Here are a few PR lessons that can be learned from the recent film Thank You for Smoking. In this film Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, a lobbyist/PR representative for big tabacco, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son. This film was highly entertaining and highly educational. I sat in the theater and empathsized with a man who supports a bad habit of smoking.
Lessons...
*Create an emotional connection between your company/product/position and your audience; human emotions are irrational and prompt people to act and think in ways they wouldn't normally.
*Make your negative aspects your positive attributes. At one point in the film, Nick is kidnapped and gets about 50 Nicoderm patches slapped across his body, and his body eventually goes in to nicotine shock. The doctors tell Nick that he would have died if it had not been for the fact that he was a smoker. As a smoker his body had become acclimated to nicotine. Praise the Lord for cigarettes.
*Be honest, admit your mistakes when you mess up. Nick is not a very moral man and therefore ends up having an inappropriate relationship with a reporter who is doing a story about him. He admits this and somehow he is human and his audience forgives his wrongdoings.
So I thought this was an entertaining flick with interesting characters and some PR lessons, anyone else seen this movie and have some thoughts?
2 comments:
I found the movie to be enjoyable as well. I love sarcasm and I thought Eckhart (and prety much the whole cast) did a good job.
I am a smoker for well over 60 years. I fully support smoker's rights with my Forces Oklahoma Blog
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