Believable PR
Ben Goldacre has the fascinating story behind a recent press story from Veet, who claimed that Cambridge mathematicians had proven that Jessica Alba had the sexist walk based on various body length ratios. The story was developed and released by Clarion Communications on behalf of Veet. Key elements include:
- looking for academics to ratify the report for a few months, including Ben.
- Already knowing the results they wanted before they had conducted the survey
- Releasing the story with a academic name attached to it, Professor Richard Weber, without his approval
- Releasing a completely different set of results than the one provided by Weber, obviously one that is preferred by the client.
Despite being closer to fiction than news, it made the news pages of the Daily Telegraph. The PR agency did what they promised to the client – get their product associated with a piece of celebrity news. It’s a pity it was all spin.
