Porter Novelli
“Porter Novelli is a global public relations company. We take a 360-degree view of your business to build powerful and distinct communications programs that resonate with the stakeholders who are critical to your success” – Porter Novelli website
“Put your words in someone else's mouth… There will be times when the position you advocate, no matter how well framed and supported, will not be accepted by the public simply because you are who you are” - Merrill Rose, Executive Vice-President, Porter Novelli [cited in Beder S, 1997, ‘Global Spin: the Corporate Assault on Environmentalism’, p27]
“You shouldn’t forget ethics, just like you shouldn’t forget to get dressed in the morning” - William Novelli, co-founder and former President, Porter Novelli
More about William Novelli in a moment. In researching this piece, I did my best to find Porter Novelli’s code of practice or even a neat citation where someone in today’s company talked about ethics. But failed. However, as I roamed the Internet with increasing desperation, I was reminded of an infamous case of Aussie astroturfing.
In 2001 the Australian DMG radio network won a court battle against a rival network whose public relations consultant, an employee of Turnbull Porter Novelli, admitted he was involved in a bogus letter-writing campaign designed to undermine DMG. Using a fake identity, the consultant (let’s not mention his name, he deserves to get on with life) sent out 50 letters to Australian politicians and journalists accusing DMG of destroying country radio and sparking a parliamentary inquiry into the ‘decline of local radio programming’.
"Ethics permeates everything,” William Novelli says. As a business professor at the University of Maryland, he explained, he would tell students on the first day of class, “You'll notice that ethics isn't on the syllabus. We'll save that for the end of the term so it doesn't get in the way.”
And then he'd wait to see if anyone objected. Some students wouldn't think anything of the remark. Others would give funny looks. And, later, he’d explain the irony of his comment.
Novelli was a founding father of social marketing, a public relations methodology that helps non-profit and other mission-based organisations promote a cause not a product. Porter Novelli was one of the first companies in the world to undertake social marketing and Prof Alan Andreasen of Georgetown University has called Novelli “a visionary”.
In 1990, Novelli retired from the firm he founded to pursue a second career in public service. He served as executive vice president of CARE, the world’s largest private relief and development organisation, and he was also president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which works to limit the tobacco industry's marketing and sales practices that target children.
To the outsider, William Novelli, now CEO of the non-profit American Association of Retired Persons, seems to combine a pragmatic approach to life while maintaining a compassionate view of society and a keen sense of ethical responsibility. It would be neat if the company that continues to bear his name picked up on this campaign to stamp out the distinctly unethical practice of astroturfing.
Next: GCI Group/APCO Worldwide
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