Yesterday I was interviewed by a Finnish newspaper about the PR machine that is behind the campaign to find Madeleine McCann, the toddler who was abducted in May from her holiday villa in Portugal. Immediately it was front page news and since that time her parents and their helpers have managed to keep her disappearance at the top of the news agenda. They have managed to raise millions for a marketing fund and they have met with world leaders and even the Pope. I have been totally impressed and frankly stunned with the speed and efficiency of this campaign. Children all over the world go missing every day and yet the McCanns have managed to create a news story that just runs and runs. It is impressively slick, there has been no Madeleine 'fatigue' and the McCanns have been totally 'on message'.
The campaign also provided them with a great buffer when they were named as suspects by the Portuguese police and all of a sudden there was a smidgen of doubt about their claims of innocence. However, they had been so accessible, so media friendly, that the media didn't turn on them as badly as they could. The media had been on their side from day 1 and I wrote on this blog that they were lucky that they hadn't been villified for leaving 3 kids under four alone in the first place.
How have they managed to achieve all this? Well as it turns out they have had a media machine behind then from the start. And, maybe it is all a bit too much as now I can detect a slight turn against the McCanns as the campaign seems to have become all about them. A couple of days ago they appointed a new spokesperson (ex BBC man Clarence Mitchell). Today Max Clifford ('PR GURU' - NOT) backed this move saying they had to do it to protect their reputations. I am not so sure. PR also involves deciding if the timing is right. I think in this case they run the risk of turning the public against them. At the very least this 'Mousetrap of a media production" (as Ian Monk refers to it as in PR Week) runs the risk of a few eyebrows being raised and at worse of distracting people from its original purpose - that of finding Madeleine.
The have not been named suspects. They adopted aguido status in order that they didn't have to answer the police questions.
That this has been overlooked is perhaps a tribute to their PR machine and goverment backers.
Congrats on the interview:)
Posted by: trannyfattyacid | September 19, 2007 at 07:10 PM