The PR agency won’t help you if you kill a Lion

PR agency: killing a Lion

I take it as my brief for these posts that I am supposed to offer some perspective on various aspects of marketing. So this one is angled at PR but I will not attempt to disguise the fact that my prime motivation is to add to the mountain of contempt being heaped in the direction of the US Dentist, Walter Palmer, who came to Zimbabwe and paid $60,000 to kill Cecil, a much loved and well known lion from the Hwange National Park. He shot him with a bow and arrow, which did not actually kill Cecil but mortally wounded him. The lion died a slow, agonizing death over many hours.

Palmer has himself been tracked down to Minnesota where he has his obviously very successful dental practice. Social media has ensured he feels the full force of the global outrage at what he did, aided and abetted by two locals, one a “professional” hunter, who were able to lure the lion to his appointment with Palmer because the lion knew and trusted them. Palmer has employed a PR agency to help him protect his reputation and, one imagines, his business. They helped him issue this statement:-

"In early July, I was in Zimbabwe on a bow hunting trip for big game. I hired several professional guides and they secured all proper permits. To my knowledge, everything about this trip was legal and properly handled and conducted. I had no idea that the lion I took was a known, local favourite, was collared and part of a study until the end of the hunt. I relied on the expertise of my local professional guides to ensure a legal hunt”.

Whatever he is paying them, I don’t think he is getting value for money from his PR agency, these kind of clients with this kind of PR Agency rarely do in my view. There are a few really smart people in PR, but they are not thick on the ground. We all know if you are really good at marketing you don’t, as a rule, opt for PR. Smart people with integrity in PR? Probably about as rare as a magnificent lion like Cecil.

Max Clifford was the poster boy for this kind of PR – he at least was quite smart. Palmer’s lot would seem to be not just devoid of any integrity but also dumb.

I think it was always this way, but in today’s world of social media and 24 hour rolling news people can get to the heart of an issue fast. And the issue is whether Palmer regrets what he did or feels any remorse.

I was involved in a major PR crisis when I was at Unilever and, somewhat bolting the stable door, afterwards I was sent on a PR course (this kind of PR). The crisis was the introduction of Biological Persil that appeared to give lots of people skin rashes. We weathered the storm – which was enormous front-page stuff – as best we could and only then was I sent on a course to instruct me in what I should have done. The one thing I remember was that the first rule is “spread it wide”. Don’t get caught on your own, reposition it as a wider industry issue. There is safety in numbers (lions understand that).

So you can see that Palmer’s PR agency has advised him to spread the blame to his two local accomplices. What he did was legal he believed.

Well what we did on Persil was legal too. But without the benefit of the right PR reflexes we decided to apologize and to re-introduce the old non-bio powder. Because we knew a) actually we had made a mistake and b) we had been correctly judged. The only way to restore reputation was to take responsibility.

There are two, and only two, possible conclusions in the case of Palmer. Either he is sorry he has been called out but sees nothing wrong in hunting and killing lions. Or else the experience of doing it and the reaction it has provoked has made him realize the error of his ways. The PR agency should have established that right up front – are you sorry or sorry you got caught?

If it is the latter then the right response is to defend the right to hunt and point out that Africa makes $500 million a year out of this kind of tourism and could stop it any day they wanted. He likes to hunt, does not see anything wrong in killing animals for sport (humanely or not), and if people disagree in the USA or Africa they should legislate or shut up. 

If it is the former then he should apologize profusely and make a personal and financial (he can clearly afford it) commitment firstly to Cecil-the-lion’s pride which is now vulnerable (the cubs and the number two male lion normally get killed by the new dominant male when the alpha male dies) and secondly to helping stamp out this kind of hunting, or any kind of hunting if he really has had an epiphany.

Either way, be authentic, stand up for what you believe, take responsibility. That, and only that, is the basis of good PR.

In case there is any doubt on where I stand, I unreservedly condemn what he did. I cannot understand the pleasure in needlessly killing animals, let alone doing so inhumanely. Yes, men have always hunted, just like animals. There are a lot of things men have always done until more civilized attitudes prevail. To hunt, and to hunt in this way, just tells me he is somehow insecure or feels inadequate. Lions can kill viciously, male lions will attack females, the pride will kill innocent cubs – because they are uncivilized animals. But they do so for genetic reasons, not for ‘fun’. Shame on you Palmer and shame on Africa for allowing this.


Read more from Mark Sherrington in our Clubhouse.

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