Darkness Public Relations

Methods of virtual blackmail

This method is not based on a fact, but on the alleged desire or thought of anyone. It is always possible to prove the falsity or correctness of any material fact. But it is not almost possible to prove that a person was not thinking about anything. Thoughts within our minds are closed. And they are more closed when they have occurred in the past. So it is always possible to start a Black PR capmapign against any person’s or group’s plans and ideas, which they did not even think about. Or they migh think about, but did not make them public.

Many labor groups spread intrigues, and this is especially characteristic of women’s groups. And I have repeatedly watched literally nest of intrigue in regular education schools and institutions. In these organizations, people get paid a penny, but they have a lot of weaving plots against each other. And it is enough just to say something a little bit negative and it will be treated as if you are his worst enemy and think of his shift. And what it is more interesting, it is that in such groups they often use a completely made-up arguments. But you can say the same, and that is something people thought about or what he was not going to think about, and you just can take an advantage of this fact.

However, what happens between people in person is very different from what is happening in the PR, where the personal contact, usually excludes. In person one can say with a straight face that he’s telling the truth, and he believed, when he saw his expression and tone of voice, which are well known to all the participants of the event. In PR it can not be done in this way.

But PR practitioner can use a virtual dirt. You need to figure out what can the attacked group of people think about the target audience. And then you need to publish this virtual compromising and bring any available evidence of it’s fidelity. It is funny, but most often this works even without incriminating evidence. The target audience can get questioned: «But there is really something. But are they really going to do? «And this doubt already has the result. Then they will look for evidence to support or refuse their doubts and their brain will soon find hundreds of proofs of your words, because many facts can be interpreted in different ways. And if any of the people transforms to the image of the «bad person», later any of his actions will begin to be treated as the urge to evil.

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Certain practices of black PR-campaign will be discussed in other sections of the book. It is important to know that the technology oof PR should be used only with all existed methods on a very quality level. This chapter gives a general idea of the black PR-campaign, a kind of a shell, which must be supplemented by technology, as described below.

Findings

Most Black PR-companies need to be passed through the public non-profit organizations.Both existing and as specially created community and organizations can be involved.

Use of non-governmental organizations can be left in the shadows of the customer company. You do not need to fight this company from his face and somehow participate in this.

Black PR-campaign should pursue the good, useful for society purposes. It should support the idea of goodness and justice.

Must be raised doubts in some vital property of a competitor, rather than trying to completely discredit the property. No need to expose directly – you need to generate consumer uncertainty in use of a competitor’s service or goods. It is better if there will be a negative opinion about the competitor in the minds of the target audience due to their own conclusions, and not because of your information.

It is important to choose a subject of attack in a right way and attack the target audience.

In the absence of compromising competitor’s information you can use indirect evidence to the «correct» information accents.

Chapter 2

Protection against attacks Black PR.

In fact, to defend against such attacks is more difficult than to attack itself. In world practice, there are many cases where brilliant politicians and companies only due to the inability to fight off an information attack, organized by their political opponents, just crashed their own reputation. Sometimes erroneous protection built in that way, so that instead of neutralizing the enemy’s attack, it is increasing it. These errors occur as a consequence of not understanding the nature of information attacks. PR-attack fundamentally different from the war, where even a small force is still damaging. A large army which goes straight to the enemy could easily defeat him. It is not like this. Walking straight and answering rebuttals can bring you to a position of a loser.

At the same time, you can successfully fight off an attack, if you act right, using complex workarounds. Moreover, by using a porper methods you can beat off the attacks, even when the consequences of their impact are very significant.

Before you deal with the attacks of your competitors, it is important to understand the essence of the attacks, and to understand the types of them.

There are 4 basic types of information attacks:

.Professional information attack.

· Nonprofessional attack.

· Spontaneous attack.

· Spontaneous attack, supported by stakeholders.

Professional attack is always used by professional PR-managers, or even the whole PR-agency. It is built according to the main and the most effective rules of black PR and the effective use of all available resources. To fight back such an attack is very difficult and often nearly impossible. Very often the real person who made an attack is hidden and everything looks like an actions of some other organizations.

Unprofessional attack usually begins with the fact that one of your competitors has decided to use an information attack practices and started to do it by himself. Often, in this case, there are custom-made ordered articles or registered telecast. Content is usually is not much important and in you canproperly see that this is the custom paper (ordered). Typically, these attacks are not safe and can inflict heavy damage. You better ignore them and do not respond. Sometimes to fight them does not make any sense, and what is most common, to publish a rebuttal is a ig mistake, because denial can strengthen the attack and will make it proven.

Spontaneous attack is when your business is affected by someone’s interests. Construction company could face the interests of residents who stay in near lying areas. Oil company, faced with the interests of inhabitants of nearby towns. You can also hurt the interests of the diplomatic missions, national communities, etc. Touching someone’s interests should expect a response and you have to be to prepared for it.

Often spontaneous attack supported by interested in it publics. This can be soething, like public organizations interested in the contributions and popularity among the people. It can be political institutions and individual politicians, as well as just your competitors. It should also be noted that dissatisfied people are actively complaining to all authorities and somewhere there may be and even your personal enemies. By getting support this event can be very dangerous and can grow up into a strong professional black PR.

A classic example of this type of attack is the PR-sealing buildings in St. Petersburg (city in Russia)

Residents of different areas found out that parks and gardens under their windows are cut down and skyscrapers are build up instead of them. Basically, their outrage was limited by small letters to the court and, of course, it has never had any success. However, this case was noticed by the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg and members of municipal councils. They realized the big political gain and began to speculate on this, while helping (but not always) people to save their parks and gardens. That is in the harvest campaign 2003—2004, some deputies gained popularity only because of this. They held rallies, pickets and helped people with writing complaining letters, and delivered them to the urban governance. As a result, building companies have lost their fields. What is more interesting, many of these homes are fully consistent with all the rules, but the deputies, however, played with standards of illumination.That it was not constructed properly. And really, which citizen would agree that his house will be lighten by sun only in the evening and then only for three hours?

How did building companies of the city act in this situation? Most of them have tried to solve the problem with money. Thay tried to «buy’ district administration, municipal deputies, members of Legislative Assembly, the residents themselves, the chairpersons of housing cooperatives. So, basically, they tried to fight Black PR off with money. There have also been trying some several attempts to make an actions in support of «sealing buildings,» but basically everything was decided by money. It should be noted that at some points they were able to achieve some results through «buying’, but not everything. This situation reduced the popularity of Vladimir Yakovlev, who was the governor of St. Petersburg that time. Also, they invented a new authority in approving the project, using the «public hearing’. It is when, the builders were obliged to ask the opinion of the inhabitants ofor a future building site. And people can be against building on the very biased reasons. For example, some of the residents might just not like the fact that they are building a new home, where him and his children will not be able to buy an apartment. This form of public hearings in fact became a new form of getting money from builders. There also was invented a method with «red» people, who has been hired to act as a citizen and who needed to agree with a building a site.So the builders are spending more on it, and the apartments becoming more expensive.

At the same time, this problem can be avoided before it occurs, and even after the formation of all the problems can be solved with much less money.

Professional information attacks

Let us examine each of these types of attacks consistently. At first lets look how to protect against professional attacks. Of course, the professional attack is very destructive, and people who are not having a special training can not fight back. Many people think: «I have everything under control. The authorities are my friends. The press, too. No one else will want to fight with me. However, this is an overconfidence. Even in a completely totalitarian state, with the thoroughly controlled press, you can successfully make black PR against the people of authority. And it is not always necessary to use the press, because there is an alternative information media as well. Sometimes it is enough to write something on the fence or drop a letter in a single inbox. As long as people do not sit in separate cells and interact with each other – always possible to come up with a new way to share information. There is an interesting case. The large number of political prisoners were put in, but in different cells. One of them had a red shirt, he was pulling out the threads from it, and then catching the flies and putting that threads to them. Very soon the flies were flying with red threads, and the whole prison sang song «International» (a Russian national songof communist parties). Even in cells it was possible for human to disseminate the information.

Even the most advanced systems of organization of human society have a lot of holes that can be used for almost anything.

You have to identify the professional attack at an early stage.That is why, first of all you need to determine whether it is a professional attack, or it is something else. To identify the professional attack, use the following initial signs of attack:

• If you see that the enemy is trying to spread any doubts about you, but does not using direct incriminating evidence, then there may be a professional attack.

· If in what he is trying to doubt about, it is really one of the key features of your product, it may also indicate a professional approach.

· If you’ve found that the source of attack is a PR-agency or PR-specialists, it also indirectly confirms that it is the professional attack.

· Try to understand how long is the term of an attack. If you understand that this is the beginning of a large process, it’s likely that this is a professional attack.

• If the attack based on three basic components, which is a competitor, a professional PR-specialists and organizations, this attack can be professional.

Of course, there are no unique identifiers for such attacks. But with the above grounds you can understand which kind of attack you’re dealing with.

Now let’s look at how to counterattack the professional black PR. You must learn the techniques of attack and source of the attack and find out as much information about the attacker. To study the attacking side, you can refer to the detective agency. Usually it is much easier to win with having sufficient information about your enemy. With the analysis of information, you will be able to see what information about you will be used by the opponents.

Never begin to refute directly distributed information about you immediately. Very often, a direct refutation of the attack, can simply increase the efficiency of the actions of black PR, which are directed against you. No matter how obvious is your denials, there might not be enough to eliminate the doubts arising from the target audience. Rising of doubts is often the goal of PR-campaign.The information used for black PR is usually very hard to verify, and the more its verification is not available. Your arguments are not absolutely conclusive, if the audience itself will undertake to verify the information, and, as a rule, it wont be able to do so due the hidden inomation by professionals of black PR. This is a fundamental difference between mass communication and private spheres. If in-person exposed face arguments can persuade people of something, it is not always in the same way with a large group of people reading the newspaper or watching TV.

Method disorganization attacks

There are lots of methods of fighting off the information attacks. One of the methods is based on your participation in the attack of your enemy. We call this method – the method of false target. While the enemy looking for some compromate, you start attack rough. You throw off the information about youself in the source of your opponent. For example, information that youremployees are porn stash of drug dealers, and the CEO is a prostitute. It doesn’t look truthfull and In this mass of sensational accusations your enemy will look absurd. When you do so, the target group will develop immunity, and you kinda getting vaccinated against an attack.

A few years ago, the company LEGO got an information attack from the competitors. In response parents of children using LEGO toys, went to the association of parents of one of the European countries. And the parents said in court thet LEGO accusing them of using the characters in advertising agitating children to become racing drivers and drug dealers. Shortly before, there was an advertisement, where a character in the style of LEGO drives dashing among the toys at a very high speed. According to the parents, children are campaigning to race and be at risk.

Many try to buy a certain individuals to achieve positive results. However, we must realize that this is not always possible. In any case, it is impossible in professional black PR-campaign. Such an attempt of bribing instantly turns against you.

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Example. Good Idea trashes poor Ikea.

–

The IKEA in Moscow was in a such situation. The city administration did not like something about IKEA, and against IKEA a Black PR-campaign was done for few times. Once the guards beat IKEA customer who was trying to leave through the front door. The fact is that in IKEA the entrance is in one place, and the exit is in the other, and in order to reach the exit you hwill ave to go across the hall and get acquainted with all the goods. So, basically, no one can get out of there without shopping. But this same method of merchandising affects mood of a buyer in some negative way as well, that is why that customer crossed the entrance and felt bad. He ran back to the entrance. However, he could not exit. Then he began to try strength, and as the result he was caught and beaten by the guards. The buyer inspected beatings and wrote down a report to the police. A well-known broadcaster noticed this case and devoted a few TV shows on the central TV. TV presenter mentioned that «the Russian person was beaten in the Swedish store» and in one of the shows he called the Department of Public Relations and IKEA began to talk about it. 40 minutes PR manager was trying to justify the situation in various ways, but in the end of the conversation offered to meet up with management and try to negotiate. This, of course, was immediately turned against IKEA.

The activity of Moscow IKEA itself is a whole collection of PR-errors. Perhaps it is due to a weak PR-staff, or possible unavailability of Swedish firm to the Russian mentality. If the Swede is clear that when the red light it is red, then to the Russian red light is not always red. Only when the decision was made on the construction of IKEA, the group organized a series of meetings of pensioners against the construction of Swedish store next to a memorial of the Great Patriotic War. Manual IKEA wrote about it, it’s just a black PR against IKEA. As a result of publication of this fact was five times greater, and retirees who hate IKEA, a hundred times more.

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One of the famous guards of President Yeltsin was charged in connection with a prostitute in the sauna. The video was shown by several TV channels. And it seriously damaged his image. However, the method of false targets can be used to neutralize the information. This man had to find a twin or someone uwho can look like him by using a make up. Then he needed to take a picture of him naked and put this picture in Playboy or similar magazine with some famous porn star. Then say, «Yes, I do have a twin. It is necessary for my safety, exactly when I am in public. Moreover, I have even a few twins, not one. "But it is difficult to keep track of them, and so some of them deal with this. Given the fact that twins of the chief of the secret person they can not even be shown.

Professional information attack directed, usually, to the key properties of your product. However, if you can achieve what his main force it would avoid most of the impacts of black PR.

Flash method

Another method of neutralization the black PR is the method of Flash. Creates an event that is directly related to your company, but completely overbrightness the information attack directed against you. How to implement this method is shown in the movie «Wag the Dog.» To overshadow the negative information that the enemy wanted to spread against the U.S. president, the president created this PR war with Albania. They start a real war, but merely mimic warfare. A similar method is tried to apply by PR of President Clinton. When the conflict began with Monica Lewicki, suddenly the conflkit with Yugoslavia was formed. Clinton also suddenly broke his leg and was going to an international meetings in a wheelchair.

The method allows you to translate the flash of publicity in a completely different plane, and is equally well applicable to both of big business and politics, and for a small shops as well. To implement the method of the flash it is necessary to consider two things:

• Create event should be much brighter than the bizarre and the one that created by your opponent. It must literally dazzle your audience.

• Create an event must lie in the other sphere of an information.

· It must be non-negative.

It may seem that these techniques do not apply to small businesses, but they do. Imagine that in a small little village there is a cobbler Vasya and the whole village is mending his boots. But Fedor argued with Vasya, because of women Nura and started spreading the news that the Vasya is not properly repairing the boots. He did not to say anything, but he was just walking around with a torn boot and when he was asked why is he going around in torn boots, he was replying, that Vasya repaired his boots, but something quickly fell off. If he did the right thing, the people would start doubt the cobbler Vasya and will mend shoes somewhere else. What significant events can Vasya make:

· Create a large boot. So big that it was rumored he was placed in the Guinness Book of Records Russia or Guinness.

· Make elegant shoes allegedly commissioned by the famous artist. And in fact, it should be amazing shoes. If she comes to the village, the reputation of Vasya will be guarantly fixed.

· Marry Nura.

· Find his brother who has been lost many years ago.

Very often, the firm’s lawyers are asking the leadership to speak in a court against the press on the immediate offenders. If the information has not been published – it is a really a good method. But when you act like this against a professional, well-trained black PR practitioner, it is practically useless and dangerous measure. Since almost always in black PR it is used only truthful information, or one that could be true fand or no possibility of verification, to prove something in court becomes almost impossible. Moreover, even proving the case in court, you can not get rid of the doubts by target audience. At one time, in the cans of Pepsi-Cola people startedto find the needles. Through the courts, they have proved something, but sales still fell in a few months. They certainly managed to stop the process of finding needles, but it was unable to neutralize the harmful effects of the company’s image.

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