Example of smart PR tactics

Recently there's been some upheaval with regards to the 'sexiest walk' research that was released to the press and turned out to be manipulated. Although the UK PR agency that conducted the research received a lot of criticism, the succes in terms of coverage from the research also makes painfully clear that press picked up this story without double checking any of the facts. But if I need to take sides I'ld have to say I understand the deadlines and pressure that journalists need to work with sometimes. They just don't always have the time to check stories and this kind of press releases are typically used to fill the last open spaces on a page. And obviously, it is just wrong for a PR agency to send out a press release that is clearly misrepresenting the truth.

I was really struck however by this item that made it to the Belgian seven o´clock news today. The Belgian Anti-piracy Federation (BAF) announced measures towards illegal downloading of movies from the internet. This is a good cause, because according to BAF the Belgian movie and dvd industry misses a rough 30 million euro in revenues each year due to illegal downloads. Obviously I was interested to find out the nature of those measures. Turns out that they will train cinema staff to recognize people who are filming a movie in the cinema with their camcorders!

Now first of all, how difficult can it be to recognize someone who´s doing that? Do we really need to train staff for that purpose? And secondly, how many world premieres of movies do we have in Belgium? I mean: the people who do this get a kick out of being the first to offer a new movie online for download, sometimes even within hours after the first showing (like Michael Moore's Sicko!). Most of these premieres take place in the US or UK, not in Belgium. Basically, by the time a movie comes to Belgian cinemas, lots of copies of it are already being offered via illegal download sites. So will these measures from BAF really make a difference? I think not. Did they use lies to the trick the media? Nope. Is it smart PR tactics? Definitely!