco concerns and in the 1950s and 60s helped them to frame a defence which centred on discrediting the work of scientists who were starting to produce evidence of a link between smoking and lung cancer.

A close connection with politics through the network's Washington office also raised public criticism in the early 90s. Work allegedly done on behalf of Kuwait during the Iraq-Kuwait war, and a suspicion of the firm's CIA links, tainted some pockets of public opinion. The company was retained by China, Peru, and Indonesia during that period, and represented notable dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier of Haiti.

In a nod to the past, Mr Paster says the company is no longer involved in Government work, "although individuals may donate their free time to political organisations if they wish." It has not represented tobacco concerns since 1969.

A reason put forward for that, by US historian Karen Miller, was that founder John Hill did not approve of a new tobacco company policy to stop communicating fully to retained PR advisers.

Mr Paster says employees can now step down from accounts "where they do not feel comfortable." Those joining the firm must read and understand a set of written policies covering professional ethics, obligations and conflict management strategies.

H&K is "not subservient," he says.

"When our clients are wrong, we politely tell them. When they are abusive, we resign the account.

"We have to agree with what our clients do, but we are not spokespeople. Our standards for ourselves are stricter than any association standards we have seen. Integrity is foremost."

He is happy to detail some of the work H&K has turned down under his tenure.

"We were approached by a French oil company in Iraq to help get the UN embargo [against the country] lifted - we turned it down as it was clear where the impetus came from.

"We also turned down business for a US weight-loss company that was planning to use Monica Lewinsky as its spokesperson - we thought it was a mistake."

While the scenic winter chill of Auckland might be many thousands of kilometres away from the high-profile hurly-burly of Washington, Mr Paster says New Zealand is important to the H&K network.

But he bemoans the need for Kiwi companies to understand the business value of public relations more.

"PR is a business tool, and has attained a level of professionalism that helps companies maintain morale and communicate the right messages.

"I find New Zealand a little lagging in the fact they don't fully appreciate that the role of public relations is to drive topline revenue."

Including New Zealand, H&K operates in 34 countries and has 66 offices worldwide. It uses sophisticated telecommunications to keep the network coherent, Mr Paster says.

The firm operates a Wide Area Network, an intranet, a worldwide training programme and an educational institution under the H&K banner in the US.

Despite the network's wide reach, founder John Hill's philosophy on self-promotion remains influential: possibly, as Mr Paster quips, "a case of the cobbler's children having no shoes."

Founder John Hill decreed there was little room in H&K for the "great I-ams," or self-promoters, Mr Paster says.

"We are not the story, the client is the story. PR professionals must remember that what is important is the client's work, not what we are.

"No one in the organisation is writing a book and we don't usually talk about what we do.

"The best way to get accounts - and the cheapest - is to get business referred and have potential clients see the good work we do."

The greatest challenge facing public relations in the year 2000?

Not surprisingly, the industry is grappling with how to incorporate all things e-related into the discipline, he says.

"[The industry] has to work out how internet changes what our clients expect - there is now a world where we have instantaneous global communications, and the PR industry has to figure out how to best work that."