Politics

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Switch the Subject

By Anne Landman

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (Getty Images)In addition to recommending a professional PR campaign to try and coax tourists back to Arizona in the wake of the state's tough new immigration law, the task force appointed by Governor Jan Brewer suggested that Arizona try to "change the tone of the dialogue" by by talking about the effects that tourism boycotts have on vulnerable employees within the state.

Switching the focus of a debate to a more winnable subject, in this case downtrodden workers, is a timeworn PR technique. The tobacco industry deployed it at every turn to avoid talking about health. It is one of the many PR techniques perfected by Big Tobacco that are now in almost constant use by embattled corporations everywhere. Now Arizona announced it intends to use it as well.

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Full post as published by PR Watch on July 06, 2010 (boomark / email).