Politics

A recent PRWatch story discussed how corporations are increasingly turning to cause marketing to get around people's ability to tune out their daily deluge of advertising. Cause marketing, or "affinity marketing," is a sophisticated public relations strategy in which a corporation allies itself with a cause that evokes strong emotions in targeted consumers, like curing cancer, alleviating poverty, feeding the hungry, helping the environment or saving helpless animals. The relationship avails the company of a more effective way to grab the attention of their audience, by telling them compelling stories linked to the cause, for example tales of survival, loss, strength, good works, etc. Once the company gets your attention, it links its name and brands to the positive emotions generates by the cause. The company then leverages that emotion to get you to buy the stuff they've linked to the cause -- and improve its corporate image.

Cause marketing works, which is why its use is spreading like wildfire. The operative word that the whole idea turns on is "emotion," because the ability to manipulate people depends completely on generating an emotional connection that the company can exploit.

The Center for Media and Democracy's PRWatch is launching a free seminar series for spin-watchers like you. Our first one was scheduled for this week, and was going to focus on the new vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court and what it means for everyday people who are concerned about the Citizens United decision and its aftermath.

This audio seminar was canceled due to unforeseen technical/logistical problems.

In the future, we plan to provide an opportunity to:

• Find out insider details about choosing and confirming a lifetime appointee to the Court.
• Learn about how the next justice may influence legal policies you care about.
• Ask Lisa your questions about the Supreme Court and Citizens United.
• Hear about ways to join the fight against corporations controlling our democracy.

CMD's new Executive Director, Lisa Graves, previously served as the Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, working with the White House on judicial selection in the Clinton Administration. Her plain-spoken but deeply researched analysis of public policy issues has been featured on CNN, Free Speech TV, and Democracy Now! and credited in the New York Times, The Nation, The Progressive, and Vanity Fair and by numerous journalists over the past decade.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is publicizing a set of state-level polls that they claim show that "voters overwhelmingly oppose the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency," a component of financial reform legislation set to be debated next week in the House of Representatives. The survey polled 500 voters each in Nebraska and Arkansas, and was performed by the polling firm Ayres McHenry & Associates. Previous polls done by Ayres McHenry for the Chamber have been deemed unreliable by the New York Times, and not up to their standards for publication.