In the past we’ve written about the PR tactic of riding the media coattails of major scheduled events. It’s hard enough to drum up publicity from scratch, so when possible, your business should leverage existing high-profile news to your advantage. For example, accounting firms can get PR mileage around April 15, the same with gyms around national health observances, and so forth.
But in public relations there’s always an exception, and that applies to media narratives. Just because some item or matter is getting buzz doesn’t mean it’s best to cinch your horse to it. And the biggest hype-fest of the moment is Donald Trump’s flirting to run for the US presidency.
Had Trump ultimately launched a formal presidential campaign, it might have presented other colorful CEO-types nationwide an opening to extol the virtues of brash business practices, in an attempt to get on the media map. In fact, numerous talking heads and commentators were absolutely certain Trump would seek high office.
This is the point where smart PR counselors would advise their clients about the highly scientific, intellectually rigorous evaluation process known as the “smell test”… If at a minimum one is a student of history, then a quick gloss would reveal that every president since 1961 has held a prior political title – and the one right before that had quite a bit of legitimate global stature.
So beware the lure of questionable media narratives, particularly ones based on absolutely outlandish and farcical premises.
