Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Get ready for some “greenwashing”, folks. TheNational Confectioners Association — which counts among its members the makers of Snickers, Mars Bars, NesQuick and pretty much every other sugary treat you continue to enjoy (in secret) as a responsible adult — wants a bit of a makeover.

More specifically, the organization plans to hire an unnamed PR firm to help it gently convince the American public to stop associating the word “sugar” with the word “obesity” as if one could somehow lead to the other. Come on!

So these guys want to spend $2 million on a social/digital media campaign targeting those moms who think, for whatever crazy reason, that eating too much sugar could give their kids type two diabetes — which would then leave them considerably more likely to suffer from obesity and all related health problems later in life. I mean, where do they get these ridiculous ideas? Oh, right…

In case you missed it, Bloomberg Businessweek published an intriguing story yesterday by veteran journalist Paul M. Barrett that ran with the headline “What It’s Like to Be Attacked by Putin’s Flack.”

The “flack” in question is Ketchum — more specifically D.C.-based partner Kathy Jeavons, who “heads both the Ecuador and Russia accounts” for the firm.

For the record, Jeavons did not personally attack or even contact Barrett. But a source did forward him a talking points document that the firm wrote for Nathalie Cely, Ecuador’s ambassador to the United States. The doc included both well-stated observations about Ecuador’s history with Chevron and suggestions for casting doubt on the credibility of Law of the Jungle, Barrett’s upcoming book on the lawsuit that accuses the company of abusing its relationship with the people of Ecuador....