SPN Ogilvy talked about feelings at PR Days in Moscow

SPN Ogilvy hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “Instilling feelings: communication campaigns as a tool for changing social standards, mindsets and culture” within PR Days in Moscow, one of the largest industry events held on 10-11 June 2010. Andrey Barannikov, CEO of SPN Ogilvy and Vice President of the Russian Public Relations Association, was the moderator of the discussion.

“Appearance of complex communication campaigns aimed at shaping values, mindsets and culture proves that the Russian PR industry is maturing, actively catching up with the western public relations industry”, Andrey Barannikov says. “Such campaigns are the best illustration of current processes in our profession: a shift from informing, solving simplest tactical tasks to changing fundamental elements of conscience; from one-off projects to long-term programs; from using single unified tools to working our complex unique solutions”.

“These programs are perhaps the biggest challenge a PR professional can face. However, solving such tasks provokes numerous questions: there are no off-the-shelf techniques; most effective solutions are not the most obvious ones at times, etc.”, he thinks.  

That was the subject of the discussion which united representatives of all links of the chain: clients, strategists and executives of such campaigns.
Kirill Rodinov representing the All-Russian Opinion Research Center discussed whether it is possible to effectively influence public conscience. Basing on the research data he showed that in a short-term prospective (2-3 years) communication campaign can change motives as the most “flexible” element of conscience. To influence values a long-term systematic activity is required. The only short-term “campaign” which has dramatically changed values within just a couple of years was, ironically, World War II. In other, not so extreme, conditions a generation should change and the corresponding communications background should be maintained for all that time, or the effect will vanish. Two biggest institution who have been doing that purposefully and systematically for many years are the Russian orthodox church and United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) political party.

Julia Gryaznova, Chairman of the Public Communications Committee of the Russian Public Relations Association agreed that making revolutions in human conscience is dangerous. The only way is evolution; however, on its way there are many difficulties. The expert thinks that nowadays there is a crisis of values in Russia: old values are gone, while new values haven’t been shaped yet. Among the reasons for that are fast social and economic changes and multiplication of institutions trying to influence public conscience and competing for that with each other (family, state, church, media, market, etc.). In such circumstances values can be influenced by means of consolidating efforts of various institutions within one project and maintaining ongoing communications activities, practicing, reinterpreting and reconfirming new values. She demonstrated this by the example of the current program of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia aimed at shaping a healthy lifestyle and teaching Russians to value their own health (http://www.takzdorovo.ru/).  

Elena Demina, Head of PR Department of VympelCom, demonstrated how the company builds loyalty in the conscience of its customers. VympelCom’s Beeline, the leading Russian mobile operator, launched a project “The world is full of smiles”: it offered subscribers to send pictures of “smiles” they found in inanimate things, city and country landscapes, and vote for the pictures they liked. The grand prix of the contest is organizing a big feast in a city whose representatives will have gather the biggest number of votes.

Denis Gusev, the representative of Rosmolodezh, the State Agency for Youth Affairs, tould about the Zvorykin project as a tool of engaging youth into innovative activities. To motivate young scientists and inventors to implement their ideas into life the organizers try to raise their status and make it “fashionable” to develop innovations. The speaker argues that there is a great need in implementing ideas, and the youth is looking forward to see successful examples. Winners of the Zvorykin prize (http://www.innovaterussia.ru) demonstrate such success stories.

Alexander Segal, Managing Partner of Kyiv Communication Group, pointed our the basic reasons of the problem discussed. While Russia is aiming to occupy an important place in the world the major part of information products is still produced suggesting a low intellectual level of the audience.

Whereas these media products are broadcasted 24/7: thus, public conscience is being constantly processed. The biggest mistake of communications practitioners, the expert thinks, is treating the audience as an object of influence and underestimating it as a subject of interaction. Thus, separate campaigns are not enough to change the course of things - a new approach is required, a shift from manipulating to educating. And this becomes a question of professional responsibility and ethics for the PR community.

Boris Yeremin, President of the Russian branch of IAA, illustrated this conclusion by a provocative example. He offered the audience a definition of an activity, and the participants of the round table, PR practitioners, admitted that it described their occupation. Then he revealed that it was a definition of propaganda given by… Paul Joseph Goebbels! Thus, if specialists state changing public conscience as their objective they should re-consider what they are actually doing.