Gadaffi Looks To PR To Sell Libya To The West - PR Week Analysis (United Kingdom), Aug.20
The Libyan government has struggled to find an international PR network willing to promote Gadaffi's regime
These days Colonel Muammar Gadaffi prefers to be photographed wearing a
kaftan than the full military regalia and mirror shades of old.
One of the leaders most reviled by the West, Gadaffi now enjoys the public support
of one of our most respected political figures, Nelson Mandela.
He is leaving behind his days as a fiery revolutionary and beginning to settle into
the role of the elder statesman.
He is building bridges with the West and the Libyan government wants to
capitalise on the detente with the UK and the UN by spinning some positive
coverage for Gadaffi's regime, but finding a PR agency willing to take on the work
has proved a little difficult.
International Public Relations (IPR), a Dubai-based agency affiliated to Shandwick,
was approached by the Libyans to take on the task of publicising a special
meeting of the Organisation of African Unity - the African equivalent of the G8 group
of nations - in Libya next month.
When bidding for the business IPR, which has not been hired for the work, decided
it needed the help of an international network, and sought an agency prepared to
take the work on. In all, PR Week has found five UK agencies and one US outfit
which were approached. Most of them declined to be named and none of them
took on the work.
Apparently, Strategic Profile International (SPI), a UK public affairs outfit which
specialises in profiling developing countries and already runs the British Libyan
Business Group's secretariat, is the only agency happy to have Libya as a client.
SPI, in a separate initiative to the one IPR was approached for, is organising a
parliamentary delegation to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the revolution
which brought Gadaffi to power.
But Nick Archer, UK public affairs director at Edelman PR Worldwide, which has
just turned away the Indonesian government, asks: 'With an image that dented,
can you do anything with it?'
Ian Lindsley, director and UK head of Burson-Marsteller's public affairs brand
BKSH, says there is only so much PR can achieve, and that Libya needs to make
big changes, such as introducing democratic reforms, before the spin doctors can
start work.
B-M is not averse to representing foreign governments per se. Indeed, among
those the agency has worked for are Chile and Bahrain. 'But,' Lindsley says, 'the
thing with Libya is that it is so beyond the pale. The question in lobbying ten years
ago was whether you worked for South Africa. Now it's Libya and Nigeria. For the
pariahs of the world, PR isn't going to help them in the short term. Any PR agency
which thinks it can is kidding itself.'
For a US agency, accepting the work would have meant breaking the law, as trade
with Libya is still banned in the US.
Hill and Knowlton's UK business was one of those which turned Libya down.
H&K accepted work from the government of Angola, during the civil war in the
mid-1980s and early-1990s, Turkey and Brazil in the mid-1990s and Zambia last
year. But Edward Bickham, deputy chairman and MD of corporate and public affairs
at H&K, says he was reluctant to get involved with Libya before the conclusion of
the Lockerbie trial, which is unlikely to begin before the first quarter of next year.
Bickham believes PR can help Libya, but adds that it is a huge task.
'Libya has an awfully long way to go, a long period of maverick behaviour to live
down.'
Ian Rumgay, Shandwick international client services director, says it is difficult to
categorically state which regimes his company should or should not work for, and
that much depends on what the agency is being asked to do, or defend.
Rumgay recommends applying the test set down by the Advertising Standards
Authority - is what you are being asked to do legal, decent, honest and truthful?
Clients Shandwick has worked for include the Royal Cambodian government,
Brunei, the Philippines, Cyprus, Tunisia and the Netherlands.
But SPI account executive Marcus Courage goes further, thoroughly rejecting the
concept of pariah nations, and saying that grass roots contacts continue even
when nations are not officially dealing with each other.
SPI has presented Libya with a long-term image-building plan, and has yet to hear
back. Courage believes it is at the grass roots level that PR can do most to foster
better relations between Libya and the UK. He points out that there are 5,000
Libyan students in Britain, and that the British form the largest expatriate
community in Libya.
'The first thing we would want to do is humanise the face of Libya's ordinary
citizens,' he says, adding that the only things most people know about Libya are
that its leader is Colonel Gadaffi and that it is oil-rich. Any PR operation would need
to steer the focus away from Gadaffi.
He suggests creating a 'constituency' of support in the UK through a series of
cultural, political, academic, and even sporting exchanges.
But as Bickham points out, the UK may not be the best place to start a PR
campaign. Libya has closer links with other European nations, including Italy, with
which it is building a pipeline to carry gas between the two countries. 'They should
be looking to lower hanging fruit like the Italians, the French and the Spanish,' he
suggests.
HOW LIBYA MIGHT GO ABOUT IMPROVING ITS IMAGE
There are three main ways to promote a country: politically, through tourism and
through trade. In Libya's case, trade is the best place to start. Libya has money
from oil which it has not been able to spend because of sanctions, and needs to
invest in its infrastructure.
Suggestions put forward by consultants include:
- Decide which industry sectors to develop, then target international companies
through conferences and specialist media.
- Use oil money to help some noble causes
- Establish a chamber of commerce, followed by an academy to promote culture.
- Initiate a public affairs campaign to inform foreign politicians, using parliamentary
exchanges and contact programmes for visiting politicians, taking them to party
conferences. |
