BELL POTTINGER: LESSONS (NOT) LEARNED

This summer is marked by the global PR scandal with Bell Pottinger in the center: communication of the well-known agency with a controversial client (Gupta family) leaked out, revealing a number of non-ethical activities, including the design of a social media campaign which stoked racial tensions in South Africa. According to the credible sources, Bell Pottinger is considered responsible for orchestrating the creation of numerous fake Twitter accounts to target prominent white business people in South Africa, in order to draw attention away from the Gupta family and their businesses.

Following the discovery, situation culminated instantly and the agency, which is supposed to be ?the crisis fixer", found itself at the epicenter of the crisis situation.

Bell Pottinger issued an apology, explained that the contract with the Guptas` company Oakbay Capital was ceased in April. Furthermore, Bell Pottinger fired a lead partner and suspended few employees. However, it was not sufficient to satisfy the public. Pressure persisted and professional community reacted, so Bell Pottinger has been thrown out from PRCA (Public Relations and Communications Association) for the 5-year period.

According to PRCA Committee findings, Bell Pottinger breached several clauses. Bell Pottinger was "by any reasonable standard of judgement likely to inflame racial discord in South Africa and appears to have done exactly that. The committee did not find the suggestion that this theme of the campaign and its consequences were unintentional to be plausible. The targeting of white corporate South Africa is a material consideration here."

The PRCA Committee also found that the South African campaign did not have enough oversight by senior Bell Pottinger management: "The manner in which the Oakbay Capital programme was conceived and delivered indicated a failure on the part of Bell Pottinger's senior management to oversee and control a campaign which, in the committee's view, required the highest level of scrutiny and supervision, given the sensitive political and social environment in which it was activated."

Obviously, Bell Pottinger also breached a clause stating that companies must observe the highest standards of the practice of public relations and communications, as well as the clause that companies must take care to uphold the standing of the profession as a whole.

Stepping down of the Bell Pottinger group CEO is simply logical move following the entire scandal and it happened. Nevertheless, the entire scandal opens Pandora`s box of questions regarding work and ethics of the agencies:

• Why Bell Pottinger decided to go deeply into the waters of the unethical work?
• Is an unethical approach to work common point for the top agencies?
• Why were ?crisis fixers", who sell their lobbying and PR solutions worldwide, unable to cope with their own crisis?
• Do the clients pay for the name/brand rather than for real quality work?

I will try to give brief views regarding these points; any contribution from the readers is more than welcome.

Incompetence of overconfidence?

With more than 15 years of senior communications experience, including political consultancy, international communications, crisis communications, top-level lobbying and Government relations, I simply cannot claim to be a holy person, who did only things on the bright side of communications. Of course, there are jobs on the ?dark side" and all senior strategic communications professionals know that: putting crises under the carpet, setting up strategies which will boost the reputation of a client by damaging the reputation of the opponents and much, much more. However, there is a red line of the ethics and professional integrity: in all these things, both on the bright and on the dark side, you are neither supposed to lie, nor to generate fake content. Thus, why Bell Pottinger decided to go far beyond the line?

Possible explanations are quite simple: either employees are incompetent or without any ethical standards (apparently this is the fault of senior management and recruitment), or they had instruction from the top to do the things in an unethical way. Strange or not, Bell Pottinger left written trace about what they were doing. Leaving traces about such activities again refers either to total incompetence or to the overconfidence.

Incompetence is quite self-explanatory, so let`s take a look into overconfidence: if you are working under the powerful umbrella or brand which can access both hard and soft power mechanisms, it is not too difficult to become overconfident. You can start believing you are untouchable and nobody will find out what you are doing. Even if someone finds the evidence about the unethical work or other mess, overconfident people believe that fear will prevail. I heard many times from some colleagues: ?Nobody will publish these findings". In the era of the Internet it is simply impossible to control all the content: thus, you may easily pay the bitter price for the overconfident stance.

Money as motivator

Lucrative contracts (for example, contract of Bell Pottinger with Gupta's` Oakbay Capital was worth ￡100.000 per month) make the companies go beyond the lines of integrity. From my point of view, such approach is deeply wrong. The possibility to reveal unethical work and, consequently, to lose much more than ￡100.000 per month always exists. Regardless the pressure from the top to make more and more income and more and more profit, sometimes it is wise to think twice before you go into the agency-client relationship with someone who demands from you to perform unethical work. Simply, there is no price for passing beyond the line, unless if you are suffering from total overconfidence or if you believe that money will close all the mouths who notice your dirt. Both approaches are, mildly said, unacceptable.

Buying brands?

In the reality of the agency life, client-side people sometimes tend to buy top brands, deeply believing that big names guarantee the quality of work. While I was managing operations of the mid-scale agency, I was feeling it on my own skin. In many cases expertise did not count – name/brand was more important. Bell Pottinger crisis revealed some important points regarding the professional work: for example, Bell Pottinger top management was unable to handle the crisis properly and was unable to lobby properly within the professional community. Accompanied with quite unconvincing press releases of the CEO and even a more disastrous public appearance of Lord Bell, it is quite questionable what are the capabilities of Bell Pottinger to handle the crisis for the client, having in mind that agency could not cope with the crisis for its own benefit. Not all the big agencies are such; however, this case showed a clear evidence that some agencies are ?name-sellers". Thus, it is a huge question what strategic communications agencies are really selling. Knowledge? Expertise? Know-how? Devoted strategic advisory? Should be, but, following this case, I am not sure about all these. I am convinced that Mr. Bell has excellent relations with many relevant stakeholders and decision-makers all over the world. So, what is the agency selling? From my point of view, selling name and connections without real know-how and without measurable results of the agency work contributes to more widespread recognition of PR professionals as fiction-mongers. Sanctioning unethical work by PRCA shows the light at the end of the tunnel – integrity still counts. My deepest respect and applause for PRCA Committee decision.