Time was, if you wanted to get lawmakers to favor your cause or industry, you’d just hire a lobbyist. But these days, more issue-oriented groups are firing up the public relations machine to get attention from the masses first.
Some advertising agencies with a public relations arm are reporting more clients requiring public affairs work — they say it’s because new federal and state restrictions on lobbying activities have forced clients to take different tactics when pushing for a cause.
“Clients still have to talk to influencers, and they’re using new tools,” said Bill Cronin, president of Cronin & Co. Inc. of Glastonbury. Those tools include Internet and communications with print and broadcast news outlets, combined with traditional advertising.
Lobbyists, for their part, have noted the same rise in public affairs campaigns, but they point out that new restrictions on lobbying haven’t gone nearly as deep as the public perceived them to. They chock up the trend to just another stage in the evolution of mass media and grassroots campaigns.
“It’s not a trend that began with legislatures’ restrictions on donations,” said Keith Stover, a lobbyist for Robinson & Cole of Hartford. “It’s a manifestation of the fact that all the messages we get on a daily basis crowd the field.”
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Creative Tack
People are pressed with information and persuasion through a variety of media, he said, and advocacy groups and industries have to get creative to be heard.
Meredith Trimble, director of education for the Connecticut Office of State Ethics, said she couldn’t comment on the effects that recent spending regulations might have had on the lobbying industry, but said state lobbying registration adjustments weren’t particularly onerous.
Regardless of the cause, both sides agree that clients are taking new tactics to reach lawmakers.
Tony Cashman of Cashman & Katz said five years ago his company might have had one or two clients looking to advocate for a cause. These days, the agency has seven or eight.
He cites a typical example of a public affairs campaign: In late 2005, Cashman & Katz launched a campaign for Keep Connecticut Moving, a coalition of trade groups, unions, chambers of commerce and more that was trying to get transportation issues on the agenda for the 2006 legislative session.
They created a Web site, formed a logo, worked to get the issue covered in the opinion section of the Hartford Courant and made print and radio commercials, Cashman said. That session, transportation spending grew $2.5 billion over the previous year.
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Selling A Message
Now, they’re trying to do the same thing with the coalition Be Healthy Connecticut, a group of health associations and businesses, as well as handling “crisis” public affairs for clients who need to improve their image quickly, but Cashman demurred from discussing those clients.
Bill Cronin pointed to Cronin & Co.’s work for non-profit Insure Connecticut’s Future, a coalition of insurance companies aimed at advocating for the state’s insurance industry. But not all public affairs campaigns target the public at large, he said. With complex issues or causes that, in some cases, might make a client look bad to the general public, many groups directly communicate to business or civic leaders.
Neither the advertising agencies nor lobbyists framed the trend in adversarial terms. Cronin said such campaigns often lay important groundwork for lobbyists, who find their jobs are easier with favorable buzz already in the air outside the Capitol. Stover said lobbyists even suggest public relations tactics to some clients.
Paddi LeShane, a partner with lobbying firm Sullivan & LeShane in Hartford, said many lobbying firms have been doing this kind of work for years. Her firm has its own public relations arm. Now, advertising agencies are just starting to realize that they can get in on the game, too.
“It definitely has become more competitive in this arena,” she said. “But that’s the way life is — you compete every day.”
