Alan Hirsch, a now-retired PR pro and my former boss and partner, offers these thoughts from his years in the PR business. He calls them bad PR stories, although I'm sure similar cases of bad behavior can be found in any industry. Bad behavior isn't unique to the PR business.
Here are Alan's stories...
PR people tell a lot of stories. Some of them are good and some of them are bad.
The following stories are bad. I wish they would be good, but they are not. If you are a PR veteran, which means you have worked in the PR industry for at least 5-8 years or more, then you will be able to add to these stories which only make you sick when you think about them.
1. This story hurts me every time I think about it. When I had my own PR agency in NYC for 18 years, two of my best employees got very friendly. They were both talented and hard workers who knew how to do the job needed.
After they both left my firm, they shared a few PR accounts. They were together for at least 10 years and did very good work for their clients. They were legit. You could call them good friends and associates.
One day friend A asked friend B if he could use his PR Newswire account. Of course, just pay me back whatever the cost is, friend B said. You can determine now what happened.
Friend A decided not to reimburse friend B. He also decided he would use friend B's PR Newswire account,this time without getting permission from friend B. He used $1,400 worth of services, which he didn’t pay for and stuck friend B with the bill, which friend B paid in order to keep his credit clean. Now, eight years later, friend A still hasn’t reimbursed friend B for the money he laid out for friend A.
Friend B knows he will never receive the money he laid out for friend A. He notes this experience not only as a loss of $1400, but as the loss of a supposed friend. Friend A today does not return phone calls from friend B. The only thing he does is not pay his debts. Friend A is a creep, who one day will be called upon to explain his bad behavior.
By the way, this pathetic, corrupt guy lives in a beautiful joint with his wife and son, belongs to a fancy club and sits on the board of his synagogue. No one knows this person A is a bum and thief, except for friend B.
2. Once I had a friend who was good friends with a PR guy from Baltimore, who rose to the highest ranks in the insurance industry. This guy was at the top of the pyramid.
He went from a PR industry job with a major player to the top job at a top U.S. insurance company. This guy was smart. This guy was clever. This guy was looked up to from everyone he met. He was king of the castle.
He only had one flaw. He collected autographs. That's not the flaw. The flaw was that some of the autographs were obtained from a blind autograph dealer. The PR honcho had a weakness in that he stole autographs from the blind dealers. No one ever discovered the thefts, so no one ever found out about this disturbing behavior, except for the thief and my friend, who saw the crook take the items.
3. Once my PR agency worked for a very big tobacco account. We did the job quite well for more than 15 years. Some problems occurred when the client advised me that they were unhappy with the AE assigned to their account.
I said it won’t be a problem if we have to change the AE on the account.
The client, with his arm around my shoulder, said not to do that. Don’t worry, the client said. If there is a problem, you will be the first to know and we will work it out. That was in 1982.
It was the last time I spoke to this client. We were fired a few months later and it was done by a minor player, who at least had the courtesy to do it in person in NY. The guy who had assured me, with his arm around my shoulder, never said peep.
4. When I was younger, the Carl Byoir agency (largest in the U.S. at the time) told me in December of 1965 they wanted to hire me to work on the Hallmark account. Or so I thought. I told them I would love to do that, as I had admired Hallmark for a long time and it would be a great assignment. And Kansas City, the location of Hallmark Cards is a great place. The Byoir honcho said he was glad I liked the assignment.
My first day at work at Carl Byoir at 800 2nd Ave. turned out to be quite a surprise. They didn’t say Hallmark; they said Omark. The difference was that Omark made the saw chain used on chain saws. A far cry from sentimental greeting cards.
5. The worst thing I had to do in business was fire a guy with four kids. I liked this guy a lot. That was in 1982. Now 30 years later, I still can’t get it out of my mind. It will be something I think about forever.
After about nine months, this guy went on to better things and got a good job with a major agency. Until then, though, he never told his wife he had been laid off. He kept coming to the office while he looked for a job. When he started his new job, he never said goodbye or thanks for the free space we provided for nine months. I didn’t want roses, but goodbye would have been enough.
I have a lot more bad stories, but I’ve said enough for now. The objective is to have more good stories than bad ones. I don’t know if I can say I achieved that in 40 years in the public relations industry. I don’t know if I achieved anything, other than to survive, which if you think about it is the true objective of this public relations game.
by Alan Hirsch, president of G+A Communications, 1982 to 1999
Great stories, although I agree that these could happen in any field.
The story about Hallmark Cards was hilarious.
Thanks for sharing these.
Posted by: Shelly P | February 25, 2012 at 08:10 PM
I think it would be more accurate to label these bad human stories. As you note, none of them are unique to PR professionals.
Posted by: Rocco Sacci | February 26, 2012 at 05:14 PM
There's a story in Sunday's NY Times about a person at a farmer's market who put expensive mushrooms--$7.99/lb--in a brown paper bag topped by the $2.99/lb white variety. When the farmer asked what was in the bag the thief pointed to the bin filled with $2.99 fungi and said she got it there. I don't know what business she's in, but there are sleazes in every one.
A friend in advertising did a rush graphics job in Oct. and has called several times for payment. Finally he heard back from the man mid February and he asked for $1,000 discount to the agreed-upon fee. He admitted he'd already been paid by his client--a major food chain. The bill was for a bit over $4,000. The owner told my friend he'd give the man $179 discount [which is more than I would have]. The debtor thanked and said "every little bit helps."
I have been very lucky to have a selective memory where I tend to forget some of the creeps I've known--in a range of other industries for the most part. I have PR friends and colleagues some of whom celebrated with me when I opened my agency--coming up on 16 years--others who volunteer press lists, editing and counsel and still others who collaborate with me and send me business opportunities. Thank goodness for all of them!
Posted by: Jeanne Byington | February 27, 2012 at 11:34 AM
I have some bad PR stories and, in fact, one of the stories Alan write about is about what happened to me. Over the years, I've had my share of bad stories -- clients not paying their bills, office space renters skipping out without paying, prospective clients asking for unreasonable detail in proposals and then never having the courtesy to respond when a decision's been made.
Years ago, when I was too young to say no, my contact at a client was on the phone talking to her friend when her boss walked in. Rather than admit she had been on a personal call, she told him she had been on with me asking for a plan for something. The kicker was, she told her boss I was bringing it with me to our meeting the next day. When she called to admit what had happened and to ask her to bail her out by bringing a plan, it was already 5:15 p.m. and I was heading to the airport for a 7:30 flight to North Carolina for the meeting. This was before the days of personal computers, so I drafted the document at home that night, typed it on my typewriter at home and ran around at 11 p.m. to find a drug store still open that had a copier.
I went to the meeting and gave my client contact the 4 copies of the plan she needed. It was never discussed that day, as far as I know it was never given to her boss, and I learned a lesson -- it's ok to say "no." She asked me for something unreasonbable again to cover her ass, and I said I wouldn't do it.
But despite bad things, I prefer to focus on all the great things that I've experienced in the PR business. I've met many interesting people -- most not famous and some famous, like TV's Mr. Rogers, James Earl Jones, Jimmy Smits, Charles Osgood, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Cardinal O'Connor, Jim Henson (and Oscar the Grouch and Elmo), Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Orville Redenbacher, Regis Philbin, Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, NY Gov. Mario Cuomo, NYC Mayors Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Ronald Reagan (when he was Calif. Gov.), and so many others.
It's been a fun ride, and it still is. So I have much more good PR stories to recall than the few bad ones.
Posted by: David Reich | February 27, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Hilarious
Posted by: Maria Seo | February 28, 2012 at 05:45 AM