communication is essential to business making and it involves more than the ability to name your product, write a tag line or a press release. It's an intricate, rational and scalable effort and, let's face it, not anyone can do it.

2/03/2008

The power of personal persuasion

I just watched "There will be blood", an interesting movie about the beginning of oil prospecting in the US and I found Daniel Day Lewis' character an amazing embodiment of the power of personal persuasion and PR techniques.
As he tries to get the lands of an entire community, while hiding from them the wealth that lies beneath he gives this amazing speech about his oilman's philosophy.
The three tenets (thanks Victor for correcting my spelling) of his speech are: family values [because he works with his son and encourages all his workers to bring their families], care for community [because the oil filled land cannot grow wheat and he will drill for wells for irrigation], future generations [he will build a school], and religion .
The scene is so powerful in rhetoric and so filled with the landmarks of corporate social talk that it made me shudder. It reminded me of this [cannot embed it as it has been blocked] which was an Effie awarded campaign in Romania. As you listen to the two you might note the similarities not only in tone of voice but also in delivery and themes [please note I am not trying to dispute here the reasons of Gabriel Resources]


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