Great moments in advocacy communications
I’m going to talk about the importance of authenticity in communications. But on the way to that point, I have to touch on movie piracy, economics and lobbying — come along for the ride!
The folks over at NBC Universal, like so much of Hollywood, have a piracy problem. (There’s a conflated problem in that much of their product is crap, but that’s a different discussion.)
So what does a big business do when it has a problem? If it’s smart, it lobbies. As Jonathan Rauch (one of my favorite policy journalists) pointed out more than 10 years ago in Reason, lobbying pays huge returns.:
In a developed economy, a marginal dollar invested in a new die-cutter or inventory-control system might produce a return of, say, 10 percent a year. Compare that with a shrewd investment in lobbying. In 1992, The New York Times reported that a handful of sugar refiners donated $8,500 to Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R- N.Y.) and received his successful support for a tariff rebate worth $365 million–a return of about 4 million percent. Only a fool would pass up such an investment, or even the occasional shot at one. “If I throw in a million here or a million there, I might get a hundred million back,” a Washington lobbyist once told me. “And there are probably enough cases like that so they keep throwing money in.”
So you’d be stupid not to lobby for legislative advantage, no matter what your business. The potential returns are just too great.
But (and here’s the communications point!) lobbying isn’t just spreading money around — it’s spreading ideas around as well. And in the age of immediate, targeted communications to loyal content consumers, you’d better be sure your ideas have the ring of authenticity. Your key message will be spread around one way or another; the only question is whether it’s by advocates or mocking naysayers.
Which brings us back to NBC Universal and their efforts with the FCC. Here’s the money quote:
“Because of our nation’s interlocking economy, two-thirds of the lost earnings and lost jobs are in industries other than motion picture production. For example, in the absence of movie piracy, video retailers would sell and rent more titles. Movie theaters would sell more tickets and popcorn. Corn growers would earn greater profits and buy more farm equipment.”
Got that? We need to stop piracy so the poor popcorn farmers won’t have it so rough.
Let’s ignore the fact that, in terms of both historic yields per acre and the price of corn futures, corn is doing very well. Let’s even set aside that 70% of all popcorn is eaten at home, not in movie theaters.
It’s a safe bet that whatever NBC Universal executive said that didn’t write the line himself. There was a lobbyist, a corporate communications professional or someone similar helping him craft the point, hone the language. And where did that language get NBC Universal? Well, it got them here. And here. And here. And here. Oh, and Share This
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